Living and Non Living

I don't have pictures for this one one but I wanted to share the idea with you. One thing a preschooler can learn is whether things are living or non living. Take your preschooler on a walk and see how many things they can point out that are living and how many things they see that are not living. 

My son LOVES to take pictures with our digital camera. So something we might do with this lesson is take our camera, get pictures of all the living and non living things that we see, then we could come home and make a collage of all the living things on one page and the non living things on another page.

Another idea if you are feeling super brave is to take your child to the pet store and let them see all the different kinds of living things and then go to a park or even the grocery store and see that the items on the shelves are non living.

Once you have living and non living down you could test them a little bit. Is a leaf living? Is a tree living? Is dirt living? Is a worm living? You take turns asking each other if different objects a living or non living. We really enjoy playing this game with numerous different subjects.

Most of all have fun with this activity. Kids love living things. In fact they love non living things also. Send us your pictures or tell us how this activity worked for you!

Stained Glass Crayon Art

Hello again. I have another fun project for you and your preschooler! We really enjoyed making our "stained glass" art.

Supplies: crayons, pencil/crayon sharpener, wax paper, metal pan, oven.



OK to start grab some crayons. We took all our broken ones that no one likes to color with. Using a pencil/crayon sharpener make some shavings of your favorite colors.

Next, arrange the shavings on one half of your wax paper.

The more colors that you use and mix the more your art will resemble stained glass. I really liked using a mix of bright and dark colors. Using black made it really look like there were metal bars between all my colors. (don't tell, but I had a BLAST using my own artistic skills to make these. I kept begging to make "just one more")

After you have gotten all the colors you want on your wax paper, carefully fold it in half. If you tip it all your shavings will fall the the crease, if that happens just spread them aout again.

Put a crease in the wax paper. Your preschooler should be able to help with this. Mine was adamant that he could do it by himself.



Put your waxed paper art on a cookie sheet. ( As the wax melts some of the clear stuff leaks out of the wax paper and onto the sheet)

Put your pan in the oven on 200 degrees for a few minutes until the crayon has melted.

Then when you pull them out they looke like stained glass. (We let ours cool on napkins. And it absorbs the extra wax)

This is the one with black. I really enjoyed making these and so did my preschooler. If you and your preschooler enjoy this project we would love to see your stained art.

Another addition to this project would be to frame them and hand them in the window. The sunlight coming through all the colors is beautiful!

Cars, Trucks,Trains and Airplanes are ways that mail travels

Hello again! Today my son and I learned about mail. I LOVE to get mail. I think it is the best to get a hand written letter.  To open the mail box and see an envelope with familiar handwritting as the address instead of the sterile typed one from a bill lights up my day.

We pulled out our favorite book and read about the different ways that mail travels.  We read about the post system, email, post cards and how to send those kinds of mail.

Since I am such a big fan of recieving snail mail I figured we could birghten someone elses day and send some hand written (colored) mail. We made pop-up cards! My preschooler is fascinated with animals so I found some printable animals to put in our cards. We found ours at www.edupics.com they have lots of fun coloring pages so check them out!

We colored the animals

Then cut them out.

(If your preschooler is interested let them do the cutting or at least give it a supervised try)

Next we needed to make the pop-out card for the animals to POP out of. Making these cards was very easy and very rewarding. We used construction paper and cut it different sizes for different cards.

You need two pieces of paper that are the same size. This is one sheet of construction paper cut in half.

Fold each half in half

Then make two cuts the same length for your POP

We did 4 cuts to make two POPS

Turn the paper over and pull your POP tabs out. Fold the card in half to keep the POP tabs popped.

This is how it should look

To complete the card glue the other piece of construction paper to the back to cover the holes. Kids love glue so this should be fun!

The base of your card is done. Now for the decorating!

We added our colored animals and word bubbles to send our message.

Get creative and make them however you vision them to be

Here are our finished cards

Now for the best part. Think of someone you love and send them a card in the mail.

Some other ideas you could try are:

Take your preschooler to the post office so they see a little bit of how the mail system works. You might even be able to call ahead of time and set up a tour for your kids and the neighbors.

Send a card in the mail to yourself! My mom sent me a card once and I was amazed that you could send a letter from your own house to your own house. This way the kids will be able to see what the letter looks like before it was sent, how it looks post stamped and how long it takes to send a letter.

Let your child type an email (with help) and send it to a loved one.

I would love to hear how you and your family learned about mail. If you made a pop up card please send us a picture (another form of communication :)

A learning activity gone bad (or so I thought)

