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I Spy 4th of July Words
10 Fourth of July Books for Kids
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I Spy 4th of July Words
10 Fourth of July Books for Kids
4th of July Butterfly Count Activities for Kids
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.
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.
Here are some more butterfly activities:
How did you explore books this week? If you have a post you would like to share, please link it up below. Once you have added your post, please visit at least three others.
The Very Hungry Caterpillar- Read.Explore.Learn.
I can’t believe I haven’t featured this week’s book The Very Hungry Caterpillar on Read.Explore.Learn. before. We have several copies of it in JDaniel’s room and I have read it to him a zillion times. He loves to count the fruits that the very hungry caterpillar eats as he prepares to build his cocoon.
If you aren’t familiar with the story, a little caterpillar hatches from an egg and then begins a daily inhalation of food. He starts his week of slowly and gradually eats more and more until he isn’t a little caterpillar any more. The caterpillar has digested enough to carry him through the time he is sequestered in a cocoon.
Each food he eats has a hole in the middle of it. JDaniel loves to put his finger into each hole as he counts the foods the caterpillar eats everyday. He learned to count as I read this book over and over again.
What did we do to explore this book?
Caterpillar Snack
I am not huge on snacks. JDaniel does enjoy them though. We had green grapes, tomatoes, and watermelon in the fridge. I decided to use them to construct the caterpillar from The Very Hungry Caterpillar for him. Half a grape was used for each of the caterpillar’s sections. except his head. Half a grape tomato was used for his head. The Very Hungry Caterpillar’s antennae and feet are tiny slices of watermelon.
The caterpillar’s eyes and nose also came from the fridge. I cut tiny circles out of a flour tortilla and colored them green with a food marker.
Measuring the Caterpillar
JDaniel has been very interested in measuring with a ruler lately. He wants to find the length of the tiles in the kitchen, my foot, and his shoes. Not everything he wants to measure is completely straight. I decided to show him a trick for measuring oddly shaped objects.
I made The Very Hungry Caterpillar out of construction paper. The caterpillar is simply a piece of green paper folded in half with connecting curves cut out of it. It front and back ends are reflections of each other.
Then we took yarn and organized it inside the caterpillar’s body to follow its curves. We lifted the yarn up very carefully and lined it up above a ruler. The yarn length of the caterpillar was longer than the ruler. We wrote twelve inches onto the white paper. I had JDaniel hold the remaining length of the yarn while I recorded the first length. We then measured the remaining yarn. It turned out to be eight inches. The caterpillar didn’t look twenty inches long, but that is what he turned out to be.
Sight Word Game
JDaniel has really gotten into learning to read. We have been working on six sight words a week. This week I thought we would play a game to help him review the words we have worked on. I made a The Very Hungry Caterpillar game board using a paint program.
He earned a red pom pom for the first word he recognized and a green pom pom for the remaining words he read. The goal was to review six words at time. I ended up having to print out two game boards. JDaniel remembered so many of the words and he loved earning pom poms for the caterpillar.
Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links.
Read.Explore.Learn- Reading Comprehension: Illustrating a Story
This week JDaniel and I read the book Amelia Bedelia Helps Out. JDaniel loves the humorous way Amelia messes things up by not understanding that words have multiple meanings. I love her too. She turns 50 this year. (That means that people have been chuckling at her missteps for over half a century. ) It is her misunderstanding that I decided to focus on in this reading comprehension activity called illustrating a story.
JDaniel and I have read this story many many times in the past. Since we have been talking about gardening for the past few weeks, this book so needed to be read again. A few of her mistakes are related to gardening. She weeds the garden by adding weeds. She stakes the beans by wrapping steaks around them. Amelia uses a duster to dust the potato bugs with bug powder.
She also does several other odd things thinking she is doing the right thing. You just have to love her and giggle at what she does that is part of the fun of reading her stories.
