Day 2 of 5 Days of Montessori Preschool

In the Nest (available used on Amazon or in your local library)
 

Topics:  Spring, Birds

Letter Identification: Letter tray or Box – Letter N, Letter E, Letter B

E is for Egg from DLTK – print black and white page and use dot makers, and/or print colored page and use round magnets or other small round object. These activities are good for one-to-one correspondence which is used when counting, ie. 1 object equals 1

Nature: Go bird watching, hunt for nests, eggs, feathers, etc…, take a bird watching book with you, try to identify the birds you see or take pictures and try to identify them online when you get home.

Make a bird feeder or purchase one, hang it outside in an easily viewable location, count the number of birds that visit in a given time, for older kids you can make a graph of the types of birds that visit. (Math)

Science: Grow bird seed, place bird seed on a damp sponge and watch it grow

Have bird nests, feathers, egss, etc for observation with a magnifying glass

Life skills: Spooning Eggs (robin eggs, jelly beans, small pom poms, etc…) Spoon from left to right, from one container (‘nest’) to another.

Math: Safari Ltd Toob Backyard Birds OR Safari LTD Exotic Birds Toob – Roll the dice and put that many birds in the nest, talk about the birds, sort by color, shape, etc.., match to 3 part cards.

Bird Pattern Blocks (Melissa and Doug) or Tangram pattern http://www.exploratorium.edu/awards/awards2004/images/main_tangram-bird.gif

Fine Motor – Peeling hard boiled egg, or have your child help make scrambled eggs. Older children can even help to crack the eggs. (crack into a separate bowl to avoid shells in your dish!)

Use clothespin to pick up worms (small pieces of pipe cleaner)

Shape nests out of playdough, roll eggs to go into the nest

Sensory Bin- scoops, birdseed, magnetic marbles and wand, fake nest (from Oriental Trading, pack of 4)

Montessori Print Shop – Bird Match up Memory (FREE), Bird Book (from Toddler Bundle), Birds and Beaks (FREE, for older kids).

Arts – Make a nest with yarn and OVAL eggs

http://www.thecraftyclassroom.com/CraftNatureBirdsEggs.html

http://kiddiecrafts365.wordpress.com/2011/05/02/duckling-eggs-in-nest-craft/

Make a scraps bag for birds to get nesting materials http://spoonful.com/crafts/bird-nesting-bag

Listening: Listen to MP3 clips from Songbirds: Field & Meadow, Ocean & Coast or Park & Garden.

Snacks: http://sherrihaab.wordpress.com/2010/04/03/easter-nest-treats/

http://myshaenoel.blogspot.com/2011/04/birds-nest-snack-idea-and-fine-motor.html

A healthier choice http://www.brighthubeducation.com/preschool-crafts-activities/42916-preschool-bird-activities-and-crafts-make-an-edible-bird-nest/

Homeschool Creations: Bird Pack http://homeschoolcreations.com/birdpreschoolpack.html

Confessions of a Homeschooler – N is for nest http://www.confessionsofahomeschooler.com/blog/2010/01/prek-letter-n.html

Egg Activities from Totally Tots - http://totallytots.blogspot.com/2011/03/now-i-know-my-abcs-ee-is-for-egg.html

Bird Sensory Tub from Totally Tots - http://totallytots.blogspot.com/2011/03/whats-in-tub-birds.html

Bird Printables from 1+1+1=1 http://www.1plus1plus1equals1.com/PreschoolPackbirds.html

Bird Printables from3 Dinosaurs:
http://www.3dinosaurs.com/printables/packs/bird.php

See what we did - Our BIRD activities:  Examples on how to put together the resources listed for your child. 

Other books:  The Best Nest, Birds (Great for colors), ARE YOU MY MOTHER? (a great lead in to an upcoming unit – baby animals).

Unit coming soon:

Wrap - Up (preschool & first grade) week 25

 I've combined Preschool and First Grade wrap-ups together this week, because of all the other great posts I have going up!
But here was our week:

Eeboo Baby Animals Puzzle Pairs
One of the first steps in Happy Phonics is matching pictures of Adult Animals to Baby Animals, to introduce the concept of SAME but DIFFERENT, like in capital and lowercase letters.  We are using this puzzle set to do so.


