I like learning i

I'll start by admitting that the phrase "I like learning i" comes from one of the songs we've been listening to this week on youtube.com.  It's a Storybots song, and it is sooooo catchy - in fact, I woke up in the middle of the night with it going through my head a couple of nights ago! 

The children LOVE using our youtube.com playlists each morning, and learn so much by singing and dancing about learning concepts.  In addition to Storybots, I like to use a lot of HarryKindergarten and The Learning Station music videos.  Here's a link to this weeks' playlist.  By far the favorite song this week was Jack Hartman's Silly Pirate Song , especially the phrase, "Hey Dude, surf's up!" 

There aren't as many fun ways to learn about the letter Ii as there are for some letters, but we found some ways to learn and play all at once.  I've created an "ice cream" sensory play bin for the children, and it had lots of use this week.  In a shallow tub I put all the pompons I could find, several clean and empty ice cream boxes with their lids, some toy food ice creams and cones, empty containers from sprinkles, spoons and bowls.  The children scooped, poured, sorted, pretended, and worked on social skills like sharing and turn taking.  Stuffing small pompons in the tiny jars (from sprinkles) was the hit of the week - and worked on fine motor development, strengthening finger muscles in preparation for writing.  The children will tell you it was a fun way to play.

Our upper case I craft was decorated as an ice cream.  The children cut out their letters (more finger strengthening work as well as hand-eye coordination), then glued on cones, "ice cream" and sprinkles. 

 They looked delicious hanging on the wall, along with our "inchworm" lower case i crafts.

You won't be surprised to know that our ice cream taste test was also a happy and fun event for the children.  I bought 3 flavors of ice cream; chocolate, strawberry, and mint chocolate chip.  We were scientists, and predicted which flavor we would like the best, and graphed it (math and reading our names).

 The best part was definitely the tasting!  (I'm not talking about what the children liked now, I'm talking about Ms. Paula and Ms. Julie!  Yum!)  It was interesting to revisit the graph after we tasted, because several children discovered a new favorite flavor!

We also enjoyed playing instruments for the letter i.  I have an outside carpet that we put down, and the children play the instruments on the carpet, or have a marching band on the driveway.  Some of the boys got very excited about drumming this week, and spent hours of our outside play time using plastic bowling pins to drum on the tree trunks, the playground, and some empty crates.  They made a very satisfying sound, and the boys involved got some big body play out of the experience.

Our final letter i activity was to make an Itsy Bitsy Spider craft, to read an Isty Bitsy Spider book by Iza Trapani, and of course to do the finger play.  Have you met "The Great Big Hairy Spider?"  It's just like the itsy bitsy spider, but of course much louder, and with much bigger hand motions.  It's a hoot to see the kiddos act it out, and use their big, deep voices to say it!

The children decorate their "house" cut out, and we add a spider ring to a drinking straw "water spout".  (I think this idea originally came from Mailbox magazine.)

See, just like the Storybots sing, "I is incredible, I like learning Ii!"

Finishing off the letter B week

 One of our regular weekly activities is hand or foot prints related to the letter of the week.  This week the kiddos chose between bees, butterflies and bears.  Having their hands and feet painted is a cool sensory experience, and our mommies and daddies treasure the resulting art work.  Win-win!  I also upload most of our artwork to Artsonia, a free, on-line student art gallery.

We love to take our fun and learning outside as often as possible, and this week was no exception.  To add variety to our ball play options, I set up some cardboard tubes.  In their previous lives, the tubes had carpet rolled on them.  Now we roll balls down them.

We made bubbles one day too - but not the soapy kind!  I gave the kiddos a small cup of vinegar, a bowl of baking soda, and pipettes to transfer the vinegar into the baking soda.  We started by smelling the vinegar - we talked about not mixing or smelling just anything, because some things can be dangerous, but these items aren't.

 Wow!  Look what happens!

 The children were amazed - and some of them wanted to do it over and over.  I suggested they see if they could do it at home this weekend - so if your child is wanting to make a chemical reaction this weekend, this is the one!

 We had to move on to the rest of our day... making and baking birthday cake...

We also needed the big carpet out, because I planned our Teddy Bears' Picnic for today.  Since the carpet was out, we also got out the instruments.  The kiddos made a lot of noise banging, tapping, shaking, and exploring the instruments.

When it was time for lunch, we put the instruments away, and took our teddy bears and lunch out to the carpet, and had our picnic.  We ate lots of 'b' foods: bologna on buttered bread, bananas, and 3 kinds of berries.  Yummy!

 

We finished Friday afternoon with the birthday cupcakes we made earlier in the day.  What a delicious ending to a fun and busy week! 

 Next week, letter C.