Search Results for: Read.Explore.Learn.

Acorn Math Activities

November 8, 2013 By Deirdre

Last fall we were down on the main street in the town we live in. The local bank had a sea of acorns all over the parking lot. I remember slipping my feet across the ground so I could push the acorns out of my way. A couple of weeks ago I remembered the plethora of acorns and headed back to the bank parking lot to gather some to use for math acorn math activities.

I set out several math activities for JDaniel to do and then let him explore and work with the acorns to complete them. The first activity was to move one acorn at a time using chopsticks with a rubber band around them. (The rubber band makes the chopsticks easy to use.) I asked him to count by ones as he moved them. He later tried counting by 5’s and 10’s as he moved them. The numbers he was counting when we counted by 5’s and 10’s weren’t represented by the appropriate number of acorns. It was a great way though to work on skip counting.

$Acorn Math Activities$

The second activity I shared was to count on by ones and put one more acorn into the next cup and then the cup before it had. We discovered that the cups would only hold five acorns. Rather than continue to do this activity using the ice cube tray we moved on to another type of container.

$Acorn Math Activities -Even and Odd Numbers$

The containers we moved to were cupcake liners. The cupcake liners had a lot more room and were able to hold a lot more. We were able to count to 10. Every acorn was moved with chopsticks.

Why did we use chopsticks for the math activities? Holding and manipulating the chopsticks uses the same muscles as holding a pencil. Using chopsticks is a great way to work on fine motor skills.

$Acorn Math Activities -Counting$

For the last of the math activities, we used two different patterned cupcake liners and acorns. I asked JDaniel to arrange the cupcake liners in an ab pattern.

Then I asked him to put one acorn in the first liner, two in the second liner, and so on. When he had ten acorns in the last cup, I explained to him that all the cups with spider webs on them were odd numbers. That means that 1,3, 5, 7, and 9 are odd numbers. The even numbers were in the liners with the leaf design. That means that 2,4,6, and 8 are even numbers.

I wanted him to get the idea that the even and odd numbers follow an ab pattern. After looking at the cups carefully, he was able to explain to me which cups were even and which were odd and why. In the event nut cups, each nut has a buddy. In the odd nut cups, one nut is leftover.

$acorn-math-activities-collage$

A Book with a Nut Theme

It is fun to share a book that features the same theme or concepts as the activity you have just completed. We used nuts for these math activities so, I picked a book that featured nuts. What did we read? We read the book, Earl the Squirrel. Earl is a squirrel without the desire to find nuts on his own. He has befriended a young girl who supplies him with nuts. (She even provides him with a red scarf. ) Earl’s mom thinks he is spoiled and needs to learn to take care of himself.

Earl decides he needs to prove his mom wrong and that he can do it on his own. By the end of the book, he does learn to find nuts on his own. It isn’t easy. There is a large bull in a field that contains a tree with nuts. Earl has to figure out a way to get the nuts poured down and get past the bull.

Earl the Squirrel is a book filled with adventure, challenges, and tender moments. We loved this fun tale by the author Corduroy and I bet you will too.

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Veteran’s Day Activities for Kids

November 4, 2013 By Deirdre

Veteran’s Day is just around the corner on November 11th. It is one of those holidays that is celebrated and remembered or just passing by without people giving it a second thought. We happen to be in the first group of people at my house. My grandfather, dad, sister, and brother-in-law were are or in the military. My father-in-law was too. Remembering the service they and many others have given is really important to me.When JDaniel was three we started visiting the local soldiers memorial in our town. I bring lunch and we talk about they people whose names are displayed on the brick walkways. Without going into a lot of detail about what they were asked to do while giving their service or what happened to them we acknowledge them and all they did.

If you don’t have a memorial near you there are still a lot of things you can be for Memorial Day.

Veteran’s Day Activities

Prayer

You can offer prayers of thanks or supplication for those who have served. I bet they would be thrilled to know that they are being remembered. Simple prayers for their health, families and basic needs can be said by children young and old.

