Butterfly Life Cycle Week

This week's theme is going to be about butterflies and their life cycles.

Math:  I found a butterfly counting page on Flickr.  After searching I traced it back to My Organized Chaos.  I plan on letting Destructo count the different life stages of the butterfly and then I can write the number in for him.  We also went on a field trip to the zoo and counted how many different species of butterflies we saw while there.

Sensory:  I got the idea for our butterfly life cycle sensory bin from pre-K pages.  I put three boxes of noodles into our sensory bin.  I used rotini, shells, and farafalle.  I got the veggie noodles so they would be colorful without any work on my part.  Laziness I has it.  The rotini represented the caterpillars, the shells were the chrysalis, and the farafalle/bowtie shapes were the butterflies.  Both boys had a blast with the noodles.  And it was super easy to pick up.

Craft:  I made a butterfly life cycle craft.  It was super easy to do.  I got the idea from Bug and Buddy but modified it to go along with our sensory bin.  We painted the paper plates each kids favorite color and then Owl had eaten so much paint I gave up on attempting to do the activity with him and waited until his nap haha.  Kai then glued noodles that represented each stage in the butterfly's life cycle to the template I got from the blog above.  It was easy and turned out really well.

We also did a second butterfly life cycle poster that Destructo got to hang in his room.  I really felt creative with this one since I even used scrap book paper.  You know the scrap book paper I bought three years ago to use for Christmas presents.  That I never made.  Yeah.  Fail.

Reading:  We read a number of books this week.
The Very Hungry Caterpillar
National Geographic Readers: Caterpillar to Butterfly
Charlie the Caterpillar The Lamb and the Butterfly
We also used both of the reference books I linked in this blog post (under language heading.)

 Science:  We used this Giant Magnetic Butterfly Life Cycle.  Destructo got to put it in order and stick it to his super fancy magnet board.  And by super fancy, I do totally mean serving platters that we have collected over the years and never used.  They are so super useful.

Fine Motor:  We also used the Magnetic Color Cubes that I mentioned last week.  I told Destructo to make a beautiful butterfly.  I am so in love with these magnet cubes.

Snack:  I made two butterfly themed snacks this week.  The first was the butterfly life cycle and both kiddos loved it.  The second was a decorate your butterfly yourself toast butterfly.  Both were super easy to make and the butterfly was fairly healthy.  (You can also use nutter butters for the butterfly's body but I wanted to up the health factor.)

T is for Turtle/Life Cycles of Turtles

So we are gearing up for Kai's preK year of home school preschool.  I don't think he will be attending an actual preschool so I am forcing myself to get more commited to schoolwork and a more "strict" schedule to try to get him ready for kindergarten.  As you know, he is a very spirited honey badger kid that really tries his best to get his own way.  This doesn't bode well with school haha.  So I am hoping to help him adjust to having more structure this year.  And having a lot of fun in the process.

He is really interested in life cycles of animals and I love sea turtles so that is where we are starting.

Field Trips:
 We went to the local farmers market and they had all kinds of awesome life cycle puzzles and figurines and a life cycle game.  It was perfect timing for us to learn about life cycles and have fun.  We also went to the local children's science museum.  They are surrounded by wetlands so we took a walk and looked for turtles.  They also have large turtle exhibit inside that we counted turtles in.

Science:
I downloaded these free sea turtle life cycle nomenclature cards from Teachers Pay Teachers.  We are going to use these to learn about the life cycle of the sea turtle.  I also bought a pack of Safari Ltd Life Cycle of a Green Sea Turtle for him to use with these cards.  Of course if Owl would quit swiping half of the them this would be a lot easier.  No swiping swiper.

Sensory:
I made a sensory bin to demonstrate sea turtles life cycles and to let Kai get his fill of sensory goodness.  I used blue water beads to be the ocean.  Destructo and Owl got to help the turtles hatch from a sensory bin containing kinetic sand and ping pong balls.  The ping pong balls were the turtle eggs since they are approximately the size of sea turtle eggs.  (They also had a giant T on them for Tennessee Vols since that was all I could get.  But I ran with it since T is for turtle.  haha)  We made a nest in the sand and then I used Easter eggs to put little turtles in so Kai could have them hatch.  He then had to quickly make the sea turtle run to the ocean before a predator (or his brother) got them.  Both boys loved it and played with it for days.

