eLeMeN-O Playschool Catch Up

can you say SLACKER....

Finishing up the colors, I was sick somewhere between Purple and Brown but we did do a few things:

Purple Highlights

Mixing

Owen joined in...

... and may have had a little too much fun!

Harold and the Purple Crayon by Crocket Johnson

{Cute youtube video read here}

GREAT book! at the end I gave Levi a purple crayon and a white piece of paper and let him be 'Levi and the purple crayon' as he scribbled out 'pictures' telling me a story

Brown Highlights

Mud Bath

I let Levi loose in the tub with chocolate pudding

(and no I did not let him eat it)

Tracking

I made 'tracks' with various toys on small pieces of paper by dipping them in brown paint and pressing them on their individual papers. Levi had a large piece of paper, put all the toys through the paint and on the paper and then matched the toy to it's small 'track' paper

... and then of course we had to make HIS 'track'

Shapes

Levi has always been interested in shapes and learns their names fast, so I didn't spend a lot of time on them- although now I wish I would have... I may have been a little lazy with the craziness of finals, organizing the packing process, graduation... but we did some fun things

{I read somewhere that children need to know square, triangle, circle before going onto rectangle, diamond, oval, ect. So this is the order we did the shapes in: week #1: circle/square/triangle, week #2: oval/rectangle/diamond, week #3: crescent/star/heart

Shape Highlights

Triangle

I let Levi fill a milk jug cap with hot glue, and stick a triangular sail attached to a toothpick in it- then we set sail by blowing it back and forth {blowing, by the way, helps children develop muscles for speech... or so I was told by the Parents as Teachers group}

oh, and yes the boat was attacked by a dinosaur of course.

Circle/Oval

When it came time to learn about the oval I pulled out my circle and oval shape mats (I made mine with paint and word doc to save ink, but you can find them here (scroll down you'll find them) or here if you just want to go straight to the .pdf). Levi filled the circle with playdough, then we stretched it out into an oval...

... he thought it was pretty cool!

and for those interested in the activities we did not pictured...

Circle

Clown/Somersaults- make a clown face on a paper plate- adding the red circle clown nose last, do circle somersaults like clowns

Planets- talk about round planets and then pretended to be astronauts while jumping to various planets (ie sensory steps found here}

Square

Turtle- paint the underside of a paper bowl green, attach green squares to make a turtle shell

Diamond

Kite- make one (even if it doesn't actually fly)

Star

Star Fish- cut out a star shape, cover with glue, and cover with oatmeal for a bumpy affect, lay on the floor and move like a star fish

Crescent

Moon- make a moon and act out Hey Diddle Diddle (like we already did once)

Oval

Race Track- make a race track (inside with tape on the floor, outside with chalk) race around it like race cars

Rectangle

Train Cars- I printed out Thomas the Train (Levi loves him) and we made rectangle train cars behind him, with a red caboose at the back so we could sing the little red caboose song (if you don't know it youtube it!)

sorry I've been lame about posting!