We started our ocean unit on Monday and I'm really excited for what we have in store for us this month.
We covered ocean water and the ocean floor today since we were starting a little late. The kiddos loved searching for objects on the theme poster using the empty looking glasses that came in the kit (I used the one from March, too, so two could be up at one time, which helped them take turns a little more easily).
I'm trying something new this month, inspired by my recent Amazon mom diaper delivery. Miss M loved her "rocket" box last month so I thought this month we would make "submarines" for them to sit in during circle time to see if they can stay in the area with a little less cajoling. If you have more children in your Mother Goose Time class, you could probably ask each parent to bring in a box (these large diaper boxes work great) for their child. I plan on having us decorate them soon.
We had fun with the name tags. I bought some dry erase crayons and they got to choose a color. We helped them write their name the first time and then gave them a second color to practice tracing over the letters on their own. I think this will be something I try to do with Miss M a couple times a week. After that, we took the name tags back into the living room and practiced mixing them up and having them "swim" to find their own name (with only two children, this wasn't particularly difficult).
I adapted the Under the Sea activity to use the name tags since the concept of moving like different ocean animals (besides crawling along the ground for swimming) seemed a little above their heads right now. We played a kind of Simon Says with the name tags, having them place them in, on, in front of, behind and under objects in the room (or me). Behind and under seem to be concepts we need to work on a little more.
We did not end up doing the primary science activity, which was mixing up sweet and salty water to taste. Our school friend had a rather unfortunate trampoline accident on Saturday that left his tongue in rough shape and I was afraid it might be too painful. We may come back to it when he's had more time to heal.
We introduced the letter O and they had fun moving around a large tape O on the floor, either swimming if I held up an octopus picture or flying if I showed them an owl. It made for a great race track a few minutes later when they decided they were done and wanted to play with cars. After that was done, I pulled up the tape and gave the ball to Littlest, who enjoyed the texture for a few minutes.
The oyster pearl craft was a fun one and a great math activity. We talked about how the plate was the same shape as an O and had them practice drawing circles/O's on it before they colored it however they wanted to. I told them a little bit about how pearls are made while they colored. We counted out 10 beads, then they strung them onto the pipe cleaners while counting again. We bent them into circles and I slid a bead over each of the ends to help protect them from that little bit of wire that always pokes out. They enjoyed making the oysters bite people and I noticed Miss M using the bracelet a little later as a sort of abacus, counting to herself.
It was a great hour of activities that kept them engaged the entire time, which was fantastic.
So, we had school yesterday. Or at least I tried to have school yesterday. We barely made it through circle time and as soon as I brought out the safari counters from our monthly materials bag, school was over. All they wanted to do was play with the animals. I did manage to show them some pictures from our trip to San Diego's Safari Park in June so they could get a little bit of an idea of what I was trying to talk about with them. We taped off our park and I did get them use the safari bucks to pay me for their tickets. Then it was a race to collect as many animals as possible so I made the girls "buy" them from me for $2 each. They grabbed up the ones they wanted, we lined them up and counted out $2 for each, then counted all of them together. That was pretty much the academic extent of the day.
A little later on I was able to cajole them, one at a time, to come into the kitchen for a little art project I put together. I searched for free "savanna coloring pages" and printed the first one that came up without any animals. I had a couple pages of zoo animal stickers and designed a quick following directions activity. I had them color specific items, draw a sun, pond and birds and place stickers different places on the sheet using positional words (under, over, next to and in). They liked it and did well with the simple 1-2 step directions. I used to work on this skill a lot as a speech therapist, using activities like this.
