Preschool Dinosaur Day & Letter "D" Activities

We follow a curriculum that doesn't teach the letters of the alphabet in alphabetical order. When I saw that the week to teach letter "D" was dangerously near National Dinosaur Week (yeah, it's a real thing) I had to combine the two into a delightful day of dinosaur, letter "D" themed learning.
Disgusted with the "D" words yet? ;)

We started the day with dinosaur oatmeal...do you guys remember this stuff? It certainly brings back childhood memories for me. Cook the oatmeal and tiny (candy) dinosaurs hatch out of little sugar eggs!

After circle time we read "Dinosaurs Galore!" by Giles Andreae, illustrated by David Wojlowycz. This book is literally so beloved and adored by my children that each page has fallen out and been taped back in at least once, but I couldn't miss another opportunity to read this to them and include it in our lesson. 

A fun little fine motor and literacy reinforcement afterward - found this printable gem on Pinterest! If you haven't seen my Pinterest board yet, you can find this printable saved to the "January" board along with many other ideas that came from the other genius bloggers and teachers of Pinterest. :)

We took a break for Dinosaur Yoga and much repeat playing of "We Are the Dinosaurs" from the Laurie Berkner band on YouTube. The Dinosaur Yoga pin is just adorable, this blogger took the time to detail how to describe each yoga pose as a dinosaur or baby dino egg...the kids LOVED it!

Another printable helped us to do our letter D dinosaur craft which involved coloring, stamping, cutting and gluing. All of DG's favorite things to do pretty much, with very minimal direction from mama. ;)

We love our Usborne books and I think that "I'm a Dirty Dinosaur" is just top notch. The illustrations are so fun and the storyline seems to really captivate the little ones. We read this before nap time to wrap up our dinosaur day - it has that nice alliteration - Dirty Dinosaur - to reinforce the letter "D" literacy component. 

Last spring we did dinosaurs around the world using "I'm A Dirty Dinosaur" and our Dinosaur World Atlas sticker book. I was just getting DG started with learning to use safety scissors, so he cut all of the pieces for this dinosaur independently and then we worked together to glue them into the shape of our dinosaur friend here. 

It's so crazy to look back and see how much he's grown in less than a year. But I had to include this fun dinosaur activity as well. :) 

Rawrrrr...

New Orleans, Mardi Gras, Jazz Music Preschool Unit

It's the last day of February and we are fresh off the Disney blues train here at Mama's Little Homeschool. I haven't been doing  much any blogging since we left for Orlando in the first week of February but it's time to get back in the saddle because we have been up to some really fun stuff over here and it deserves to be shared!
Kind of like when Tiana shares her pot of gumbo with her neighbors in New Orleans when we watch Disney's The Princess and the Frog.
Y'all, let me just say that I'm positive in my past life I was a Southern Belle. I've never been to New Orleans but I have road tripped to Florida a handful of times - a family trip to NOLA when my boys are bigger is definitely high on the list! I feel such a strong connection when I see that Spanish moss on the trees and hear the genuine hospitality of the local people...it just brings me some sort of very special joy in my soul, I can't describe it.
Anyway, it's no secret that The Princess and the Frog became an instant favorite of mine for this reason and so many more. They say teach what you love so it only seems right that the boys and I would take a journey to NOLA from home.
It was super helpful to use our Fire Stick to stream The Princess and the Frog movie in high definition - and as much as we wanted. Sometimes we would replay the songs multiple times to dance and sing along over and over again! DG's favorite is "Goin' Down the Bayou" - he knows every word!
We learned a new recipe - I actually saw it on Facebook listed as "gumbo" so we kept calling it gumbo, but it's actually jambalaya. Good thing we took some time to research traditional New Orleans and Mardi Gras cuisine to correct ourselves.

The recipe called for Cajun seasoning but I couldn't find any at my local supermarket, so I substituted for Tabasco sauce. It was the "bees knees" as Tiana would say!

The smell of this cooking in the crock pot all day was delightful!

I mixed in thawed frozen shrimp just before serving, because the seafood department didn't have great looking fresh shrimp that day - it turned out just fine that way.

