Rainbow Writing Sensory Bags

Hi! I'm Leslie- a homeschooling momma to an almost 5 year old girl (seriously cant believe I just typed that) and 17 month old boy.  The 2 are as different as night and day.  I share our adventures here to both inspire learning at home and chronicle our lives, because honestly, I never started the baby books and my kids will just have to look back on their childhood through this blog... ha! #keepinitreal

Wonderful Water.
It leads to some of the most beautiful things in nature- including rainbows.
Mother Goose Time suggested a rainbow sensory bag STEAM station that we could not pass up,
and honestly, my kids are still enjoying these bags several days later.

Here's what you need:
Clear zipper baggies (quart or gallon- we used gallon)
Rainbow colors of paint (we actually found that only using the primary colors- red, yellow, and blue- works best and leads to learning in color theory),
wide tape (painters, duct, or packing tape could all easily work.)

Let your preschooler squirt some color in a baggie.
My girl made 2 bags: one for my preschooler and one for my toddler.
The toddler bag had a squirt of all the colors.  My preschooler's bag only had the primary colors.
Seal shut.  Use a straw to suck out as much air as possible from your baggie.  You don't want to squeeze the air since that will mix the colors and that is for your kiddos to do.

While you are prepping your bags you could ask some big questions MGT suggested:
-When might you see a rainbow?
-What colors do you see in a rainbow?
-What happens if the colors mix?

For best results, tape your baggie to a light table or window.  The light allows for some amazing color changes, and having it taped allows your kids to use the bags to practice writing.

Writing her name with baby brother waiting for his chance to press on the bag.

Drawing lines and letters.

Brother's bag was taped to the window.  He so enjoyed having his own rainbow bag.

Rainbows are my girl's favorite thing right now besides horses.
Don't all kids love rainbows at some point?
I know I never grew out of loving them. 
So enjoy making those rainbows with your littlest learners. 
We don't get to experience them too often in nature, so make sure you make some time to experience rainbows at home however you can!

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Preschool: Car Wash Activities

Hi! I'm Leslie- a homeschooling momma to an almost 5 year old girl (seriously can't believe I just typed that) and 17 month old boy.  The 2 are as different as night and day.  I share our adventures here to both inspire learning at home and chronicle our lives, because honestly, I never started the baby books and my kids will just have to look back on their childhood through this blog... ha #keepinitreal.

Everything can turn into a fun learning experience!

We are enjoying a month of focusing on all things that have Bubbles, Boats, and Floats from 

Mother Goose Time.  This week we have had a blast learning about Soapy Water through daily topics such as Bath Time, Washing Dishes, Laundry, Bubble, and the Car Wash!

We usually hand wash our car.  It's been really fun seeing my girl get into it.  On this particular day, I had my kids wash their vehicles (Cozy Coupe and Trike) which they had a blast doing. 

Before we had fun in outside literally washing cars, we had some fun indoors too! 

What person does not love rubbing their hands through shaving cream?

I know I still do.  Break out that bottle (we bought ours at Dollar Tree) and practice writing letters in the foam.  I used our picture cards (that I turned into magnets...see that post here) from MGT.  My girl said the word on the picture, focusing on the beginning sound, and then wrote that letter in her cream.  I then passed the magnet to my son who put it on a metal tray.  

I am really trying to get him involved.  He is one of those people who did not like putting his hands in the shaving cream.  He is consistent at staying true to being completely opposite of his sister.

Car Washes don't have to be outside!

They can be inside too!  Our STEAM station suggested taping streamers or fasteners to an open box to allow kids to pass cars through.  Our MATH game had us sorting cars by size.  I just combined the two.  I taped some streamers to our chair, and MGT sent some sorting signs (Large Parking, Medium Parking, and Small Parking).  We gathered all the toy vehicles (including trains) and passed them through our car wash.  Usually little brother passed the cars to sister who then sorted them by size.  What I really loved about this activity, was how my girl had to keep comparing the cars to what we had.  We ended up with a lot of large cars, but we had some other sizes as well.

