Teeth

T is for Teeth

Dental Health Week

Books we used:

Brush our teeth Clean- brown paper tooth, mix white paint, sparkly glitter and a drop of toothpaste (for the smell) Use a toothbrush to paint the tooth sparkly white!

Ten teeth on Top- Ten teeth on Bottom

use playdoh to make the outline of the mouth, white beans for teeth.  GB counted the teeth she put on the top and bottom.  Then you can use a mirror to count the teeth in their mouths. :)

GB loves to glue these days, so this easy activity was just gluing pictures I cut out of magazines of teeth, mouths, toothpaste,brushes, floss, etc. onto a tooth outline

T is for Tooth- she glued foam teeth and dental stuff onto the letter T

Is this good or bad for my teeth?

After reading and talking about what's good for our teeth. 

I made a happy and sad tooth sign and a few food packages from the kitchen and a few pretend foods from GB's kitchen and let them sort the happy and sad items.

Let's do it again and again.  I hear a lot of  "Mom is this good or bad for my teeth?" or "Does this make my teeth happy or sad?" now.

I little teeth number match.

Making T's  

More T practice

Apple Mouths!

Most of our snacks were healthy and made our teeth happy this week, but this one was too cute not to make.  It's okay to have a little unhealthy! ;)

Fun Song

I know how to brush my teeth

I brush up top and down beneath

Up like a rocket

down like a plane

back and forth like a choo choo train!

Of course if you are L, the only way to brush your teeth is to pretend like your toothbrush is a choo choo train, complete with chug a chugas and choo choos!



Dr. Suess Birthday Week

Lots of fun with Dr. Suess Books!  I'm already looking forward to the activites I have found and thought of for next year!  :)

Enjoy 2011 Dr. Suess theme HERE

St. Patricks Day

We used the books:
Horray for St. Patrick's Day
Shamrocks
Our Bible Story was Noah and God's Promise

Can you guess what color we emphazised this week? ;)

Art
We painted shamrocks and stamped shamrocks with a heart sponge.  We mixed the 3 basic colors to make all the colors for our rainbow.  We made shamrock covered S's and painted green S's.  The other letter was R and we painted it rainbow and colored with cloud and rainbow stickers.

Learning Tools
I cut out several shamrocks out of green paper.  1 set we played a shape matching game and the other was a number matching game.  (1 shamrock would have the written number, the "match" would have that many dots)

Find the Shamrock game - I taped several shamrocks all over the backyard and send the littles looking for shamrocks.  Egg hunt style!

The letter R for Rainbow
and lots of shamrocks!

Check out our St. Patrick's Day fun pictures HERE

* We do more than 1 letter a week because GB already knows all her letters.  We are just working on making (shaping) the letters.  I'm not worried about her sitting down with a pencil and writing the alphabet.  (not developmentally appropriate for her age) I just encourage the shaping or mechanics of making the letters that will develop into correct letter form later.  That is why we do lots of making letters out of playdoh, shaving cream, paint, and little with writing utensils.

Valentine & Hearts

February brought a few snowdays to us, so we had a lot of time for our heart and Valentine's themes.

The books we read:
The Day it Rained Hearts by Felicia Bond
Fancy Nancy Heart to Heart
I love you book by Todd Parr
Where's my Valentine
Lily's Chocolate Heart by Kevin Henkes
Biscuit: What is Love?
Roses are Pink, Your Feet Really Stink by Diane DeGroat

Art-   check it out on the link below- heart caterpillar, butterflies, heart shapes, moblies out of paper plates, candy crafts, lacing hearts (heart shape, hole punch all around, use yarn to "sew" around.  GB was very frustrated with this at first and after some practice asked to do MORE!

Colors-  red and pink of course!  We used a lot of red and pink paper, markers, paint, glitter and crayons.

Writing-  We practiced the letter V, L  and  H;  making V's in shaving cream
and also with crayons and paper.  I would write the outline of a v with dots and GB would trace them.  We used chalk to make H's and L's.  We also made H's and L's out of sticks.

In the kitchen-   Oh, did we have fun in the kitchen for Valentines!  We made heart shaped pancakes, toast, sandwiches, cheese for crackers, pizzas, cookies, and more!  I found these cute silcone muffin cups in the shape of hearts and used them to serve lunch.

We also did a quick lesson using the computer and internet of the "real" heart.  Just very basic I found a picture of the organ and we talked about how it pumped blood through our bodies.  We listened to each others heart beat, the littles had fun listening to the thump, thump, thump!

You can check out our V is for Valentine fun HERE 

Getting started

I started this blog some time ago to keep track of our themes and then somehow life caught up with me and I didn't take pictures well to document, then got lost in life and this blog has just sat here.  So, I decided today to list a few themes I already have. 

Here's how our themes started:
We started doing fun things around the season or holidays.  I would find or come up with an art project, snack, and books to follow the theme and it would grow from there.  Then GB would find interest in a certain subject or activity and we would run with it or we would read a book and the thematic unit would begin.  So, you will find books, art projects, in the kitchen, writing and other activites within each theme.  Some themes are long and some are short and simple.
We are in full summer mode, which means our theme time has slowed down, but we might have a few things to share this summer.  I'm looking forward to starting full swing in the fall and hopefully I will have a post ready each week.   I better get to planning and preparing!

You can check out our summer fun  HERE.