Simple Summer School Plans

M (6.5) has been out of school for a couple weeks now but our summer school plans are just now in effect. We've had tons of fun with playgroups, outings, and lots of play time. I want to make sure and offer educational play as well, especially since my kids love to do "school". In order to keep things very simple, we are trying a "winging" it type of plan :)

I like to have an activity planned for each day of the week, followed by lunch, then quiet/nap time (though NO one has been taking an actual nap and I'm beyond sleep deprived and trying to reign in "Grumpy Mom").

We have stay at home/laundry clean day, park/picnic/local library day, playgroup/park/library in a different town, playgroup at our house, then visit family/friends or try something new day.

I've decided to categorize summer school blog posts by:
-book of the week and activities that go along with it
-alphabet art (stamping, tracing, painting, whatever we get done that week)
-weekly sensory bin
-Let's make a memory (could be a craft, outing, activity, etc)

The goal is little to no prep...since I have literally no time it seems. I want to be able to grab a book we haven't read for awhile from the bookshelf (or a new one from the library), read it and come up with a few activites on the spot (goal is 2-3 for the week), use workbooks and fingerpainting paper/tools for alphabet art, throw together a sensory bin, then snap a pic of something else we did that was fun.

We shall see!!! :)

Reflections

Well goodness...I just can't seem to keep on a consistent schedule with tot school or blogging. Life is so busy with 4 little ones. O has apparently lost all interest in doing "school" with me..even her computer work. I've never pushed her, only encouraged her and tried to make it fun. I really wish she was in a part-day pre-k program with other kids, she would love it! The local school pre-k screening is this Friday. Due to her late August birthday, she misses the Kindergarten cut-off. There isn't many pre-k slots it seems so we may have to try the private pre-k thing again. It worked out well for a bit, but the class was so small (2 other students) and I didn't see her really learning much (just doing fancy crafts that the teacher helped too much on).

I think my next approach should be some sort of dvd learning program. I think she would watch tv/movies all day if I let her. If it is nice, we play outside all day (which she loves) but it has been SUCH a long Winter. I'm looking outside now at everything frosted over...where are you Spring?? The few days we've had so far have been wonderful! I took the kids on walks and we enjoyed outside play tremendously. We have a couple LeapFrog Learning Factory dvds that are a big hit..I wish the company made workbooks to go along with them.

I'd love to do a Letter of the Week program with her and my now 2yr. old. He loves to read his ABC book and sing the song. I feel I literally have NO time to prep or plan (barely have time to write this post now..expecting the little ones to wake at any moment). Especially when it comes to printing things out. The days I get the kitchen cleaned up and can come downstairs in the morning to a clean house is a HUGE help in what I feel we can accomplish for the day. Seems easy enough...but in the crazy evenings I am so worn down by bedtime I don't care. I try to enlist hubby and the kids to help but between evening activities/dinner/baths if needed/homework for my oldest, etc..it doesn't always happen.

I think in addition to more learning dvd's, I want to find a workbook for my 4 and 2 y.o. so I don't have to print things out. I've seem some great ones on amazon and zulily.

They both LOVE sensory bins but I just can't deal with them if the house is messy. Seem a theme? Clean house = More done with the kids. I just need to hire a maid I think... :)

I started another blog about a new passion of mine: http://plantbasedveganjourney.blogspot.com/

This is a cute picture of my now 2 y.o. from this past Summer...he looks so little and so bald!! haha

Pre-k and Tot School~Arctic Week Part 2

{P is 22m and Tiny Tot is 5m}

{O is 4y}

This week we continued with our Arctic theme and focused on the color Red.

• 1.  Matching beginning sounds to objects. O looked through the Red bin then matched them to the Leapfrog Letter Factory flashcards. We are enjoying using the flashcards! They came with the Letter Factory DVD we recently got. It is by far our FAVORITE "learning the alphabet" dvd. My kids can watch it over and over and love it. P will sit and watch almost the whole thing as well (it is around 30 min. long) and repeats the sounds back.( LeapFrog Letter Factory)
• 2. Red I-Spy Tray. We talked about what we saw and played the I-spy game.
• 3. At the start of the week, we do a "color treasure hunt" and search for items to go in our Color bin.
• 4. We made Foam Dough for our Arctic Bin and I saved out a bit to tint red. 

