Wednesday, August 21, 2013

August Day 7 - Flashlight

When would you use a flashlight?  In a cave, says Lachlan.  We started our day with making these super cool flashlights.  Everything provided by Mother Goose Time of course.  First they decorated their tubes and put the on off switch on.  These were stickers, provided in the bag.  Next we had to color our souffle cups yellow to tape on the end of the tube as the light.  Lastly, we went outside to find "batteries" for the flashlight.  I think everyone picked out rocks and some sticks.  We put the batteries in the tube and finished it off with a cap.  They felt like real flashlights in your hand. 


Next we played What's Missing.  Peter was the first one interested.  This is so simple, you could play this game while waiting somewhere by just pulling things out of your purse.  MGT had us put out 3 things, have them close their eyes, take one away, and have them tell you which one is missing.  3 seemed to be way too easy for Peter, so I added 3 more items.  Everyone did really well at this.  Riley would even answer with her "eyes closed" it was spectacular. ;) Peter kept on answering for everyone else, before they could get an answer out.  He is really good at memory games. 

Here are the random things I grabbed.  Set them on the seat of our 1970s chair.  Snazzy huh?
We learned about the Life Cycle of a Firefly along with the flashlight lessons.  Pretty clever, I thought.  MGT made this awesome little wheel with a window on the front.  As you turned the back wheel it showed the different stages of their life cycle through the little window.  We also had matching cards.  First we went through the four stages and had the kids act that stage out. Egg: Pretend you are an egg by curling up into a small ball.
Larva: Crawl around the floor.  (Larvae are often called glow worms at this stage.)
Pupa: Pretend to dig a hole in the ground.  Explain that this stage often happens underground and is when the larva turns into an adult.
Firefly: Pretend you are a firefly and flash your light.

Lucy's firefly, she kind of freezes when I get the camera out.
Next I spun the Firefly Wheel and the kids took turns finding the matching card.  Here is Peter with his matching Firefly card.


Not only did we get this awesome Firefly Wheel but we also got a board game.  The Inventor's Challenge.  You can have up to four players.  Each player has their own track across the board.  They rolled the dice (also in the bag) and moved that many spaces.  Some of the spaces had things like, forgot your screw driver, go back to start (which was a toolbox).  Riley played twice and never landed on one of the spaces that made you go back so she just sailed right through and won.  Lucky girl.  But the others ended up going back and forth and had a little more fun with it.  I laminated the game pieces and still have it on the counter to play again sometime soon.  I need to start a box of these MGT games to keep.  That way if we are in the mood for a family game we can dig through and pick one.  More to choose from than just Candyland. 

The very last activity of the day I did with just my boys as we were sitting down to dinner.  The other children had gone for the day.  The instructions from MGT were to write letters on pieces of paper, fold them up and put them in a bag.  Instead I grabbed some letters from our flashcards and put them in a bag.  This made it a little harder for them to grab easily but it saved me some time and paper.  After they pull out the letter, they put it down on the table, take their flashlight and shine the light on it and tell me what the letter is.  I grabbed some of the more well known letters and a few more challenging ones.  Lachlan drew out L, T and S.  He got all of them right.  Peter wanted his turn, again I underestimated him.  He just keeps surprising me.  He drew O and P.  Both of those he got no problem.  Next he drew M which he needed a little help with but it was fun to sound it out with them both and try to find words that started with M.  Mom was one I pointed out right away. 

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