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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Bee & Pollination Craft-tivity

 

Jet & I made these cute bee & flower crafts yesterday and did a follow-up fine motor activity to illustrate pollination. The original idea was mine, but Jet also gave input and I just love the way it all came together!

To get started with this project you’ll need to print out a realistic picture of a bee. I chose the image above from this website. Print it on cardstock & cut out the body, cutting off the legs, wings, & antennae. You’ll be replacing them with something more useful.

This step is optional, but Jet was begging to do it, so I let him color the bee with markers. I try not to let “pretty” be my goal with crafts, but this did make for a nicer finished product.

 

Next we moved on to decorating our bee. Jet tore up small pieces of yellow tissue paper, which I had intended to have him glue onto the bee, but once again the kid had a better idea than his mom and suggested that we crumple the paper into small balls before we glued them down.  This took a little longer, but I love the way it gave the bee texture! (and the extra fine-motor work)

Jet used a q-tip to apply the glue for the crumbled paper balls.

This next step probably would have been better done before the decorating, but……I didn’t. Whenever you do it, you’ll want to hole-punch six holes (3 on each side) of the bee’s thorax. This is where the legs will be attached. (Looking for more info on bee anatomy? There’s a great free worksheet set available here.)

I wasn’t able to get many pictures of this next step, but hopefully I can explain it well enough. You’ll want to bend a pipe cleaner into the shape shown, put a line of glue (I used hot glue) on the top of the bee between each pair of leg holes & thread the two ends of the pipe cleaner into the holes, landing in the glue. I also bent a small piece of pipe cleaner (I used 1/4) and glued it onto the head for antennae.

Now on to the wings! Bees actually have two sets of wings, the fore wings and hind wings, which connect together with a row of hooks. For our model bee I used 3/4 of a pipe cleaner for each of the fore wings and 1/2 of a pipe cleaner for each of the hind wings.

For the flower portion of our project we also started with a printed pattern. I chose to keep it simple and went with the picture shown above which you can find here. I printed it on cardstock & cut it out for Jet. He tore up small pieces of pink tissue paper and glued them on, overlapping them as he went to cover up all the white of the paper. After Jet was finished decorating the flower, I hot glued a bottle cap that I had rescued from the recycling into the center.

Here are Jet’s finished crafts ready for our fine motor activity. As you can see I filled the center of the flower with yellow & orange pony-bead “pollen”.

Before starting our fine motor activity, Jet & I read Bee & Me and talked a little about the importance of bees and their role in pollination. This book has good information & a cute story that encourages us not to be scared of bees but to appreciate them for their contributions. We also own Honey in a Hive (from the Let's Read & Find Out Science series) & The Magic School Bus Inside a Beehive. I hope to get to both of those later, but Bee & Me by Elle McGuinness is my top choice for a gentle introduction to bees.

After brushing up on his bee knowledge, Jet got busy letting his bee visit the flower and pick up some "pollen". He exercised those fine motor skills by threading the pollen onto the bee’s legs.

I didn’t get a picture of it, but I also hot-glued a wooden clothespin to the underside of our bee. It gave Jet something more substantial to hold onto and allowed for some extra fun!

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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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Free Printable Math Activity: Feed the Penguin Boxes

I made these cute little Feed the Penguin boxes to use in math & counting games with my boys, and thought I’d share with you, my wonderful readers.

 

I was a bit indecisive so there’s both a free-standing option as well as a flatter variety that’s sized just right to fit over these Dixie 10oz Paper Bowls. You only need one sheet of paper (or cardstock), a few cuts, a little folding, and a bit of tape to make each box. My 3 year-old used his for counting, My 5 year-old addition, and my 7 year-old multiplication. We fed our penguins goldfish, of course!

 

I also laminated our flatter box so that I could use a dry erase marker to write on the penguin’s chest. Here my 3yo, Jet, is getting an early lesson on addition. I had him feed the penguin the two numbers from some simple addition problems, then raise the box to count (& eat!) the total. This boys LOVES his snacks, so this was a perfect activity for him.

Want to make your own Feed the Penguin Boxes?

Click on the links below to download your free printables:

Feed the Penguin “Bowl-Topper” Box Printable

Feed the Penguin "Free-Standing" Box Printable

Each file contains the instructions and printables necessary to make the boxes in either color or black & white. And because Valentine’s day is approaching, I also added a heart to the penguin’s chest, so you can choose to print with or without that.

Enjoy!

Don’t forget to follow this webpage for more hands-on learning ideas! 
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Polar Sensory Bin

Ooooooh YES, it’s messy!

(but so much fun, Mom!)

We couldn’t possibly do a polar unit study without a polar sensory bin, could we?

Above is a picture of the one I put together for my crew. I used Insta-Snow as the base material, and added metal and plastic spoons, colored flat marbles, a couple of animals from our Ocean TOOB , the globe from the top of the Toob packaging, some test tubes & mini petri dishes that we'd used before, and some small winter themed tubs.

So that was toobs, tubes, & tubs. Got it? ;)

The Insta-Snow is a bit messy, but with that comes some unique possibilities.
These southern boys got to make snowballs!

And scoop, and pour

And mold, and dig, & bury their fingers

and generally make….

  

a mess themselves smile!
Which makes this mama smile.

(The Insta-Snow actually does vacuum up really easily.)


Do you enjoy sensory bins in your home?
If so, what have been some of your favorites?

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