RAIN AND RAINBOWS

For the last couple of weeks, we have been doing activities centered around rain, umbrellas, rainbows, etc.  We didn't get as much done over the last few weeks as I had hoped to, but what we did do was fun!

Every day Punkin writes in her name book and her letter tracing book.  Then, she also picks an emergent reader from her basket to read or re-read to me. 

Rain / Umbrella Activities



Punkin played "Raindrop Spelling" using her color words. She knows a lot of sight words, so now we are working on reading and spelling color words. We went in order of the colors of the rainbow and she hopped to the letters to spell each color. The consonants were on raindrops and the vowels were on clouds.

 We did color word patterns. I wrote each color word 4 times on raindrops.  Then, I started a color word pattern and she had to make it "rain" by continuing the pattern.

 We played color word memory.  I wrote the color words on raindrops.  She really understands how to play games now, and does really well with memory games!

 I made a "Which Umbrella is Different?" page for her.  She found which one was different in each row, and then I had her tell me WHY it was different.

 She enjoyed this prewriting / "tracing the rain" page that I got from 2 Teaching Mommies.

 We are continuing to work on tally marks.  So I had Punkin pick an umbrella and set out that many "raindrops" underneath it.  Then, she had to use our tally sticks to make the number using "tally marks."  It showed her how a number can be represented in different ways.

 Punkin enjoyed our raindrop math. I can't remember where I got this printable from.  But I wrote an addition problem in the clouds and had her use the end of a pencil eraser dipped in paint to make raindrops representing the math problem.  Then, she counted how many raindrops in all and wrote the answer on the umbrella.

 I made this "Roll a Word" activity for Punkin, though we didn't use a dice, so I guess it is technically "Pick a Word?"  Anyway, she picked a rain cloud card first (consonants), an umbrella card second (vowels), and a rainbow card last (more consonants).  Then, she recorded her "picks" on the correct picture, wrote the "word," and then decided if it was a real word or not.

 I dyed some rice blue, and Punkin sprinkled it on a page of glue (to make rain). Then, she glued cotton balls at the top (as clouds) to make her own rainy day picture.  This idea came from A Little Delightful.

 I saw this idea on Reading Confetti to create a cloud and rain science experiment.  Punkin was less than impressed, though.  :(

We made our own version of Sky Jello as seen at Anastasia's Palace.

Rainbow Activities

I taught Punkin how to make a rainbow.  She sang our rainbow song every time to make sure she got the colors in the right order.  I made up our rainbow color song spur of the moment last year when we did this theme. It is sung to the tune of "The Wheels on the Bus":

The colors of the rainbow are red, orange, yellow

Green, blue, purple

Sing 'em with me.

The colors of the rainbow are red, orange, yellow

Green, blue, and purple.

 Then, I tried to get her to make a shape with red and trace around it again and again with the colors of the rainbow. She did NOT like this activity because she couldn't get hers to look "perfect." 

Oh my!

Punkin did SO well with this beginning and ending sound activity that I got from Can Do Kinders.  (You NEED to check out her blog!  It's amazing!)  Punkin picked a picture card and placed it in the box on the rainbow. Then, I had her write the beginning sound in the first cloud and the ending sound in the second cloud.  We have done lots of beginning sound stuff, but have not done anything with ending sounds, so I was surprised at how easily she did this!

I found "Twister" at a garage sale right in the middle or our rainbow theme, so I thought it would be a perfect time to play it!  We did the regular "Twister" version of course, which she loved!



 Then, I also had her place color word cards on the correct colored dots.  By this time, she was getting really good at reading and recognizing her color words!

 For lunch one day, we had a pepper rainbow and blue jello sky.

 This fruit rainbow was a hit as well!

 But these rainbow pancakes were by far the biggest hit of all!  Even Firecracker loved them!

 Teeny Tot School

Speaking of Firecracker.....

 She LOVED exploring bubbles this week!  She played with her bubble/water sensory bin quite a bit this past week!

And though things got a bit wet and she kept trying to "eat" the bubbles, it was still worth it to see the big grins and to hear the giggles!

Moving on next week to Flowers and Butterflies! 

I've linked up to Tot School at 1+1+1=1 and Preschool Corner at Homeschool Creations.



EASTER TOT SCHOOL

It's taken awhile for me to get this posted, but here are three weeks' worth of Easter activities wrapped up into one giant post. Punkin was beyond motivated when it came to "schooltime" these last few weeks, as she just LOVES anything having to do with jellybeans, bunnies, eggs, etc. We had so much fun....I'm kinda sad we have to move on!

Punkin had to look at the egg templates in each spot in the egg carton and find the plastic egg that matched it and put it in that spot. This was way easy for her this year, whereas last year, it wasn't quite as easy.

Egg top patterning.

Then, this led into me making a tower of egg tops and Punkin building one exactly like it.