After my son's nap, and my girl's quiet time, we ventured outdoors to wash their vehicles.  

All I needed was a bucket of soapy water, 2 sponges, and their vehicles.  Fine motor skills were practiced as they squeezed the sponges, and they had to pay attention to make sure they removed all the dirt.  They really liked focusing on the tires. 

You should also try to eat soapy bubbly water at least once in your life.

You haven't lived your best life until then ;) 

 He's so stinkin' cute.

They were busy washing their cars for over 1/2 and hour and they both had so much fun doing it together.  I love seeing them work on things together.

I love how MGT turns everything into learning experiences... even car washing.

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And be sure to check out Mother Goose Time...it's amazing stuff.

Happy Learning!

Preschool: Exploring Waterfalls

Hi! I'm Leslie- a homeschooling momma to an almost 5 year old girl (seriously can't believe I just typed that) and 17 month old boy.  The 2 are as different as night and day.  I share our adventures here to both inspire learning at home and chronicle our lives, because honestly, I never started the baby books and my kids will just have to look back on their childhood through this blog... ha #keepinitreal.

In my life before being a homeschool preschool momma, I was a public education teacher.
I taught 3rd, 4th, 6th grades (all subjects), and high school Art. You can read about those days here,  Creating "Wonder" in learning can be tough in public school, but it's one of my most favorite things to observe in my preschooler. 
As we explored waterfalls, I got to see that wonder again and again.  

We've been using Mother Goose Time as our preschool curriculum for almost 3 years, and this month is all about Bubbles, Boats, and Floats!

Our STEAM station on Waterfall Day suggested going outside to do this activity.  Anytime I can take learning outdoors, I try to do it!  Who says learning has to be at a desk inside all day anyway?

Grab some spray bottles and put different colored water in each one.  I put water in our bottles and added these liquid watercolors.  They are my FAVE, but you could definitely use food coloring.

Using primary colors (red, yellow, and blue) will lead to the best results, and a great experiment in color mixing!  I just used red (turned more pinkish) and blue since I only had 2 bottles.

I used some long copy paper and the kids got right to work spraying the top of the paper and watching the water drip down like a waterfall.

I love this picture below!  Look at them observing the paper... even little brother got in on it!  

They began to notice that the water kept going down the same path and eventually it tore.

They noticed the tear before I did.

"Why did it break?" our little friend visiting asked.

This led to a great discussion about how powerful water is!  

I wanted my girl and her little buddy to each have some artwork to hang on the walls at home, so I got out some watercolor paper- one for each of them and attached it to the fence just like the long piece of copy paper.  They then took turns spraying the papers and watching the water trickle down.

What did they learn?

-Water is powerful.  It can tear and break things.

-Water always goes down.

-Water likes to go down the same path over and over.

-When red and blue mix, it creates purple.

We had so much fun!

I am so thankful MGT has all these wonderful ideas I can pull from to create fun learning experiences for my kids (and their friends)!   Honestly, my brain is fried by the time they go to bed, and the thought of creating a lesson from scratch each and everyday makes that fried brain, spin.  

If you are looking to make learning fun, check out Mother Goose Time!

You can see our adventures daily on our Facebook page,

and if you are on Pinterest, you can follow me here or pin the image below. :) 

Happy Learning, friends!

Preschool: Exploring Alligators

Hi! I'm Leslie- a homeschooling momma to almost 5 year old girl (seriously can't believe I just typed that) and 17 month old boy.  The 2 are as different as night and day.  I share our adventures here to both inspire learning at home and chronicle our lives, because honestly, I never started the baby books and my kids will just have to look back on their childhood through this blog... ha #keepinitreal.

This week we started our newest unit from Mother Goose Time: Bubbles, Boats, and Floats.

As we journeyed "Down the River" this week, we studied rivers, beavers, boats, and....Alligators! 

My girl knew a lot about alligators (we go to the local zoo pretty regularly), but she mainly talked about their sharp teeth.  Perfect day to talk about the letter V since it looks like a sharp tooth upside down.  Using our loose letter parts, she built her uppercase and lowercase letter V.  We then used our letter pointer to locate the letter V, and lo and behold it's right there on a book of the month supplied by MGT!  By the way, I really enjoyed this book!