Important side note, you want to rinse the water beads daily though or else they mold really quickly.  I did not know this and had to buy more.

Math:  We used the pack of Turtles to work on basic addition.  Kai would pick a foam number out of a bag and a second number.  Then he would use the turtles as counters to figure out the answer.

 Language:  We read
My Very First Encyclopedia With Winnie the Pooh and Friends: Animals  and The Encyclopedia of Reptiles, Amphibians & Invertebrates.  The pooh bear one is a great book and details the differences in mammals, reptiles, etc.  The other book is not a children's book per say but it has all different species of turtles and lots of other info.  We picked out our favorite turtles.


Internet:  We watched this Sea Turtle Video.  I really like these science videos because they are short and very informative.  They have a ton of different animals.

Craft:  We made sea turtle sun catchers.  I let the boys stick tissue paper onto clear contact paper.  I put a layer over the top of the stuck tissue paper and then used Oliver's Cloud B Tranquil Turtle  as a template for the head and legs.  Easy peasy and super cute.

Fine Motor:  

I had bought Magnetic Color Cubes which are amazing for fine motor (but not for kids who could swallow them for obvious reasons.)  Destructo used them to feed all his turtles that I mentioned above.  He was feeding them a certain amount of pounds.  It was too funny (and mostly all on his own.)

I also did the turtle transfer activity on Nurturing Learning's blog.  I had Destructo pretend he worked in a sea turtle sanctuary and had to help the turtles.

So there you have it.  Turtle week.

The Day my Phone Went Swimming

Swimming, swimming, swimming in the deep blue sea.  Oh gosh I watch too much Daniel Tiger.  Yesterday was the kind of day where it is a good thing I am not a big drinker.  I would have probably been drunk by noon if that was the case.  Then my boys would have had to lord of the flies it.  That would have been bad given their propensity for destruction of themselves and my house.  Real bad.

I had the boys outside helping me clean up the patio.  I made it seem like it was their idea.  Let's pretend this is a car wash and wash up your car.  Kai ran with it and then said their play house was on fire and he had to put the fire out with the hose.  Whatever kiddo.  Just burn some energy (and clean my patio.)  

I cleaned the water table and filled it for Owl who loves playing in it.  I then took all the small water toys in to bleach them because they had mildew on it from sitting in rain water.  I didn't want to leave a bucket with bleach water in Oliver's reach because he is sneaky and quick.  So I filled it up in the tub leaving Oliver and Kai playing on the patio.  

I turned around and Kai came in ready to get into dry clothes.  I changed him quickly and then opened the door and got Owl in.  I changed his diaper and clothes and went looking for my phone.  I couldn't find it.  Then as I was about to walk back inside, I noticed pink in the water table.  The boys have no pink water toys.  Yeah it was my cell phone.  Under the water.  Swimming.  Thank you Owl.  Thanks so much.

Needless to say this is the point in the story where I have to give mad props to Samsung.  I have a Galaxy S4 active.  The ATT salesperson sold me on it even though it was fifty bucks more to get the active by saying what if Destructo (who was two at the time) threw it in a toilet or something.  It seemed quite plausible.  Needless to say I am oh so glad they did. 

I was a bit skeptical of whether the claims that you could put them 3 ft under water for up to 30 minutes was true.  It was.  As I reached for my phone, I could actually see a new email notification popping up under the water.  The only thing that was messed up was that water had gotten in the charging port because the little cover had broken off and I hadn't replaced it yet.  I blow dried it on low for about twenty minutes and that fixed the problem.  

I am going to be buying the S6 active for sure after this.  It actually made my day because I fully expected to have to immediately run out and get a new phone after I saw it in the bottom of the water table.  It was in there between 5 and ten minutes by the time I got Oliver in, diaper changed, clothes on, hands washed etc.  It is the best phone ever.  And no this isn't a sponsored post and I am not getting paid in anyway to say this.  It is just the straight up truth and I truly am that impressed by Samsungs Galaxy active.  I would take a picture of my awesome phone, but alas I only use my phone for my camera haha.  

The  moral to this story is Owl is sneaky and agile.  I am fairly certain he climbed up on the chair to get to my phone.  Destructo was never agile nor a climber like Owl.  It is funny how different kids can be.

Don't let this face fool you.  He is nothing but trouble.