Bugs and Crawly Things - Grasshopper

This was Day 3 of this months themes and it ended up being one of my favorite days ever!

One of our first lessons of the day was Hop to the S.  I set up the letter S card in the middle of the room, which just happened to be in the rectangle we still have on the floor.  Then I put the phonics tags on each end of the room.

Next I gave them the Hands-On letter S and had them hop from the center letter to one of the phonics tags.  When they got there read the letter S word on the tag and tried to come up with some more.  S is a pretty easy letter, but we got stumped after just a few.

I guess, this "Day" was spread out to two days.  The first day was in the evening.  It was a beautiful day and the boys were outside.  So I took their My Little Journals out to the picnic table.

I asked Lachlan the discussion question.  What would you call a bug that hops on a tree? On Grass? On a stick?  It was a fun way for him to figure out why the grasshopper is called the grasshopper. 

 Next I had them draw a bug to look at under the magnify glass and they got right to work.

 Lachlan also wrote his name on the front.  I wrote it right above and he copied. 

They love doing the backside of the journal.  It's always some sort of matching activity.  This one matched a bug to his bug home.

Since we were still out there, I got the More Math and More Reading books out. There was another page to draw another bug in a magnify glass, which is what Lachlan is doing.  Peter is learning about the number 9 by drawing 9 dots on the back of the lady bug.

And this is a wide shot of my messy backyard.  But I just loved the view out my back door of my son doing "school".  He was out there cutting out another activity from the workbooks.  You really can learn, anywhere.

For Keeping it Clean we asked, what do you use to stay clean?  Soap.  We talked about germs and how we need to wash our hands, the table and counters to keep them clean.  I gave them each a wash clothe and asked them to wash the counter in an S shape.  They did, super quick, I didn't quite catch it with the camera.  Then Lachlan decided he wanted to fold his towel into a rectangle shape, which is the shape of the month.  Of course I was thrilled he was extending the lesson all on his own and he was pretty pleased with himself as well.

Next, he hopped down and and ran around to the other side of the counter where he put the Hands-On number 9 on the counting card and counted out 9 rectangles. 

Peter, took a cue from Lachlan, and decided to make his towel into the letter S.  Pretty clever, huh?  So proud.

But the best lesson of all was the Brave Grasshopper.  Mother Goose Time provided us with Brave feathers, friendship feathers is what they call them.  I first asked the question, what does it mean to be brave?  This is Lachlan's exact words and I am not entirely sure what he meant, but I had my pencil out ready to write his answer, so I wrote it down. "You got to be brave and think of what you know and think of what you are by."  Now that I write this out, I think it's from Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood.  There is an episode about what to do when you are scared.  Like if there is a scary noise, think about what's around you that could be making that sound.  It's not a monster, it's just the dryer running, that sort of thing.

Then I told him the meaning of brave, being brave does not mean that you do not get scared.  Bravery means that even though you are scared, you try your best anyway.  Next it had us ask about a time they were scared.  Lachlan was thinking and thinking, then I said, I know of something you were scared to do today.  He immediately knew what I was talking about and said, "I was scared to say sorry when I kicked the ball and when I stole the toy."

On Thursday mornings we are now part of a homeschool co-op.  We get together and play and cover various topics.  Lately we have been covering safety, from strangers safety to fire safety, it's been great.  But as we were playing Lachlan kicked a ball which went zooming to the head of one of the other Moms, Stacey.  I gasped, oh no, Lachlan say sorry.  He was so embarrassed and upset, he just wouldn't say sorry.  I tried to explain to him that it was just an accident, but even when it's an accident we should say sorry.  Still he refused.

Last week, we also dealt with a first, stealing from a store.  It was a second hand store that has toys out for the kids to play with while you are in there.  There was this dollar store hotwheels type car that Lachlan thought was really cool, so he stuck it in his pocket.  When I found out what happened we returned it to the store, but he clammed up there too and did not say sorry.  So we came home and wrote a note and took it to the store.

So when we brought up the topic of Bravery and this came up, I took it as a perfect opportunity to roll play.  I chose to roll play the ball situation, since the stealing felt pretty well resolved.  I told him to pretend to kick the ball, so he did.  Then I pretended it hit me in the head and was upset.  Next I handed him the Brave feather and told him now that he has the feather, he is brave.  So he said "sorry".  We celebrated his accomplishment together. 

Then I asked Peter what he was afraid of and he said dinosaurs.  So I pretended to be a dinosaur.  Then I handed him his feather.  He said "I'm not scared of you!"

They added their own feat of bravery by climbing high onto the couch.  Not sure how brave I am of this situation.  But they survived.

You can see, Lachlan still has his brave feather in his hand as he jumps from the couch.

We ended our day by dancing to the grasshopper song, and a few more songs about bugs too.

 He's actually airborne in this one.  He did a great job following along. 

What a day!