Reading Comprehension – Illustrating a Story
Picture walking through a story means you flip through a story and look at the clues the pictures give as to what is happening in the story. Illustrating a story is the opposite of picture walking. During illustrate a story, a child flips through a book and looks for key concepts and pictures in a story they have already heard or read. They then draw them on a larger roll of paper in the order they happened in the story.
We looked through the story and picked four of the events that we wanted to draw. Both JDaniel and I worked on the drawings and we talked about what was happening in that part of the story.
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| Drawing Weeds |
I drew the weeds and JDaniel added details to them. We talked about how they needed to be very big weeds just like the ones Amelia Bedelia had added to the garden.
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| Drawing Bean Plants and Steaks |
It was so much fun to draw the bean plants and add pink steaks onto them. We don’t eat steaks often at our house. JDaniel kept having to refer to the book to see what they looked like.
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| Dusting Potato Bugs |
I tried drawing a potato bug like the one in the book and JDaniel told me it was not exciting. I didn’t know that they were supposed to be exciting. He grabbed a gray crayon after drawing his leaf and made one that was more exciting than mine.
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| Giving The Chickens Scraps |
JDaniel seemed to have lost interest in drawing when we got to give the chicken scraps of cloth. I started the chicken and he finished it. The feathers and feet are all his. I just love them.
When we finished, I had him walk me through the events of the story we had selected. I was expecting to just talk about what had happened. JDaniel grabbed the book and looked through it to find each of the events. I love that he had us go through the book as we discussed it.
While his not yet reading, he has learned to show that he comprehends what is being read to him. I think we will be illustrating a story again soon. As he does learn to read and write better, I will have him add keywords from the text to the pictures. We will be doing this reading comprehension activity again.
Here are some more reading activities:
This Mouse Needs a House Printable
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Learning Activities – 19 Ways To Use A Zigzag Learning Maze
Sometimes you sit down and plan an activity you will be doing with your children. You brainstorm what you will do during the activity along with alternative ways you can use it. There are other times you just grab a roll of tape and see what you can make with it. That is just what happened with this zigzag learning maze. When I sat on the floor with roll of tape I had no idea what the maze would look like and no idea of how we would use it.
Boy, have we found wonderful ways to use this zigzag learning maze! Actually we found 19 ways to use this zigzag learning maze.
Here are some learning activities we have used the walkway we created:
Movement Activities
We started by simply walking up and down the center of the pathway by placing one foot in front of the other. JDaniel doesn’t usually walk this so it took at little practice.
Walking the pathway backwards was even more of a challenge. When you are looking, back your feet can sometimes step off the path without meaning too.
Trying to walk on the tape down one side of the pathway and back on the other side took a little bit of concentration.
Jumping from one side of the path to the other was easy in areas where the pathway was narrow, but was harder in the wide areas.
Challenging a partner to move down the path in a certain way was a lot of fun. Skipping, hopping, galloping, sliding, and tiptoeing down the path were each offered up as challenges.
Timing which of us could move down the path the fastest and the slowest was also fun. Walking in slow motion inspires one to move the rest of your body in slow motion too. That can bring on a lot of giggles and stifled laughs.
Throwing a beanbag into a particular corner selected by an opponent can be quite challenging.
Pretend Play
The edge of the pathway can be lined with block shaped buildings or cardboard boxes from the recycling bin.
Toy cars can race through the maze pushed from behind by people ready to get the checkered flag.
Balls can be rolled through the pathway like pinballs zinging and pinging through a maze.
The pathway can become a waterway for bathtub boats. The corners and dead ends can be inlets off a mighty river.
Learning Activities
Numbers can put in the corners by a child in ascending order.
Once number cards have been put in place, a child could walk to each number and clap that number of times.
Sight words can be placed along the path. In order to pick up the card the word on the card would need to be read.
Colored pom poms could be spread along the path to be picked up with chopsticks. Before the pom pom was picked up, the child would have to tell you the color of the pom pom or the answer to a learning question.
