Treasure Island - Shells

Day 8 was all about Shells or Conchas in Spanish.  We started the day with the Opening Rhyme while sitting at the breakfast table.

All along the beach,
With nothing inside,
Sat many little shells,
Brought in from the tide,
Along came Peter
All alone,
He picked up a purple shell,
And took it home.

Each time I said it I filled in the blanks with a different name and a different description of a shell.

Next I got out my big box of shells.  Everyone has a big box of shells, right?  Last year for my husbands birthday I gave him a bunch of cash to buy some meat he wouldn't normally buy.  He bought a steak but he also bought clams and oysters.  He realized how much he enjoyed it and how inexpensive it was to cook at home, as compared to eating out, so he treated himself a few more times after that.  Each time he would boil and clean out all the shells.  I love how my husband thinks of us and all our projects.  Just yesterday we finished eating our DQ ice cream sundaes and he asked, "before I throw this away, is there anything you would like to use these containers for?"  I said no and had him toss them, now I am thinking they could have made some pretty cool instruments if filled with beans, rice or popcorn.  I guess we will just have to buy ice cream sundaes again.

I got out a bunch of the clam shells and put them in the center of the table.  Mother Goose Time had us sing or play the day of the week song and have the kids grab one shell for every day of the week they heard.  I sing the day of the week song because it allows you to slow down when you get to the current day and the boys are more likely to sing along with me than the cd. 

I started with Lachlan.

 He pulled one over for every day I sang and then I had him count them out.  1, 2, 3, 4, . . . 7.  So how many days are in a week?  7!

 Next Autumn had a turn. 

 And then Peter.

 The first lesson we got started on was Counting Shells.  This was an I Can Read, sight word activity.

 Each of the I Can Read books come with sight word circles which contain 3 of the repeating words in the I Can Read book.  You can pop the circles out and put them on the table as they search for the words in the book.  On this day, we just got too distracted.  The book itself wanted them to draw sea shells on the pages.  They really wanted to work on that.

 Peter made hand shells.

Lachlan made a hermit crab with a shell.

Next we moved on to Stringing Shells.  I cut up a bunch of straws.  We have some really colorful straws Aunt Jenny got us.  Did you know that when you cut a straw it goes flying?  So I had the kids in charge of chasing down all the little bits of straw.  Then I sat them down at the table and taped on end of the yarn to the table.

 The question we asked was, what could you make with shells?  Autumn said "jewelry."

 The end they were beading with kept fraying and making it hard to get the straw on.  So I got out some Elmer's glue and dipped the end in it and we waited a little while for it to dry.  That helps a lot.  I need to remember to do this in advance next time an activity calls for yarn. 

Peter did awesome.  He made a perfect pattern until her ran out of orange straw pieces. 

We ended up not finishing the other two lessons of the day.  But it seemed to tucker Peter out.

At the end of the day he decided to watch the movie on the baby's play mat.  He is notorious for falling asleep anywhere, just like his daddy.  This brings back memories of when he was a little guy playing on this mat.  I think he might be a little big for it now.

Treasure Island - Sand Castles

Day 7 was all about Sand Castles.  We started the day at breakfast with our Opening Rhyme.  I am trying to get better at not skipping this part of the day because for one, it's fun, but for two, we kind of failed the rhyming test when I assessed Lachlan in the rhyming department.

Five little sand castles,
Standing on the beach,
In rolls the tide,
And the water starts to reach,
The great big wave,
Takes Autumn out to sea.
Now there are four little castles,
Standing on the beach.

The kiddos would hold up the correct number of fingers to go along with the rhyme.

 While still at the table we moved on to Sometimes I Do, which is a participation story.  First I asked, when do you feel like doing nothing at all?  I love Autumn's answer, "when we sleep."  Yep, that's about right.

Next, when have you changed your mind about something?  Lachlan says "when you get mad and then don't get mad."  I love this answer too!  Lachlan and I have been working on his response to anger.  His response is often aggressive.  Hurting his brother who is not cooperating or throwing something.  I guess it's called an "explosive child".  Poor guy, sometimes when I look into his eyes, it's almost as if he can't control it.  But he has grown leaps and bounds since starting a new little badge program and from just simply talking about it more.  So this answer means a lot to me.  It means he is really absorbing what we are talking about.  Changing his mind when he is mad to not be mad and calm down.  Now that I am writing this out, I realize, I need to use the language he chose here.  I love these question and the insights we can gain into their amazing minds.

The participation story has motions that they act out as I read.  The line that repeats in this story is Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't.  Maybe I will, or maybe I won't.  As they say sometimes I do they shake their heads yes and shake their heads no to sometimes I don't.  For maybe I will, they hold their hands out and for maybe I won't they place their hands on their hips.

 There were discussion questions on the back of the participation story I just had to ask.  What things do you have to do?  Lachlan lists "get dressed, go potty, kiss your mom, brush your teeth."  What should you do? "brush your hair, wipe your face, eat breakfast." What might happen if you choose not to do what you should? "Someone might say, yuck, your breath stinks."  Love it.

Then we started on our Sand Castle Art.  We were still at the table but done with breakfast, so I grabbed the needed supplies.

He really wanted to get the sun just right.

Later in the day we started on the Beach Building lesson which was a memory game.  As we found matches we were to build a sand castle.

 This is still Peter's favorite game.  Oh and the other picture here is of Peter's guinea pig kangaroo.  He has been carrying the poor thing in his "pouch" all day.

Our sand castle.

Lachlan didn't want to participate in the game.  He was watching Ocean Mysteries with Jeff Corwin, so I consider that to be on topic for the day.  No sand castles, but islands and ocean animals. 