Feather painting

Transfer of eggs from nest to nest

Roll the dice and put that many birds in the nest

First Grade

We talked about how birds have oil on their feathers to help keep them dry and did this experiment from Pandia Press Life Science to show what oil does when it gets wet.

A Tie dyed shirt from Co-op this week

We also gave documentaries a try this week -
We watched:
Treasures of the Sunken City
Beyond the Movie:  Alexander the Great

C read:


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Weekly Workboxes - Week 25 (Birds)

Bird books

Are You My Mother?
Make Way for Ducklings
How Do Birds Find Their Way? (Let's-Read-and-Find-Out Science 2)
In the Nest
Birds

Science Center - nests, feathers and a bird bone

Sensory bin - scoops, birdseed, magnetic marbles and wand, fake nest (from Oriental Trading, pack of 4)

do-a-dot page from DLTK-teach

Melissa and Doug Pattern Blocks

Bird Toob and fake nest - roll di put that many birds in nest

What is different from 3Dinosaurs.com

Place marbles on the duck suction cups

Nn tray

Transfer eggs from one nest to another

Melissa and Doug spelling boards - bird, duck & hen

Birdseed sweeping

Melissa and Doug Switch & Spin

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Puffins Lapbook

So with science class being about birds and mammals, each child was assigned to do a report on a bird of their choice. We came home after the first class and went through what animal books we had about birds, and Cole chose to learn about Puffins. We read about them, watched several YouTube videos about them...and we lap booked about them. The assignment actually said to write a report, but since he is the youngest in the class and is not writing much more than his name as of right now, we decided a lap book was the best option. I wrote in the words, but he helped me find the information, he read it to me (in most cases), and I wrote it. Then he did the gluing and some of the cutting.
So presenting our Puffins project:




I got most of the lap booking items from Bird Lap books and from Enchanted Learning (I mentioned this site before, it's a $20/yr membership fee, but has lots of really useful stuff, well worth the cost IMO).

Zane of course wanted to have something to do as well, so I pulled out the play dough and some plastic scissors. This is a great way to build the muscles kids need to use scissors. Paper is to flimsy for them to cut, so starting out with play dough really helps them get a feel for scissors, then you can move onto card stock or tag board (b/c it's not flimsy).... The only way for kids to learn to cut is to let them do it! Cole still needs some work, but he has never been into arts and crafts, and never graduated much past cutting play dough (b/c he never wanted to).

Then we took a field trip to the Scholastic Books Warehouse SALE...a dangerous place for me! YIKES! I am a book-a-holic, but I found lots of great books...and controlled my spending (for the most part). I got some books for this year (K) and the next 2 schools years (1st and 2nd grade). But, as I always have said...you can NEVER have to many books...and I have put it to the test! I'd much rather have my bookshelves over flowing than a bunch of junk toys everywhere! Here is what I got for $75.

We're going to the zoo! zoo! zoo!

So since science class this month is covering Birds and Mammals, and the Honolulu Zoo was having a Migratory Bird Day event, we headed that way to check it out. I'll be honest the Migratory Bird thing was a bust...it took us forever to find it, and it wasn't really much of anything. We still participated, the kids colored some bird masks, then we played a 'migration' game where we were the game pieces and we were migrating from station to station...however, we died...we were eaten by a cat. O well, survival of the fittest I guess.
We went over what he has learned in class...Mammals are warm blooded and they have hair. Birds are warm blooded and have feathers. Both are vertebrate (meaning they have backbones).
Here are some pics from the zoo trip:


a display about eggs and nests

a kookaburra

a bird of paradise

a Victoria crowned pigeon



The boys with their bird masks

Probably the best part of the day was when we saw the spider monkeys, C read the sign himself, and said "Do spiders come out of their butts or something?" We about died laughing!


We also checked out the Keiki Zoo (Children's Zoo) and of course, the playground!

The yummiest part was getting shaved ice afterwards






We found that the zoo does have lots of great keiki programs as well, and may look into doing some of them while we are here...as they coincide with our curriculum.
Some of the zoo activities they have are:
Twilight Tours
Keiki Zoo Keeper
and Star Gazing at the Zoo

And of course, we'll be covering oceans and oceans animals this year...we will also be checking out the Aquarium! Which also has lots of great programs, as well.

I have some zoo cards that I need to laminate and put on a ring for us to use on our next zoo trip.