School on the Go

In October, we went to visit our family in Eastern Oregon (over an 8 hour trip for us) and I didn’t want us to not do any school stuff so I put together a little “school on the go” kit. We weren’t able to take everything with us (like our circle time board and some other things) but I tried to bring as much as I could.

Here’s what I put together for our trip.

I bought an accordion file folder to hold all of our school things and to keep them as organized as possible instead of just putting it all in a backpack for us to rummage through.

The neat part of this one that I found was that there was a spot to hold a disc and it was perfect for our monthly cd! :)

In the first couple of pockets, I put our teacher guides and our planning journal.

The next two pockets I put our Dance ‘n Beats DVD and guide book. We brought along our portable DVD player and Miss M really enjoyed watching this in the car.

The next pockets were for our daily bags.

I ended up deciding to take the activity items out of their daily bag and only taking the ones we were going to do for sure to try to save a little bit of room. I also did this so that I could prep a little bit too so there wasn’t so much work to do later.

And that’s about it! I wish I had gotten some more pics but I wasn’t able to. I will be on our next trip for sure though! :) We weren’t able to get through every single thing that we wanted to because Miss M was so excited seeing everyone and all that, but that’s ok. It kept her very entertained with the activities we were able to do in the car there and back and she had lots of fun.

Life Cycle of a Tree

Last month we learned about life cycles of a tree.

The first life cycle we learned was the seed.

We got to play a fun Seed Letters game. I wrote Miss M’s name on a nametag and then trimmed the bottom of some paper cups. We pretended they were our “seeds”. I wrote each letter of her name on each seed. Then I buried the seeds in a blanket and then Miss M would find one and we’d compare it to the letters on her nametag. When we found it we would clap and cheer that she found the seed. If it wasn’t the letter we were looking for, she would put it back and look for another.

We also played a seed counting game. We had a little game board with the numbers 1-6 and a circle in each space representing that number on it. I gave Miss M a little bowl of dry cereal (our seeds) and then I would try to have her place one piece of cereal on each circle. Then we would try to point to and count each piece.

She did pretty well with this and then after a while she decided she wanted to snack on our “seeds”.

The next life cycle we learned about was the root.

I got out our theme poster for the month and sat down with Miss M to try to name objects on it. She really likes these posters. She had fun pointing out and naming familiar objects (apple, bird, tree).

Another activity Miss M loves is decorating her little journals each month. I gave her the journal and then helped her trace her hand onto the cover. Then we tried to color her hand like a tree’s leaves and then decorate with yarn pieces for roots. I didn’t get a chance to get a picture of this in time before she already took the “roots” off. Gotta be quicker next time!

Next life cycle is the trunk

We got to learn the story of Honest George. I gave Miss M a spoon and a bowl and we turned it upside down like a drum. She loved this! I had to let her play with it for a bit because she didn’t want to listen to the story at first because she was having so much fun banging on the bowl.

As I read the story, I encouraged her to act out the story by pounding the spoon on the bowl and pretending to be George chopping down the tree. Then I explained that we should always say what is true when we answer questions and then Miss M got an Honest Bee Badge

The next life cycle of a tree is the branch.

This activity was a huge hit as well. We got to do some fruit pie counting. I got out our little pie tins that Mother Goose Time provided us as well as our Fruit Bead manipulatives. I showed Miss M how to put one bead in each pie tin and then had her continue to fill the tins with one bead.

Then we would dump them out and repeat, but putting two pieces in each tin this time. And then repeating with three and four pieces.

And finally the last life cycle of a tree is the leaves.

The activity for today that Miss M enjoyed the most was Hungry Caterpillar Beads. We had a green pipe cleaner and some beads that we were to put together to create our hungry caterpillar. I gave Miss M one bead and had her try to slide it onto the pipe cleaner. It took her a little bit and I had to help show her how to do it a few times, but she eventually got it and had lots of fun putting the beads onto the pipe cleaner, then taking them off, and then putting them back on. This was a really great fine motor activity for her.