Our Winter learning theme

So, our learning theme for the week  last month has been Winter. We have learned about snow, ice, icicles, hibernating animals, and winter clothing. I have been a MAJOR slacker these past few weeks with Christmas and vacation and just general laziness. Sad to say but our book reading has been minimal along with everything else. However, we have managed to read a few books and complete a few activities/projects.
Our books for the Winter theme:
Animals in Winter
                                                                                                  Snow Day                                                                                                   First Snow
                                                                  Sugar Snow
                                                                  The Snow Lambs
                                                                  Marven of the Great North Woods
When Winter Comes
Callie Cat, Ice Skater
and more of course.
My favorite is Sugar Snow :), and R's is First Snow. The illustrations in First Snow are phenomenal. The look so lifelike and I think that's why R likes the book so much.
Our activities have included making model magic snowmen, painting with ice cubes w/ food coloring added, melting ice with salt, epsom salt painting, coloring snow men, snow pictures (shaving cream with glue), playing outside with our gloves/mittens and scarves on and if you count Christmas-playing in the snow and with icicles.
Hopefully we will get back on schedule this next month and I won't be so lazy.

Our theme for the past few weeks-FARMS and What My Child Is Reading This Week(s)

Little R is having fun with our Farm theme. I have been a little slack, umm lazy and the theme has been sparse on activities and a little lengthier than I intended. We once again checked out LOTS of books on the subject and spent tons of time reading.
Some of our books on Farms- Cock-a-Doodle Quack!Quack!, Little Farm by the Sea, Cows, Cock-a-doodle-hooooo (R's favorite), Chicken Joy on Redbean Road (my favorite), Once Upon a Farm, Seasons on the Farm, All Pigs Are Beautiful, and many more.














A few of our activities-cotton ball sheep, TP roll horse, painting cow spots, picking cotton (random spot on side of road-I know, bad mommy), stopping to look at cow farm, lots and lots of Old Macdonald Had a Farm, and others.
By far the funniest thing that happened was on Halloween at the mall. Little R went up to the Chick-Fil-A cow, waved and then proceeded to try to lift up the front of his costume near his umm..unmentionables. I was horrified and then she oh so sweetly she looked at me and said "Mom, where's the udders for milk?. I couldn't help but laugh. LOVE that girl, she makes my heart smile.

More Bugs-our Themed Activities

As a part of our "unit" on BUGS, little R and I spent time completing a few projects, learning about different bugs, and exploring the great outdoors.
We made a wooden bead, pipecleaner and pony bead spider; clothes pin and coffee filter butterfly, and a clothes pin and pipe cleaner dragonfly. Little R and I had tons of fun watching caterpillars turn into butterflies and learning about the life cycle. We have watched quite a few tiny caterpillars grow big and turn into butterflies. I think the most fun was exploring our yard for different types of insects. Just in our yard we found roaches, grasshoppers, spiders, ants, beetles, roly polies, bees, moths, earthworms, caterpillars, aphids, butterflies, flies, stink bugs, and a praying mantis. I was thrilled to find the mantis :)
Little R learned the three parts of a bug, but not really where they are on the bug. The most surprising part of this for me has been R's lack of fear. I try soooo hard not to let her see my fear of bugs, but she sometimes picks up on it. I do insist that only Daddies touch spiders though :)
Other activities we completed:
2 videos from the library on Insects and bugs
Counted with bugs
Talked about flyers versus walkers
Watched a lizard eat a bug

Happy learning.

What My Child Is Reading This Week-Bugs and Insects

We have checked out LOTS of books over the last 2 weeks relating to our bugs and insects theme. Some have been a hit, some not so much. The hits have been The Very Ugly Bug, The Caterpillow Fight, Bob and Otto, The Big Bug Ball, and I Know an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly. The first 2 were read over and over and OVER again. Little R was able to recognize the covers to the first 3 after a few days and would say, "read Bob and Otto" or "read the Caterpillow Fight" when she saw them. Love it!!
Some of the not so liked ones- Manuelo, the Playing Mantis (just didn't hold her attention), Insects Are My Life (probably a bit too advanced), and On Beyond Bugs.
We also read a few books we already had around the house-Ten Little Ladybugs, The Very Hungry Caterpillar and A Bug's Life.
I will post soon about some of our bug/insect themed activities.

All of our Ocean Theme Activities

As mentioned in a previous post, our first theme for practicing preschool was Oceans. We did lots of craft projects, read many books, and watched Shark Week and a few ocean related movies (The Reef, The Little Mermaid). I thought I would combine all of our craft and learning activities into one big post with pictures :)
Things we made/did:
craft foam crab
Ocean theme collage with magazine cutouts
Mixed media collage with stickers, seashells, tissue paper seaweed
painted seashells
counting with seashells
paperplate fishbowl
bead covered cardboard starfish
sticker fish/fishbowl counting
ate Goldfish and whale crackers
Fed the fish in our saltwater tank
Observed fish and hermit crabs in our tank
Field trip to St. Andrew's Bay

AND a still have to do-hand and footprints in wet sand. Bad mommy for putting this one off :(

More ocean theme activities

R and I have been doing a few projects relating to our ocean theme the past few days. We made a collage of ocean/beach themed pictures on painted posterboard. R painted and glued on pictures I cut out of magazines. We also made a collage of foam fish, crabs and whales(leftover from her 1st b-day party), seashells, and rolled up tissue papers and streamers for seaweed. R once again painted the paper, stuck on the stickers, seashells, and tissue paper. I put the glue down for her but she was definitely not happy about it. :) I got the idea for the mixed media collage (sound so fancy that way) from this blog-http://thelittletreasures.blogspot.com/2010/06/under-sea.html
We also assembled a crab from foam. Don't remember where I found the template but I traced it on to red foam, cut it out and let R put the pieces together and add wiggly eyes.
I like using a theme-it gives me the direction and at least a little bit of organization I need. Pictures coming soon.