Read Books that Relate to Memorial Day

I shared the book The Poppy Lady: Moina Belle Michael and Her Tribute to Veterans yesterday. It is a wonderful book about a lovely lady who wanted those who served to remember. She lobbied hard to get the poppy to be a universal symbol for remembering Veterans.

The book The Wall by Eve Bunting about a young boy and his father visiting the Vietnam Veteran’s memorial to see the father’s name. This book always leaves me teary eyed.Put Flags Up in Your Yard

Small flags planted in your front yard will remind those who drive your house that there is a special day that is being remembered. The flags may even jog people’s memories as to what holiday they are up for.

Send a Note to a Veteran

If you don’t have a family member that you can send a note to, you can check with people in your church or local retirement homes. There are probably a number of veterans that live near you that would love to get a note or card.

Here are some organizations that will get your notes to veterans:

Operation Gratitude

AMillionThanks.org

Create Poppies to Pass Out

JDaniel and I created a poppy by cork painting. I shared those in a post on Friday called Veterans Day Activity. We also made coffee filter poppies. I will show you how we made them tomorrow. You could display them in your home or give them to a veteran or veterans group.

Halloween Craft- Button Pumpkin Face

October 25, 2013 By Deirdre

How Big Could Your Pumpkin Grow? out of the library. From the book’s cover I really didn’t know if it would be about two boys growing a big pumpkin or something else. I asked JDaniel to predict what the book was going to be about based on the cover. He thought it could be about growing pumpkins too. After we read the book, we did a Halloween craft I know you will love.

When we started the book, we found that book shares various places in the United States big pumpkins could visit. We traveled to a hot air balloon festival in New Mexico, to Vermont to see pumpkin boat races, and to Mount Rushmore to name a few. It was fun to see giant pumpkins side by side monuments and landmarks.

There is an area in the back of the book that shares a couple of facts about each place. We haven’t taken out a map to find each state and where the landmark is in each state yet, but I think we will.

What did we do to explore the book?

Halloween Craft

We made a button pumpkin face. Last year I bought a bag of colored buttons. (We have used them over and over again for learning games and crafts.) We sorted through the bag to find all the green buttons. The green buttons would be used to create the pumpkin face.

Then I pulled out come pipe cleaners and some orange grid circles. ( I found the orange circles at a dollar store in the houseware area. I think they were supposed to be coasters)

We tried arranging the button in various ways on the circle to create different eye, nose and mouth designs. Different sized buttons created very different looks.

When JDaniel found a face that he liked, we worked at adding one facial at a time. A section of pipe cleaner was threaded through two of each button holes. The ends of the pipe cleaner were then poked through the holes in the grid. Threading the pipe cleaner into the button holes wasn’t easy. It ended up being a tricky fine motor activity.

When the pipe cleaner was through the holes, the circle was turned over and the ends of the pipe cleaner were twisted and flattened. The eyes and nose buttons were put in place using this technique.

For the mouth several buttons were placed on a pipe cleaner. The pipe cleaner started at the bottom of the first button and continued being pushed up and down through the buttons’ holes until several buttons were on the pipe cleaner. Both ends of the pipe cleaner were pushed through the holes nearest them when we placed the mouth on top of the circle. JDaniel created little hooks at the ends of the pipe cleaner to hold them in place.

I thought we were done when the smile was in place, but I was told the pumpkin needed a stem. I decided to take a picture and post it on Instagram to see what other people thought about the pumpkin. The answers came back unanimous. A stem was needed. We threaded a couple of button onto a pipe cleaner and attached them to the top of the pumpkin.

The stem does look cute. JDaniel and my Instagram followers should be happy with how it stands out.

If you like this Halloween craft, you will love the crafts found on my Crafts for Kids Pinterest board.

I have decided to ask you to link your posts to the Read.Explore.Learn. Facebook page instead of running a link up. I hope you will stop by and share your children’s book related activities there.

