Letter U Week

Letter Formation/Pre-Writing

Tracing the letters with his write and wipe cards and Letter Tracing Pages from 1+1+1=1

Practicing writing in his sand box.

Making H's out of foam crafting blocks.  You can download the templates here.

 Stickers on the Dot Letters from Confessions of a Homeschooler

 Using his Build a Letter Templates and HWWT pieces. First he built the letters on the templates, then he built them by themselves.

Building letters with pattern blocks.  Templates from Confessions of a Homeschooler.

Letter Maze

(Printable here)

Literacy

Working on sound switching during out All About Spelling Lesson (see how we have adapted it for Xander).  Still need to get a shelf for the marker board...

Cut and Paste Phonics Hunt

(Print it here)

Math

I had a bunch of papers in the basket with the numbers 0-10.  We took turns drawing a number and then entering it on the abacus.  Then the opposite person would "guess" what number was drawn.

First he arranged dot cards in order (from Right Start Math), then he put blue tiles by the even numbers and yellow tiles by the even numbers.  Then I had him look for a pattern.

Still using our Reading 100s chart.  It has been great for talking about numbers, counting by tens, etc.  It has also been good for showing him how 50 is 5-10s and 60 is 6-10s and so on.

Science

We're still doing our Alphabet in Simple Science, and this week was U for Units (of measurement).  Stop back later this week to see all of the fun activities we did.

Art

Xander was given some Slick Stix, so we decided to try them out to decorate his letter Us.  The colors ended up being very bright and vibrant, definitely more so than with crayons.

 

Sensory Play

Since we did Units of Measure for Science, I made a measuring sensory bin.  I used oatmeal for the based.  I found measuring cups, measuring spoons, and a liquid measuring cup at the dollar store.  The scale I stole from my dad's kitchen.  The muffin tray is from our Bake and Decorate Cupcake set.  I also threw in some silicone cupcake liners.

Recycled Patriotic Candle Jars

We have been trying to do some sort of fun seasonal craft to decorate the mantle.  Xander enjoys it and I get to have mementos to use to decorate when we move into our own place.  For Independence Day we made some pretty candle holders out of recycled jars.  It was perfect because it was fun, cheap and easy!

Materials:

Clean glass jars

Liquid glue

Tissue Paper

Glitter (optional)

First I cut the tissue paper into squares.  They most definitely do not have to be perfect.  Luckily, I only had to cut blue and white since I had red left over from our window leaf craft.  Then I watered down some glue and added some fine glitter. 

I let Xander paint the glue onto the jars with a foam brush and add the squares.  Since the glue had a tendency to run down the sides, we worked in small areas.  We didn't cover the bottoms, just because I was worried about heat with the paper.  Then we let them dry.

The finished products 

Since we weren't super neat with the glue (as in Xander painted glue all over the bottom of the jar), I put them on little candle plates so no glue would get on the wood.

I added them to the mantle with a wooden frame I painted.

 

Magnetic Marble Run... Almost - Taking the Small Wins

So I admit that I have a slight obsession with all things early education.  I particularly LOVE constructive, open ended toys.  They are so wonderful in that they allow children to make and test predictions immediately (can I balance this on my tower without it falling), adjust plans, and solve problems without them even realizing.  Not to mention, I kind of always wanted them as a child, but really didn't have too many because I was a girl, although that's a totally different post!  Anyway, I've always got my eye out for fun toys like that and reading the book Design Make Play, made me start thinking about how I could make some of my own at home.

One idea I came up with was a magnetic marble run.  I saved a bunch of paper towel and toilet paper tubes and when I had plenty, I attached some dot magnets and cut semicircles at some of the ends.  I had all these visions of big elaborate marble tracks crisscrossing my fridge.  I saved a yogurt container that I planned to use to "catch" the marble at the end.  Xander was super excited.

Sadly, it was not to be.  The magnets weren't strong enough and the marbles were too heavy.  When they would come to an end where we expected it to go back the other way, the marble would rotate the tube and fall to the floor.  The magnets also fell off the yogurt container.  We were both a little disappointed.  However, we kept playing with it and found that Xander liked making shorter tracks and shooting them into a plastic shoe-box that I put all the tubes in.  It seems to work fine as long as you don't try to switch back the opposite direction down the fridge.  That first day he played almost half an hour (eons in toddler time!).  He's also gotten it out since.  Oh, and used the tubes as telescopes, microphones, swords etc.