Hello everyone, I wanted to share with you all an experience I had last week with my preschooler. I had been planning this totally fun activity for a few days, I was so excited and thought my son would be to. We have had lots of opportunities to learn about the body and its various parts and I bought a book that talked all about the body and had cool pictures.  I wanted to spend some one on one time with my son since I had baby number 2 a week ago. So during nap time I pulled out our cool body book and we looked all through it and talked about the body parts, skin, bones and hair. All was going well. We were both really into what we were learning and I was so happy to be spending time together.
Then came the funnest part! Or so I thought it would be. I got a roll of freezer paper and cut off a length to trace my sons body. The plan was to trace him and then spend time coloring in bones, organs, eyes, nose, ears, hair or whatever took interest. This is where it all went south! I explained what I wanted to do and my son flipped out! He kept telling me that laying on the paper scared him and that it hurt. I couldn't figure out how laying on a piece of paper hurt. I was also being a little stubborn because I was so excited to do this and just wanted him to lay on the paper.
We got into a little argument and my son went to his bed crying. I was so bummed that my great idea didn't work. I also decided that since he wasn't going to do what I wanted we wouldn't do anything. ( I know I was being really childish myself) 
I let myself cool down and then went to find my son.  He was in bed covered with his blankets crying for daddy. ( I know none of your children have ever done this:)  I sat down by the bed and we started talking about what happened and how we both felt. I was able to explain that I was excited for this activity and how it disappointed me that he wasn't as excited.  I listened while he explained that it scared him and he didn't want to do it. ( I still don't know why it was scary)  We both talked, without throwing fits, and reached an understanding. We were both done for the day.
My son has a hard time with communicating feelings and talking without flying of the handle so this was a wonderful thing for us. I was still bummed that we didn't get to draw his body, but a greater lesson was learned that day. I learned that its not always important to follow through with every lesson plan made, it is important to follow the needs of my preschooler. My son learned how to talk about the way he feels and why without throwing a huge tantrum.  I am so glad that we were able to have that moment together, talking and listening. Maybe we will get to the body another day, and maybe another way. For now it was good to teach communication skills.
Have you had a time when a lesson you planned didn't go as well as you liked?  How did you deal with it?

Pizza Time

Here at our house we love to let kids learn how to use measuring spoons and cups by helping us cook.  Here are Shawn and Tyler making their very own Italian pizzas.  What an excellent way to let kids learn how to measure and mix ingredients, and they also use fine motor skills to knead and roll out the dough.  Tons of fun!  
 

 

Little Chefs



Colors, Sorting and ...Laundry!?!

We talk a lot about learning at our house. Kenneth is currently in school, Shawn is 4 and I see that his little mind is yearning for some guided learning and I love to learn and have watched my Dad and mimic his desire to learn. I remember growing up that anytime my Dad wanted to know how to do something he would get a book or a video and pour over it until he felt he knew what he was doing. When I was a teenager we got horses and I became Daddy's little cowgirl. Horses have lots of expenses and so Dad and I wanted to learn how to do as much as we could to save on paying someone else to do them. Some of my favorite memories with my dad involve teaching Monty (our colt) how to walk on a lead, be saddled and cross small streams. We also learned how to trim and shoe the horses hooves.
My Mom is another example to me of learning. When I was in high school my mom and my youngest three siblings decided to take a stab at homeschooling. My youngest brother was showing signs of some "learning disababilities" (I don't like this term because he is not disabled he just learns differently than the way he was being taught) and my mom wanted to give him some individualized teaching/learning. The other kids decided that they wanted to try it out to. At first I was appaled! "don't homeschool" I thought "They will turn into FREAKS!" I didn't notice any horns growing or green goo anywhere but what I did notice was the way my mom took everyday opportunities and helped ALL of us to learn from them. There are two that stick out in my mind. One day my youngest brother saw a spider and was fascinated with it, so my mom got a mason jar, they carefully caught it and observed it. Then they turned to the computer and did a little research on spiders. Simple, yet they learned. My mom still won't dust down cobwebs because they are "beautiful and add to her home." The second learning that sticks in my mind is about birds. We moved from Riverton Utah to Klamath Falls Oregon and into a migratory bird path. There were so many new birds that we had never seen before! My mom bought a bird book that went EVERYWHERE with us. We all learned at least the names of some of the most common birds in the area. She made every drive we took a learning experience because there were always birds to point out and look up in our bird book.
So now your asking yourself how my childhood memories have anything to do with colors, sorting and Laundry. Well let me link them for you. I think that learning should become a part of our day and that our day should become a part of our learning. I have taken memories from my childhood to link learning to my family. About a week ago I was doing laundry (a chore that I put off as long as possible) and Shawn came into the laundry room and asked if he could help. After I got over the shock of why anyone would want to help with laundry I said "sure." Our first task was to sort the laundry. Sorting is a great thing to teach a preschooler I just have never associated it with laundry before. Well here it goes. I showed Shawn that we had three piles: Whites, Lights and Darks. Then I showed him what I considered each one to be. Then I let him do the sorting. Occasionally he would ask for my help, and I believe that here is where the real learning opportunity is, rather than tell him what pile it went in, I asked him what he thought and then we made sure it got in the right pile.
After we had all the clothes sorted he helped me start the washer and put the clothes in. He thought it was so funny to watch all the clothes get wet! We let them wash and the he helped transfer them from the washer to the dryer. During this time Shawn made an observation, he noticed that the clothes were cold! Then after the clothes were dry we pulled them out and he exclaimed "Now they are hot!"
I wish I could say every laundry day provides us such learning, but even one simple day of laundry taught colors, sorting, hot and cold and gave mom a needed break from the boring routine of laundry.

Its Swinging time!

Hello Parents, Grandparents and teachers of children. Its time to start learning with our little ones. Kenneth and I wanted to have a place where we could all come together and share our learning experiences, ask questions and get ideas. I, Tawnya, will be heading up the blog and sharing with you how the lessons and activities of Leap Swing have worked for Shawn and I. Little does Kenneth know that he gave me the fun job! Please leave comments on what you and your little ones are doing and what works for you. Leap Swing Preschool is not up and running yet (That's Kenneths job) But we wanted to start sharing some ideas that we have had so that you can see what we are like and use them with your children. Leap Swing should be in session starting January 2011 (if you don't know what Leap Swing is please visit www.leapswing.com) If you like what you see us doing here we will have so much more to offer then and would love to have you sign up for "class." Thanks for your support and happy learning.