Disclaimer: This post does contain affiliate links.

Follow JDaniel4’s Mom on Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter.

Kids Gardening – Planting a Pumpkin’s Seeds in a Pumpkin

October 11, 2013 By Deirdre

Planting pumpkin seeds in a pumpkin is our latest attempt to grow pumpkins. Last summer we tried several times to grow pumpkins in our backyard. The seeds grew into long vines with beautiful blooms. The blooms were then eaten by big beetles that apparently love pumpkin flowers and live under the shed we planted our pumpkin seeds beside. This fall I decided we would try to grow them one more time with seeds fresh from a pumpkin.
Why?JDaniel and I recently read a book called Pumpkin Hill and that same afternoon I came across a post from Growing PreK called The Pumpkin Project. We didn’t think that this was a coincidence. It was like we were having a kids gardening project put in front of us that we really needed to do.

Kids Gardening Project with Pumpkin Seeds

Preparing the Pumpkin
I love the idea of growing a pumpkin in a pumpkin. Growing in PreK cleared the pumpkin seeds out of the pumpkin and left the guts and everything else inside. We cleared everything out of the pumpkin using our hands at first. We clawed and pulled the guts and seeds out. Our hands were soon covered in slippery and slimy substances. Then we used ice teaspoons to scrape along the inside of the pumpkin to separate the remainder of the pumpkin’s guts from its interior wall.

Most planters and pots have holes in the bottom of them for drainage. We pushed a screwdriver into the bottom of the pumpkin to give it some areas for drainage too. That and one of us might over water the seeds and I didn’t want them to drown.

When we had completely cleaned out the pumpkin, we headed to the kitchen sink to rinse off the seeds. I am not sure that we needed to clean them off, but I thought it was the right thing to do for this kids gardening project.

Planting in the Pumpkin

With the seeds clean we headed back outside to fill the pumpkin with potting soil. We couldn’t decide how deep into the soil the seeds needed to be. What we decided to do was to add soil then seeds, add soil then seeds, and add soil then seeds. The hope is that we have some seeds at the right depth.

Finally, JDaniel watered the soil to give the seeds a moist area to grow in. We must have put in too much water. Just beneath the pumpkin on a rubber mat, we placed the planted pumpkin on a pool of water appeared. I was so glad we had put drainage holes into the pumpkin for this kids gardening project.

Exploring a Book

The link to Pumpkin Hill below is an affiliate link.

Pumpkin Hillby Elizabeth Spurr is the wonderful story about how a lonely pumpkin became a whole patch of pumpkins. The lonely pumpkin grew alone on a hill. One day it broke from its vine and rolled down a hill and into a field. When it finally came to a stop, it broke open and scattered its seeds all over a field.

The owners of the field couldn’t decide what to grow in the field that falls and so it was left unplanted. As time went on pumpkins grew in the field. No one knew they were there and so no one came to get them. The pumpkins withered and died leaving their seeds in the soil. Once again the farmer plowed the field and left it without seeds. He just couldn’t decide what to plant.

This time a wind blew the pumpkins out of the field and into town. There were pumpkins everywhere. What happened next? Well, you will have to read the story to see what happens to all of them. Let’s just say that were just like they grandfather pumpkin.

In our case, our pumpkin and its seeds are sitting on our front step. I am hoping that we will have little sprouts by Halloween. The weather here in South Carolina has stayed warm and sunny. If it stays warm, planting a pumpkin this late in the year may still work out for us. Hooray! This kids gardening project has been a success.

Here are some more fun kids gardening activities:

Plastic Egg Greenhouse

Paper Plate Greenhouse

I have decided to ask you to link your posts to the Read.Explore.Learn. Facebook page instead of running a link up. I hope you will stop by and share your children’s book related activities there.

