This and That

Little guy and his brothers. 

He wasn't so fond of putting on a costume, as usual, but I'm betting that next year won't be an issue.  We didn't have to walk up to any door with him once he realized there was candy involved...and though he wouldn't say Trick 'or' Treat...he did give a resounding "Thank-you" after most houses.  :-)

A few things T. enjoyed recently...

Letter Sort

Tiles in mashed potato flakes.  :-)  A little messy but easy clean up.

He'd dig through with the spoon but not really "shake off" the extra flakes.  That made too much mess for him since he couldn't control the spoons so well...so he ended up digging through with the spoon and when one got on top he'd pick it up and place it on the mat.  Mr. Perfectionist here...time to go outside (his favorite part of the day, of course) but he was missing 2 letters and COULD/would not go outside until someone helped him find them.  LOL

 

I think this little book was a birthday gift and we are just now getting to it. :-P Actually, I had to find time to tear all the pages out of the workbook and put them in plastic sheet protectors...to allow him to do it again and again. :-) I'm fond of the Kumon Tracing workbook. This one is nice also. It's called Fun to Trace the ISBN number is 978-1-60553-648-4.  Beginner lines, shapes, letters, numbers, and more "maze" like lines in the back. He loved it! And...this is the first time he actually did loops!

 

Now, this is a great picture of Mr. T! LOL Wonder what he was saying to me.  T. does not care for playdough. Really?! Yes, really. I can't get him to play with it at all. But, if I create snakes for him to cut, yes, that's okay. Got to love this kid!  :-)

 Should probably think twice about posting this picture.  I know there was quite the controversy over this not too long ago.  Yes, those are thumb tacks.  

I wouldn't say the process of this was his favorite activity.  It worked the muscles in his fingers and it took him 5 days to do (one day per letter) but the great thing about the project was that when he was done...he was very proud of it!  So, that in itself is a good thing to learn young...perseverance!  Anyway...please supervise if you are allowing your children to use thumbtacks.

 

Give him a tub of sand in the pool and will he explore?  Nope.  Give him some sand at the table with a spoon, funnel, bottles and happy as a pea.  :-P

 

If you haven't done this yet...please do!  :-)  Fill a clear jar over 3/4 of the way full, squirt shaving cream into the jar to fill to the top.  Two primary colored containers of water and two eye droppers.  The colors will eventually make it through the shaving cream and mix.

 

Another, "right up his alley" activity.  :-)  I didn't hide the tiles this time.  Just plopped them on a tray.  He loved it and even started singing ABC song.  The stickler...he actually started going from left to right and the pumpkins went in a vine like pattern left to right then right to left.  Messed him up...but it did show me that he's starting to internalize the left to right movements. 

 

He enjoyed the end product of his paper cutting pumpkin. 

I often had him snipping paper and then we'd paste it into a project.

 

 

 

Water Beads are always a hit!  These have been around for quite awhile.  They have even been outside in the garage in hot and freezing temperatures.  No mold (that's what I was afraid of) and did not freeze.  Cool beans! Oh, look at that...you have Tuesday on the left in the digger shirt and Wedneday on the right in the Thomas shirt.  LOL  Have you noticed all the digger and Thomas shirts?  No, these weren't taken on the same days.  :-P  And I promise they are clean...and on the rare occaision we talk him into a red or green striped shirt because the other two are in the laundry...he's not all that happy.  :-) 

 

Mr. T. has moved from 12 piece puzzles to 24 piece puzzles.  Um, well those won't last long either.  Next stop, 63 piece.  One benefit of the larger puzzles is that it gives me a few more minutes!  I particularly like these dollar store nursery rhyme puzzles.  The quality isn't the best but it's nice to reinforce the song.  T. hasn't learned them like the other kids did.  I think they are great for teaching phonological awareness.

 

 

Oh my, not very happy here...blurry pic, sorry.  This was his first "real" cutting project.  I put glue on the border to make it a little harder for him to cross over into the acorn...but it didn't help and heaven help us when he accidentally cut inside the acorn instead of outside.  But, he did pretty well and the next step was to crunch up leaves and paint/glitter the acorn...the really neat thing was that I thought he'd balk at crinkling up the leaves but he didn't!

I wouldn't say the end product was beautiful but the process sure was!  He's proud of his work and that's what counts!
 

And there he is!  Mr. T.  3 years 5 months...even had his first dentist appointment today and though he refused to talk to anyone...he did great.  :-P

Mathematics and Preschoolers VIII

Well, introducing the Classic Balance Scale with Bears, from www.discountschoolsupply.com, yesterday made me realize that I haven't talked about measurement yet.  At the preschool level we want to introduce vocabulary that goes along with measurement and then the majority of our hands-on activities are going to be nonstandard measurement. 

