Field Trip to the Fire Department

October* was National Fire Safety Prevention Month.   So to celebrate the month we took a tour of a local fire department with some of our friends.   The kids had a great time and I think they learned a lot.

*I know, I know...it is currently mid November.  Sometimes I am a little late to download photos off of my camera. 

The kids and parents watching a film on fire prevention and safety.

Taking a tour of the fire department.  We got to see where the firefighters sleep and eat and how calls are answered.

The kids learned about some of the tools the firefighters use to fight fires and perform medical rescues.

The kids hanging out on the truck.

The kids caught an inside look of the fire truck.

Marcus jumping out

Just being silly

This is the outfit Sophie picked out and demanded to wear.  She is wearing her favorite black fur coat with her spiderman ball cap.  She found this black fur coat at the thrift store and LOVES it.  She says it is her "bear coat".

Sophie in her bear coat walking around.

After we saw the inside of the truck, the kids were invited inside to see the firefighter in his full gear.

The firefighter wanted the kids to see what he looked and sounded like in his gear.  He explaided that often times kids are frightened when they see a fire fighter coming into their room and will run and hide from them.  He wanted them to know that he was just a "regular guy" under all of this equipment, and they didn't need to be afraid of him.  Marcus pointed out that he sounded a lot like Darth Vader with the mask on. 

Sophie gave the firefighter a hug.

Marcus giving the firefighter a hug.

They all tried to lift up some of the equipment.  It was HEAVY!

Group Photo

 

Links to become Attached to:
Tot School
Preschool Corner
TGIF
Field Trip Friday Blog Hop

MathStart Books: Fun with Sorting

We had some fun today with blocks and exploring sorting things by various attributes. 

Get Ready:

You will need some things from around the house that can be easily sorted by various attributes.  (Color, Size, Shape, etc.)  Some ideas would be socks, buttons, books, or shoes.  For this activity we used mini unit blocks similar to these. 

Activity 1:  One of these Things Doesn't Belong Here
We reviewed the concepts of "alike" and "different" by playing the game, "One of these things doesn't belong here."  I would line up four objects.  Three of these objects would be alike in some way.  One of the objects would be different in some way.   All of the objects would have something in common.   I had the kids pick out the different object.  I even sang the old sesame street song to the kids because I couldn't resist.

 Acitvity 2:  Guess the rule
The next game we played was called "Guess The Rule".  I would start sorting the objects and the kids would try to guess what attribute I was sorting them by.  We did some talking by asking questions like:
1)  How are all of the objects alike?  (In our case Sophie said that they were all made of wood.)
2)  How are the items in the two groups different?
 
Activity 3:  Sorting objects on your own
I then had the kids try to think of as many ways as possible of sorting our blocks.  Firs they sorted by color.

Then they sorted by shape. 

Activity 4:  MathStart Book
I love MathStart books by Stuart J. Murphy.  They are really a fantastic way to teach young children math.  Especially if your kids like to be read to.  I read the kids the book 3 Little Firefighters. 

In the book the three firefighters need to get dressed for the parade, and they need to look their best.   However they are missing their buttons and their belly buttons are showing.  (This always makes the kids giggle.) So they search the house high and low until they find an assortment of various buttons.  

The firefighters each need four buttons on their jacket otherwise they won't stay shut.  Also, since they need to look their best, the buttons need to match in some way.  So the firefighters have to sort their buttons in various ways until they find a combination that works. 

After we read the book, I printed out some copies of the firefighters from the books.  I then gave the kids a puzzle to work out that involved sorting their own "buttons".  (Except we pretended the blocks were buttons because I was too lazy to run upstairs and face by messy button box.)

The kids needed to find a combination that gave:
-Each Firefighter four buttons, and
-The buttons needed to match in some way on each jacket.

First the kids tried sorting the "buttons" by color.  That didn't work because we didn't have four green buttons.

Next the kids sorted the "buttons" by shape.  This worked! 

Well, thanks for reading everyone!!

Links to Become Attached To:
Stuart J. Murphy's Main Site (He is the author of the MathStart series and his website has a ton of great ideas for using his books.)
Math Monday Blog Hop (tons of great math ideas)
Tot School (See how others are learning with their tots!)
Preschool Corner (See how others are learning with their preschoolers!)

What we did all day...

 (Marcus is 45 months old and Sophia is 28 months old)

Here are some of our recent adventures learning and playing--


On the Learning Shelves:
*To see more information on how we use our learning shelves, please visit this tot school post here.
I rotated the following toys/activites out on the shelves this week:


1)  3D Feel & Find--  This was a HUGE hit with the kids this week.  Sophia and Marcus would just crack up laughing every time we brought this out to play.   To play this game, you put the different 3D shaped blocks into the "mystery bag".  Then, you try to feel around and find that block that matches your tile.  To make it easier, I started out with only 3 shapes that were very different from each other.  By the end of the week they seemed to need more of a challenge, so I added in a fourth shape. 

