"Topic of the Week" Showing Up in Our Daily Lives

The other day, Talia was playing outside and found a ladybug. She was happy to find it and had no qualms with picking it up and letting it crawl on her. I can see the benefits of our "Topic of the Week" library study already! Usually she freaks out when she sees a bug.

I don't think she'll be quite as friendly with bees anytime soon though... lately she has been re-telling the story of the time a bee stung her, to anyone she can get to listen to her, over the phone!

Water Tub Variations

After trying the sink/float experiment, I decided to involve Katrina (my 11 month old) in the process next time.

It wasn't long before the next time & Katrina LOVED it! She stayed interested just as long as Talia did, and even ended up climbing right in at the end! :)

This time since we weren't doing the sink/float experiment, I filled the tub with kitchen items and toys that are fun to use with water (a straw, a rubber duck, measuring cups, etc.)

Another day, Talia used the water tub again, but this time we filled it with soapy, bubbly water.

She loves playing with this tub! Now, if only I could figure out how to keep her from flooding the floor or attempting a spontaneous mini-bath....

Christmas Preparation

This year I really want to do a lot of Christmas activities with Talia leading up to Christmas. I love Christmas for so many reasons, and I want her to experience the joy of the season. From gift giving and service to decorating & creating the Christmas atmosphere in our home to the true meaning and story of Christmas.

So, I'm starting now to gather ideas for activities to do with her come December.

Ideas I've found surfing just three blogs that I hope to try this year are as follows:

From Chasing Cheerios:

- Jinglebell Bracelets
- Clove oranges

From Filth Wizardry:

- Salt dough ornaments
- newspaper/streamer wreaths
- homemade advent calendar
- tights snowman
- cardboard Christmas trees


Stained glass paper trees from Alphamom

Popsicle stick tree ornaments from A Homeschool Journey

Candy Cane Syrup from Storybook Woods

Pipecleaner/bead Ornaments from Make and Takes

Santa Claus Card from Tutus and Turtles

Sparkly Pinecone Ornaments from Mom in Madison

Reindeer Paperbag from Mommy's Little Helper

I'll be adding more ideas as I come across them!

Now, please, if you're reading this, and you have any ideas (or great blog resources!), please share them in the comments section!

Go Fish Feelings Game

Chasing Cheerios posted recently about an animal groups file folder game from File Folder Fun.

I had never tried "File Folder Games" although the name seemed familiar, so I checked out the website. I found some cool games there that I know Talia will love. We started right away by printing off the "Go Fish Feelings" game.

Talia loved watching the pages come out of the printer :) I cut the cards out (she put her hand on mine to "help me" cut them out, and then I laminated them.

Then we played & played! She "got" the rules of the game and caught on quickly, learning the names of the individual fish.

When we were finished, she even started making up her own card game with the cards! (If you don't get a match, you put the poppy on them- we got a poppy in the mail for Remembrance Day).

This was a definite success & I'm sure we'll enjoy the game many more times! I'm looking forward to exploring the File Folder website to see what else we might be able to use!

Sink/Float Tub

I've been meaning to do this with Talia for a long time, ever since I saw Emily post about sinking and floating on Learning Vicariously. Today we finally got the tub out and tried it.

I just filled the tub with water & we hunted around for toys & other items to put in, to see if they would sink or float. After we were done experimenting, Talia continued playing with things in the water for a good while. Then I dumped out the heavy tub while she mopped the floor with a towel (which she seemed to enjoy ;).

Things I Would Change:

Next time, I think I'll get out the tub with water & let Katrina get in on the fun, too.

Library Topic of the Week

We've been choosing topics to research at the library each week for a few weeks now and I think it will be a lasting thing!

Each week as we approach our library day, I announce that we need to pick something that we want to learn about from the library, and Talia chooses a topic. She will often make comments during the week like, "Oh, we should get a book about that!", or she'll ask questions about something and I'll suggest getting a book about it. It's been great!

Topics we've done so far:

- Insects
- Zoo Animals
- Birds
- Fruit
- Crocodiles & Alligators

This week is fruit, but she also wanted to know the difference between Crocodiles & Alligators, so we got a couple of books on that topic as well.

I'm sure we'll revisit each topic in a number of ways in the future as there is so much more to learn than we can cover in a few books. I'm still getting the hang of trying to incorporate more learning activities into our days, and I'm sure you could choose a topic of the week and have lots of learning activities and field trips and other experiences planned to help your preschooler to learn more. I've already discussed the Aviary with Talia and hope that we'll be able to visit sometime- she's been talking about how she'd like to go see the birds in real life :)

We've also used the library for craft ideas (we got out a book of ideas for crafts using pipe cleaners).

The library has been a wonderful resource for us!

Typing

Talia loves typing at the computer! We often pull up Notepad, set the font large, and let her go for it. Sometimes she types whatever she wants (she loves to use caps lock) and sometimes she asks me how to spell different people's names, and she types them. It's great for her letter recognition, and she often surprises me with the letters she remembers and can find on the keyboard!