Try it yourself - here's the recipe: http://12tomatoes.com/slow-cooker-jambalaya/?utm_source=glp-12t&utm_medium=social-fb&utm_term=20170130&utm_content=video&utm_campaign=slow-cooker-jambalaya&origin=glp_12t_social_fb_video_slow-cooker-jambalaya_20170130

We also learned about the jazz music influence in New Orleans. Of course we had to take our time to watch our favorite movie several times to discuss the connection between Louis the trumpeting gator and Louis Armstrong. Learning about Louis Armstrong was another component to this lesson that tied in with our Black History Month studies - and who can resist the opportunity to listen to beautiful, upbeat jazz music while doing so?

I love to craft while listening to music, so we made these quick jazzy Mardi Gras music notes. The boys have been loving having a little bit of freedom with the safety scissors and glue. This was a nice way to create something meaningful but also abstract and uniquely creative.

The idea was to cover a classic black music note with Mardi Gras confetti.

We just used some Crayola construction paper cut into strips for the confetti.

Throwing confetti = very fun.

DG loves to practice cutting. It has not only built his fine motor skills, but I've seen his patience improve tremendously, too.

Look at those chubby little fingers at work!

This unit was a very fun way to involve and combine some really awesome themes like our favorite Disney movie, jazz music, Mardi Gras, and Black History Month. I could see this unit expanding to take a whole week next year, and maybe we'll start planning our trip to NOLA soon! :) 

Days of the Week, Months, and Seasons - A Collection of Extension Activities

We love calendar time or circle time as the two terms get interchanged at Mama's Little Homeschool.

We start with the Pledge of Allegiance, we say it twice so that each of the boys can get a turn holding the little American flag. I'm pretty impressed with how quickly this taught them their right hand from their left.

We love to sing songs as part of our calendar routine. There are some awesome songs that are similar or exact versions of the ones we sing, available on YouTube (for free!) - and they help to reinforce calendar/seasonal concepts.

Days of the Week Song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=loINl3Ln6Ck

We sing the months of the year in order, to the tune of The Macarena: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZ6NJWNzBqE

We also sing "How's The Weather?" which can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rD6FRDd9Hew

Additionally, we recite:

"30 days has September, April, June, and November

All the rest have 31, except for February my dear,

With 28 or 29 in each Leap Year."

I learned that little rhyme in second grade but it's a good way to transition into counting up from one to the current date. To reinforce the date, we also trace the numeric date each day using our clear, dry-erase pockets with one of our freebie transportation number printables stuffed inside. It's been amazing to see how well DG has developed his ability to count beyond 20 (a new skill for him) and write each number better each month! 

To add to our daily routine, we have also used books and projects to extend on these topics.

When learning about the four seasons, we crafted these seasonal trees using recycled paper towel tubes cut in half and circular pieces of construction paper. Crayon and paint were used to depict the tree stage during each season: winter, spring, summer, and fall.

The color of the paper corresponds to white for winter snow, pink for spring blossoms, green for summer leaves, and orange for autumn leaves.

You could paint the tube brown to make it prettier, or use a template of branches, but I like to keep things simple since my kiddos are so young.

We like to keep our trees in the classroom and take them out during calendar time to review all four.

I have to say, seasons were not something that came easily to DG. Perhaps it's because I started off telling him that fall is a time for cool weather and falling leaves and we had bare trees and snow by late October this year, but this craft really helped with his understanding.

We have also enjoyed playing with these calendar-themed magnets from our almost-retro Melissa & Doug wooden calendar that I saved from when I played school as a little girl! Some pieces are missing, and the year magnets stop at 2008 ;) but these particular magnets are great to practice putting in order on the white board. We can then insert the seasons where they occur and add holidays, weather, and events that would correspond. Other times the boys just scatter the magnets all over the house which makes for some fun clean-up as well.

The book "Hap-pea All Year" by Keith Baker was another Scholastic Find of mine (did I tell you guys about the *last* time that I bought books from Barnes & Noble when I walked out with 7 books and spent 1/4 of my husband's paycheck? Scholastic is my go-to for reasonably priced books) and features really fun, big illustrations that open up a lot of conversation about each month's weather, holidays, and activities. It's culturally neutral and we like to re-read it at the beginning of each month. Plus who knew such a questionably tasting veggie could make for such a cute book character, right!?