Even though it didn't quite turn out like planned, it still ended up being a fun, creative, inexpensive activity for him.  The magnetic tubes will probably stay on our toy shelves for quite a while.  

As happy as I am with this homemade version, I will admit, I purchased him some transparent marble runs from Lakeshore because they're currently a bonus buy.  I'm excited that we'll have both kinds of runs to play with!

T for Temperature

See what we did for other letters in the Alphabet in Simple Science.

T for Temperature

Science Notebook Page (Click the picture to print).

     Background

We started out by talking about what temperature is and how hot things have a higher number than cold things.  We also read some books about hot and cold and watched The Magic School Bus: In the Arctic.  Then I got out our thermometers and we took our temperatures.  This let us talk about how our bodies increase our temperatures to fight germs, and why we take our temperatures when we're not feeling well.
 

Last week we did a Frozen Theme, and as part of it I froze some colored water in a star shaped ice cube tray.  We talked about how putting the water in the freezer turned it to ice.  Then I let him play with the stars outside.  They started melting and I asked him why.  He wasn't sure, so I had him thing about the what it is like in the freezer and what it is like outside.  It didn't take him long to figure out that they melted because they got warmer.  We also talked about how melting means it changes states (goes from solid to liquid).

We also did a temperature sorting activity from 1+1+1=1 (under letter H).

Exploring Temperatures
Materials:

Infrared Thermometer

Procedure:
We were lucky in that my dad happened to have an infrared thermometer that he uses to check his engine (Amazon has them a lot cheaper than I would have expected.  I think my dad's was pretty expensive when he bought it.)  Anyway, we used it to go exploring around the house.  We made a list so we could compare temperatures both qualitatively and quantitatively.

We tested a cold burner (79F) and a warm one (488F).  Before we tested the warm one, I asked him to predict whether the number would be bigger or smaller than the cold burner.

We got some milk out of the fridge and I asked whether he thought it would be a high or low number.  Afterwards we tested an ice pack, and once again I had him predict whether the number would be higher or lower than that of the milk.

I completely forgot to get a picture, but we also tested the cement outside in the sun and compared it to the cement in the shade.  It was kind of nice because he could feel the different in temperature with his hand, making it less abstract.  We also tested the two different colors on his plastic slide, so see if the color made a difference in temperature.  We tested our legs, the deck, the grill, and lots of other things around the house.

Comparing Hot and Cold - Tricky Senses
While we were exploring temperature, I emphasized how temperature is the unit that we use to measure how hot or cold something is.  However, sometimes our brains can trick us into thinking something is hotter or colder than it really is.  I set out three bowls of water, one hot (although safe to little hands to touch), one cold, and one lukewarm.  I had him hold one hand in the hot bowl and one hand in the cold bowl for about a minute.  Then had him put both hands in the warm bowl.  Then I asked him to make observations.  He talked about how the water in the warm bowl was the same temperature, his different hands just thought it was different temperatures.

Keeping Warm
Materials:

Thermometer
Blanket, mittens, coat, or other material used to keep warm

Procedure:
A common misconception little ones have is that blankets and coats make us warm by making heat.  To challenge this I had Xander do this investigation.  First I showed him a thermometer and how to read it.  Then I asked him what he does to stay warm.  We talked about putting on more clothes, coats, blankets, etc.  I asked him to go get his blanket and then predict what would happen if he covered up the thermometer.

We waited 15-20 minutes and came back to check.

When we found that the thermometer was still reading the same temperature, I had Xander think about why that might be.  He actually couldn't come up with an answer, so I helped him out a little.  I reminded him that our bodies are warm (we'd tested them with a few different thermometers).  When we put on clothing or a blanket, it helps trap that heat into our bodies.  Then I asked him whether the thermometer made heat.  Since it does not, the blanket can't help hold that heat in.  With an older child you could get into insulators and even conductors, but I decided to leave it there with him.

Check out my Alphabet in Simple Science Pinterest Board for more ideas!