Wednesday, April 9, 2014

Yo Ho, Yo Ho, A Pirate Week For Us

My son has recently become obsessed with pirates. I think it all started when we went to Disney World (makes sense, right?). He asked if we could do a pirate week and I'm glad he did because it was a lot of fun. 

We turned the sensory bins into treasure chests by adding necklaces, beads, stones, and jewels.

Later, I hid the treasure chests and drew the kids treasure maps to find them. I was impressed that my kids could for the most part interpret my not-so-skilled depictions.

With glue and feathers we made pirate parrots. My daughter insisted on wearing a pirate scarf and making a pirate face in this picture. 

We turned our airplane into a pirate ship. I was really proud of this because the wheel actually spins.

We practiced making x's for X marks the spot.

I attempted making a wind tunnel so that we could pretend it was a cannon and the balloons would shoot out of it. I think if we had a big powerful box fan it would have been a lot more effective. Instead of the balloons shooting out, they kind of meandered. It was still fun. 

My son dressed up in his pirate costume almost every day. 

We counted syllables in our weekly words and marked them with jewels.

We also did a do-a-dot page with jewels.

We made a felt flag banner, but the kids used the skulls as masks for a while.

And finally, we made pirate t-shirts out of freezer paper and paint.

I think they turned out pretty cute!

Monday, March 31, 2014

It's a bird, No it's a Plane

I've decided I'll let the pictures do most of the talking, and add only a little bit of commentary.


For plane week, we had plane crafts including clothes pin/popsicle stick airplanes, tin foil airplanes, painted airplanes, and dry erase jet trails.


We talked about some aerodynamic vocabulary.

We found some cute flight books, including this one.

 We went to the local air and space museum.

I let the kids take pictures, and it was interesting what they found important.

Finally, my favorite project of the week was this cardboard airplane.

Friday, February 14, 2014

I Heart Valentine's Day

Soooo, I guess it's been quite a while since I've posted considering that the last post is a Thanksgiving post and now it's Valentine's Day. Time sure does fly. 

Unfortunately my daughter woke up sick this morning, so we haven't had a very thrilling day. However we have done quite a few Valentiney (is that a word?) things this week as preparation.

Early in the week we set up a Valentine station in the living room. My kids spent lots of time coloring with markers, decorating with stickers, and creating lovely cards.

Everyone had their own mailbox, and we kept leaving each other notes.

 I also printed off several Valentine games from Pinterest.

With our playgroup we went to visit a Retirement home. This was the most special thing we did this week. The activities coordinator got a group together for us and when we got there we sang them some songs, handed out Valentines, and talked to each person individually. I only snapped one picture the whole time (I was really enjoying talking with those we were visiting and got wrapped up in it), and this picture looks kind of goofy because the kids were singing "Once There Was a Snowman" and they had all just melted to the ground.

We went to a cookie painting party.

We graphed conversation hearts. 

 I forgot how disgusting those things are! How to people keep buying them? Yuck. My kids have major sweet tooths, and they were only interesting in eating three of four.

Finally, we put conversation hearts into different liquids to see what would dissolve them fastest. This is how they looked after about an hour. 
My the next morning, the only hearts that had totally dissolved were in the vinegar. We're still waiting on the others.

I hope you all have a wonderful Valentine's Day with those you love!!