She then worked on her letter V book and turned those V's into alligators with snapping jaws!

We practiced making /v/ sound and really enunciated it in both her and her little brother's name.

Math Time = Game Time

Our game was called "Losing Teeth."  Did you know alligators have 80 teeth at a time but will have over 2,000 in their lifetime! Yeah, me either. #teacherguide

So how do you play this game?

All you need is playdough and golf tees.

MGT sent us 18 golf tees (love that I don't have to go to Walmart and search for this) and Avaleigh practiced one-to-one correspondence and counting as she placed 17 tees into her alligator's jaw.

She then picked them out one by one and placed them on her Counting Card to make sure she was right.  I love how she pointed each one up to look like teeth!

She then used a pair of tongs to put each one back into the basket (I couldn't get a good pic of that.)

Fine motor skills at work!

She was way into her playdough at this point, but wanted to go outside. 

MGT's Steam Station suggested we make "Alligator Skin" by doing crayon rubbings of different textures.  However, instead of crayons, we used playdough and had so much fun exploring and making impressions of textures outside!  We talked about what an alligator's skin might feel like (rough and bumpy), and Avaleigh would observe our yard and test what certain textures did to her playdough.  She explored our brick wall, trees, logs, shutters, wheels... so many more things!

"What can I test next, momma?"  "I don't know.  What do you think might be rough and bumpy?"

This was by far the favorite lesson of our alligator day.

Our playdough is still outside in its container.  She has gotten it out several times since doing this experiment to test more things!  I love to see her love learning.

So go try it out friends!  

Happy Learning!

Butterfly Metamorphosis Activities for Preschoolers

Our butterfly adventures ended this week.  We released our butterflies at the end of our last day.  It was the perfect way to end our week on Metamorphosis and our unit on Bees and Butterflies.
I shared the other week some egg-celent ideas (pun intended cuz I'm cheesy like that) from
Mother Goose Time as we studied the Egg in our Metamorphosis week.
 But here are our faves from the rest of the week of Metamorphosis.

Caterpillar 

Using our attribute blocks, my girl would roll a shape and we built the longest caterpillar we could naming each shape as we added to the body.  Her favorite activity though was building the caterpillar from the cornstarch noodles (amazing! check them out if you haven't).  MGT sent us a straw to make legs out of, but it would not stab into the noodles easily.  So I cut up some pipe cleaners and those worked great.  

We then took turns hiding the caterpillar and the other pretended to be a bird as we attempted to find the caterpillar.  It led to some great talks about predator and prey.

Chrysalis
On our Chrysalis day, we discussed the letter "X".  It was a great letter for that day, since we could make an X with our arms and hold ourselves pretending to be a chrysalis.
We made a pattern of the life cycle (I added the egg to our pattern cards below) of a butterfly, and my 4 year old drew it out.  I was so proud of her drawing!

Butterfly
It's so hard to teach her with my 16 month old who wants to be into ALLLLL of the things.   Lately I have been trying really hard to see what MGT has planned and how I can incorporate him into her lesson.  Our butterfly letter game was the perfect opportunity.  My son could throw the cube with our letter cards in it, and my daughter could use the butterflies and attach them to the flowers.  Doing this outside even made it more fun for both of them!  I try to take our learning outside as often as I can.
They both had a BLAST doing this activity.

Our butterfly day ended with us releasing our newest pets.
One amazing thing that happened was when we brought the carrier outside all the butterflies started to spread and open their wings.  They never looked like this indoors.  It is amazing how God designed them to know what to do.  Some flew off quickly, others had to be coaxed, and one even crawled onto my girl's finger to be released.  Definitely a cool experience for her and me.

What a great month of learning!  I loved how we could go outside and see all the bees and the butterflies around us.  In May, we will be studying Bubbles, Boats and Floats, and I will try to share a daily adventure on my FB page, so if you haven't followed me there, check it out :)


Happy Learning!