Fire Truck Craft

October 6, 2013 By Deirdre

One of the fun things I have been doing to help JDaniel’s class this year has been to help with the SEEDS program. It is right up my alley. The program is like Read.Explore.Learn. and you know how much I love to explore books.

I decided to share a fire truck theme book with them called Meeow and the Big Box is about a kitten who uses a big box to create a fire truck for pretend play. We first heard this book shared at a library storytime focused on fire safety. The librarian created a visual using a box that walked us through each of Meeow’s steps. The children just loved this book.

Creating the Fire Truck Craft

I only get about half an hour to read the book and do the craft. To save time I try to have everything cut out and ready to glue down. I even do a trial run on my own or with JDaniel to time it. He loves getting to be a guinea pig for his class.

Here is how the trial for this craft turned out:

First, we put the body of the fire truck on black paper. Then JDaniel added the windows and white bumper area. I think I could have cut a long strip for the bumper. It didn’t stick out very far in the front or back of the fire truck. I may need to make these a little longer for the class.

The windows for the fire truck were moved around a lot. JDaniel had ideas about where they needed to go and not go a couple of times. They really could go anywhere on the front of a fire truck and could be turned vertically or horizontally. I think not having a specific place for the windows gives the children can invite to make their trucks unique.

After working on the windows, JDaniel worked on adding the yellow accessories to the truck. The ladder could have gone anywhere on the truck or even on the roof of the truck. Both of the lights could have gone on the top or on the front. The trial run ended up with one of the top and one on the bottom.

The last thing to go on the fire truck craft was the wheels. I am not sure that fire trucks have brown wheels, but black wheels would have blended into the black background so, I went with brown.

I think it will be fun to do this craft with JDaniel’s class. We had fun working on it together. It would also be great to create with your children during National Fire Safety Month in October. They would probably like to read Meeow and the Big Box and make a fire truck too.

Countdown to Kindergarten Activities

September 6, 2013 By Deirdre

Countdown to Kindergarten shares the tale of little girl that is made to worry about kindergarten by some rules shared with her by a first grader. The first grade tells her that she can’t bring her stuffed bear to school. She isn’t allowed to bring her cat either. Finally she is told she has to know how to tie her shoes.

She has already mastered so many things. She can count backwards from 10!

The little girl tries to hide her shoes so her mom will have to buy shoes with velcro. She takes out her shoelaces. She sits with her dad and really tries to learn to tie her shoes. She tries all kinds of things with her shoes. She is so worried she will get in trouble!

When she gets to school she finds out the first grader was all wrong. There is a day that she can bring in her stuffed animals. There is a time to work on tying shoes with the teachers help. The little girl is so relieved that she won’t get in trouble. Her teacher makes her day.

What did we do to explore Countdown to Kindergarten?

Shoe Lacing Number Facts

Cardboard shoes made from an old pizza box were created to work on addition facts. Math facts were placed on the left side of each shoe and the answers to the facts were placed right. Shoelace holes were placed below each number fact. Two additional holes were punched at the bottom of each column to act as a starting place for lacing through the facts.

The laces go right to left and back again. Sometimes the lace will go from the number sentence to the sum and sometimes it goes sum to number sentence.

Uppercase to Lowercase Letter Lacing

Some uppercase letters look just like their lowercase letters. Some letters look different. I used some cardboard from the same pizza box to make a lacing activity that allowed JDaniel to work on matching some tricky letters.

Shoelace Painting

A shoelace was dipped into the paint with coffee stirrers created a fun painting tool. Once the shoelace was coated with paint, it was placed on one side of a piece of black construction. When the shoelace was arranged the way we decided we liked it, We closed the other side of the construction paper over the shoelaces.

The outside of the paper was rubbed all over to press the top piece of the paper to create a symmetrical print of the shoelace. When we opened up the paper and lifted off of the lace, we were left with a really pretty print.

It looks a little ghostly! We think it looks really cool.

I have decided to ask you to link your posts to the Read.Explore.Learn. Facebook page instead of running a link up. I hope you will stop by and share your children’s book related activities there.