Carrot Addition. I had found these adorable little carrots at the Dollar Tree. There were two sizes of carrots in the package, so I had Punkin pick two numbers, then use the big carrots for the first number and the little carrots for the second number. She LOVED this, and pretended to "feed" the bunny the carrots as she put them on the page. You can download a smiliar printout from HERE.

Punkin is working on reading her color words. So, I made this activity for her. I hid the eggs around the room. Then, when she found them all, she had to match the color on the egg to the correct spot with the right color word on the basket.

Roll 'n' Write: Punkin had to roll the dice and write whatever letter she rolled in whichever box she chose until they were all filled. Then, we counted how many of each letter she had and discussed which had the most and which had the least.

I had made these egg basket word family cards last year (from Making Learning Fun), but they were just way too hard for her then. This year, she did it with no problem.

Jelly Bean Graphing

More Carrot Addition. She used the little carrot manipulatives once again to help her solve the math problem. Then, she had to match the carrot top with the correct answer on it to the right carrot. It was her first exposure to math problems written veritcally versus horizontally.

Find the Missing Number: I really thought Punkin would struggle with this concept since we haven't really done much with it before, so I made her an egg number line to use a guide. She never even had to use it! (I got this from Musings of Me awhile back, but once again, I can't find anything on her blog anymore. I think she has had to remove a lot of her printables due to copyright issues...)

I really wish I had heard of / thought of this idea when I taught first grade to teach tally marks to my firsties! Punkin caught on SO quickly! She opened up an egg, counted all the jelly beans, and set out the craft sticks as tally marks to represent the number. I also just found THIS poem that I will use with her next time we do tallies. (I'm going to try to do something with it once a week.)

Another new concept we worked on that she seemed to grasp onto right away was even / odd. I filled eggs with jellybeans and put the number on the outside of the egg. Punkin opened each egg and set the jellybeans on a dot mat that I had made. Then, we determined of each jelly bean had a "friend." If yes, then the number was even, if no, then the number was odd.

She set the numbered eggs, then, in the egg carton in the top if it was even and in the bottom of the carton if is was odd.

A week or so later, we revisited it again. This time, I had her roll a dice and count the dots. Then, she took that many eggs and set them in the egg carton from left to right (not filling up the first row first, then the second row as she normally would). We once again determined if each egg had a "friend" and she told me if that number then was even or odd.

I hid some eggs around the living room for Punkin to find. Then, she opened each egg and took out the letter tiles to spell the color word for that egg (the color word matched the color of the egg).

Shake the Egg Game: I put jellybeans in eggs and wrote the number for each one on an egg shape. Then, I gave Punkin two eggs with the numbers that went along with each, but didn't tell her which number went with which egg. She had to shake each one to try and determine which one she thought had each number in it. I would give her numbers that were not too close. For instance 1 and 8 or 2 and 7 so the sounds when shaking them were very different.

When she had matched what she thought were the correct numbers to the eggs, we opened them up to count and see if she was correct. She got them right every single time!

Egg Memory Game

Egg Grid Coloring: I had her do it in a pattern.

I found this foam egg wreath at Walmart and it came with glitter glue pens. So, I let her have fun decorating it.

It looked so cute hanging in our window!

Tape Resist Painting - I had her use Dot Markers because they were a lot less messy than paint.

They turned out cute!

I painted Punkin's hand black to make the body of the sheep. Then, when that was dry, she glued on the cotton balls, ribbon, and eyes. I got this idea HERE.

Handprint Bunny

I used Easter eggs instead of a muffin tin for her "Muffin Tin Meal" one week!

Chick in Egg lunch: tortilla and scrambled eggs (adapted from HERE)

Can't figure out how to get this picture turned..... Anyway, used some of our hard boiled eggs to make little chicks one day.

Waffle Eggs

Tortilla cut in the shape of a carrot, melted cheddar cheese on top, with broccoli stems.

Bunny Lunch: bagel with cream cheese as the base. Kinda a funny looking bunny to me, but Punkin liked it. (Adapted from HERE.)

Bunny Sandwich

Pear Bunny

Bunny Pancakes

Marshmallow Bunny

Back side of the marshmallow bunny

Bunny Milk - adapted from HERE

Peeps on a straw!

Chicks in a nest Rice Krispie Treats

Punkin helped me make our cake for Easter dinner. She stood there for a very long time carefully putting on each and every M&M!

I LOVED how it turned out! It was kinda sugar overload, but.... :) I combined two ideas from HERE and HERE. (It was a layered pastel cake on the inside.)

Punkin had fun doing some egg relay races: egg on a spoon, between legs, hopping with it between legs, etc.

And of course, we had to dye Easter eggs. We used KoolAide this year to do it! We'll probably do it this way from now on. I followed THIS blog for details.

And one of our most fun activities was the Pinterest-popular Glow in the Dark Easter Egg Hunt! So cool!

This has nothing to do with Easter, but one day we made a "tent" or a "house" using a tension rod and some curtains. Punkin loved playing in it!

I am linking up to Tot School at 1+1+1=1 and to Preschool Corner at Homeschool Creations. Have a great week, and God bless! :)