First week of October...

Hello... glad you stopped by!  We had another very busy, yet very fun week full of many different activities.  Hope you enjoy what you see and if you work with small children are able to use some of the ideas we've shared.

I'm glad to say that this week we had a rainy Monday but the rest of the week has been sunny and much warmer... getting up into the lower 70 degree range.  I'll take that!  So yes, we spent time outdoors... a lot of time!

This week we did not do a letter as I wanted to finish up on our state study... so below is part two of our state study of Delaware.  Part one can be viewed on the "Last week of September" page.

We started off by talking about the Horseshoe crab.  Then we waterpainted and made a horseshoe crab.  They turned out great but I had to cut, fold and glue the horseshoe crabs together.  The children were very excited at the final product.  You can get the printable for the horseshoe crab here.  Below are pictures of the page in our state study book and the horseshoe crabs we made.

 After discussing and looking at pictures of the horseshoe crab we colored one in our books.

 These are the finished horseshoe crabs we waterpainted.  Of course, they are rainbow in color...

that is our favorite way to do everything!

We then talked about how the first log cabins were built in Delaware by the people of Finland and Sweden who settled in Wilmington, Delaware.  We found out that the log cabins stayed warmer during the winter than the lumber houses that were being built.  Below you will find our page about log cabins in our state study.

On this page we talked about log cabins and hypothesized why we though they might

be warmer than a lumber house.  We looked at several different kinds of houses made by

logs.  We then used brown paper strips to make our own log houses.  The best part

was decorating them!

We talked about the legend that Betsy Ross' first US flag was flown in Delaware during the Revolutionary War at Cooch's Bridge. It is still a debate today as to whether it was or wasn't... but we talked about that first flag and colored one on our next page of our state study.

We then talked about the state insect... the ladybug.  We did our page and used the ladybug builder from Confessions of a Homeschooler in our state book and continued with a few fun art projects on ladybugs.  You can view everything below.

 Our state study book with the ladybug builder.

 We painted paper plates red, used a round sponge to paint spots, and then glued

legs, head, and eyes to make a fun ladybug.

 We then made twirling ladybugs in which you can find the directions here.  Of course,

we had to display our ladybug projects... so they are hanging from the ceiling.

We talked about the state fruit being the strawberry and how they grow them for taste... not size or quantity.  We then did a strawberry counting activity on our state page.

And our last page was on the state tree.  We talked about the American Holly and colored some leaves and berries.  We also looked at some holly bushes... as I have some in my flower beds and they even had the red berries.

So we finished Delaware and learned a great deal about the state.  I even had one child tell me they finally figured out what they saw at the beach this summer doing this state study... a horseshoe crab!  You can download the printables I can share with you here. 

We will be traveling on to Florida at the end of October... hope you come along for the trip!

We also talked about fire fighters and fire safety this week.  Below is what we did.

 We made firefighter puppets.

 We used our puppets for a lot of dramatic play... the daycare room was catching fire everywhere

so our fire fighters were busy putting out the fire.

 We made fire fighter hats.

And we talked about what is hot and cold.

We also talked a lot about how to get out of my house if there was a fire and did one of there

monthly favorite activities... a fire drill... and are they efficient at it.  They know exactly what to do

and where to go without any direction.  We also talked about calling 911 in an emergency

and why we only call when it is an emergency... brings back horrible memories of when my own

called and the police officer ended up at my door.  Embarrassing!!! 

We will be doing more fire safety activities this coming month... so stay tuned!

Lastly, we talked about owls. We learned a lot and they knew a lot.  It was a fun conversation.  Below is what we did.

 We sequenced owls in order from 1 to 9.

 We sequenced owls from smallest to biggest.

 We made owl mosaics using cut up brown construction paper and an owl outline.  We added

eyes, beaks, and feet.

And we painted two paper plates brown that we will make something special out of next week...

we also painted an empty paper towel tube while we had the brown out and working.  So check

back next week to see what we made.

Glad you stopped by to see what we have been up to this week.  Be sure to see what we are doing next week.  We'd love to hear what you thought about our week!

Best,

Rose