Teaching Two

My hubby and I try to give each other gifts that are meaningful and allow us to spend time together.  He has surprised me with concert tickets, sporting event tickets and day trips to fun places through the years.  We are simple folk that enjoy the little things in life.    For Valentine’s Day the girls and I made him the sweetest gift that would be perfect for Father’s Day, birthdays, or any special occasion.

We got a Mason Jar and decorated it with fabric and a heart that said 20 Dates.  Then we each painted 5 popsicle sticks a specific color.  I painted my 5 blue, my oldest painted her 5 yellow, and so on.  So we had 20 popsicle sticks.  I asked the girls to think of 5 different things they would like to do with their Daddy.  I wrote one idea on each of their sticks.   Some of them were go get ice cream, go fishing, practice kicking the soccer ball, play a board game, play baseball wii, go to the library.  Most of what they thought of is stuff we do all the time with them but they love it.  I love that the little things like going to the library together mean so much to them.

Now he has 20 different dates he gets to do with his girls!

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We did lots of heart activities just in time for Valentine’s Day.  I also mixed in red, pink, and white as well.  Here’s some of the fun she had.

She is really into painting these days.

She loved decorating the windows using hearts.

I gave her 10 cups and she loved making towers and pyramids with them.  Lots of learning going on here.

We continued making shape collages.  She is becoming an expert with a glue stick.

Her Valentine Discovery Box was a big hit.

For the past 2 years my girls have woken up on Valentine’s morning with hearts all over their doors.  We write things we love about them on each heart.  Thank you Pinterest for the new tradition!

Check out more fun shape and color activities here , here,  here and here.

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I decided to start shapes since Molly knows her colors and I was running out of  creative ideas to do with her.  She knows most of her shapes too but at least it’s something different.  We started with triangles.  Here is what our last week activities looked like.

I cut out a bunch of different sized triangles from scrap book paper and had her glue them on to a piece of paper to make a collage.  I love the way she overlapped some of them.

I made a triangle outline and had her put beans on the glue to make a triangle.

She did a little triangle painting.

We own an overhead projector still and the girls love it.  I have lots of colored shapes so Molly was making pictures using triangles.

I hid different shapes in some sand and had her sort the triangles from the other shapes.  She loved searching through the sand to find them.

Finally I had her use a triangle puzzle piece to trace it.  I wasn’t sure how she would do with this but she did a great job.

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I was so excited to do this unit with my girls!!  I LOVE owls!  I got some great books from the library and we jumped right in.

After reading Owls by Gail Gibbons we did our Can, Have Are chart.  This is such an easy way to organize lots of information.  I wrote it on chart paper and then my girls wrote their own as well.  In the past I’ve had them write a paragraph using their notes but didn’t this time.

I found a few amazing owl videos online that show their silent flight and how they catch their prey.  Then we listened to Owl Babies online and recreated a scene from the book.  The girls loved this craft project!

I mixed glitter and glue to make the stars and while that was drying I had them rip some brown paper to look like a branch.  Then they used white paint and a big pom pom to paint the 3 little owls.  I love the way they turned out!

We made these delicious cupcakes using oreo cookies and M&M’s.

One evening after listening to different owl calls and sounds (I never knew they made so many different sounds) we headed out to go owling.  We hear owls all the time at night so we were hopeful we would spot one but not this time.  We did see about 10 bats though which the girls thought was cool.  This is definitely something we are going to try again though.

If you look closely you will see a mole’s skull.

Our last activity was by far their favorite.  They got to dissect owl pellets.  This was so cool!!  Owls swallow their prey whole but aren’t able to digest the bones so they cough them up into these pellets.  The girls found so many bones!!  We were able to identify most of them and tell which animals they came from.  If you’re interested in doing this just google owl pellets and you will have plenty of sites to choose from.

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This wasn’t a unit I was super excited about but I did it anyway.    I started off by having the girls watch this great video that explained the difference between weathering and erosion.  Then we talked about the various kinds of erosion and how both affect the surface of the Earth over time.

My hubby planned a great experiment in our backyard to show the girls how wind and water affect the surface differently.  I feel like I need to explain the enclosure they are standing in.    We built this for our pet turtle who was living in a big container in our garage for over 8 months.  The day after this amazing habitat was built, our turtle died.  Now it has become a place to do Science experiments.

He is explaining what he’s going to do and asking them to predict what will happen.

They started blowing as hard as they could using straws to simulate wind.  They were amazed that even a small amount of wind could move the sand around and change how it looked.

Then he brought in the big guns!!  I wish I had a picture of their faces when he brought it out.

Next he demonstrated how rain affects soil.  They watched as the water made a tunnel and then “cliffs” and a canyon.

This is the result of the water erosion.  One of the girls shouted out, “Wow!  It’s like the Grand Canyon. “  I love when simple experiments bring so much excitement and learning!

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