Let's Go Camping - Tent

The first question of the day was, where would you want to pitch a tent? As they came up with ideas I wrote them out on index cards.  Peter came up with most of them as Lachlan was a bit grumpy for some reason.  Surfboard (that's a good one).  Dinosaur. Mountain. Backyard.

Then we started out our Mini Campsite Art.  Mother Goose Time provided us with a flat paper with a camp scene on it and lines for folding and cutting.  I first let the boys color and then we put it all together.  This is the finished project as it hangs on our refrigerator. 

 They also provided these yellow strips for making a tent and black straws to cut for logs for the campfire as well as red tissue paper for flames.  As you can see, when it was cut and folded as instructed it made the scene 3D.

Next was the Build a Tent lesson.  We were supposed to build a tent with blankets.  Which we didn't end up doing.  Not to worry, we do this every other day.  Just didn't happen to do it on this day.  But the discussion for this lesson was a lot of fun.  Use the index cards that we wrote out with the first discussion question.  Draw a card with an idea of where to build a tent and discuss what could be dangerous about setting up a tent in that location.

The card we picked was the surfboard card.  So I asked Peter what could be dangerous about setting up a tent on a surfboard. It could "flip over and be in the water."  I asked Lachlan and he said it could "float away".

The next two lessons kind of went together.  For Camping Stories we got out our new book that came with this months curriculum.  It's a fun rhyming book all about animals.  I read the book to them while they sat at the counter eating.  I have to say, this is probably the best time and place to read to my children.

If I sit in a chair and have them sit on the floor, they slowly start migrating to my lap.  Then one of them is on my lap and the other one is mad because he wants to be there.  With them at the counter, it eliminated this feud.  That, and their mouths were busy, so they were listening with out much interruption.  I just wrote a post on my struggles with reading time and my solution.

Moving on.  We got out our letter T card and set it next to the book.  They were to search for Ts.  Lachlan didn't want to share his book, so I got Peter his own and pulled out the superhero book from last month.

 Did I mention, that even Adam joined in on the fun.  He is eating his book.  But he really enjoyed watching me read the book. 

While still sitting at the counter we got out our My Little Journal for the Letter T lesson and turned to the T page.  On the T page was a picture of a tent and we were to draw things inside the tent that we would pack when going camping.  Lachlan packed his favorite toy, his pet guinea pig and a chair.