The Giving Tree- Leaf Crowns

I can hardly resist a good book! And it’s even better when it elicits some good discussion! The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein fulfills both of those needs. It’s a sad, yet sweet, book about the relationship between a tree and a boy over the course of their lifetimes. There’s an unexpected depth to this book, so you might want to preread it, especially if you’re unfamiliar with Shel Silverstein.

In his youth, the main character of our book uses leaves from the giving tree to make play crowns. That was the idea we ran with for this project! The materials we used were cheap and easy to find: paper grocery bag, tape, glue, scissors, and of course leaves. (I was easily able to make 4 crowns from one paper bag.)

The instructions are equally simple:

Cut strips from the grocery bag long enough to fit around your head(s).

Glue the tape onto the grocery bag strips sticky-side out. Leave a border of grocery bag on either side of the tape. This will help prevent hair from getting stuck in the tape.

(Double-sided tape probably would have been ideal here, but I didn’t have any so I just used masking tape. I used my fingernail to lightly press the tape into the glue and it was actually really easy. No tapey-gluey mess! No trip to the store needed!)

Leaf hunt time!

The tape worked double duty in allowing me to easily secure the crowns to the boys' heads. We decided to do this as a collaborative project, so all of the boys hunted leaves and put them onto each other's crowns. There was quite a bit of discussion necessary to get each crown made to the wearer's satisfaction. I do so love giving these brothers the opportunity to work together :)

Because this was a group project my youngest was also able to be involved, when we could catch him….

Insert play (& cuteness) here!

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Grammar Games, Part 1: Verb & Direct Object Simon Says

As my second grader and I were reading through his grammar book recently, I got the impression that some of the concepts were still somewhat abstract for him. Now you’re probably thinking, “Well it is GRAMMAR, and he is in 2nd grade....” But I’m a proponent of early grammar education, if it can be taught in an enjoyable manner. With both of those goals in mind, I decided to put a spin on a classic game and introduced my boys to Verb & Direct Object Simon Says.

Acting as Simon, I gave the boys commands such as: “Simon says: Wave your hands” & “Simon says: Lift your legs.” Be careful not to do it if Simon didn’t say! After each command (and while they were still performing the action) I would ask one boy to identify either the verb or the direct object of the sentence. Or sometimes I would mix it up and give them the verb or direct object and ask them what part of the sentence it was. What makes this activity so perfect for Simon Says is the leading questions I could ask if they had any trouble. For a verb we would first repeat the definition of a verb, then I could ask, “What’s the action you’re performing?” If they were having trouble identifying the direct object I could ask, “What’s the OBJECT onto which you’re DIRECTING that action?” The boys could literally look around and see their grammar!

In addition to the more classic commands, I added in some that I knew my crew would particularly enjoy: “Wiggle your tongue, Hug a tree, Jiggle your knees, Shake your hips” and my personal favorite, “Compliment your brother.”  My boys had so.much.fun with this game! They also each took a turn playing Simon and I literally ended up with a pile of laughing boys on the ground when they realized that they could use “me” as the direct object and Jet commanded, “Simon says: Squeeze me!”

I created this little cheat sheet for myself, to help me in coming up with a nice variety of sentences. There are verbs in one column & examples of direct objects in the other. You can read it straight down or mix and match from the two columns to make commands. The cheat sheet leaves out articles and adjectives, so you'll need to add those if you choose to use it. When you’re ready to make this game more difficult throw in some adverbs and prepositional phrases too! If you’d like a free copy of my cheat sheet, you can click on the picture above to download it. If you'd like to share this prinatable, please link back to this blog post and not my actual document. Thank you!

Have Fun!

and Happy National Grammar Day on March 4th!

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Penguin Day Races & Obstacle Course

Welcome!, Welcome!, Welcome!,

to the first ever FumblingThrough Penguin Day(s) celebration!

To review & finish up our penguin studies, we treated ourselves to some outdoor fun, penguin-style!

Here’s our lineup of events:

 

We started off our races with the “Emperor Penguin Waddle”. The boys raced a short course while carrying “eggs” between their knees. If they dropped the “egg” they had to take 2 steps backwards before they could continue.

