I think this was one of my favorite tot school weeks so far and I really feel we have made the transition from "tot" school to "pre school this week. We got through a ton of Penguin themed activities, worksheets and books. The only thing we didn't really get to was the art projects I had planned. My Little Man is not a fan of the art currently, but The Princess is so I thought we would do a couple art activities.

The Princess made her very first lap book and she did it almost entirely by herself. She cut, she glues, she answered the questions and wrote her information. I am a proud mommy. I'll include a few pictures of the completed book in the slide show below.

I bought a Penguin activity kit on Amazon. It was $11.00 but only worth about $5.00 I was really disappointed. I hung up the life size poster of the Emperor Penguin with some velcro clips I had and let the kids take their picture next to it so they could see the penguin was taller than each of them. But the kit is going back because it was not worth $11.00.

I think everyone enjoyed learning about how Penguins stay warm. I did a whole separate Fun Friday post about this you can see it here.

Unfortunately we did not get to do a Dr. Seuss week for Dr. Seuss' birthday since we extended our Penguin theme so we will do a belated birthday celebration next week. ( I have lots of ideas for Wacky Wednesday).

Thanks for taking a peek at our week. Be sure to check out 1+1+1=1, Preschool Corner, Living Montessori Now, and the TGIF Linky Party to see what others are doing this week. I've added a Follow me on twitter button if you'd like to follow our journey. 

How do penguins keep warm in such frigid temperatures you wonder. Well we learned about three ways the Penguins keep warm.  The first way is by huddling close together. Penguins move to the middle of the huddle, when they get hot they move to the outside and other penguins move into the center of the huddle. We were able to experience this somewhat with three people. (Looks more like a sandwhich hug than a huddle.)

The second way penguins keep warm is the insulation their down feathers provide them with. We took some down feathers and a few ice cubes and did a little experiment of our own. In one hand we placed the down feathers and put an ice cube on top of the feathers. In the second hand we put an ice cube. The kids were able to feel that the feathers protected their hand from the cold. The Princess explained to me that her bare hand was very cold but the hand with the feathers didn't feel cold at all. Little Man dropped the ice cube out of his bare hand almost immediately- lol. You could kick this up a notch  for kids a little older by using a timer to see how long it takes for the feather hand to get cold or by using a thermometer in each hand (one under the feathers) to see the temperature difference. These feathers also keep the water from penetrating the penguin.

I've been seeing lots of posts about water beads (polymer beads) so I ordered some on ebay from China for only 0.15 a package. They came on Thursday and I couldn't resist so we had two science projects this Friday.

Check out what others are doing with Science this week at the Science Sundays Linky. What kind of fun are you having on Fridays? Check out others at the Fun Stuff Friday Linky.

The third way penguins keep warm is the insulation that their fat layer (blubber) provides them.  To experience this we used plastic baggies, crisco and a tub of ice water. We filled one baggie 1/3 full with crisco then inserted teh second baggie to act as a glove so our hands wouldn't get so yucky. We put our hands inside the second baggie and plunged our baggie/ crisco covered hand into the icy water. Amazing! The crisco insulated our hand like the penguins blubber and our hand stayed warm. I took quite a few pictures so I'll insert a slide show below.

I ordered some water beads from Ebay and they were delivered on Thursday. I couldn't resist pulling them out- so we did a second science investigation today.

So after a slow start on our Penguins unit last week I am in full gear for this week. I think I have planned enough activities, projects and worksheets for an entire month- lol. It's only Tuesday and we have burned through about a half of the activities I had prepared so I am a happy camper this week. The Princess and the Little Man are really enjoying all the Penguin activities. I was beyond amazed when Daddy asked The Princess at dinner on Monday what she had learned. The facts and details she recalled were just amazing. Even the Little Man knew what the largest penguin was (The Emperor) that Penguins do not have knees, and that they waddle. I decided to do a lap book about Penguins with the kids since I knew we would have so much information at our disposal. I think that constructing the lap book (just the parts for the information we had covered) is what aided in the recollection of facts and details. Dinner was very exciting as the kids told Daddy all about penguins and all about how they stay warm (our science activity for this week- see more on this when I post our weekly activities on Sunday). Anyway here are some of our trays for this week...  Be sure to stop by the What's on the Tray Wednesday Linky at H is for Homeschooling or the Montessori Monday Linky to see what others have planned.

