Other Activities We Did During Cc Week

Creation Week
We worked on the bible story of the seven days of creation.  I plan to blog about this next week and then resume with the letter of the week: Dd, the following week.

Counting & Sorting Coins
This was a simple, spur of the moment activity that we did while we were waiting to leave for our field trip.  I wrote the numbers 11-20 on separate slips of paper.  Then, I handed Arin a pile of coins.  She counted the correct number of coins for each piece of paper according to the number written on it.

Ella simply sorted coins into piles according to their type: quarter, dime, nickel, or penny.

Cloud Sight Words
Keeping with our cloud theme, I created this game for Arin.  On several cards I wrote some of Arin's sight words.  On a few more cards, I put a picture of a cloud.  We played a game similiar to this last week and it was such a hit that I knew it needed to added to this week's activities as well.  To play the game, place all the cards face-down.  One by one, Arin turned the cards over.  If she could read the card, she could keep it.  Otherwise, she had to turn it back over and try again.  If she got a cloud card, she'd stand up and clap as loud as she could (thunder).  Again, this game was a huge hit - of course she'd rather if it were all cloud cards.

Cloud Addition

Again, keeping with the cloud theme, I made this game.  I also made a similiar one for Bb week,  I wrote out math problems for 4+0 though 4+6 (Arin still counts on her fingers, so the answer couldn't be more than 10) on one set of cards and the answers on a second set of cards.  On the back of the problem cards were a picture of a cloud and on the back of the answer cards featured a different picture of a cloud.  Place all the cards face-down (cloud side up).  Then the game is played like memory.  She picked one problem card and one answer card.  If they matched, she kept them, if not, she turned both cards back over and tried again.

Letter Tracers
Arin worked on her letter Cc tracing worksheet.  The worksheet can be found here.

Letter Hunt
She did a Cc letter hunt.  This is really too easy for her, but she likes it, so we will continue it.

Where's the Coin?
This was a game for Ella.  I showed her three identical cans.  I placed a coin under one can and then mixed up the cans.  I asked Ella to show  me where the coin was.  Most of the time she got this right on the first try, but occassionally I was able to trick her.

Stacking Cans
Ella also enjoyed stacking empty cans.

Scooping Corn Kernels (popcorn)
This was another activity just for Ella.  I am sure that Arin would have enjoyed this too, but she wasn't home at the time.  I emptied a bag of popcorn into a plastic shoebox.  Then, I gave Ella a plastic spoon and a couple of empty cans.  This entertained her for a very long time.  She spooned the kernels, poured the kernels, shook the cans filled with kernels, etc.  And yes, she made a corn mess, but she also helped clean it up :)

Can Phones
This activity was actually a flop (sort of).  I had intended to make phones using two empty cans and some string.  I must have used the wrong type of string (I used yarn), so you could not hear the other person through the can.  However, the girls loved these cans!  Everytime I thought I'd throw them away, I found the girls playing with them. They'd carry them around, hang them on doors, use them in imagination play, etc.  Not a bad "save" for a "failed" activity!

Write and Wipe Letters
Prior to this school year, Arin had done very little letter writing.  She could write a few letters, but not all of them and not in both uppercase and lowercase.  I figured that we'd just go week by week learning a new letter, but then Andy brought up a very valid point that if I were to work with her that way, she wouldn't know all of her letters for 26 plus weeks (we'll be taking some planned vacation days).  So now we are practing writing several letters each week, but still only putting our main focus on one letter per week.  During Cc week, I wrote the letters A-M and a-m on small pieces of paper.  Then, I placed them face-down in front of Arin.  She would pick one card, turn it over, and then place it in the corner of her dry erase board.  She would look at the letter as she practiced writing it.  Some letters were only review, some I had to help with hand over hand writing and some she only needed me to make a dotted letter that she'd trace.  She loves the dry erase board, so this was more like fun than work to her.

Checker Patterns
I printed out several black and red circle patterns for the girls.  Arin would take her pattern card and copy it (below the card) with checkers.  Once she finished copying the pattern, she would continue the pattern (just so I knew that she really "got it").

