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.