2)   See & Spell Puzzles--  This was another activity that both kids enjoyed.  I liked this activity because they had enough letters and puzzle tiles for both kids to play at once.  I started out the week with all of the letters and puzzles out.  However, I could tell that it was overwhelming for Sophia.  She was having problems finding the correct letters.  So I put away all of the longer word puzzles and left out only the three letter word puzzles.  I also only put out the letters that worked with the puzzle.  Sophia had a lot more success this way. 


3)  Bead Sequencing Set--  I have to admit that I was not happy with the quality of this activity.  The wooden cards are really difficult to get into the slots.  You have to really cram them in.  No way could a child do this by themselves.  Also, we seem to be short a purple bead that is needed to complete the first pattern.  I need to contact the manufacturer...but, you know, it is just annoying that I have to do that.  The kids enjoyed this activity very much.  They didn't seem to get the idea of following the patterns, but they did enjoy building "towers" by stringing the beads.  We will continue to work on the patterns later on.  I just brought this out as an introduction.

4)  Homemade Cinamon Scented Play Dough-

We are doing a very laid back apple unit study this month and next.  So I made a red play dough scented with real ground cinnamon to go with the apple theme.  This is my new favorite play dough recipe.  The smell is indescribably.  It has an amazing texture unlike any other dough recipe I have tried before, AND, it has a great shelf life.  My kids have left this play dough out and uncovered for hours and hours this week.  All I usually need to do is kneed it a few times, and recover it and it is good to go.  Gotta love that!  You can view the recipe here.

5)  Wedgets
The whole family had fun playing with wedgits this week.  I have to admit that Doug was much better at building with these than I was. 
I put these out on the shelf in a basket/tray thing, with a building board, and a few of the easier design cards to give them some ideas.  The kids didn't care much for the building board or the design cards.  They had a lot more fun just building with them on their own. 


Nature Study:
We went on two nature walks this week.  The first was throgh a wooded area and then metro garden.  The second trip was a visit exploring a stream.  You can read about our adventures and why we study nature here.

Litterature & Reading with Mommy:
You've heard of Oprah's book club right?  Well, Sophia and Marcus have their own little book club .  I let them pick the books they want to read during the week.  Here are their picks for this week.   You can check out their past choices by looking at the "weekly reading" labeled entries. 

Field Trips:
We also went on a field trip to the post office.   We actually did this a few weeks ago, but couldn't blog about it until now because I didn't want to give my grandparents a chance to read their letters before they had a chance to open them!  :)   

We were reading in the book What Do People Do All Day by Richard Scary about how post offices work. 

Fantastic Book! 

The kids decided that they wanted to receive some mail of their own.  I told them that in order to receive mail, they needed to write a letter to someone.  So we wrote to their great grandma and grandpa.   I let them pick the colors of paper and marker that they wanted to use.  On one side they drew them a picture  (Their "writing")  and on the other side they dictated a letter for me to write to them.

Here are Sophia's letters:

Sophia drew some pictures for Great Grandma and Grandpa

Sophia (aka She-She) then dictated what she wanted to write to Grandma and Grandpa.  These letters cracked me up.  My favorite line is "You're Grandma.  I She-She." I like this in a letter, sometimes we need simple reminders like this.   I also thought her letter to Grandpa was very sweet.    Also, can you tell that she likes Winnie the Pooh?  :)

Here are Marcus's letters:

Marcus took "writing a letter" very literally and literally wrote the letter M on one page.  The orange page is what he said was the "number 10".  I don't see it, but that is what he says he wrote.

Unlike Sophia, Marcus did not beat around the bush in his letters.  He got right to the point and asked his Grandparents to "write him back". 

Here are some snaps of taking the kids to the post office to mail their letters.  Sure I could have just put the flag up on our mail box...but this was more fun.

Art:
I found some Easel Art Pages on the blog "Making Learning Fun".  The idea is that kids paint simple objects by following graphic instructions.  I printed out an apple to go with our theme.  (Also becasue an apple is one of the more simple designs to print.)  Marcus showed no interest in wanting to paint on the easel.  Sophia was very eager to try this.

I laid out three baby food jars filled with red, green, and brown paint.  I also gave her three matching paint brushes so the colors would stay separate.  

Here is Sophia and the apple that she painted in the background.  If you can tell, she tried to paint a red circle, a brown stem, and a green leaf. 

I honestly regret introducing this art project to her.   I showed her how to follow the instruction and paint the apple.  (Which she did.)  But it seemed to take a lot of the joy out of her painting.  Before she would just go wild and cover the board with dripping paint.  But after I showed her the instructions she seemed to second guess everything she painted and wanted to know if it was "right" or not.  That kind of made me sad.  So I have decided that I like the unstructured art activities a lot more for now.  I won't be doing another one of these easel projects for awhile.  I would rather her just have fun and experiment with the process of painting at this age.

Well, if you have made it this far..  CONGRATULATIONS!!  Sorry for such a long post, but we had lots and lots of fun to share. 

Also, please check out the Ultimate Alphabet Craft Collection on my blog.  It is a collective of many, many great ideas for teaching children letter recognition and sounds.

To see what other tots have been doing this week, please visit this blog here.

Thanks for reading!!