We used the basic recipe of 1 cup of shaving cream and 1 cup of cornstarch. It turned out kinda icky. I much prefer the baking soda and water mixture if we are wanting "snow" for a bin. I added silver glitter as well.  We are participating in the "12 Months of Sensory Dough" found here and linked up our Foam Dough experience. 

We added the Arctic Toob (here) and the kids (P especially!) really enjoyed it. It was fun to play with in the Arctic Bin, along with our "Snowy Foam Dough" and the frozen pond from last week (a tin lid we put cotton balls, blue stones, and water in and froze). 

This was an activity I set up for P. I put his red foam dough and some tools in his water table. 

 

Love capturing snuggle pics! We do A LOT of this during the week.. :)

Tiny Tot looking like a big girl in her highchair! She loves her Sophie giraffe and the red tambourine. 

Tiny Tot playing with a handmade bunny puppet from one of her Aunts and P finger painting. 

I mentioned earlier how we are really enjoying our Letter Factory Flashcards. Another activity I set up for O was a simple ABC match up game. I had her lay all the cards out and get the letter dice from our Scrabble game (though it doesn't have all the letters but close). I had her roll the dice, call out what she saw, then find the matching card. When she got it right, she earned a chocolate marshmallow cereal piece. We got really silly with this game and made the card "walk" to the discard pile while making it's sound. 

Matching up the sounds as discussed in the start of the post. 

This is a neat game my oldest (6) got for Christmas. It is called Goldie Blox and the Spinning Machine (here). You play by setting up axles, wheels, washers, blocks, and little animals on a pegboard. Wind up the ribbon around a wheel with a crank, feed it around the other wheels you have set up and pull at the end to make them all "spin". 

Lots of finger painting this week! (yes I know one of my pics is sideways...I tried twice to rotate it and gave up)

One thing I like to do is walk through the Kid's Playroom and find something they haven't played with lately. Just by putting it down on the floor/table or in the indoor water table, it seems to renew their interest. This was a few sets of the Melissa and Dough magnetic dolls (like these)

More printables from Royal Baloo. Here I made them into packs with a mini clipboard from the Dollar Tree. The clock ones are for my 6y.o.

We played with our tanegram set this week. Even P enjoys putting the shapes on the patterns. 

O wants all of her lunches lately in ice cubes tray. It is an awesome way to get veggies and fruit in!

Beautiful pic of my two youngest girls

Feeding her baby

That's all I captured for the week! Don't forget to check out what others are doing for Tot School and over at the Preschool Corner.

*note...I just now realized I've been spelling "Artic" wrong..oops!!! :) 

Pre-k and Tot School~Arctic & Antarctica Part 1

{P is 22m, Tiny Tot is 5 m}

{O is 4y}

This week began our study of the Arctic and Antarctica. We will continue learning about this topic until the end of January. It was fun to discover which of the Arctic animals lived at what pole and how they stay warm when it is so cold out! O thought it was funny that Polar Bear hair was hollow inside...so we had Polar Bear hair macaroni for lunch one day :).

      We enjoyed watching a Polar Bear Wild Kratts Episode (pbs.kids.org)! Books of the week included Three Snow Bears by Jan Brett and  Arctic and Antarctica by DK Publishing. Both of these were read on the We Give Books website. SUCH a great resource (wegivebooks.com). We also read The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats and had fun with the printables that go along with it! (found here)

I did not have much for an Arctic set-up, so I focused on our color (blue) and things for Tiny Tot. I put out a blue I-Spy tray (I described items for the kids and they have to guess them, then they take a turn describing), a blue container of sports balls and color books, a musical discovery basket for Tiny Tot, and a pretend play picnic set (blue things of course!) for P. I also set up a color-sorting center for O on one of our shelves. She worked on sorting our Zoobs (kids LOVE these, here) and a deck of Uno cards. P watched and "tried" to help :).

O working on her calender pages from Mama'sLearning Corner

We made a Polar Bear Squish bag. This was created by combing shaving cream, silver glitter, two large googly eyes, and a laminated Polar Bear piece. We used printables from Royal Baloo this week: Arctic Animals

I set up a Hot Chocolate Stand for Dramatic/Pretend Play. This was SO much fun. 