How is it that we always seem to have a 'short week' when each week is 7 days- lol.  So this week we had Mommy's birthday (my), A Parenting Class at my church, Preschool at the Adult School, and a playday where we went to TWO play places and an awards assembly for Big Sister.  I had so many penguin activities planned that we will continue this theme next week.

This week we started our Penguin theme but we have so much more to do, I feel like we barely touched on anything so we will continue with Penguins next week. We had so many extra activities this week we just didn't have a lot of time to do our tot school. I didn't even have a chance to post our trays on Tuesday. So, this post will contain our trays and few photos of part of our week and I'll post the rest next week when we complete our Penguin Unit.  Check out my Pinterest Penguin Board for many more activites. Be sure to come back next week. Be sure to check out 1+1+1=1, Preschool Corner, Living Montessori Now, and the TGIF Linky Party to see what others are doing this week. I've added a Follow me on twitter button if you'd like to follow our journey. A Big Thanks to Living Montessori Now which has featured our activites on their Facebook page two weeks in a row:)

Happy Valentine's Day! I made pink heart shaped pancakes for breakfast and served it with pink mile of coarse. Daddy was on a business trip so I celebrated Valentine's Day with my two little love bugs. Below are some activities we worked on this week. I realized that I didn't take very many pictures this week and I didn't want to duplicate a ton with previous posts. So be sure to check out my post "What's on our  Trays Tuesday". (2/14/12) this week since I didn't get a pictures of the kids doing all the activities. I also did a separate blog all about our Dental Health activites. See my Fun Friday- Dental Health post 2/17/12.

On another note, I am asking prayers for the Pierce family who lost their son (only 2 years old) last night when he lost his battle with Leigh's Disease. Please pray for grace, comfort and healing for this family. Little Jack was an adorable little boy with the biggest smile. You can learn a little more about the family by clicking here. You can also visit their Facebook page. Or read this article about the family.My heart is just breaking for this family.

Also check out our trays for this week here. Check out our Fun Friday activity here. Be sure to check out 1+1+1=1, Preschool Corner, Living Montessori Now, and the TGIF Linky Party to see what others are doing this week. I've added a Follow me on twitter button if you'd like to follow our journey. A Big Thanks to Living Montessori Now which has featured our activites on their Facebook page two weeks in a row:)

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Today for "Fun Friday" we spent some time talking about healthy food choices for our teeth and we discussed how to take care of our teeth. Thanks to Pinterest I found a couple great activities to include. Most of the printable stuff came from prekfun.com.
I made this activity where the kids went through the food from their play kitchen and decided if it was a food that was good for teeth or not. If it was a food that was good for teeth they got to feed the mouth by placing the food into the box. If it was not a good food they placed it in a bin under the box. This was  actually a lot of fun and there was some great discussion that took place (Particularly about breads, buns, and bagels). The Princess asked what would happen if a sugar bug started to make a hole in the tooth but then got brushed away. So we talked about cavities and fillings. We read The Tooth Book by P.D. Eastman as well.  I got out my flannel board and we did an introductory lesson on healthy teeth foods (we did this before the box activity). I also had them play a roll and cover game where they covered the teeth on the paper with healthy foods. Finally we did a counting sheet where they counted teeth and out the correct toothbrush (by number) on the mouth.  I almost forgot we brushed (painted) teeth with our toothbrush to make them white. Check out our activities below.

I also made a sight word game with a dental health theme- check it out under resources. We didn't get to it today because we met some friends at our local kids gym so I don't have pictures yet.

I'm moving my tray posts to Tuesdays because it works better pneumonically- LOL This week I was planning to start with Valentine's Day activities and then move into our study on Penguins. However, I had so many trays filled with Valentine's Day stuff that I might wait and start penguins next week since it could very well take all week to get through these trays.

