A Visual Book to Teach Sentence Parts (6 yrs old)

I bought a Mad Libs book for my niece and I to do together this summer. However, I needed to figure out a way to teach her about the basic parts of a sentence.

For me this was a difficult one to learn because I couldn't "see" it, as a child. My niece (going into 1st grade this year) is a great reader, but I know she'd get frustrated with reading this. And, I know that trying to teach by simply explaining would be impossible for her age.  So ... here's what I came up with:

To help with playing Mad Libs. 

I created a Word document for Nouns and Adjectives. We started with nouns and Clip Art. I did the top row first showing a teacher, school and bus (person, place and a thing). She started thinking of the rest.

We printed her noun pictures and then she cut them out and pasted them in her rows.

This kind of activity is super fun for her. A: she likes to use a computer B: she loves cutting and pasting. 

Here's a close up of all of the nouns she picked herself and organized into each row on her document:

Baby, House, Dog

Doctor, Hospital, X-Ray

Librarian, Library, Book

Farmer, Farm, Cow

Visitor, Zoo, Zebra

The Adjectives page we created on the computer and printed. She selected some of her nouns, and described them to me. As she was using her descriptive words, I typed, and then we printed it off. 

This book has been very empowering for my niece. She's learning at a very fast pace. Can't wait to add more to her book as we explore the rest of the parts of sentences. 

~AJ

Farm Literacy Activity with Toob Animals

For this activity we're using our Homemade Reading Books, Toob animals and some wooden trays and alphabet tiles found at Michael's Crafts.

This was set up for my son to visit. When he showed interest in it, I asked if I could sit down and play with him.

Can you find this animal in your reading book? Do you see the name of the animal? What letters do you see?

The letters are hidden in this puzzle ... can you find them?

Cute:) 

Then he chose the pig and we did it again. This time we pretended the pig was really smelly, and in order to get rid of the smell, we needed to spell the word. 

Adorable! 

Then he chose a sheep. 

Again, just too stinkin' cute! 

My nieces liked doing this with the Frozen characters. 

We also completed a "puzzle." This sheet of paper was from our Cheez-It Fun Post.

Magnetic Farm: Lu 15 months

Our Doctor's office has this fun magnetic table top with sand inside and two frogs. My son and daughter both love to play on the table when we visit. As I was observing them play, I thought I could make something similar, and here it is ...

Playing off of my daughter's interests, I created a farm theme. 

The "Toob" animals were hot glued to giant washers and then placed into a shadow box.

I tried putting Popsicle sticks inside for animal pens.  

I added some sand and wrapped the bottom of the shadow box in clear contact paper so the sand wouldn't be able to find its way out.  

The shadow box is located in one of our play rooms (living room) where I currently have a farm area set up. 

My daughter is playing with the tractor, farm and "a guy" (as she likes to call the farmer) on top of the box as my son moves them around with a magnet from the bottom.

Tried to get a good close-up of the magnetic farm when they were done playing.

15 months recognizing:

 cow is "a moo"

sheep as "baa"

horses as "neigh"

farmer is "a guy"

tractors are currently "choo choo" 

dogs are either "doga, or Bo Bo"

Exploring fruits and vegatables - and a visual for kids

Here is a visual I created to help my kids eat their fruits and vegetables:

The top is a food pyramid, below are the cards showing the kids a part of the body, and a list of foods that are beneficial to that body part.

 

I made cards for our Brain, Heart, Bones, Teeth, Hair, Skin, Eyes and Muscles.

 

My son is so into muscles and my nieces want to have beautiful, healthy hair so they were excited to try the food on those cards!

 

We hung our visuals on the fridge:

Close-up (a card showing food that's good for your bones).

 

Before introducing the cards, we explored some fruit and vegetables with our senses. Seeing, touching, tasting, smelling ... take a look at all of the education that took place here ...

Let's touch the vegetables and talk about which ones are familiar to you. Are there any you're unsure of? Which ones are fruit and which ones are vegetables?

Then we broke up the veggies and placed them into our own snack bags. 

Showing him the visual card I made, I pointed out that broccoli is good for your hair. He took a big bite out of it, and eventually spit it out. He did eat the cauliflower! 

They were proud of their veggie snack bags! 

Here they are putting their vegetable snack bags into our "grab a snack" drawer. 

Let's pick up the fruit to see how heavy it is. What is it?!

Mmm, smelling the fruit was a lot of fun too!

Peeling and cutting... 

Love that face! 

Peeling and cutting... 

We love the banana slicer! 

The best part was tasting, I'd say .... 

Talking about why we wash fruits and vegetables... 

What fruits and vegetables need to be washed and which ones don't.

Do I like this? Yes!

Our snack drawer is perfect! 

Enjoy!

No Sew Pillowcase Skirts

My nieces (5 and 6 yrs old) designed and created their own skirts this week.

First they sketched what they wanted their skirts to 

look like.

We had fabric scraps left over from the capes we created last week. they ironed fabric adhesive to the back of the scraps, drew their designs from their sketches on the back, and then cut them out and ironed them on.

Next they got to work adding details with fabric markers. 

While they were doing this, I helped cut out the borders they wanted, they ironed them on. 

It was a lot of fun watching their drawings come to life on their skirts, and to see their faces light up throughout the process. 

They are so proud of these. I'm so proud of them!

No Sew Super Hero Capes

Yesterday the four kids and I took a trip to the store. It was rowdy, and a ton of fun! They got to pick out a pillowcase, some fabric and ribbon of their choice. They even got to check out their own items at the self checkout. 

We raced home and got to work.

We cut out fabric letters that I free handed. You could use stencils if you want, but I wanted them to be nice and big! The kids ironed on some adhesive to the back, cut the excess off, and ironed them to their pillowcases.

The best part of this project is that the kids are fully capable of helping create their capes - no sewing required! 

Even "Boogie" got to do some ironing:) 

Wonder woman. 

Wonder Woman, Wonder-Bell and Boogie Man.

These girls are just too adorable in their dresses, ribbon and bow Super Hero capes!