Preschool Bird Food Math

Hi! I'm Leslie- a homeschooling momma to an almost 5 year old girl and 18 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

It's a new month which means a new month of Mother Goose Time learning!

This month our theme is A to Zoo and we are studying a new animal each day. 

B is for Bird and BOTH my kiddos were able to participate in our MATH activity for the day! 

Our day started with all of us creating a bird puppet (pictured above).  My son made the blue one with scribbles (he loves to color), I made the red/orange/yellow bird, and my preschooler made both the purple bird and rainbow bird.  MGT sent us all the materials! All we had to do was add some markers and glue.

We started our bird math game by first discussing birds.

"What do birds eat, Avaleigh?"

Puffins eat fish, hummingbirds eat nectar from flowers, chickens eat worms, and ducks eat bread.  Lots of birds eat seeds, too.

That unexpected response comes from her love of Puffin Rock, books, and our recent adventure to the duck pond. :)  Using playdough, we all made balls of bird seed and worms.  Even my boy made some fat worms!  I was amazed when I looked down and there was a playdough worm under his hand!

We made a bunch of bird food and added it to a bowl.  Earlier in the year, we found this abandoned bird's nest and added it to our nature collection. We decided it would be a great addition to our math game, so we placed our bird puppets that we made earlier in the nest.

MGT sent us some number cards and a picture of a bird's nest, but we chose to use our actual nest for this game.  We placed the number cards face down.  Avaleigh was challenged to flip over 2 cards, count out the number of bird food for each card, and then add them together.  She then practiced writing her numbers and wrote her first addition math sentence! 

You could even make subtraction number sentences after your bird puppets "eat" some of their food! 

We did 4 different rounds of this before she asked to play something else.

Although our game didn't last a long time, I was so happy both kids could participate and I really wanted to document both her first math sentence and his first time to play with playdough.

Find more A to Zoo adventures on our Facebook page!

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And have fun learning with your littles, friends!

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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