Tot School: Ocean and St. Pat's collide.

We had quite a week. I didn't think that we did much of anything, but looking back at the pictures we did more than I thought! (Glad that I take so many pictures). This week we talked about what it means to be fishers of men and how important it is to spread the love of Jesus. It worked out nicely because we are learning about the letter Oo, and what better theme to have with that lesson than an ocean/octopus theme?

MONDAY
I made a posterboard with the letter Oo on it. I printed out animals that live in the ocean and their names. We spread the animals out on the floor, Asa would draw a name out of a box and then find the correct animal and stick it on the Oo. It was a pretty fun game that all of my kids enjoyed.

Shamrock collage. I cut out shamrock shapes from contact paper and the kids decorated it with green glitter (always a huge favorite), tissue paper, and sequins.
The finished product. They turned out really pretty and are hanging in our big front window.
TUESDAY
No pictures of us working on Tuesday. I cut out these fish and wrote letters of the alphabet on them. I put paperclips in their mouths and made 'fishing poles' out of some scrap wood, yarn, and craft magnets. Annabelle and Asa would 'catch' a fish and tell me what the letter and phonetic sound was written on it. I didn't get this idea from here but I noticed it was in the 2 Teaching Mommies Ocean Unit and thought I would share some link love.
WEDNESDAY
Sorting octopus by size. This is from COAH.
Stamp painting an octopus with pencils. He had a really good time with this. I was surprised that he stayed so focused as it took him well over 15 minutes to complete. He was pretty proud of the finished product.

Measuring ocean creatures with goldfish. The printouts from these are in the same 2 Teaching Mommies link I posted above.
THURSDAY
Asa stamp painted with 3 lobed peppers to get a shamrock print....
You can definitely see it but it is more abstract than I was expecting. :)
We also made oceans in a bottle. I was disappointed in this. Whether it was because the water was too dark to see the shells, glitter, and jewels that we put in there, or because the water and the oil weren't separating well I don't know. It just wasn't what I expected. I'll have to read up more on this project so it turns out better the next time around. Annabelle and Asa had a great time making them though, so I guess that is all that really matters. :)
Adding his shells and jewels.
Pouring beads. Asa did much better than I thought he would. He followed the rule better than I anticipated: 'Be very careful and try to get as many beads as possible in the glass.'
This is his very first counting activity! I printed it off from Making Learning Fun. He counted fish of a certain color and then put a clothespin on the correct number. He caught on in 2 cards and recognized all the numbers (1-5)!

Working on octopus puzzles from COAH.
We do these dot pictures for every letter. (They are also from COAH). I decided to include them in this week's post because Annabelle and Asa both worked so hard on them to make them as colorful as possible. I must say that they are pretty cheery looking Oos. :)
FRIDAY
Fingerpainting with blue and green to make an ocean color.
After the pictures dried Asa added an octopus and his little 'fish men' to remind him that it is important to tell others about how much Jesus loves them.
I had a momentary lapse of judgment this morning. I apparently thought that it would be ideal to set up the water table in the carpeted living room. (I just really don't think ahead sometimes). Well, the kiddos had a blast but my floor was soaked. lol
Looking at the starfish he caught in his net.

MONDAY
Silas insisted on joining us for the ocean animals game. Yes, that is blue marker by his eye.
This is his 2nd week being involved in crafts. He is absolutely loving it.
WEDNESDAY
Putting green and yellow toothpicks into a parmesan cheese dispenser. He really liked this.
And of course after you get them all inside you have to shake it!
Sorry for the sideways picture. I finally got around to putting an open/close tray together. This one includes simple open and shut cases, a zipper, and a coin purse (the kind where you push together to open).
I put fake coins into a few of the containers so there would be something of interest when they were open.
He worked with this tray for quite a while and had a lot of fun taking the coins out and putting them back in.
THURSDAY
Stamp painting with peppers. First he was happy trying to work with the pepper.
Then he decided it wasn't efficiently covering the picture and discovered that using your hands accomplishes the task much quicker.
Who doesn't love the feeling of squishing paint between their fingers?

FRIDAY
Because I didn't feel like I cleaned enough mess on Thursday I let Silas fingerpaint again on Friday. :)
He loves it!
His first fingerpainting. :)
He had an absolute blast playing with the water table and was soaking wet by the time he was finished.


We had such a fun time this week. I'm really glad that Silas is starting to participate in more things. It helps teach Annabelle and Asa the importance of patience and sharing. Plus it makes Silas feel like such a big guy. He thinks he's pretty special when he's sitting up at the table with his older brother and sister. The smile it puts on his face makes the mess all worth it. Happy blogging!

jess_hak

I'm linking up to Tot School at 1+1+1=1.....you should too! :)

Week in Review: Fishers of Men, Oo, and St. Pat

Whew. What a week! I didn't think that we did much of anything this week. I've been so unfocused! I'm glad I take pictures though, it helped me realize that we accomplished a lot of things.

