Thursday, March 31, 2011

Stuffed animals, lions, and whales!


I am ready for a spring break!  How about you??  Too bad we do not have spring like weather here yet…but I know it is coming soon.  I can’t wait to go to the park, play outside with the kids…or better yet go to the beach!  Well spring break has officially begun for us….well sort of.  We did a few school related things this week, but mostly Jocelyn and I have been working on getting her ready for next weeks homeschooling science fair.  So stay tuned, as next week I am sure I will post something about it!   

This week we did a few animal related activities.  Raise your hand if you LOVE stuffed animals.  I don’t see very many hands raised (besides my kids).  My hand wasn’t raised.  I keep them, because my kids like them, but we tend to cycle through them quiet often.  We have held onto ones that have been given as gifts for certain occasions, but others we just can’t keep and they just magically disappear from this house.  I wanted to see where our stuffed animal count was and evaluate if any needed to disappear…unfortunately I couldn’t make any disappear this time as they are all pretty precious to the girls…and don’t you hate it when they have named them??  Ugh.  Anyways, I made a little board on the floor out of masking tape and put flash card numbers in the board.  The girls then had to toss their stuffed animals onto the board.  They then had to add up whatever numbers their animal landed on.  Jocelyn had to toss four animals so should could make double digit problems and Katelyn two. 
The girls then made flashcards with a few different animal names.  I then called out the names and they had to match it up with the corresponding animal. 
 I then hid the flashcards around the house and they had to find the flashcards and find the corresponding animal. 
 After we finished our stuffed animal activities, we read about Daniel and the lion’s den.  Good story if you haven’t read it yet…it is in Daniel 6 in the Bible.

The kids then made lion masks.
 The next day the kids learned about whales.  They are really neat mammals.  We talked about the different types of whales and the characteristics of each.  We also watched a few videos on YouTube included an entire Sea World show.  We also read about Jonah and the whale in Jonah chapters 1-4 in the Bible and then the kids made these:
 That is all for this week!  This weekend I am off to a homeschooling conference with some friends…super excited as it always gets my mind going and excited about the possibilities with our adventure.

This link has been linked up with Homeschool Creations Blogspot.

2 comments:

  1. This is such a good idea for the stuffed animals! I will have to try it. It would definitely help learn some reading words.

    We are overstuffed here too. I do not ever remember playing with my animals when I was younger and they are my daughter's toy of choice! lol We just went through them and got rid of 1/4 of them and we are still at 175 or so...and yes, she plays with all of them. lol AND she remembers which ones she gave away (she cracks me up).

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  2. Postmarking the toy toss game for future use! My oldest (thankfully) isn't much for stuffed animals but the baby wants every one he sees in the store!

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