So let's start with vocabulary:
It's starts as simple as "big" and "small".  Here are some other vocab that I use regularly, not in any specific order.
long, longer, longest
big, bigger, biggest
small, smaller, smallest
medium
tall, short
narrow, wide
measure
ruler, tape measure, scale
weigh
perimeter (actually this is used daily.  We glue "around the perimeter" of the shape.)
heavy, light
equal, same
more, less, fewer
couple, dozen
yesterday, today, tomorrow, week, month, year
about, approximately
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Some vocab for specific activities:
cup, oz, tbs. etc
time, minute, hours
inch, foot, yard
Fahrenheit

So what is nonstandard measurement?  Simply put...it's measuring without using an actual ruler, tape measure, scale etc.  Our goal is to "introduce" measurement.  Does that mean we never get the rulers and tape measures out.  Absolutely not.  We get them out for free exploration or for practical purpose when it's part of our verbal problem solving (please talk your "problems" out so your children hear how you are solving the problem...this is priceless!).  We just don't expect them to measure something and tell us how many inches, cm, etc an object is (some children will and that is just fine!). 

Children love to measure with their body.  Talk about how when we measure we have to use the same size object and they must be put one after another.  You can show how it works on a ruler. 
   * Sid the Science Kid: Exploring Measurement is an excellent DVD for preschoolers as an intro.  After watching this DVD they'll want to measure a room using their complete body.
   *  You can measure how long objects, let's say a piano bench, is by measuring with a child's hand.
   *  Measure how long the sandbox with their feet, one foot in front of another.

All those manipulatives that you are using for patterning, counting, sorting and etc can be used for measurement also!  (As long as they are the same size.)  Linking cubes, plastic links, inch cubes, blocks, crackers, craft sticks, dominoes,.  And check your toy shelf...what can be used there? Once you show a child how to do this, you'll begin to see it in their own play. Presently we have our Cracker Barrel Checkers set out.  Do they play checkers?  No.  They do use them for 1:1 activities, matching colors, patterning, measuring and so on.

The maraca is 3 dominoes long.

The window is 19 checkers wide.

Another manipulative that works well for measuring is the Gingerbread Sort and Snap.  We purchased ours from www.discountschoolsupply.com.  I take that back...we got our from www.amazon.com with free super saver shipping :-) but you can purchase from Discount.

The rhythm sticks is approximately 5 gingerbread people long.

Another activity we do with multiple themes are use our mini accents that has been purchased from www.trendenterprises.com.  I laminate mine for durability.  Here's a picture from our pumpkin theme, they were measuring themselves.  This particular time they also had a sheet with blackline pumpkins along the one side with the same numbers and they drew themselves starting at how tall they were at the wall and working down to the number 1 pumpkin.  Then they had a fill in the blank sentence that they used our number stamps with "I am _____ pumpkins tall!"

Using inch worms that are actually an inch long works nicely to introduce actual rulers. You can put 12 inch worms along a ruler to show 12 inches.  I just google an image and make it an inch in my Print Shop, copy and paste a bunch, print on cardstock, laminate and cut out. Here is an example of one inch work you can find if you google it. He's a cute little bugger!

Another cute way to lead into actual rulers are to make nonstandard measurement rulers first by using craft sticks.  You can easily make it theme related by using foam shapes or stickers.  

The block is about 4 faces long.

I don't typically use yarn for measurement except for those circumference introductions (measuring around a pumpkin, for example) or if a child is interested in maps and scales and so on.  But here is an activity we did awhile back but plan to do here again soon.  You can get a lot out of this activity if you plan it just right.  :-)

Use a theme related object or have the children choose an object to measure.  Then cut off yarn strips that are longer, shorter, and approximately the same size.  Then together as a group sort them.  You can write the words with the children (teaching them print concepts), you can remind them about longer, shorter, and same by drawing corresponding lines under the words.  You can arrange it so that when you are done you can review, long-longer-longest, short-shorter-shortest, and equal.)  Also, one skill I look for is the ability for the children to look at a set of three and tell me that there are three there without counting them...so that is why I chose 3 yarn lengths for each category.  :-) 

Well, measurement is beyond just length, height and width but that is what we focus on the most.  We do cooking activities on occasion. Wanted to do a weekly one but it just doesn't seem like there is enough time in the days!  Weight and capacity is often through sensory exploration and as time goes on you'll know when to keep quiet and when you can slip in a question or statement to help scaffold their learning.  At the preschool level, time pretty much is about yesterday, today, and tomorrow.  When we do things (day/night), the order of the schedule-"We'll eat after centers." "Mom will be here after nap." and so on.  Money can be introduced but remember that Kindergarten teachers typically begin teaching about money and time the 2nd half of the year.  For example, Caleb is just now learning about money.  They really get into in 1st grade.  You can do simple coin recognition activities and do some counting with pennies (1s) and if you wish you can practice your skip counting (10s, 5s) with dimes and nickles.  in general, just have some plastic coins and money out for their dramatic play.  We also have a game called "ALLOWANCE" that is lovely for Aaron (7-8 years old) but Caleb does just fine with some help (5 years).  I do not recommend it for preschoolers.

As you can tell, I can go on and on but time doesn't allow.  So we'll let this be all for today!