Disclaimer: This post does contain affiliate links.

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{Read.Explore.Learn} The Pirate of Kindergarten Activities

August 30, 2013 By Deirdre

The Pirate of Kindergarten (Richard Jackson Books (Atheneum Hardcover)) is about a little girl just starting kindergarten named Ginny. Ginny loves books and she loves the reading circle. When she tries to get to the reading circle, she runs into real chairs while trying to avoid the unreal ones. When she tries to read, she sees double words and pictures.

Activities Based on the Kindergarten Pirate

It is at the beginning of they year eye exam at school that her double vision is finally uncovered. Ginny didn’t realize everyone didn’t see things double. Her parents didn’t know she saw them this way either. They do take her to the eye doctor. He prescribes glasses, some exercises , and an eye patch.

Jinny loved the patch it made it so she didn’t have to squint. Back at school Ginny became the Kindergarten Pirate who could do work, cut bunnies out without three ears, and read.

I bet there are a lot of children that have vision issues that aren’t picked up until they start school. Ginny seemed to enjoy some of the benefits of hers. She loved seeing letters, numbers and pictures double.

What did we do to explore this book?

Sight Word Eye Charts

I made JDaniel some sight word eye charts. I set them up to look like the eye charts that doctors have. They have words spread across several lines and the lines are numbered. The words get smaller as you go down the chart. JDaniel had to cover one eye like the Pirate of Kindergarten.

One eye chart at a time was hung on our kitchen door for JDaniel to work on. I would call out a line and he would read me the words.

Here is a PDF for the Preschool Sight Word Eye Charts. (These charts have been updated)

What Do You See? Folder

Activities Based on the Pirate of Kindergarten

This What Do You See? The folder has extra large holes cut into it. It was designed for young children working on visual discrimination. For older children would benefit from a folder with smaller cut outs like the ones in the cat folder I made to explore the book Midnight: The Halloween Cat.

If you can’t find large pictures in magazines, you can mount smaller pictures on a piece of construction paper.

Double Vision Math Activity

Jinny had double vision so, I made JDaniel a game that worked on addition facts with doubles. He has a work mat with areas to put manipulatives in. The is a space to place the dice he rolls on the lines under that glasses. A third die can be used to display the answer to the math fact.

I put out wooden blocks to count with. They ended up being a little large. Next time we play the game I will put out a smaller manipulative. We also put these sheets into a plastic sleeve so we could use them over and over again.

I have decided to ask you to link your posts to the Read.Explore.Learn. Facebook page instead of running a link up. I hope you will stop by and share your children’s book related activities there.

Disclaimer: This post does contain affiliate links.

Follow JDaniel4’s Mom on Facebook and Pinterest.

Read.Explore.Learn is Changing

August 9, 2013 By Deirdre

Read.Explore.Learn. has always been a link up that shares ways people are exploring concepts in the children’s books with children. It has always been up on Fridays and it will stay that way. I have decided to offer the option of linking up your post to the Read.Exlore.Learn. Facebook page instead.

Each post will still be visited and truly book related post will be shared with others. I try to share the posts linked to Read.Explore.Learn. on a variety of social media sites. Lately I have been sharing them on the Read.Explore.Learn Pinterest board, Google +, and Facebook.

I am hoping that I will be working full time this fall. Having some of your post already post on the Read.Explore.Learn. Facebook page will allow other readers to see your post faster.

There will not be a Read.Explore.Learn link up on the blog tomorrow. (I will be participating in a Kid Blogger Network Back to School event. ) Please place your link on the Read.Explore. Facebook page so will not not miss out on seeing your amazing posts. Oh! Please make sure it is about an activity done after reading a children’s book. All other posts will be deleted.