In Bible this week we focused on Jesus call His Disciples and what it means to be Fishers of Men. Since we were on the letter Oo I thought this lesson would go along great with an Ocean/Octopus theme. We concluded school time each day with some St. Patrick's Day activities that I had prepared.

MONDAY
Annabelle is working on her Shamrock counting activity. The counting cards are from the fabulous Musings of Me unit.
Working on a shamrock collage. I cut out shamrock shapes for her out of clear contact paper. Then she sprinkled glitter and stuck on green tissue paper and sequins.
The finished product. I punched a hole in the top, strung a pretty green ribbon through it and hung it in our big front window. This picture doesn't do it justice. It really looks quite lovely.
O is for ocean (even if that isn't the phonetic sound we concentrated on). I drew a big and little letter Oo on posterboard, printed out animals that live in the ocean and their names. We spread the animals out on the ground and Annabelle drew a name out of the bowl. We read the name together and then she would find the correct animal and put it in the ocean.
She thought it was funny that she taped the whale up there doing a back flip. lol
TUESDAY
Didn't get any pictures of Annabelle on Tuesday! My camera must have forgotten to remind me to take pictures. lol Here are a couple pictures of things we did do though.

I cut out a whole bunch of fish from posterboard and put a paperclips in each of them. Then I made 'fishing poles' from some scrap wood, yarn, and craft magnets. The object was to 'catch' a fish and tell me the letter on the fish and the sound it makes. Annabelle and Asa had a lot of fun with this. I didn't get this idea from 2 Teaching Mommies, but I just notice that it was in their Ocean Unit and wanted to send out some link love. :)
I also made these lacing cards (ocean animals). I printed them off from Making Learning Fun, laminated and hole punched them.
WEDNESDAY
Annabelle had a good time stamp painting this octopus with pencil erasers. She thought it was neat to use something other than a paintbrush. My kids help me think out of the box so much that it was fun to return the favor.
She even wrote her name with the eraser. Isn't that just the most lovely pink and purple octopus you have ever seen?
We did some ocean creature measuring with goldfish. The printouts for this can be found at 2 Teaching Mommies.
We finally finished off the bottle of children's Tylenol (not that I'm happy about my kiddos being sick, but I was excited about the dropper). I quick threw together this little activity. I've seen it done with suction cup bath mats (and I'm sure it's already out there presented like this too). I drew circles on a piece of paper and dyed some water green. Annabelle put one drop in each circle. I was surprised at how well she did. I didn't think that she would be able to control the water flow as quickly and as easily.

THURSDAY
Making Shamrock prints with peppers.
Ok....so there abstract shamrock prints. lol They all had fun doing this.
Making an ocean in a bottle. I was disappointed in the end result. I put in too much food coloring so the water was too dark so we couldn't see the glitter, jewels and shells we put in, and the oil I used had a difficult time separating. When we do this again I will have to look up some directions to see if I did something wrong. Annabelle enjoyed it though. She thought it was pretty neat.
Adding her jewels and shells.
This fish counting activity was printed out from the same Making Learning Fun link that I posted earlier. I really like that the color words are the color. It made it nice for Annabelle to be able to 'read' which color fish she was supposed to count.
We do these dot letters from COAH every time. I just took a picture this time because of all the beautiful colors that were used. Annabelle and Asa really took their time on them. Annabelle's is the bottom.
FRIDAY
Finger painting with blue and green for an ocean color effect. Annabelle dislikes the feeling of paint on her whole hand. She was being ever so careful to just use one finger. She gets over this feeling in about 10 minutes usually and does the same thing every time we finger paint or use shaving cream. Weird.
We cut her ocean painting in half and used half for her letter Oo for the alphabet wall.....
and the other half was used to put her 'people fish' (for lack of a better term) that she colored during the Bible lesson. This is to remind her that it is important to let people know how much Jesus loves them.
In a momentary lapse of judgment I set the water table up in our carpeted living room??!! (Sorry Zak if you're reading this) I don't really know what I was thinking, but the kids had 25 minutes of fun playing with it before I took it away (because I didn't want the whole table of water on the floor).

That was our week. Stay tuned for next week. I'm really pumped about it. We will be doing Joseph for our Bible lesson and P is for Pizza! I have some great activities planned for both. :) Happy blogging!

jess_hak

I'm linking up to Preschool Corner and heading over there right now to see what other kids did this week. You should too! :)