On Thursday we learned about houseboats!
A lot of the learning activity ideas for today required water, so I decided to make Thursday our first official water day of the season! The kids were so pumped! They changed into their swimsuits right away and played "beach party" while they waited for everyone to arrive! Here they are sitting with their swimsuits and towels during circle time...
During circle time we added the letter D to our alphabet house and the kids brainstormed a list of words that begin with the letter D. I giggled when "dashboard" was the 3rd word they thought of. Kids can be so random with their thoughts. Lol!
I showed the kids the houseboat on our daily topic poster and then we looked for other houseboat images on the computer. We found a photo that almost matched our topic poster perfectly!
I set a towel that we pretended was a houseboat in the center of our circle and we sang "Living on a Boat" to the tune of "Row Your Boat."
"Come, come, come with me/us.
(Name's) turn to float.
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily
living on a boat!"
"Come, come, come with me/us.
(Name's) turn to float.
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily
living on a boat!"
Our "houseboat" got pretty crowded by the end of the song, so they all pretended to go overboard!
Before heading outside we completed a few tasks at the tables. First the kids worked on their favorite shape in their journal.
They colored their favorite shape, and then drew that shape and turned it into a boat. They completed the sentence, "My boat is..."
Next they completed the letter D page in their literacy workbook...
They also completed two pages pertaining to shapes in their math workbook...
Mother Goose provided us with new shape design mats and shape manipulatives...
I set these out on the table right away in the morning and had the kids take turns exploring with the shapes...
I appreciate that Mother Goose provides us with different leveled shape cards. Because of this, all ages are able to be successful!
The kids also had fun creating their own pictures with the shapes...
Mother Goose also provided us with a "Don't Sink the Boat" science experiment card...
...and a plastic boat for each child!
We headed outside and I asked the kids to gather around our parachute. I placed our plastic boats on the parachute and asked them what they might think would be dangerous about living on a houseboat. I explained that in bad weather, the water sometimes get wavy. This is dangerous for people on boats. On the count of three, the kids made waves with the parachute and watched as the boats capsized! We repeated this a number of times.
I asked the kids to bring toy boats from home, so they had fun playing with these and the toy boats Mother Goose provided for us! It was a bit chilly in the morning, so the kids were not quite ready to get in the water right away. I was glad we had a few planned activities from Mother Goose Time to keep us busy.
Our "Don't Sink the Boat" science experiment card encouraged the kids to make a boat out of tinfoil. They could take "real" coins and count how many their boat could carry before it sank. (The kids got excited that they got to play with "real" money!) We talked about how every boat has a different weight limit. If there are too many people or things in the boat, it could sink. I brought the sensory table outside for this activity. I wondered how much the kids would get into this, but let me tell you is was a HIT! The kids LOVED it!!!! They played and created boats a good portion of their day. It was so much fun for me to watch them try out their boats, and then come over again later to try a different idea and test it out!
Other ideas I heard them say while playing were:
"It's raining money!"
"I made a coin pie!"
"I wrapped a present for you!"
"We made chocolate coins!"
Don't these kids have a great imagination?!?
Once the kids got comfortable with the water they were having a blast!!! Ready, set, GO!!! Summer has officially begun!
For lunch the kids wanted to picnic on their towels. I bought something new for lunch. I saw that "Uncrustables" now have whole wheat bread with reduced sugar jelly. I thought they would be a fun and super simple lunch idea for us. They ate an Uncrustable sandwich, sugar snap peas, a banana, and a Baby Bel cheese...
Story time outside!
This was our book for the day. It wasn't a favorite of mine, but the kids enjoyed the rhyming.
In the afternoon, I encouraged the kids to test out different toys in the pool to see if they floated or sank to the bottom. As you can see they went wild with that idea! Then this group stopped for a photo as they were bouncing along the outer edge of the pool! Some of them were pretending to ride a horse!
I also caught J and L playing with the toy boats in the cracks of the patio. They were pretending the cracks were rivers. They sat so peacefully and played!
Poolside bowling anyone?
Who knew wrapping your head in a towel would get so many giggles!!!!
