Celebrating the Fourth of July- Popsicle Stick Flags

I bought myself a plan book last week to try and get myself to be more of an organized homeschool mom. I found it challenging to balance the desire to get a lot done, and the danger of overwhelming my little scholars.  As it turns out, it wasn't so hard after all.  

My subject goals for the day where speech/articulation therapy, math, music, and social studies. It seemed like a lot, and I thought it would be a matter of spreading out mini lessons through the entire day, when in actuality we managed to cover it all in the morning by incorporating it into a craft.

I set out popsicle sticks, red and white paint, blue construction paper, star stickers, glue, and an American flag.

So here's the rundown of what we did today:

Speech/articulation therapy: 

Using the words assigned by his SLP, Mr. Three-year-old Chatterbox received a silver star sticker for every correctly articulated word. He added each sticker to a small blue piece of paper to be a part of our flag later. Today he worked on /h/ in the initial position and did GREAT! So proud of the progress he is making.

Sticker play is also a great activity for fine motor skills.  The size of the stickers we used today definitely proved to be a challenge for my boys.

Math: 

We counted the number of red stripes on the flag and the number of white stripes. We counted the number of popsicle sticks in each group before he painted them either red or white. When he had finished painting all his sticks (which turned out to be the hardest part of the morning... for whatever reason the kids were anti-mess today, go figure!) we put glue on a larger piece of construction paper for him to mirror the ABAB type pattern (in this case red, white, red, white) of the flag's stripes. He did great with the pattern, better actually than I thought he would based on previous attempts at recognizing patterns.  And when telling Daddy about his day and showing off his art at dinner he used the word "pattern" which made me very happy.

Once all his popsicle stick stripes were in place he added the blue paper with stars from his speech work.

Social Studies: 

During the morning's activities, I explained that the flag was a symbol to represent the country we live in. I also mentioned the significance of the 50 stars and the 13 stripes, but I didn't expect this to resonate with him at all, nor did it. My goal was to start teaching him the pledge of allegiance line by line throughout the week. So far I have met resistance to this, but we can give it another shot before bed (oh the beauty of an open homeschool schedule!)

Music & Movement: 

After finishing our popsicle flag craft, the boys and I marched through the house waving flags and singing God Bless America. Only the 1.5 year old appreciated my singing and "sang" along... in fact, he wouldn't let me stop.

The little big kid is already too cool for me and wanted me to "stop that! just march" (which, by the way, adds gross motor activity to the list of areas we covered today!)

Mud Art

One messy, squishy Saturday I invited my kids to Get Dirty.

While they were enjoying their sensory play with mud, I invited them to create some art that would further demonstrate the physical properties of mud.

I put out some construction paper for them to splatter with mud.  They got to see what happened they dropped mud, threw mud, and stamped the paper with their muddy hands.  A great visual element to their sensory play.

Even the dog "helped".

While the art sat in the sun, they got to see the mud dry and become dirt once more.

What, exactly, do you DO with mud art?  Hang it in the mud room of course!!!!

LINKING UP AT

Playing With Worms

Playing with mud in the backyard on a gorgeous Saturday, we came upon some worms.  

Big ol' worms just loving life in the compost pile!

Sensory discovery ensued...

The worms were cool, and slimy, and dirty, and tickley in our palms.  

Some moved fast, some slow.  

They changed shape as the moved- from fat and short, to long and thin.

So proud of my kids for being down with worms.  I loved digging for worms as a kid... and I still get a little too excited when we find a big one.

We've found worms before, but never really spent time exploring and playing with them in this scale.  Smarty Pants 3 Year Old and I talked about how worms eat dirt and make tunnels that are good for the plants.

I felt secretly kind of sad for the worms as the kids dropped them into a container to take on their first ever fishing trip.  But I was honest with them about what we were doing with the worms... a little Circle of Life/Food Chain lesson.  And the next day they had no problem seeing their friends from the yard put on a hook for the fish.

Go on...Get Messy!

We were playing in the yard this weekend, and one thing led to another... we made a mud table.

I always promised myself I wouldn't be a mother who would shy away from a mess.  But lately I have been doing just that.  At the playground, after a rainstorm, my poor kid looked on longingly while the other kids were practically swimming through the sand box.  As grossed out as I was, I felt bad that I could just not commit to the mess at that moment. 

So on a day when there was nothing else we had to do, and a leaky hose making puddles and muddy patches in the yard anyway.... I invited the boys to GET DIRTY!

It was funny to see them hesitate at first.  I had to dig on in and give it a squeeze and a squish...even hand some over to them to get them started.  They soon got the hang of it as, I knew they would.

Elements of Sensory Exploration:

• Scoop and pour dirt into a bucket. We had some great dirt to use from our composted leaves.
• Explore the texture of the dirt.  Slightly moist, crumbly, sifts through fingers.
• More pouring, this time into shallow water. Added more dirt/water and observed the changes.
• More texture exploration, this time of the mud.  Squishy and schloppy and wet, doesn't sift through fingers, sometimes moldable. Pour it, rake it, pound it!
• Wash away mud in clear water.  The water becomes more and more dirty...hmmmm interesting observation kiddos!
• Talk about it.  We chatted about what happened to our dirt, and how rain makes our whole yard muddy!

We also turned our mud play into MUD ART!