I also gave them the task of transferring a number of “eggs” from one basket to another by working as a team and using only their tummies. They enjoyed this a bit less than the other games, but I liked it plenty for them. So many joys, frustrations, and lessons to be learned by having to work together with a younger sibling ;)

Next up we had the “Rockhopper Hop”. I gave each boy 2 kitchen towel “rocks” and challenged them to cross the yard without touching the ground. They hopped from “rock” to “rock” after moving the previous “rock” from behind them to in front of them. Mama also participated in this race a few times and I can attest to the fact that it’s more exhausting than you’d think!

This next race was one that the boys made up themselves. We named it the “Ice Sheet Shuffle”. The boys pretended that their towels were ice blocks that they were trying to stay on top of as they crossed the water. They had tons of fun with it!

Due to rain we had to postpone our grand finale obstacle course until another day, hence the clothing changes.  I had also intended to put up some white, black, and orange streamers to make it more festive, so just pretend you see those in the photos below ;) I do have 4 kids to educate and care for and, honestly, cuteness often gets pushed down the list of priorities. Smiles, on the other hand, are always a priority!

A few photos from our “Penguin Dash” Obstacle Course:

 

 

…and I set up a math table with our “Feed the Penguin” boxes.

As you can see, we used things we had around the house to make our obstacle course. So simple, so fun, and a great way to burn off excess energy! The colorful “bumps” are these from Amazon and the cones are just your standard orange cones, faded from lots of good use, but still going strong. We use both of these items for all sorts of games.

While I’m at it, I also wanted to give a grateful shout-out to Busch Gardens: Seaworld! We were able to visit one of their parks during this study and let the boys get up close and personal with some real live penguins. We took advantage of a Busch Gardens program called Waves of Honor, through which military families can get up to 4 free tickets to one of their parks each year. Together time can be scarce for military families and this particular family was very thankful to have been able to share this fun day together!

Check out some of our other polar activities here:

Snowflakes, Art Prints & The Artist Katsushika Hokusai

 Crayon Resist Penguin Science +1 More

Polar Sensory Bin

Free Printable Math Activity: Feed the Penguin Boxes

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Rainbow Craft & Outdoor Activity

Over the course of the last week, we've been combining some outdoor fun & fine motor skills practice to come up with this crafty rainbow!

Here's how we made it:

   

First you'll need to get paint chips in each color you want on your rainbow.

Cut them into small pieces.

Now hide them for your child to find:

Maybe in a flower bed

Or in the pockets of a backpack

(all those zippers make for a great workout for strengthening little hand muscles and working on coordination)

Or outside

Or in a Sensory Bin

(This is our Bugs Sensory Bin for May, still going strong.)

Or around some favorite toys

Or in left over Easter eggs

(another great activity for little hands)

Or maybe all of the above!

(You could also sneak in some counting practice if you dare.)

   

After you find each of your colored treasures, let your child add them to a piece of paper with colored lines in the shape of a rainbow.

We did this over the course of several days, which worked great for my son because he never would have had the patience to make this collage in a single day.

Here's Dude's finished product. (sorry about all the glare)

You could also easily add some cotton balls for clouds, but this is going to be the cover for our Rainbows Lapbook so we choose not to.

Pretty cute, don't you think!

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Photo Scavenger Hunt- Rainbow Style!

Yesterday we went on a scavenger hunt, but not just any old scavenger hunt. To make this more fun I handed over my camera and told Dude to "Find me a rainbow!"

(insert enormous toddler smile here)

Here's a cropped version of what he found:

To say my son loved this activity is an understatement! I don't think I know a child who isn't always eager to get at Mama's camera, and my guy's no different.

He actually took this job quite seriously, but still had SO much fun running around spotting things!

Here are his original photos:

He had a blast doing this and I love being able to go back and see things from his perspective. 

It was so funny to also find close up pictures of his face, toes, and of course he also snapped a nice SUPER duper close-up of the bird poop on the fire hydrant :)

You can find more of our Boredom Busting ideas by clicking HERE and scrolling down.

And if you like what you see, don't forget to follow or subscribe so you don't miss out on any of the FUN! It's going to be a great summer!

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