Ella simply placed the correct colored checker on top of each color on her card.

Heads or Tails?
Arin played a probability game.  If you take a coin and flip it in the air 11 times, which way will it fall most often: heads or tails? Arin guessed Tails.  After ten tosses, it was a tie, which actually surprised me.  The eleventh toss was the tie breaker and the heads won.

Chuck E. Cheese

We celebrated the end of Cc week by visiting Chuck E. Cheese

 

Books We Read and Movies We Watched

In some previous posts, I mentioned a few of the books we read and movies we watched during Cc week.  Here is a list of some of the others that we read/watched this week.

The Fire Cat by Esther Averill

The Cat in the Hat by Dr. Seuss

Crazy Alphabet by Lynn Cox

Mordant's Wish by Valerie Coursen

Cc: See it. Say it. Hear it. by Kelly Doudna

Counting Kisses by Karen Katz

The Rag Coat by Lauren Mills (Arin didn't care too much about this book, but it actually brought tears to my eyes and I got choked up while reading it.  Got to love kids' books that do that!)

Capyboppy by Bill Peet

Click, Clack, Moo: Cows That Type by Doreen Cronin

Cloud Tea Monkeys by Mal Peet & Elspeth Graham

The 20th Century Children's Book Treasury by various authors

Click, Clack, Moo Cows That Type…and more amusing animal tales (dvd)

A Pair of Red Clogs

Last week, we read A Pair of Red Clogs by Masako Matsuno.  In the book, a grandmother (named Mako) is remembering when she was a young girl and her mother bought her a new, beautiful pair of red clogs.  She loved her clogs and she loved to listen to the sound they made as she was walking (kara koro, kara koro) or when she was running (koro koro, kara kara).  One day, she was playing the weather telling game with some friends.  This means that the girls were kicking their clogs off and predicting the weather according to the way the shoe fell.  During this game, Mako cracked her shoe.  In hopes of getting a new pair of shoes, Mako almost did a dishonest thing by trying to trick her mother into buying her a new pair.

Arin seemed to like this book.  Several times throughout the week I overheard her mimicking the sound of the shoes: kara, koro, kara, koro.  I am not sure if it is just because that is a catchy sound or because she was trying to get away with saying my name!  Either way, the book stuck out in her mind.

We talked about honesty versus dishonesty and what the right thing would have been for Mako to do in the situation.

Of course, we put our world map puzzle together.  We found Japan on the map (that is where the story is set). 

Arin also completed a lapbook for the story, which can be printed from here.

She also played the clog memory game, which is included in the lapbook lesson.  Ella used the colored clog cards as a matching game.

Using one of Arin's wooden blocks, which is shaped similiar to the clog in the story, we played the weather telling game.  Arin couldn't kick the block off her foot, so she just tossed it in the air and watched which way it fell and then she told me what the weather would be. (Sometimes Arin thinks her mom has lost it, like when I am actually encouraging her to throw things in the house! Ahh, the things that are done for the sake of education!)

If the clog fell like this, the weather would be fine tomorrow.

If the clog fell like this, there would be snow (most of the time is fell this way for us).

If the clog fell like this, there would be rain.

While we read the story, Arin said that she would like a pair of these clogs.  We found intructions to make these clogs and hope to be able to soon, but we ran out of time for that project during Cc week.  If you want the instructions to make a pair of these shoes, also called Geta Sandals, you can find them here.

Field Trip!

We took our first planned family field trip of the school year during letter Cc week.  I have thought it would be a lot of fun to visit all of our state parks; not all as "field trips" and not all this year, but eventually.  Because Colt Creek starts with the letter C, we chose to visit it during this week.  We packed a picnic lunch and set out for a day of fun, or so we thought.  When we were about 15 minutes from the park, the clouds let loose and it rained and rained and rained. 

By the time we got to the park, it had quit raining.  Yay!  We unpacked our cooler from the car and onto the picnic table (under a pavilion).  Then we set out to explore.  We looked at the lakes and wished we had brought fishing poles (which turns out we wouldn't need them afterall).  The girls climbed rocks and looked at flowers. 

