This was a super fun construction unit for our kiddos, they really built up their knowledge with this unit (hehe, get it, built? Yikes!).
1- Dump Truck Haul
Hauled some “logs” by matching it to the digit shown. The logs were Popsicle sticks and it was a great way to practice our counting.
We also extended the activity further by building shapes on our dump truck as well. It’s so interesting to see how their brains are working when creating these shapes, you can really see their thought process when it comes to assembling the pieces to make it look like the shape I had formed.
2- Build Your Own Machine
The kiddos also constructed their own vehicle with different textured materials! I cut out pieces of felt, aluminum foil, construction paper, foam paper, and other odds and ends into basic shapes. Then I gave them a picture of a tractor and they had to find the best place to make them all fit. The end product was a basic shape constructed tractor. Very fun!
3- Name Under Construction Zone
Excavated rocks out of our sensory bins and discovered they spelled their names! We LOVE sensory bins over here because you can easily switch stuff out and make tons of new activities without having to start from scratch! Saving time is what we’re all about over here!
4- Construction Sensory Bin
Like I said above, we LOVE LOVE sensory bins and our awesome teacher, Ms. Arika made this super cool construction themed sensory bin. She arranged white rice, black beans, pasta, pretzels, and rocks to make it a working construction site. The kiddos explored that sensory bin for damn near an hour, win!
5- Construction Blueprint Building
Take any kind of building material, we used mega blocks, and create a structure with it. Now take a picture of it and print it out. Then give your kid the picture and the disassembled blocks and watch them go for it! Loved all these abstract spatial skills involved in this unit.
6- STEM Bridge Engineering
We decided to get STEMmy (I just made that up) and create a situation in which some animals needed help getting to water by building a bridge to help them across. They used small Dixie cups and the Popsicle sticks from earlier and they had to figure out the best way to build the bridge so that it held the animals’ weights and sizes. The animals used were little wooden animals we had from a Melissa & Doug set.
Space is our next unit so blast off with us on our new adventure!!!
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These ocean animal movement cards were the perfect activity for our fundamental movement time. We introduced the movements and practiced them individually as well as a whole group.
Working on our fundamental movement skills with movement cards
I can see using these cards again and doing a Simon Says game with the movements, or charades, the options are endless! My kid did not want to participate in this at first which forced me to jump in and do it with them, thank God no pictures were taken of that! So he needed a minute to warm up and get with the program. Once he did, he was excited to exercise with his friends! He also wanted to walk sideways and pinch his fingers together instead of crawling on the floor for the crab walk, which bugged me at first because I wanted him to do it correctly. But he was having fun and eventually he tried it the other way a few times (baby steps!). We will have lots of opportunities to move like that in the future so pro-tip from a mom who did sweat it, don’t! I know, I am full of wisdom, that’s why you all come visit the blog right?!
Make sure to keep following along for more adventures!
Hi friends! Here is the blog I promised with a little more detailed explanation on our “If You Give a Pig a Pancake Sequencing” activity we did during our Plants unit.
What do pancakes have to do with plants, you might ask? Well, nothing, really. But our unit letter was P and we had a whole day dedicated to it and this activity was the highlight of our lesson.
This activity is meant to be paired with the book. If you don’t have the book here is a good read-aloud you can pull up on YouTube!
If this is your child’s first time reading this book (or your child;s 30th time!) go through a “picture walk” before reading the story. All you’re doing is looking at the illustrations for now. This allows for a few things:
the kids are given the opportunity to explore the book before reading so they can really listen to the story when you do read it,
gives you a chance to read it through real fast if you haven’t ever read it! (keepin’ it real over here!), and
gives you the opportunity to guide your kid to create a prediction.
During your “picture walk” you can have your children make any personal connections to the story. For example, your child might love to put maple syrup on their pancakes or you might have a tree-house in your backyard just like the pig in the story! You can also have your child make a prediction about what they think the story will be about, or how it’s going to end. These guided conversations really get a kid into that learning mindset even before they’ve read one word! Super cool. Plus, kids love to talk our ears off, it might as well work out their brains in addition to their mouths!
Read through the book once. Try to keep a good pace and don’t stop to have long conversations during this read through, especially if this is your kiddo’s first time reading this story. Remember, that’s what that picture walk was for, this time it’s just to actually listen to the story. Your little one might need a little reminding, but this story is pretty cute so they will probably be into it!