"Today is Monday" - a classic from one of my favorite authors, Eric Carle - and yes - it was another great deal from Scholastic, I swear I get no endorsements lol, wish I did! ;) But anyway the first time I read this book I was underwhelmed. I thought, "how the heck will this be helpful for preschoolers? Monday string beans - what?" But then, I realized the song! The song! Of course, anything literary put into a song = preschool gold, and well, it is. We have had "Today is Monday" stuck in our head far more than we'd like to admit in this house. The book does feature the sheet music on the last page. It's also available on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYTW-r1U2k0 - this is the Starfall version which is slightly different. Your children may be offended by this difference, consider yourself warned.

But looky look - a cute craft from a book! I love love love a craft where we add a little each day. It's so relaxed to do things that way.

Here we have days 1-5 (Monday - Friday) which feature green construction paper string beans, curling ribbon spaghetti, a soup image (could be a soup label or cut from a magazine), construction paper roast beef, and a bingo-stamper-scaled fish with a GOOGLE EYE because that's just how fresh it really is. We kind of are obsessed with google eyes. Don't judge us. Also these use one of my favorite crafting materials: a value paper plate!

How useful these round paper discs have become to me since starting homeschool, I couldn't even begin to explain. ;)

Weather Activities for Preschool

We started introducing concepts such as today's weather, the seasons of the year, and weather changes at the beginning of our school year. Every day we discuss these topics during circle time. I'll have to make a post dedicated to our daily circle time/calendar rituals (note to self!) but the curriculum we follow focused this past week on changes that occur within our world such as hibernation, changing of seasons, and weather patterns.

We read this wonderful book called "Outside" by Deirdre Gill. It's EVERYTHING to my three-year-old. I could read it over and over. In fact, I did! We also enjoyed listening to the audio book version that came with our copy from Scholastic.

This book describes the adventures of a young boy who plays outside on a snowy day. He imagines that the snow is everything from a castle to a dragon, and after much yearning for his brother to join him - he gets a special surprise at the end. The phrases are very short and allow for just the right amount of description on each page of beautiful illustration.

"Outside" was a great segway into learning about the weather because right now our outside world looks a lot like the weather in this book - snowy, cold, winter. However, we were able to extend the inside cover illustration of a single window looking outside into a neat little craft in which each pane of the window shows a different weather type of the artist's choosing.

We started with two pieces of construction paper, one white and one black. 

Fold the quarters and cut the inside of the rectangular "panes" and then glue the two pieces of paper together.

Then use your favorite medium to illustrate the center of each window pane.

Noah helped me to make the "sample" which highlighted sunny, snowy, windy, and rainy weather.

DG also focused on his own rendition of the same weather.

We then reinforced with some YouTube videos (yay for a free resource!)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfAB4BXSHOA - The Weather Song "Sun, Rain, Wind, and Snow" from The Singing Walrus

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUSbazn3STo - "What's the Weather Like Today?" from The Kiboomers

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UbfsQgiqD9M - "What's the Weather Like?" a short interactive show featuring a very cute bird puppet (this was my kids' favorite).

We sing the "What's the Weather Like Today?" song every morning during circle time and DG is always excited to be the weather man and give us the weather report! He now has some fun new words to include like "cold front" and "meteorologist" from our weather unit. ;) 

Hibernation, Caves, and Bears - Oh My!

I call my two boys my little bears - DG was "Teddy Bear" as a baby and Noah became "Honey Bear" or "Beary" - so I call them my "baby bears" or "two bears" which I happen to think they enjoy. ;)

I knew that during winter I wanted to cover the topic of hibernation, adaptation, and migration so we had a bear-themed day while we covered the idea of hibernation.

We read "A Bed for Bear" by Clive McFarland. I bought this book through the Scholastic Book Order and it was part of a set which had the audio CD to accompany the book. The boys and I love listening to the audio book, it's just something fun and different to hear a narrator other than mama, and the follow-up questions are something we always look forward to. In this book, Bear searches for a bed that is more suitable than his cozy, crowded cave, but ends up finding that a cave was the perfect bed all along. It's a sweet story which also transitions to a lesson on hibernation really well!

We played with our Lego Duplo wildlife park, which just happens to feature animals that do (and do not) hibernate, here the Joker is visiting Bear's cave.

A perfect "bed" for two bears to hibernate!

We made these cute bear snacks using a 1/2 graham cracker, smear of sunbutter, two blueberries, two chocolate chips, and a mini marshmallow.

And of course, we had a picnic in our bear cave, which was made out of a box covered in crinkly brown packing paper (thanks, giant Amazon subscription delivery!)

A "beary" fun lesson!