Ocean Animals and St. Patrick's Day (2/18-3/18)

 We have been busy the last few weeks!  Here is what we've done as we've studied Ocean Animals and St. Patrick's Day. 

Ocean Animal Activities

• The kids explored a variety of shells, sand dollars, and starfish with magnifying glasses and tweezers.

• The kids painted ocean animal pictures with paint dot markers.
• We made necklaces with the kids' favorite shells.
• We made our own soft playdoh and played with it, ocean animal cookie cutters, and plastic ocean animals and plants.

• The kids decorated wooden ocean animals and cardboard ocean animals.

• The kids played with plastic ocean animals in sensory sand.

• We put together a giant ocean puzzle (twice!).

St. Patrick's Day Activities

• We did rainbow "smoosh painting"--we put paint on the back of a paper plate, smooshed another paper plate against it, and pressed it onto paper.  We also did rainbow finger-painting.

• We made puff paint (shaving cream and glue) and painted a four leaf clover with it.

• We made a bar graph with the marshmallows from Lucky Charms and talked about how to interpret it.

• The kids took home green Rice Krispy Treats.

Literacy Activities

• We've been doing a lot of review and games with sight words.
• We read I Love My Hat, Don't Push the Button, a few others.
• During snack time, we watched part of a show that talks about putting letters together to make words.

Math Activities

• We used magnetic blocks to talk about and practice putting two squares together to make a rectangle and two triangles to make a square.
• We practiced taking turns while we put together a puzzle where the numbers 1-30 go in order.  We did two different versions.
• The kids always take turns counting with the calendar.

Fine Motor Skills Activities

• The kids wrote and drew on whiteboards.
• The kids practiced cutting.
• The kids traced letters and words on magic boards.

Misc

• The kids had a "snowball fight" with cotton ball snowballs.

• The boys had fun building a marble run during free time.
• The floor is lava got popular for a few days!

• Lots of fun outside!