Care of a Sensory Bin

Hello!  A Sensory Bin is always a good thing to have around.   I have blogged about my Sensory Bins before.   Instead of changing up my Sensory Bin, I have gravitated towards keeping the same Sensory Bin all the time.   Our Sensory Bin has multiple colors of water beads and transparent colored stones which I bought at the dollar store.   It also had lots of measuring cups, funnels, plastic forks, plastic cups, etc.   LO has also added some fun sponges and such to his bin.  He pulls out his bin randomly to play with it.

This post is actually not about the contents of my bin but about the care of my bin.  I noticed after a while that the bin was definitely getting a little foul smelling and moldy.   I solved this simply by airing it out and poking holes in the top of my plastic lid.  The problem is mostly solved.  Occassionally I also basically rinse the entire interior of the container and the plastic items with regular tap water.

Anyone else have ideas on how to care for a Sensory Bin?

Money Muncher

Hello!  I pulled this fun money activity from teachingmama.org.  Little One was asking about money and we have been trying to instill in him the concepts of money.  He has a small change purse that I gave him with some coins inside and some dollar bills.  He gets to spend it how he wants.  He has learned that he needs to budget his money.   So I thought that this quick activity would be fun for him.  All we used was a tennis ball, a sharpie, and some scissors.   The only hard part was cutting the mouth.  It takes a lot of work to cut through a tennis ball!  The finished product is called a "money muncher".  We played a game of putting coins inside the ball.  LO had fun making the ball "munch" his money.  We discussed the coins as we put them in.  When it got full we took the coins back out and did it again. :)

The Rotation of the Earth

Hello!   At one of our visits to the public library Little One decided he wanted to check out books about space.  In the space section was a book called "Sunshine Makes the Seasons".  It looked worthwhile to check out, so we took it home for a look.  Turns out to be a pretty cool book!  I highly recommend checking it out.  It is a cute story that has some great discussion on the changing of the seasons.  Plus it has the directions for how to do these lessons at home.   As you can see in some of the pictures below, it shows how to use a round object and a pencil to show the axis of the Earth, the tilting of the Earth, and how the Earth rotates around the Sun.   We used a tennis ball, sharpie, and pencil to do the activities in the book.  We went into a dark bathroom and used a flashlight to shine light on our "Earth" to show the "Seasons".  The flashlight represents the "Sun".   It was a lot of fun and I think that LO learned a lot about the seasons from this book and its activities.

Homeschooling with Daddy :)

Hello!  Usually I do the "homeschooling" lessons so it is a lot of fun for Little One when daddy decides to do some school lessons.  :)  We are using the Seton Press Handwriting series.  My son is a PreK4 so I started with the Kindergarten book.  I like the series because it has a small daily worksheet to do each day.  The lesson on Monday introduces a weekly concept which is reviewed each day and then completed on Friday.  Each page starts with a "this day is ___" and then has a quick activity to do like identifying things in the room that start with the letter that we will be working on.   It's a very gradual process that reinforces the same concept until the student has mastered the concept.  It is a Catholic curriculum and has religious references and prayers.  It takes us about 5 minutes a day to complete.

Daddy also had the opportunity to take LO to the public library for a Lego contest.  LO built a structure and then presented it to the judges.  He won a certificate award :)  We were very proud of him.

                                     

Foam Sticker Artwork - fine motor artwork :)

Hello!  One way to develop a preschooler's fine motor skills is to have them use stickers to make artwork.  In this activity, Little One had to take the paper off the back of the foam stickers and place them on a large piece of white construction paper.  We used a religious theme but any type foam sticker would have the same results.   Once he stuck all his stickers onto the paper, we used paint dabbers to paint all the foam stickers.  This now makes the artwork a stencil.  We then placed another piece of white construction paper on top of the original picture and used a wooden roller to put pressure on the picture.   The last photo is our finished product :)  One picture is the stencil and the other is the print!  Very cool :)

Felt board - The Woman Who Swallowed a Fly

A great thing to do for storytime are felt board stories.  One of the stories that my Little One likes to do is "The Woman Who Swallowed a Fly".   He will do this one over and over again.  He likes putting all the pieces inside the woman.   We read the book while he plays with the felt pieces.  I also have the key words on cardstock to put on the felt board to re-enforce the words as we go through the story.

Sea Urchin Lesson :)

Hello!  So my Little One is obsessed with anything that has to do with the ocean.   We love the Magic School Bus books, DVDs, and kits.  LO asked me if he could make a sea urchin.  Well, I have never made a sea urchin before but I thought this sounded like a doable quick project.  I ended up just using Playdoh and toothpicks.  We rolled the Playdoh into balls and inserted lots of toothpicks for the sea urchin spikes :)  Soooo easy, yet so fun :)  We read the Magic School Bus book called "On the Ocean Floor" and pulled out LO's ocean encyclopedia and read about sea urchins, specifically about the dangers of them.  We learned a lot. :) 

This summer we traveled up to Maine and went to the Mount Desert Oceanarium.  While at the oceanarium we had the opportunity to touch a real, live sea urchin!  LO was so excited!  :)  During the presentation on the sea urchin, he told the staff volunteer about how HE had made a sea urchin.  She looked a little perplexed until I explained that we made one out of Playdoh and toothpicks.  :)  He then proceeded to tell HER all about sea urchins.  Everyone in our group was very impressed with his knowledge on sea urchins :)  It was definitely a great homeschooling moment!