P is for Penguins (Ella's Activities)

This week the girls are learning about the letter Pp.  We chose penguins as our main theme for the learning.  Ella also worked on the colors black and white, like the colors of a penguin.  My littlest penguin dressed in her black and white clothes and excitedly started school.

Arin was my big helper with the prep work of Ella's learning activities today.  One of Arin's favorite activities is to use the 1" circle punch.  She punched out several black circles and several white circles. 

Ella placed these circles on clear contact paper (always a hit with the girls) and then I cut out the letter P for her.  We also reviewed the sound that the letter P makes.

Ella worked with her penguin matching cards.  She still likes to pretend that she doesn't know where the cards go, but as soon as I agree that she has it right, she quickly says, "noooo!!" (in a sweet, but teasing voice) and changes it to the right place.

I printed some cute, little penguins which we used in several activities.  First, I placed five penguins in front of Ella.  Then, I asked her to find a specific one, such as "Find the penguin that is to the left of the pink one" or "Find the penguin that is under the pink penguin".



Next, I told Ella to place one of the penguins in front of her.  She picked the pink, which is no surprise since that is her favorite color.  I gave her simple commands, such as, "Place the green penguin next to the pink one" and "Place the yellow penguin on top of the green one".

We lined all ten of the penguins up and Ella practiced her counting skills.

Ella loves to play with magnets on the refrigerator, so I covered the penguins in clear contact paper and attached a magnet to the back of each.  Ella practiced matching the penguin colors together.

Finally, we used the penguins in the way they were intended.  I sang a penguin song, while Ella placed the penguins on the refrigerator.  Arin loved the song and caught on to it quickly.  Later, her and Ella were in the kitchen playing with the magnets and Arin was singing the song for Ella.

Ten Little Penguins

(tune: Ten Little Indians)

One little...two little...three little penguins...

four little...five little...six little penguins...

seven little...eight little...nine little penguins...

ten little penguins dancing on the ice.

Count them...count them...count them with me...

count them...count them...count them with me...

count them...count them...count them with me...

ten little penguins dancing on the ice.

Ten little...nine little...eight little penguins...

seven little...six little...five little penguins...

four little...three little...two little penguins...

one little penguin dancing on the ice.

I quickly learned from our Snow Day, that pom poms are fun manipulatives.  For our penguin activities, we used black and white pom poms.  In front of Ella, I laid out several of the circles that Arin had punched for us, creating a simple pattern.  Then, she took the pom poms and recreated the pattern underneath the circles.

Arin did not want to miss out on the pom pom fun, so she participated with the next activity. I placed piles of the pom poms, along with two bowls in front of each of the girls.  They each had a pair of tweezers which they used to transfer the pom poms from the pile on the floor, into the bowls (all black in one bowl and all white in another).

Some of the books that I read to Ella included:
Penguins ABC by Kevin Schafer
Penguin Dreams by J. Otto Seibold and V. L. Walsh
Penguins by Liz Pichon
Bold and Bright Black-and-White Animals by Dorothy Hinshaw Patent
About Penguins: A Guide for Children by Cathryn Sill
Penguins and Their Chicks by Margaret Hall

*Check back later this week to see Arin's Penguin Activities*

Linked to: Tot School

N is for Noah's Ark

This has turned into Letter of the several weeks!  We worked on Noah's Ark for the letter Nn.  We broke it down into several parts.

Basics
We read the story from several of the girls' bible story books.  Arin practiced writing the letter Nn from this worksheet.  The girls also put together their Noah's Ark floor puzzle. 

They also colored pictures of the Noah's Ark story.  The pictures can be found here.  These are the same pages that Andy and I colored when we were little.  Ah, the memories!

Arin also used sequencing cards to put the story in order.

Obedience
We played the obedience game, which is similiar to Simon Says, except the players have to do everything they are told to do.  They need to do it quickly and cheerfully.  The things they are told to do might be simple chores like put the dishes in the sink or line up all the shoes by the door.  Or it might be a be kind to each other command, like give your sister a hug and kiss.  Or it might just be a silly command, like stand on one foot and hop around the room while touching your nose.  We take turns giving the commands and only play for a few minutes at a time.  The point of the game was to get them to quickly obey whatever the command was like Noah did when God told him to build an ark.

Ark
Noah built an ark.  The girls built soap boats.  They were sailboats instead of arks, but they had fun playing with them just the same.

They also put together their geometric shape boat puzzles.