Two players could take turns rolling a die to see how many steps they could take down the path.
Books could be used to fill up all the space on the pathway and they would then be counted.
The pathway could be the home to a giant concentration game. The cards could be spread out along the path. Children could walk up and down the path looking for matches.
Washcloths could be used to fill in the path. They could then be counted to find the area of the path.
What are some other ways we could learning using the zigzag pathway?
This post is linked to Mrs. Matlock’s blog.
Christmas Activities- Christmas Treasure Tree
One of the things on our list of twenty five things to do before Christmas was to go visit the Festival of Trees in downtown Greenville at the Hyatt Hotel. JDaniel’s preschool had sponsored and decorated a tree that was to be on display and I wanted him to see it. JDaniel’s school tree had a Happy Birthday to Jesus theme. It was such fun to see the birthday hats that his teacher has worked on right there on the tree.There were many trees on display. I think that there were at least twenty five of them. Some displayed a theme that fit the business that had sponsored the tree and others were decorated by school using homemade ornaments. On the way home I thought about all those uniquely decorated and beautiful trees. There weren’t any that were the same. Each displayed the personality of its designer. We needed to have one of our Christmas activities be decorating our own personal tree.
We have a three foot tree that we put out for JDaniel upstairs that had yet to be decorated. Seeing all those wonderful trees gave me an idea. Why not have JDaniel decorate the tree with recycled treasures. He loves to collect treasures and used them to create with.
JDaniel and I scoured the house and garage looking for things that he could use to decorate the tree.
Here are some of the things we found for our Christmas activities treasure tree:
- Mardi Gras Beads
- Hawaiian Lei
- Netting From a Bag of Sweet Potatoes
- Bottle Caps and Lids
- Tulle from last Christmas
- Stickers leftover from decorating Party Hat Christmas Trees
- Ribbons and Bows
- Bread Tags
After we had gathered all the items that could be used to decorate, JDaniel started creating. This was going to be a “Do Your Own Thing” tree JDaniel informed me.
He had a wonderful time putting things on the tree and taking them off. Things were placed over and over again in new spots. Decorating a tree is very serious business and he was going to make sure it was done well. He did a great job with the tree. I love the idea of a Hawaiian lei garland and bow star.
The lei ended up being decorated with foam stickers as did old jar lids and the tree limbs themselves. It was such fun to sit back and watch him work. Old bread tags made wonderful ornaments and ribbon pieces were shoved (placed) into branches to make really whimsical decorations.
He is going to redecorate this tree many times until Christmas I think. It will be fun to watch him create and recreate decorations. I don’t mind I love that he has made recycled treasures into a wonderful Christmas treasure three. He also worked on his small motor, creativity, and planning skills while doing it.
Here are some more Christmas activities:
Fine Motor Christmas Activities
You will find more Christmas activities on my Christmas Learning Activities board on Pinterest.
What sensory activities have your children been working on?
Ten Red Apples from Pat Hutchins : Read.Explore.Learn.
We read the book ten apples this week. What fun counting book! The farmer tries to count the apples and his animals want to eat them. This book is filled with humor, problem solving and cute pictures.
What did we do with the book Ten Apple?
I cut out an apple core out of white paper and cut it into puzzle pieces. One side of each piece would match only on side of another piece. Then I glued the red top and bottom the core pieces that would end up of the top and bottom.
JDaniel’s job was to put the pieces in order and then glue them onto a piece of blue paper. It took a lot of figuring to get the pieces just right.
Ten Red Apples Button Count
A counting strip with ten red apples was placed out with a cup of buttons for JDaniel to count with. He started by counting from 1-10. Each apple core needed to have the correct number of buttons on it.
Then I took away all the odd numbered sets of buttons and we counted by twos. We could have added the button onto the apple cores by twos instead. Maybe we will do that next time.
