Small children learn best through play and hands-on activities and this stay at home mama enjoys the teaching process more if it doesn't turn my home into a hot mess. Here at Camp Edweirdsville, I plan theme-based weeks to explore lots of ideas through organized play. Having a theme unifies our day-to-day learning, gives us an opportunity to explore one topic thoroughly while learning new ideas and tasks daily, and helps me stay somewhat organized and keep the toy clutter low. It's not as structured as it sounds. Our routine, if you can even apply that term to it, is LOOSE. I try to spend 1-3 hours a day 4-5 days a week doing structured activities and those hours aren't necessarily all at one time. My plans are often switched around to work with the weather or utilize free days at local museums. Some activities on the plans get skipped or moved to a future plan (I leave them on the original plan in case I want to revisit this theme and rework it for reuse as he gets older). I have found that (A) does his best focusing just after breakfast and again about 30 minutes after nap-time, so I try to use those time-spans to our advantage and tackle learning opportunities then. Once he has lost interest in an activity, we move on to a different project or take a break. My key to coming up with tons of amazing activity ideas is Pintrest; this site is FULL of teachers and their shared ideas. We've been working on this for several weeks now so I'm about to bombard you all with a load of learning fun. I'll be sharing my plans, photos, and the positives and negatives about the projects we try.
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| Reptiles, amphibians, and COLORING! |
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| (A) LOVES coloring. |
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| Swamp Bath with snakes, lizards, an alligator, logs, and green-tinted shaving cream = one SUPER happy little one. |
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| Collecting bugs. |
Things that worked well:
1. Watching the swamp videos
2. The Swamp Bath - discovering that alligators look like logs while floating in a river and then SNAP they eat their prey with a BIG chomp was hilarious to the kid.
3. Going to the zoo. This is always a plus for A.
4. Pretending to be swamp animals: Alligator, Frog, Lizard, Turtle, Snake, Egret, Flamingo, Beaver Otter
5. Bug collecting in a mason jar. We used bug images and hid them all over the house and yard. A went around collecting them in the jar.
Things that didn't work out:
1. Swamp in a pan = horrific mess. Do this in the tub.
2. Building a beaver dam. This became a game of how far can I shove this stick down into the mud and didn't move beyond that. Tried twice, was fun and educational about mud and sinking, but didn't achieve the intended goal. That's OK, we stilled learned new things and occupied our time doing something fun.
3. Lichterman Nature Center's swamp area was closed and we didn't get to do the last portion of our lesson. Lesson for mama = call ahead. We enjoyed our walk around the trails and got to see their not-so-live animal collection which worked well with the plan.
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| Abel exploring the ocean stuff. |
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| Ocean Fish Board |
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| Ocean Boat Board |
Good:
1. Ocean in a Bottle - Abe the Babe loved making it. Now, it is being used as a less boring time-out/settle down time timer. I sit him in his chair and tell him to watch it until everything settles to the bottom and he can either get up at that point or shake and watch it again. It's a nice disruption from bad behavior and it teaches him to find ways to calm down. Sometimes this works and sometimes not, he's just now hitting the tantrum stage, so he has to test out all of those limits. It's cheap and easy to make so it's worth the try.
2. Aquarium Collage - I pre-cut ocean shapes and helped A paste and stick them on blue construction paper. He showed his collage off to everyone, very proud of his work.
3. Shark Mouth - Paper plate turned Jaws with a few snips of the scissors. A loves all things scary.
4. Computer Ocean Games - These were fun.
Bad:
1.Paper Plate & Tissue Paper Jellyfish - Tissue paper is too fragile for toddlers. We ended up with tissue paper confetti instead of a jellyfish.
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| DINOSAUR WEEK!!!!! |
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| 3 weeks later... I still have a T-rex baby at least 50% of the time. |
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| Outdoor Dino Projects - Pre-kid hands. We had A's friends over and had so much fun I didn't have time to get action photos. |
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| Dinosaur Eggs made from flour, salt, coffee grounds, sand, and water with tiny dinosaurs tucked inside. |
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| Archeological Dig (psst... there are turtle bones in there.) |
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| Play-dough dinosaur imprint fossil station. |
The Dinosaur Lesson: Positives and Negatives
Positives:
1. http://www.sheppardsoftware.com/scienceforkids/dinosaurs/index.htm - THIS SITE IS AWESOME!
2. Museum visit to check out dinosaur bones. The kids enjoyed seeing the size of these things. Lots of "Wow"'s all around.
3. Comparing sizes: big, medium, small
4. Carnivore vs. Herbivore: A still tries to eat my arm off to show me he's a carnivore. Really pretending to be any dinosaur at all stomping, chomping, crawling, flying, etc. Super fun.
5. Dinosaur Eggs - I've yet to come across a kid that didn't like cracking an egg to find a baby dinosaur.
6. Archeological Dig - We've kept this activity on the table outside. He asks to go dig for bones all the time.
7. Dinosaur fossil imprints - nothing like play-dough.
Negatives:
1. I extended this lesson by a week because we enjoyed so much but an extra week was too long. This should have been maxed out at 10 days.
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| Farming Board |
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| Sneak peak at tomorrow's lesson. |
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| Farm Learning |
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| A and his cousin putting their new knowledge into practice. |
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| Harvesting Eggplants |
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| A takes his Okra Printing seriously. |
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| And is SUPER happy to show off when he's done. |
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| Farm Animals! |
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| Farm Animal Board |
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| Fun Farm Learning Day |
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| The cousins match mama and baby animal pairs. |
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| A matching his animals to the picture cards. Good job, son! |
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| Farm Animal Bingo! |
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| 2nd Farm Animal Board - just keeping things fresh. |
