We started off the morning with some Dance N Beats to help work out the whiny and the wiggly that seemed to infect the girls this morning.
After circle time, we went into the kitchen and I let the girls investigate the horse counters that came with this month's theme. Miss M immediately wanted to lay claim to all the purple ones so instead we passed them out randomly until everyone had the same amount and that actually seemed to appease them. I thought it would be fun to the do the Quicksand activity. I used the sand packet from the Great Pyramid activity last week and let them take turns stirring the glue into it. It was hard for Littlest to give up her turn and she cried a lot but it was a good learning experience. We added the liquid starch and then I divided the quicksand into three bowls to let them experiment with having the horses sink or just making patterns with their feet. They did not love the texture when it got on their fingers but still spent a lot of time playing with it and Miss M asked to use it again after lunch.
Littlest decided she needed a break so she went off to the living room while the older girls and I played the Tortoise Pattern game. I adapted the rules a little, allowing them to stack a block of the same color if they didn't have any more spaces for one, which headed off some of the whining that has been prevalent in our house lately (I blame the weather). This game actually took a pretty long time to finish with each of us having our own tortoises. Miss M stuck it out but our friend got a little bored so I might just do one tortoise for the group next time. The game ended with the first person to complete their shell pattern (thankfully it was Miss M, no so whining). After it was done, we grouped our stacks of two blocks, stacked our singles and counted all of the blocks by 2 for some math practice.
After circle time, we went into the kitchen and I let the girls investigate the horse counters that came with this month's theme. Miss M immediately wanted to lay claim to all the purple ones so instead we passed them out randomly until everyone had the same amount and that actually seemed to appease them. I thought it would be fun to the do the Quicksand activity. I used the sand packet from the Great Pyramid activity last week and let them take turns stirring the glue into it. It was hard for Littlest to give up her turn and she cried a lot but it was a good learning experience. We added the liquid starch and then I divided the quicksand into three bowls to let them experiment with having the horses sink or just making patterns with their feet. They did not love the texture when it got on their fingers but still spent a lot of time playing with it and Miss M asked to use it again after lunch.
Littlest decided she needed a break so she went off to the living room while the older girls and I played the Tortoise Pattern game. I adapted the rules a little, allowing them to stack a block of the same color if they didn't have any more spaces for one, which headed off some of the whining that has been prevalent in our house lately (I blame the weather). This game actually took a pretty long time to finish with each of us having our own tortoises. Miss M stuck it out but our friend got a little bored so I might just do one tortoise for the group next time. The game ended with the first person to complete their shell pattern (thankfully it was Miss M, no so whining). After it was done, we grouped our stacks of two blocks, stacked our singles and counted all of the blocks by 2 for some math practice.
I am determined to complete our journals this month so I bribed the girls with popcorn to do their H page. They actually both really liked putting the toothpicks into the shape and gluing them on the page (although Littlest got a hold of the glue bottle and it will probably take 12 hours for her page to dry enough to close). Miss M tends to want to color and make sure she's covering all the dots so we did a lot of hand over hand and then she wrote a pretty nice H all on her own later.
That was it for the morning. I've got the Desert Matching game cut out and waiting on the table for them to do after nap, while I'm trying to put together dinner. I am brainstorming ideas for keeping the games available for use during the month without losing track of where they go in the units. I did make an amazing discovery last week--the cute Mother Goose Time box that the materials come in will nicely fit all of the units in file folders. No more bankers boxes and hanging folders for me; from now on I'll be storing the materials in the box they came in. Woo hoo!
It's not a bribe, it's just a motivation tool!
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