Flower Week Day 7, Ocean Week Day 6

I just realized I never posted these photos (sorry!). 

For ocean week on Saturday we took a hammer to a few rocks and chose our favorite jagged pieces and then threw them in a water bottle with some sand and water- all week long while at Papa and Grama's the girls are shaking the bottle (when they think about it) and then when they return we will pour out the water and sand and see how the rocks look. I don't have any picture of this experiment but I will post photos of the rocks when we look at them again. 

For the last day of flower week we did a very simple math craft. I gave them each 5 flower centers with numbers on them. 

Then, for KK, she made a multiplication to equal that and represented it on the page.
For KL, she counted that many petals and glued them on. 

I had them pick their flower centers randomly when we started, so of course KK got 3 different prime numbers!! She made those easy by just gluing 1 petal on each of those centers. 

(The 16 has 2 to the left side and 8 to the right, and the 3 and 4 of 12 kind of all ran together but I knew what she was doing.) 

KL got a little tired because she had a lot more gluing to do, so by the end she was counting them out and handing them to me to attach but she still did the counting. 

That's all for now,
Jo!

Ocean Week Day 4, Flower Week Day 6

Today we compared salt water and fresh water!

We compared look.

We compared smell.

We compared taste (a picture taken a moment after this would have been better- but look at that dimple!!).

And then we talked density of water as we put an egg in each cup.

And since this wasn't "crafty" enough we went straight to our flower math game.
We started by coloring our "vases" (recycled Gerber yogurt cups).

Then added a little "dirt" (or ocean play dough).

Then they took turns rolling a dice to see who could fill their vase faster. I really wanted two dice so they would practice their addition, but we could only find one :(

Our flowers were just a set of floral picks, meant for a luau themed party (but I paid like $4 for 6 dozen). I split the picks evenly between the girls and they took turns rolling the dice to add to their vase until someone ran out.
And the winner:

KK- not that she looks too excited in this picture (I swear I can't get this child to smile for most pictures).

That's all for now,
Jo!

Flower Week, Day 5

Today for our make up we made shape flowers.

We discussed shape names, along with sides and angles for each.  And then let their imagination take control.

This really was very simple, I looked through my scrap paper and cut it into squares, circles, rectangles, and triangles and kept them sorted for easy use.

 You could definitely added other shapes if desired, but I stuck with ones I could easily cut out (I used a circle hole punch to make them easier).

That's all for now,
Jo!

Flower Week Day 4 & Ocean Day 1

Last week we encountered life interrupted and had absolutely no time for our activities! But to help keep us distracted from the pain of the interruption and allow my girls to experience what I had panned for them, this week will be more like a 2-in-1 (and next week they're vacationing with Papa and Grama so it gives me a little more Big K time before they leave for a week).

For our flower day we used our paintings we made earlier and hung them on a wall with an added stem.

Then I had the girls write equations (addition and subtraction for 6 yo KL and multiplication and division for 4th grade KK) on the leaves. Then they added them to the appropriate answer.

Action shots:

 (KK was using a white board to double check and work out her problems.)

This week is a science week, with an ocean theme.
So as a simple start we looked at a few different types of ocean creatures and a few books with information of other elements (such as sea weed and sea shells and the way the ocean floor looks). Then we did an art project that is a small aquarium.
We started with a paper plate painted blue (and another with the bottom painted blue and the middle cut out). We covered the hole with a piece of plastic wrap (or cellophane if you've got some).

We used green pipe cleaners for sea weed.

And scrap paper to make fun fish (along with washi tape). We also added some small seashells to finish the ocean floor. Then we taped the front on.
Here's the finished projects:

That's all for now,
Jo!

Flower Week Day 3

Today was the only day it was not supposed to rain this week, so we took a break to get out of the house. To follow our flower theme I made a chart for my K girls to track a few flower characteristics (shapes, size, and flower & petal count), and off we went up and down a few streets of our neighborhood.

After they were sufficiently tired of walking (we live on a hill, every street is easy one way and torture the other) and feeling like they were going to overheat (even though we went early in the morning before it got to be too hot), we headed inside to look over all our information. 

Then we decided on a category (or 2 for KK) and made a graph to show what we had found. KK knows about graphs and how to make them (although it has been a while so she needed a quick refresher after a mini-meltdown worrying she wouldn't be able to do it) but KL has no experience and needed help. 

(My little KL is such a goof- she was coloring her bar graph using a clothes pin holding the crayon.) 

KK graphed number of petals and the color of the petals; KL graphed the color of petals,

It was great way to get out of the house and still incorporate our theme. 

That's all for now,
Jo! 

Flower Week, Days 1 & 2

Last night we went got home late and had very little time to do anything.
This week started a flower theme, and math-centered lessons too.
Since I needed something quick I went with an activity I found online here.

It was super simple. It allowed KL the opportunity to identify the numbers (and match them to the chart) and to make the lesson a little more difficult for KK, we introduced the concept of probability and fractions to represent them too.

Here's the action shots:

KL lucked out (twice) and beat KK. The second round we even made them build in the order flowers grow. They had fun (minus losing twice).

For today, I printed off a few worksheets I had found online. It was set up as a multiplication activity, but I switched it to addition for KL (just out of Kindergarten).

(Isn't KL adorable counting on her fingers <3 her!!) 

(KK finished quickly and started coloring hers)

After that we painted a few swirlly flowers for a game later this week.

We just put a little drop of 2-4 colors and then swirled the paintbrush outward- and we had a few we decided look like a pile of poop- we may have over-swirled our paints.

That's all for now,
Jo!