The kids have been having fun with our pond sensory bin.
Pond sensory bin.
We've used it with and without water. The kids obviously prefer it with water, but even with such a minute amount, my little ones make a pretty big mess. (I've been making them play with the water on the patio.)
Even without water, it's pretty cool.
The contents are as follows:
*blue and clear glass marbles from Dollar Tree
* white "water lilies" from Dollar Tree
*Craft foam lily pads
*Rubber duckies from the $1 section at Michael's
*Rubber frogs from Dollar Tree
*Teeny plastic frogs, turtles, fish from my local party supply store
I whipped up a couple of pond themed puppets for three year old V, who loves to carry on silly dialogue. They'd also be great helping kids retell their favorite stories.
The wooden characters were .67 each at Hobby Lobby, and they had lots of themes. This may become a regular addition to our unit studies. (Shhh, but I'm thinking of making V some kind of puppet theater for Christmas, too.)
We're starting a pond theme here, and it seems like the timing is just right, because the web is exploding with great pond related ideas and resources.
Our pond themed "center."
(Totally an aside, but I picked up this wooden shelf for $5 at Goodwill last week, and it's just what I was looking for to house our little "center". It's low enough for the kids to access, on wheels, so I can move it as needed, and although it's in pretty good shape, it will be easy to repaint when I get around to it.)
I pulled out our frog and duck Beanie Babies, as well as a large, blue piece of fabric (to use for pretend play), and put together a sensory bin, which I'll be posting about seperately. I found a frog themed puzzle at Dollar Tree, and had a whole set of frog themed math games I found at Goodwill a while back.
Green poster board lilypads will be used to "jump like a frog," "fly like a dragonfly," "swim like a duck," "inch like a snail," and "creep like a turtle," around our pretend pond/living room. Three year old V just eats that sort of thing up.
I forked over 5o cents at the grocery store vending machine, to buy a sticky alien (I really just wanted a sticky hand, but couldn't find one. I figured that would make a pretty neat illustration of a frog's sticky tongue.)
We're planning on visiting a local pet store to check out the frogs and turtles, visit a nearby creek/pond to look for wildlife to photograph, and/or draw, and go on a frog hunt in our back yard at night.
I'm digging out some of my old scrapbook punches, (frogs, dragonflies, ducks, etc,) to use for fine motor practice, and collage materials.
We'll be digging out the old Leap Frog videos to watch again. I know, it's a little bit of a stretch, but they're technically about frogs, and V is just about the right age for them.
I used elements from the following sites to help plan our activities:
The kids and I are about to resume "regular" school. L will be doing his HOD curriculum in the morning, and then later in the day, we'll all be doing a themed unit study together. Our plan is constantly evolving here, but that seems like the best way to make sure we're "covering everything" that we should be, while still doing lots of fun, hands on stuff as a family.
Our first theme is a study on pond life. Tomorrow I'll be posting a (long) list of pond related resources, but today I thought I'd share a couple of fun stamps I made to go along with the unit. V is particularly fond of stamping and painting, and I figured maybe we could use them to make some fun collages or something.
The results, while not perfect are fun, and sufficient for our purposes.
The smiley frog face graphic, found here, was the pattern for this stamp:
I drew a lily pad, and and a vaguely duck-like bird, (ha,) and made these:
In spite of any artistic shortcomings, V was impressed. I'm excited about the possibility of carving stamps to go along with our future units.
(Random tip: the erasers from Dollar Tree carve reasonably well, as long as you're carving something simple and graphic. They're much cheaper than a real carving block, and a little less delicate.)
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