And had some interesting sensory playmates... WORMS!!!!

This post is linking up at:

Book Activity - The Bridge is Up

Is that hell freezing over????!!!!!!

Oh no... wait...it's just the world's worst blogger throwing up a post... phew! Close one!

It's been about a million years since I've been on here, and since then the kids have grown into little giants, gotten way too smart for me, and racked up quite a few fines at the library!

Homeschooling Ryan Gosling

If you haven't died laughing on this site...do so now.  Oh man! hilarious!

OK, Back to business.

So we got all payed up with our bookies (aka librarians) and checked out a few books.  

My plan was to get a bunch of Donald Crews books since we read one of his books at our playgroup, my kiddo was upset we couldn't take it home, we have loved his books in the past, and pinterest has opened my eyes to the wonderful activity possibilities to go along with his simple books.

In addition to the D.Crews books we grabbed, the adorable one and a half year old who is at this very moment slapping my arm and shouting "Mommmmmmyyyyyyy!!!!!" pulled this book off the shelf.  Quite the score.

"The Bridge is Up" - by Babs Bell

Ignoring my mother's last words of cleaning advice as she walked out the door, I sat down with the boys to read this book.  After reading it together once, I left the big one to read it to himself as he requested, while I got some trucks together so we could do a more large scale reading together.  I mean, it was so simple and my kids love playing with trucks, how could I not?!

The text in the book is so simple and repetitive that both kids were able to "read along" and tell me which vehicle was next.  It was also great for some at-home articulation work, especially practicing those /k/ and /g/ consonant sounds, which are my 3 year old's bane.  Giving him something he loves (trucks and cars), and a physical task (queuing them up to wait for the bridge), makes him more willing to correct the sounds he is making without putting up a fight and giving up on me.

I want my kids to love reading as much as I do, (Ok, maybe not as much....lets be honest, I'm borderline suicidal when I finish a good book! "It rips my life away but it's a great escape....escaaaape." Ten bonus points if you can name that song), so I'm excited to find more and more books that lend easily to play and crafting ideas.  Which if you think about it, is just about every book.  And once again I avoided housework. 

What's that about kids not remembering how clean the house was, but how much time I spent with them and how much fun we had, yada yada yada.... That line better be true.  I'm totally banking on it!

Toy Rotation Challenge: Accepted

My boys have been blessed with very VERY generous family and friends.  I mean, these kids are so cute, how can you NOT spoil them.  But the simple truth is that lots of toys means lots of mess, and (surprise, surprise!) lots of toys results in very little actual playing.  hmmm.

I have been seeing pins about toy rotations, and at first didn't think it would work for us, but desperate times... you know:  Big mess, whiny kids, fighting kids, missing pieces to just about every toy.

After doing some more pinterest research I came up with several categories for their toys:

1. Pretend Play (play sets): things like the Little People Animal Sounds Zoo, Airport, Barn, Vtech garage and the Imaginext Batcave.  I will put out one of these at a time.
2. Pretend Play (role play): various tool kits, doctor kit, conductor hat and train whistle.  Again, these will be available one at a time.  We also have a bin of masks and hats and dress up stuff, that won't be included in a rotation but it is in a closet for whenever the mood strikes.
3. Trains: we have collected quite a few metal die cast Thomas Take and Play trains as well as wooden trains and tracks, so I've decided he really only needs one type of train at a time.
4. Large Trucks: small trucks and cars will stay out for him, but the larger construction trucks, farm vehicles and firetrucks will be available only a few at a time (not so many that it defeats the purpose, but enough so there's no fighting over them).
5. Thinking Toys: things like shape sorters, the wood puzzle train, stacking rings, etc. etc. that promote problem solving and fine motor skill work.  I will choose a few of these with each toy change.
6. Musical Toys:  there is no real  need for the boys to have every single drum, bell, shaker, stick, etc that we have come to own.  A few at a time is plenty for making beautiful music, and rotating allows for them to discover different sounds and combinations of sounds as "new" instruments come out.
7. Moving Toys: this category is for their balls, collapsable tunnel, giant bowling set, ball poppers, etc. that get them up and moving.  Depending on the amount of movement for each one, I will put out one or two at a time.
8. Alway-Out Toys:  as I mentioned before, cars will be out permanently since these boys love them.  We also have a kitchen set up and food toys that will stay out.  

Money is tight in a one income household, and priorities are priorities, so I tried to use as many cardboard boxes and storage containers that were around the house already.  I plan on investing in nicer storage bins little by little.  I also didn't want to start buying until I knew better how I would pull this off and what I would need.

I was pretty overwhelmed.  It is about 90% done, but since our playroom is in the basement and it's been pretty cold here (and also, I haven't gotten a complete handle on the toys that came in for Christmas), our upstairs had been pretty invaded by toys that still need to be brought down and sorted.  I also have to go through the stuffed animals and random toys, and all the younger baby toys.  

Changing the toys weekly seems like its too often, but monthly seems like too long to wait... so right now I'm thinking every other week will be a new set up of toys.  But I think I will let the boys' level of interest be my guide.

Here's what things looked like during the sort:

While I'm at it with the play room makeover, I decided to separate the room into two sides: play side and school side.  School side is still being organized, but...

... here is play side, with it's currently available toys:

 

 And this is the current state of my closet toy storage: