Animal Crafts, Etc....

This past week we were talking about animals.
So we did some simple animal crafts and activities.

Sheep....
draw the shape, fill in with cotton balls, cut out small black eyes and glue on! :)

We played Animal Charades....what animal am I acting as?

We made an Animal group lapbook, describing the different groupings of animals and which ones belong in that group.  Click on the link to see more about this lapbook.

We visited the Reptile and Amphibian Zoo!
Click the link to  hear more about this trip. 

We did some animal puzzles.
We got this animal puzzle as a present and it was a wonderful addition to our animal unit.  We got to talk about the animals along with the alphabet, talked about what animal group they belong too, etc.

 The puzzle comes with this awesome poster that gives a little bio on each animal.

Bear also worked on our simpler animal puzzle.

We played with our toy animals, again sorting them by what animal group they are a part of and what qualifies them to be a part of that group.


We made animals with our fingerprints!

We of course read LOTS of books from the library about LOTS of different animals!

We drew pictures of animals.

We looked at pictures of the other zoo's we've been too this past year, and talked about those animals.

What other animal ideas do you have?

Share with me.


 

Under Construction

Don't be alarmed if you see something that doesn't look quite right on the blog over the next couple of days.  I am trying to make some edits to the look and formatting of the blog.  Please have patience with me while I am figuring out the html information needed to make these changes.  If there is a problem that persists or hinders you being able to view previous posts, or click on links please leave a comment or email me to let me know so I can fix it right away.

Thank you

 

Letter C

Letter C File Folder!

Letter C Memory Verse:
Children obey your parents in the Lord for this is right.  Ephesians 6:1

The Letter C!  Don't forget to print these out 2 up on a page to save! :)  Download here.

We put crispix and cheerios on our letter C!

Read Chicka Chicka Boom Boom and put up the letter C!  Same file as above but I printed them 4 up since I made a smaller coconut tree. :)

Alphabet sorting.

This is something I made awhile ago.  I sorted some letters according to some similar sounds, or shapes.  So I had him sort the letters that go along with the letter C in this file.

Caterpillar Shoes. 

Download file here.

 Letter C coloring page.  Download here.

 Letter C Puzzle.  I printed the A-Z Floor Letters so I could cut the puzzle into 8 pieces instead of 6.

Laminate them so it will stay sturdy no matter how many times you put it together!

Caterpillar Clip Cards. 

Clip on the clothes pin that has the same number as the caterpillar on it.

Caterpillar Number order.

I had to draw a line under the 6....otherwise it's the same as the 9.

Letter C scavenger Hunt!  We had a great time with this.  We ended up finding, a cup, chips, cardboard, can, candy cane, circle, crayon and a car.  He did a great job!

Letter C Lacing Caterpillar. 
Print on plain paper and laminate for durability.

Letter matching disks.
I just printed them out and laminated the circles, compared to the idea given in the link provided above.  Still sturdy enough to last.  Maybe someday I'll get some of the wooden circles that she did to make them stand off the page.  But these worked just fine and bear still had a great time. 

Letter C writing Practice.

Print and put in a sheet protector so you can write on it with a dry erase marker all week long.

Letter Hunt!  Again use a sheet protector.

Letter C Magnet page. I made my own pompom magnets for this.  And I had to buy a new pan because believe it or not, not all pans are magnetic! :)  and none of mine were so I got one at target for $5.

Have fun with the letter c!


~Stephanie

PomPom Magnets

I got the idea to make these from Mama Jenn at her blog.

We will use these for making patterns, prepared magnet papers including pre-appointed circles for the magnets and for playing of course!  Many ideas to work with.  You can use on the frig, or a metal door, or a pan....(not all pans are a thick enough metal to be magnetic)

(I had him copy my pattern on the frig.)

Here's how to make them. Quick and simple.

First you will need pom poms, a hot glue gun, and some circle magnets.  I got all of these items at Walmart in the craft section.  And to assemble, put a good blob of glue on the magnet, and quickly drop on the pom pom!  Hold for 2 seconds, and you're done!  Quick and painless and ready to use when you go the hot glue route!

You will see us use these for various activities along the way.


~Stephanie

Weekly Menu-5

Sunday
Lunch- Sour Cream & Onion Chicken
Supper- Homemade Pizza

Monday
Lunch- Grilled Cheese
Supper- Southwest Chicken Skillet

Tuesday
Lunch- Chicken Nuggets
Supper- Chicken Fajitas

Wednesday
Lunch-Peanut Butter & Jelly
Supper- Loaded Baked Potato Casserole

Thursday
Lunch-Pepperoni Pockets
Supper- Bruschetta Chicken Bake

Friday
Lunch- Pancakes
Supper- French Bread Pizza

Saturday
Lunch- Taco Dip
Supper- Italian Dunkers

Add a BANANA!

It was a banana sort of day.

We added banana to our peanut butter sandwich, which was a first for the boys.  They thought it was hilarious and good!  We also had bananas in our chocolate pudding.  Which we do quite regularly.  They love it!

Spice up that lunch time! :)  

Add a BANANA!

~Stephanie

Caterpillar game

I found this game idea in a book a while ago.  Made this file myself.

The caterpillar prints out on an 11x17 paper...or you'd have to print it on 2 regular sheets and laminate it together.

Print the spinner on cardstock and connect with a brad.  Connecting loose enough so it will spin.
Download file here.

To play use noodles as the caterpillar's shoes.  Take turns spinning, if you get an even number put on his shoes.  If you get an odd number put on an even number of shoes and keep the leftovers in a bowl.  Introducing the idea of even and off numbers.  The person with the fewest odd shoes leftover is the winner after the caterpillar has all his shoes on.


~Stephanie

Drop the letter in the bucket

I played this game when I was a kid at a birthday party.  Only we dropped a clothes pin into a glass jar.

This time my boys are dropping foam letters into a plastic jar! :)

You can add a extra learning element to it by having them say the letter name or sound as they drop it in the bucket!


~Stephanie

Orange Salad

Orange Salad

1 pkg tapioca
1 pkg cook and serve vanilla pudding
1 pkg orange jello
3 cups boiling water
1 can mandarin oranges, drained
1 8oz can pineapple tidbits
1 8oz tub cool whip

Cook tapioca, pudding, jello and boiling water until thick.  Cool slightly.  Add mandarin oranges, pineapple tidbits and cool whip.  Chill for 2 hours.

Vowel Sort

I found this idea at Confessions of a Homeschooler.  

But she loves color files and I wanted this to be simple and in black and white so I made it myself.

Click here to download my black and white version.

I had Monkey use our foam letter to sort through and find all the vowels.

A good way to introduce the vowel/consonant verbiage.

Animal Groups-Lapbook

In our study of animals a couple things we covered were, what is a mammal and amphibian.  So we expanded that and talked about 6 animal groups.  Then we made it into a simple little lapbook.

I let the kids pick which animals they wanted to find online, then I searched for a coloring picture of that animal and printed them out.  While googling I found this great website that gave us all our information in one place.  So we made mini books where I wrote down the things that makes something a mammal, or an amphibian or fish, etc.... and examples of animals in that category.

Here's the finished project.

 Reptiles & Amphibians

 Fish & Mammals

(showing the trifolded mini book where we wrote down the characteristics of this group, and then on the right I wrote examples of this group)

 Birds & Insects

Have fun picking your own animals to print and color!
This is one file folder, folded in thirds with 2 more flaps opening on the inside.

Reptile and Amphibian Zoo

We have had this zoo in our town for over a year.  But never really had a great desire to go there.  Until today!  We've been talking about animals and their different groups....including reptiles and amphibians, so I thought this would be the perfect place for a Field Trip!

Turns out it was a big hit because we were there for over 2 hours.  And it was during lunch time and even when I said we should go get something to eat they were having too much fun and didn't want to leave!

Here's some highlights!

 These guys are buddies.  He has his arm around him. Isn't that sweet?!

I think he just wanted to get in the water and didn't care if he walked over the turtle to get there.  But I like the idea of them being buddies instead. :)

 You've got to check out this guy!  He is HUGE!

 These snakes scared me.  They were just laying there, and then Monkey puts his finger up to the glass to point to them, and the big snake launches his head up and bangs it against the glass.  He was trying to eat Monkey's finger!

 

 I thought it was so cute how this guy was sitting and holding on to this little branch.

 They got to touch an alligator!

This was funny too....they got to hold a snake, and Monkey was all for it until.....

 it started getting closer to his face.

Then he didn't care for it as much!

 I was holding the snake too!  It's very soft and smooth.  

But once it started trying to climb up my arm I had also had enough! :)  

bleh!

Did you notice the difference in these 2 pictures?  

The worker was holding a cricket for the chameleon to eat....
first he's eyeing it...then BAM!  

Quickly out comes the tongue to snatch up his lunch!  

Good aim!

We had such a good time I think we just may have to go back again.  They even have a family rate for the whole year.  That'd be cool to get to go there whenever you want!  I want to go back to see them feed the BIG Alligator.  They only feed him on Saturday's and Sunday's.

Well....maybe you have a hidden little field trip in your area that you haven't taken advantage of!  Check it out!  It just may be the best part of the day!

~Stephanie