Treasure Island - Sails

Day 4 of this month with Mother Goose Time is all about sails.  The discussion question for Circle Time asks, why do you think boats have sails?  Autumn says "to sale stuff to other people across the water."  Lachlan says "so they could move."

I adapted the Opening Rhyme a bit to work at the breakfast table.  I took the first 10 number boats from the day before and set them out on the table.  As we were eating we worked on the Rhyme which reads:

Ten little boats racing out to sea,
Lachlan in boat number 7,
Is sailing very quickly!
Go, Lachlan, go!!

If I inserted their name into the rhyme they had to listen for the number I said and grab it.  Such a fun way to learn their numbers.  I purposefully called the numbers Lachlan struggles with a bit to try to challenge him on this one.

After the Circle Time activities we moved on to Blowing Wind.  This is a Language & Literacy lesson, but I kind of think we missed that part of it.  I first asked the question, how can you make something move without touching it?  Autumn exclaims, "Blowing It!!"

I gave them each a piece of paper.  I asked them to try blowing it across the table.

 We were soon done with breakfast so we hopped down to give it a try on the kitchen floor. 

We were supposed to tie this into reading by getting out the book that came in this months box and reading through it. As we read we were supposed to blow the pages to turn them rather then turning them the traditional way.  But, we never did get to that part.  I was hoping to get to it in a quiet moment.  I still have the activity in mind for future reference.

Although we didn't get to the reading part we stilled covered the Physical Science part of this lesson - Physical Science 27.2 which states: Explores forces and motion.  I would probably put Lachlan at Benchmark E, experiments with and explains invisible forces (ramps, magnets, etc).  He can explain them at his level, I am guessing they don't expect him to explain this in a complex scientific way.

Benchmark D - explains how common vehicles, animals and people move.  Sorts objects by type of movement.  This he would have no trouble with.  Benchmark F states, experiments and compares the movement of various objects on a variety of surfaces.  He does do this, so he very well could be Benchmark F but I am most comfortable placing him at E. 

Next we moved on to Sailboat Puppet. What colors would you like the sails of to be if you had a boat?  Soon they got the chance to color their sails which ever color they chose.

First, I gave them the hull of their ship and played "Smooth Sailing" on the Treasure Island CD.  They moved their ships to the rhythm of the music, pretending they were moving up and down on the waves.

 I left the song on repeat as we got started with more of the craft.  I first showed them how to cut one rectangle into 2 triangles.  Lachlan thought that was pretty cool and put the two shapes back together to see the rectangle again.

Everyone was working hard, except Peter who seems to have taken a quick break.

 Lachlan really likes to make his craft just like the one in the photo on the craft instruction sheet.  I keep trying to encourage him to do his own thing, but he won't have it.  He seems to be a by the book kind of guy.  He matched the colors and patterns of his to those in the picture.

Autumn wanted to pose for a picture.

The last lesson we did this day was called Boat Math.  We laid boats 1 through 10 face up on the ground.  I asked the kids, what do you wish you had "more" of?  Lachlan wished for more Guinea Pigs.  Then I asked, what do you wish you had less of?

MGT had us instruct each child to hold up 2 fingers on one hand and hold up 5 on the other.  Then ask which hand has more fingers held up and which has less.

This was the premise for the rest of the lesson.  Two of the children would pick a number and then hold up that many fingers.  Then the question would be asked, who has more and who has less.

I didn't notice until editing that in the background it looks as though Peter may have had an accident.  I assure you though, he was just playing at the water table.

None the less, this is an awesome exercise for teaching the quantity or size associated with numbers.  Of course this is only numbers 1 through 10, but it still gets the idea across.  A version of this could be played by simply whispering a number in each childs ear.  Especially if you are on the go or don't have access to number cards.