Here are a few wonderful posts that others linked up last week:
3 Dinosaurs made a wonderful apple yarn craft to go with the book Up, Up, Up! It’s Apple Picking Time!
After studying books on the octopus Joyfully Weary made this really cute octopus craft. The bubble wrap tentacles are super cool!
If you like these Ten Red Apples activities , you will like these apple activities too!
Preschool Activities- Five Little Apples Rhymes and Crafts
Building Word Families – Worms and Apples
Cool Math Games for Kids -Appleseed Counting
Sight Word Games- Apple Tree Words
Back to School Traditions- His Return to School
This year he was a little nervous about going in and he asked if he could wait until next time to go all the way in. He just couldn’t help it walking away from me though. His new classroom is decorated in a puppy dog theme and he just had to head in and look them all over again.
Dream Big- Read.Explore.Learn
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This week I am going to share a wonderful children’s book called Dream Big: Michael Jordan and the Pursuit of Excellence by Deloris Jordan. This lovely picture book by Michael Jordan’s mom is about how her son dreamed of going to the Olympic to play basketball from an early age.
He loved basketball, but basketball coaches didn’t always pick him for their team. Michael was cut from his high school basketball tryouts. He never gave up on his dream and I think we all know what happened to his dream to play basketball. His mom says, ” I guess you aren’t a dreamer, but a doer.” Michael was so blessed to live out his dream.
JDaniel announced a few weeks ago that he could do almost every big boy thing he could think of except tie his shoes and read. I guess you could call them his big boy dreams.
Learning to Tie Shoes
When I mentioned to a friend that JDaniel wanted to learn to tie shoes, she said she learned to tie them by practicing on her dad’s shoes. We took out my husband’s shoes and we have been parallel practicing. One of us has it mastered and the other still needs a lot of practicing.
I hope he learns in the next few months. I just ordered his school sneakers for the fall with laces on them.
Working on Sight Words
I created little basketballs that contain the first 36 Dolch Preprimer words to help JDaniel work on his dream of reading. We have been working on four words at a time.
Every time he reads me on the words he can move an orange pom-pom to the basketball hoop on paper.
I don’t want to overdo the word practice. He gets to work on each word only a few times at each sitting.
Here are some wonderful book Read.Explore.Learn post that were linked up last week:
Crafty Moms Share linked up a great dress the mole activity to go with the book Naked Mole Rat Gets Dressed.
Keitha’s Chaos linked up an amazing bento lunch to that explored the book Hour of the Olympics.
Please share your book extension and exploration post below.
Muffin Tin Monday- A Frozen Banana Buffet
My son just loves muffin tine meals. Sometimes he helps me move his dinner into a muffin tin! There is something special about have a meal or a snack in one. JDaniel loves to have a snack after his “quiet” time in the afternoon. I decided to surprise him with a frozen banana buffet for a snack late last week. He was thrilled.
JDaniel really enjoys getting to dip foods and I have told him that he can’t double dip if other people are sharing the dip with him. This muffin tin was his alone and he was able to dip as much as he wanted to. We have a found the key to success dipping is to only put a small amount of each sauce into the muffin cups.
The buffet tin is filled with two dips and four toppings. The dips are chocolate sauce and honey. The toppings are coconut, chocolate chips, sprinkles, and cinnamon. If you children don’t like any of these sauces or toppings, please feel tree to substitute them with one that your children like.
It was a lot of fun to watch JDaniel try a variety of combinations. He loved the sprinkles and coconut with honey and chocolate syrup. The cinnamon was mixed with honey more often than not.
Tip: I gave JDaniel a whole banana and it was really too big for a snack. JDaniel ended up putting it in the fridge for later. It would have been better to give him small sections of banana. The sections could have been placed on small fork or toothpick for dipping.
If you like this frozen banana snack idea, here are some more snack ideas you will love:
Decorated Cheese Trees
Applesauce Toppings Bar
Easy Sight Word Snacks
4th of July Sundae
This post is linked up to Muffin Tin Monday.
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