Because boats float, we did the classic float vs. sink science experiment.  Listed below are the objects and the predictions vs. the outcome

• banana - Arin (float) Ella (float) Actual (float)
• crochet hook - Arin (float) Ella (sink) Actual (sink)
• crayon - Arin (float) Ella (float) Actual (sink)
• marble - Arin (sink) Ella (float) Actual (sink)
• ruler - Arin (float) Ella (float) Actual (float)
• chap stick - Arin (float) Ella (float) Actual (float)
• screw driver - Arin (float) Ella (float) Actual (sink)
• cookie cutter - Arin (sink) Ella (float) Actual (float)
• bubble wand - Arin (float) Ella (sink) Actual (float)
• spoon - Arin (sink) Ella (float) Actual (float)

Animals
Noah was to bring animals on the ark. "Of every clean beast thou shalt take to thee by sevens, the male and his female: and of beasts that [are] not clean by two, the male and his female. Of fowls also of the air by sevens, the male and the female; to keep seed alive upon the face of all the earth." (Gen. 7:2-3 KJV)

Arin cut animal pictures from magazines.  Then, she categorized them into clean or unclean piles. 

Next, we worked on greater than and less than.  Noah was to bring more clean animals than unclean animals onto the ark.  I gave Arin two pictures of animals.  She was to put the correct sign between them.  If it was a picture of a clean and an unclean animal, the greater than sign needed to be pointed to the clean animal.  If it was pictures of two clean animals (or two unclean animals) then she would choose the equals sign to put between them.

I wanted to test Arin's animal identification skills.  Afterall, Noah would have to identify the animals in order to load them on the ark, right?  I googled several photos of animals.  Below, is listed the animal first and second what Arin thought it was.

• beaver - beaver
• otter - seal
• weasel - ant eater
• ferret - I don't know, but I've seen them at the pet store
• prairie dog - a porcupine (um, I'm not sure what she was seeing here)
• meerkat - prairie dog
• ground hog - I don't know
• hedge hog - porcupine
• porcupine - porcupine
• guinea pig - I don't know
• hamster - hamster
• gerbil - rat
• chipmunk - squirrel
• squirrel - squirrel
• seal - seal
• sea lion - sea lion (that surprised me that she knew that one)
• ant eater - ant eater
• aardvark - ant eater
• armadillo - armadillo

Looks like we will have to practice animal identification a little more!

My aunt gave the girls each a My Giant Busy Box.  One of the crafts was animal puppets.  Each of the girls decorated one clean animal (cow) puppet and one unclean animal (elephant) puppet.  They enjoyed this activity (Thanks Aunt Sheila!)

The girls both colored pictures of animals, which we used in an animal sounds game.  When the girls heard the sound that the animal makes, they held up the picture.

Ella had fun with her animal puzzles.

Both girls worked on their animal geometric puzzles.

Noah was to gather male and female of each animal.  Ella worked on her male and female animal matching cards.

She also worked with her animal matching cards.

Arin worked on an animal categorizing game.  She was to divide the animals into groups of reptiles & birds vs. mammals.

The animals were loaded two by two onto the ark.  Arin practiced counting by two's with these animals.

Rain
Once aboard the ark, it rained for 40 days and 40 nights. (Gen. 7:4 KJV)
We reviewed the water cycle.

I cut out 40 rain drop shapes. Arin wrote the numbers 1-40 on the rain drops.  Then, she put the numbers in order.

To save time and also as a review, Arin used the sight word cards that she used when we learned about clouds.  She was just as excited this time when she drew a cloud card, which meant there was no word to read and instead she got to clap her hands whenever one of these cards were drawn.

We also used the addition memory game that I made for our cloud study.  Arin was to match one card with the problem with another card with the correct answer.  It was a good review and she liked it.

Ravens and Doves
And he sent forth a raven, which went forth to and fro, until the waters were dried up from off the earth.  Also he sent forth a dove from him, to see if the waters were abated from off the face of the ground;  (Gen. 8:7-8 KJV)

I had planned to do a study comparing and contrasting ravens and doves, but that never happened.  We did, instead, review what all birds have in common: feathers, lay eggs, etc.  We also learned how to fold an origami dove using this video.

Olives
And the dove came in to him in the evening; and, lo, in her mouth [was] an olive leaf pluckt off: so Noah knew that the waters were abated from off the earth. (Gen. 8:11)

We don't have any olive leaves or branches to study, but we were able to purchase three varieties of olives for a taste test.  We had spanish green olives, black olives, and kalamata olives.  My adventurous girls would only try the black olives *sigh*

Dry Land
Ella used her Land Form cards as a matching game.

Arin put together her large world floor puzzle.  Then, we took the land form cards and did an "I Spy" to find the different types of land forms/bodies of water. 

Rainbow
I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth. (Gen. 9:13 KJV)

We did a "Catch a Rainbow" science experiment, which I first saw here.  The full instructions with printables can be found here.  The girls were amazed by this!

 I used the colors of the rainbow (minus indigo) as a color review for Ella.  I laid of several pieces of colored cardstock.  Then, I handed her a pan of small colored objects.  She matched each object with the correct colored paper.

As a special treat to end this study, I made rainbow colored pudding cups.