25 Patriotic Activities for Kids

July 3, 2013 By Deirdre

Patriotic activities are some of my favorite to come up with. There have been posts written for Memorial Day, Labor Day, Veterans’ Day, President’s Day and the 4th of July that all have red, white and blue theme. I thought I would share 25 of my favorite patriotic activities for kids.

Crafts

Pasta Printing onto a handkerchief and pillowcase. ( There is not a post on these activities. They are displayed in the collage. JDaniel created them in a library art class. Water Gun Fireworks PaintingBald Eagle Craft and Science ExperimentGrandma’s Garbage Truck and Parade FloatMusical Star ShakerAmerican Flag MobileChalk and Bow Fireworks CraftPatriotic LanternFireworks Straw Painting Learning Activities

Static Electricity ExperimentSight Word Match
I Spy 4th of July Words

Kid Friendly Meals

Memorial Day Picnic Foods Meal

Pinwheel 4th of July Snack

4th of July Bento Lunch with Tomato MosaicLabor Day Star Themed MealTwisted Stripe Wrapped Hot Dog Meal

Recipes

Red, White, and Blue Frozen Smoothie StarsRed, White and Blue PopcornPatriotic ChiliFireworks CakeFruit Flavored Watermelon StarsPatriotic Ice Cream Sundae

Other

jdaniel4smom_10_4th_of_July Books_for_kids

10 Fourth of July Books for KidsI hope you found some wonderful ideas in this post that you can enjoy with your family and students.

4th of July Butterfly Count Activities for Kids

June 28, 2013 By Deirdre

I didn’t realize that there were locations around the United States that hold an annual butterfly site count on of the 4th of July at until we read the book Butterfly Count by Sneed Collard III (2002-03-01). Butterfly Count is the story of a little girl named Amy and how she and her mom participate in a butterfly count.

Amy and her mother find a wonderful variety of butterflies during their butterfly site count. They even find a very rare butterfly that many had thought was no longer in the area. What a wonderful way to spend the 4th of July.

This wonderful story teaches children how to attract and identify butterflies where they live. It also gives you information on finding 4th of July Butterfly Site Count sites near you hosted by the North American Butterfly Association. I wasn’t able to find one near us maybe you will be able to find one near you.

Butterfly County Extension Activities

Butterfly Wing Experiment

This experiment using several layers of tissue paper, construction paper and a balloon was to explore how static electricity stored in a balloon can be transferred to tissue paper. During the transfer of electricity, the wings of the tissue paper butterfly would flap just like a real butterfly.

We started by cutting the outline of a butterfly out of tissue paper that had been layered to give us several layers of tissue to flap when the balloon was stroked over it.

{4th of July} Butterfly Site Count- Read.Explore.Learn.

The tissue layers were then stapled to a piece of construction paper.( Next time I think we will staple our butterflies to cardboard. It would give them some more support.)

We started the experiment with six layers of tissue we soon learned that that was way too many layers. Only the top two layers of wings flapped. We pulled some of the tissue butterflies of the stack. The remaining butterfly layers flapped or lifted up more easily when we rubbed a balloon over the tissue. Rubbing the balloon on your head and then the tissue butterflies really helped the wings to flap. We had a great time exploring electricity with this experiment.

Butterfly Sight Word Match

We are still working on sight words here. We probably will be working on them all summer. I wrote some of JDaniel’s sight words onto butterfly cutouts and on a piece of large white paper.

I asked him to read me the word on each butterfly and then find its match on the paper. When he had found all the matches, I had him remove each word butterfly and read it to me.

Butterfly Number Count

This was so easy to put together. I just placed the butterfly outline from the first activity under a piece of copy paper. Then I wrote groups of number JDaniel has trouble with in the butterfly shape on the white copy paper.

I put various colors of bingo markers on cards featuring each number. JDaniel was to use that stamp to place dots on that number to create a beautiful butterfly. After or before stamping each number, JDaniel read me that number. Yes, it was a lot of repetition, but he sometimes he forgets what these numbers are. I was hoping to put them into muscle, visual and auditory memory.