When you are done peeking at our trays head over to H is for homeschooling and see what others have on their trays this week.

So here is what we have on the trays this week:

We really had a good time this week with all our Valentine's Day activities. I think my favorites were the Pine the Nose on the Valentine and the homemade lava lamp. Both were inspired by ideas I saw on Pinterest. I felt like we were hearts galore this week, so I was really happy when I found the I Love Trucks pack from 2teachingmommies. Although it was still pinkalicious and absolutely adorable the trucks, trains and helicopters made it tolerable for the Little Man.

I can't believe we are already thinking about Kindergarten for the Little Princess we went to our first Kindergarten Introduction meeting at our local fundamental school this past Wednesday. Admission is by lottery so we will know next week (Probably on Valentine's Day) if she will get it or not. We hope that she does because we are considering home schooling as a viable option. Our little baby girl is reading, already has over half the Kindergarten sight words memorized and is doing addition and subtraction. We are now working on teen numbers and looking at base ten, counting up from 10 etc. Tonight she was doing introductory algebra on her Innotab tablet (9 - ? =3 and 5 + ? =7). I was amazed that she was getting about 80% of them correct.

Little Man has mastered colors and shapes and his counting (1 to 1 correspondence) has improved tremendously. He is still struggling with patters and find the one that is different type activities. He is also beginning to recognize what letter some things start with. He was not very interested in tot school this week so I didn't really push it. I was able to engage him a few times by beginning an activity by myself and narrating out loud what I was doing until he was interested enough to come try it.
Also check out our trays for this week here. Check out our Fun Friday activity here. Be sure to check out 1+1+1=1, preschool corner and the TGIF Linky Party to see what others are doing this week. I've added a Follow me on twitter button if you'd like to follow our journey.

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In case you missed it, but it would be hard to, I am addicted to Pinterest. I spend more time on Pinterest than email and Facebook combined. I even spend more time on Pinterest then surfing my favorite blogs these days. There are so many wonderful ideas that three lifetime would not be enough to try them all. This week we enjoyed a few Valentine's Day themed activities so when I saw this Lava- lamp idea on Pinterest I knew I would have to try it with some red food dye to tie into our theme for the week. It was really fun and the kids enjoyed  it quite a bit. Even Daddy can out and joined us for this one. I took a Smart water bottle and peeled off the lable (its a 1 liter bottle). Next I let the kids pour in some cooking oil (filling the water bottle a little more than half way- we used a funnel for this). Then Little Man added some red food coloring about 20 drops. Then the Princess filled the bottle the rest off the way with water. I had cut up the alka-seltzer tablets into fourths ahead of time. The kids took turns dropping in the pieces. A couple of notes here 1. I bought the store brand tablets as they were on sale 36 tablets for $4.99 Alka- seltzer tablets were $6.99. 2. We discussed viscosity, half (fair shares) we observed and talked about our observations. We also discussed why there were bubbles and how the oil was lighter than the water etc. So this turned out to be very education as well as just fun. 3. I had all my materials ready to go before the kids came to the table so there would be better supervision and less chance of spilling. After we used the first two tablets (8 tries) My hubby decided we should try halves- It got a little messy because we filled our bottle all the way to the neck I recommend leaving an inch empty at the top to prevent spill over.  5. I did this outside in case the bottle did get spilled. So Here are our photos. It was so much fun it was hard to stop and take photos.

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I am so excited to share my new game with you. Busy Bee CVC game. The Princess  has started reading and spelling CVC words. We've been playing many of the "popcorn words" games to practice reading her sight words. To mix it up I made this game to practice short vowel sounds and spelling of CVC words. I made most of the Bees so that several vowels can be used to make different words (for instance p_n  could be pen, pin, pun or pan). I hope you enjoy, and if you use this game drop me a comment to let me know how it worked for you. Here are a couple pictures of the Princess and the Little Man playing the game. If you can believe it my non- reading Little Man actually won- LOL.