But when I told him to come because we were about to do an experiment, he came right over. 

What happens when you stay out in the sun for a long time?  We talked about wearing sunscreen so we don't get burnt.

 Here is our experiment set up.  You can see the experiment card on top of the orange paper.  I love these things.  We get at least one a month.  Some are experiments and some are snack ideas.  I have them all saved in a basket that I can pull from at anytime, if I am looking for something to do.

 The idea of the experiment was to set items on top of colored paper and leave them out in the sun for a few days to see what would happen.  I asked for theories and they all thought the paper would get darker.  I didn't correct them or suggest that it would not be the outcome because I just wanted to carry through with the experiment and let them make the discovery themselves.

Here's the sad part, it's been cloudy and rainy the last couple of days.  So the tray is sitting on top of my entertainment center, waiting for the next sunny day, or two.

I wanted to share with you the results of this experiment.  The day we set this up it started to rain and was rainy for a few days.  So it took a while before we could set it out.  But once we did, it only took about one day in the sun for some awesome results.

 

Treasure Island - Crabs

We did day 6, all about crabs, with just Peter and Autumn, while we were sitting at the counter for snack time.  Usually I wait for Lachlan to be present because he is the one technically at school age, but Peter is now 3 and starting in the fall will officially be in 3 year old preschool.  So we might as well start now.  Although, if you look back at my blog posts, Peter has pretty much been doing school since he was 18 months old.  He's had years now of no pressure learning.  He loves it.

Lachlan was sleeping.  He just couldn't keep going.  We had days of lots of play and activity.  I am so thankful we homeschool and he can crash when ever he needs to.  It's not pretty when he is that tired.

 First they worked on their Crab Clacker Art.  I folded the paper plates in half and they colored their crabs shell.  At first they thought their crab had to be red.  But we talked about how crabs come in all different colors.  Jeff and I honeymooned in Costa Rica and the crabs there were purple with orange/red claws.   There were literally thousands of them crawling through the foliage on the ground of the jungle we were hiking through.  It sounded as if rain was falling, but it was just the sound of the crabs.  As we were walking through the trail, if they got caught in your path, they would charge at you.  It was a crazy experience.

The crab on the puzzle that Mother Goose Time provided was also a variety of colors.  It was orange and red with purple eyes.  So Peter made a rainbow crab. 

 Peter loved the clacking part of this crab art.

As they were working, I set up the other lessons.

 For Crab Search we were to set up three bowls.  I chose to use these three wicker plates that happened to be sitting out already.  They would look at the puzzle complete, and then I would have them close their eyes while I hid one puzzle piece under one of the three plates.  When they opened their eyes they had to pick a plate and try to find the missing piece.  Once the piece was found they would put the puzzle back together.

While they were finishing up their snack they continued to play with their crab props.  Peter fed his crab some crackers and pretezels.

 Listed as a skill under the Crab Art is Drama 33.2 - Uses and creates props.  I would almost put Peter and Lachlan at Benchmark G here - plans a story and seeks out props to enhance a role or highlight details.  My boys love to pretend.  They mostly pretend to be animals or other make believe creatures.  I am shocked sometimes at what they can do with a simple cardboard box.  Peter's favorite toy to play with is a broken bead necklace.  You know the cheap ones for parties or Mardi Gras.  Yeah those, they are his snakes.

I will often ask them to do something and call them by name.

"Peter, please go wash your hands." 
"I'm not Peter, I'm a guinea pig."
"Guinea pig, will you please go wash your hands."
"Okay" as he skips away to the bathroom.

I would put them at Benchmark G because as they are role playing like this, if they come up with a problem, for instance if the guinea pig doesn't have a cage, they will find one.  Or if the snakes Mom is missing, they will find a Mommy snake.  The only part that makes me think Benchmark G might not be right is the word plan.  They certainly don't plan out way in advance to put on a show for me.  As they play they think and plan new ways to expand their imaginary world.  So that's the only question I have on this benchmark, what kind of planning are we talking about here?

 The last lesson was Where is the Crab?  This was a Language & Literacy lesson.  I cut apart the Spanish/English vocabulary cards.   Each item had a two pictures with the word underneath one card in Spanish and one card in English.  We reviewed all of the cards and learned how to say, Volcano, Map, Crab and Shell in Spanish.  I gave Autumn the map card or mapa card, as she had the one in Spanish and I gave Peter the map card.  Then I laid out the two volcano cards and the two shell cards on the table.  When they weren't looking, I hid the crab card under one of the volcano cards.  I told them to use the map or mapa card to find the crab.

You can see he has his map in hand.

Autumn found it.  At one point they started looking other places.  But I assured them, the crab was on the table.

Peter wanted a turn too, so I hid the crab again, just for him. 

 Autumn really enjoys learning Spanish words, so this time when we got to this part, it really seemed to stick.  Peter enjoyed saying the Spanish words because Autumn did.  I think I remembered the words a little better as well because of her excitement.  So the whole time they played we used the words interchangeably.  I just opened the day bag for today, day 8, which is all about shells.  I still remember that shell in Spanish is concha.  So I will use both words through out the day today, as I teach and we learn.

Did I mention we did our lesson on this day in our swimsuits.  This summer, so far, the boys go straight from their jammies to their swim suits and then back to jammies again.  Autumn arrives dressed for the day, but that only lasts a couple hours before she is in her suit for the day as well.  It's a fun way to spend the summer.

Getting out our Mother Goose Time is a great way for them to have some down time of sorts.  Well at least time out of the sun.   But we all know, Mother Goose Time can be used anywhere, even under a tree.  So if I can't get them to come inside, that's always an option.