I purchased printables for our Hot Chocolate Stand from Pre-K Pages

Hot Chocolate packets ready for customers!

We had signs for open/closed, hours of operation, menu/prices, and dry erase ordering sheets. I picked up a money drawer and a box of Hot Chocolate from the Dollar Store. 

Our Sensory/Messy Play for the week was an Arctic Bin. Each day we added something different. Our favorite Sensory material was Icy Peppermint Snow! (inspired by Sensory Snow). We slowly mixed one box of baking soda with water until it formed a crumbly mixture. We added peppermint extract and silver glitter and put in the freezer to chill. This was really neat stuff! We also made a Frozen Pond for our Inuit people to skate on. I took the lid of a tin box and filled it with water, blue food coloring, and shredded coconut for the "snow" and let it freeze. 

First I had them clean up the Farm Bin from the previous week. I put a small about of water and soap for them to clean the items with, and provided towels to dry them off. 

P helping me make the Frozen Pond element for our Sensory bin.

The Icy Peppermint Snow is in the glass container. 

Grandma was over that day to play, so she helped create the bin too. O wanted the stones to make a path to each of our igloos, then made the "Eskimos" (random play figures we had) visit each other. 

O had so much fun setting up the bin! We used white paper cups with a door cut out for the "igloos", cotton balls for a fun soft texture, and blue smooth stones from the Dollar Tree. 

One day we added shaving cream to the mix! It was really neat to squirt it on the cotton balls as it made them GROW as the cream puffed up!

One day we added super-fine cane sugar. This was fun to sprinkle over the "igloos" and pond. 

P wasn't a huge fan of touching the shaving cream. He preferred it in the Polar Bear Squish Bag!

Playing with the Frozen Pond. We did not add blue food coloring this time, but dropped cotton balls in it before sticking it the freezer. This worked great as "Snow Banks". 

Our trays for the week:

1. Matching beginning sounds (printables from Royal Baloo as linked earlier in post)

2. Polar Bear Dot Page (invitation to glue cotton balls)

3. Blue puzzle

4. Writing practice for O (she was not a fan of this, and P kept stealing the magnetic writer!)

We also do quite a bit of "school" on the computer. Almost daily, we use abcmouse.com, abcya.com, starfall.com, and are currently using a trial at ixl.com for Math. It has been WONDERFUL for O. She has amazed me with what she knows! I urge you to check it out if you haven't already! I have both her and M (goes to 1st grade) do 15-20 min. of Math practice per day. We also use the Easy Peasy all-in-one homeschool website at times. That is another one that has been great for my 1st grader! (Easy Peasy).

Tiny Tot is 5 months old now!! She is sitting up on her own for a few seconds and loves to reach out and grab at toys and anything in her reach! (like my face/hair). She has the cutest belly laugh.

Linking up with I Can Teach My Child and

A fun new Sensory material!

Birthday Cake Dough

I saw this awesome idea on the Growing a Jeweled Rose site. You basically take a box of cake mix and dump it into your Sensory bin and viola! It has the consistency of Moon Dough. It crumbles like sand but you can form it like dough. Super cool! I had a box of Yellow Cake Mix and set out green sugar and chocolate sprinkles. O thought it was really neat and played with it for hours!

Using a deep container worked great for containing the mess

We got out our cake molding set ( Imaginarium brand from Toys R Us) and it was perfect. O made sparkly birthday cakes and used wooden candles from our Melissa and Doug Cupcake Set.

A paintbrush was perfect for dipping in the sanding sugar and patting onto the cakes.

Really fun!

Later, O asked me what would happen if she added water. I said, "Let's find out!". I put a small amount in a separate container so we could reuse the remaining material for another time.

I gave her a cup of water and a dropper.

The water mixture turned green from the sugar sprinkles and became pasty. O added more sprinkles and then asked for ice cubes. She said it was oatmeal! We both agreed it looked pretty yucky! 

We are eager to try different cake mixes! The "dough" had a wonderful smell to it of course! Smelled like butter.  

See the Linky Party! and also joining The Weekly Kids Co-op!