We decided to eat our picnic lunch and then we were planning to explore the rest of the park.  There are several foot trails and places that we were not allowed to drive to.  Unfortunately, as we were eating, it started pouring again and thus ended our field trip (much, much sooner than we had expected or hoped). 

Despite the rain, we did enjoy our time together as a family.  My little sister and Andy's older brother were also with us, so that helped to make our outing even more special.

We did get to see two cool things while we were out.  We saw what we think was a gopher turtle (it is illegal to touch these turtles).  Arin didn't want to get too close to it, but Ella didn't mind.

We also found a large, empty snail shell.  The girls thought this was really neat.  We took the shell home and the girls used it to look at while they practiced drawing spirals.  We had also planned to turn the shell into a candle by pouring melted wax in it and setting in a wick, but we ran out of time during the week.  Perhaps we will get to that project another time!

Letter of the Week: Cc

We finished our third week of school last week.  Though I don't blog about it, Arin does book work almost everyday (except Saturdays and sometimes Tuesdays).  She loves it and is flying through her books.  I am searching out what we will be doing as our next step once these books are complete .  We have not yet started regular science lessons, nor have we started Arin's piano lessons yet.  We did start Hoooked on Phonics late this past week and so far she seems to be enjoying it.  She still tolerates Explode the Code, but still does not love it.

Last week we worked on the letter Cc.  We had an extra special surprise for C week. Aunt Candace (my sister) came to stay with us for the week!  It is always a good time to see family.  Even though we had company, we continued with school.  We let our special guest of honor pick the theme of the week.  She picked clouds, because it was one of her favorite things to learn about when she was little.

I printed a capital letter C for each of the girls.  They painted this C by dipping a cotton ball in white paint and then dabbing it onto the C.  This was supposed to look like clouds.

Arin really liked painting with a cotton ball, so she asked if she could make another picture.  She dipped the cotton ball in the paint again and dabbed it onto the paper three times to make clouds.  Then, she drew a firetruck with people on it.  She only drew their heads because "you can't see people's bodies when they are on the truck".  She also drew a black road and even though you can't see it, she drew the yellow lines on the black road.  You also can't see it too well in the photograph, but there is green grass and one purple flower.

We read several cloud books this week.

Cloud Dance by Thomas Locker

Crazy About Clouds by Rena Korb

The Weather: Clouds by Terry Jennings

It Looked Like Spilt Milk by Charles G. Shaw

Little Cloud by Eric Carle

We also watched a couple of water cycle/cloud movies.

Earth Science for Children: All About The Water Cycle

Squibs (In the Clouds: Air, Weather, & Water)

The girls learned that there is water in the air and that clouds are formed by tiny droplets of water attaching themselves to dust particles.  They learned that some clouds also contain chunks of ice.  They learned that some clouds can move as fast as race cars!  They learned that clouds are named based on their shape and their location in the sky.  We didn't do any formal labeling cloud types or matching cloud types, but Aunt Candace pointed out the different types of clouds and named them (and sometimes quizzed Arin) whenever we were outside.

We did a cloud experiment in the kitchen.  This experiment comes from the book 365 Simple Science Experiments.  I boiled a kettle of water on the stove.  Once we saw steam, Aunt Candace held up a pie plate to catch the cloud.  The girls were able to see the cloud real well, even though you can not see it in this picture.  Once there was too much water in the cloud (all the water was gathering on the pie plate), it began to rain down.  I'm not sure that Arin really understood everything that was happening, but she was impressed enough to tell her daddy about it when he got home.

Our second experiment shows that there is water in the air all around us, even though we can't always feel it.  Again, this came from the book 365 Simple Science Experiments.  Arin filled an empty, clean tin can with ice cubes.  Then, she poured water into the can.  We had previously dyed the water blue.  We let the can stand on the counter for five or so minutes.  Once we returned to look at the can, we saw water droplets forming on the outside of the can.  The water was clear, which means that it did not come from the inside of the can, but rather from water already in the air. 

I think that cloud study is still a bit advanced for Arin, but as with all of her learning, we believe in exposing her to these things from a young age and reintroducing it with more depth as she gets older.