Now go through it again, this time with the activity. I made a really simple file you can download and print out to make beforehand (or right then, however you roll!) on my Teachers Pay Teachers store (it’s free!!!).
I cut all the picture pieces (slides 3-4) out then laminated and re-cut them. I do that so that the lamination doesn’t peel when I cut pieces out. I also laminated slide 2. Then, I added Velcro to all the pieces that were going to be attached so that in the future, the kiddos could do this as a center activity on their own. You don’t have to do the lamination process, you could absolutely just print out the slides and cut and paste the sequence cards to have it be a one time activity. I created this activity to cater to 6 children, that’s why there are multiples of each sequence card.
The cards match the pages so when you’re reading the story through a second time stop on the pages that correspond to the cards and have your kid find the card on their own or you can hand the cards out one by one too, it all depends of how you want to teach it, there is lots of room for personalization! Have them place the cards in order as you go through the story. After every card is placed in order, go back to the first one and say aloud the order of events. “First, the pig asked for syrup, then she asked for a picture, then etc.” Another good idea is to have your kids act out each step when they are reviewing. Pretend to be pouring syrup, pretend to take a picture, etc. Mixing it up will keep your kids’ attention and increase the chances they’ll remember what happened in order!
And that’s it! My goal for Harrison Halls is to keep this activity and have the kiddos do it independently for centers, but baby steps. Let’s get them to stop bouncing off the walls first!
Make sure to follow our Instagram @ sonoranstylemama for more fun and updates on our homeschooling adventure!
Hello everyone! Harrison Halls has successfully completed our second unit: Plants! This unit went about two and a half weeks, a little longer than our previous one.
We started out by introducing the topic to the kiddos with a poster of the plant life cycle and read the book We Plant a Seed. We also added the song “Farmer Plants the Seeds” to our Welcome Routine to get them to go through the actions of planting and harvesting.
1- Sensory “Reading”
While reading our book the kids got some Play-Doh to hold. Little did they know we had put beans in there as a surprise! Sylas was the first to discover the surprise and it was great to watch his face look around to see if anyone was seeing what he was seeing! In a rookie move (d’oh!) we did the water activity BEFORE the paint activity! What, are we new here??
2- Ice-blasters
We went outside for a bit too with this unit (it’s so hot here in Phoenix we can’t be outside for too long!) and tried to melt down ice cubes I had made and filled with plants from a walk Patrick and I had taken the day before. I also threw in a few drops of essential oils in the water before freezing it to add a fun little twist as well as a nod back to our 5 senses unit. The kids used their “ice blasters” (water guns) to release the plants inside! Some friends even got extra tools to help them with the task!â €
3- Sensory Painting
We also used our plants as brushes and it was quite fun! I tried having secret messages out of white crayon show up with them painting but I used tempera paint instead of watercolors and it did not work out. The kids loved using the pain regardless, good thing we try to go with the flow over here! We tried it a few days later with watercolors and it worked out!
4- Counting Petals
This was a two-in-one activity that had our kiddos practicing their counting. We counted the petals on flowers and then matched the digit to the center of the flower. Kind of like the star activity in our last unit. Then they were given a digit to put on their paper and create their own funky flowers with sensory materials as the petals. Lots of fun and learning!
5- Science in Action! Avocado Life Cycle
Our in house plant lady, Ashley, was awesome enough to bring in an avocado plant in its different stages. The kids were able to see the seed still in the fruit, then a sprouted seed, then the big potted plant.
6- Plant Creatures
After posting about this activity on our Instagram, I learned that some people might call them Mr. Hairies and I love it. We got a bunch of chia seeds and mixed them in with some soil. Then we filled stockings with the soil mixture and added googly eyes and noses made with rubber bands. The fishnets worked best for the chia seeds because they didn’t have to struggle to grow through the tiny little holes in stockings. If we ever do this again, it will probably be done with grass seed as it grows thinner than the chia seeds.
7- If You Give a Pig a Pancake Sequencing
This was one of the harder activities done with our oldest kids and it involved sequencing the story If You Give a Pig a Pancake Sequencing. We read the story through once and then went through it a second time with our activity sheet. I’m going to do a second blog post for this because it comes with printables you can have!
8- Plant Parts Dash
This one was a fun review of our plant parts. We went over and labeled our class avocado plant with labels paper clipped to its parts. Then we did a sort of gallery walk around the room of different examples of all of those plants. Some of those areas also included actual plant parts (the roots area had beets and yams). Finally, we called out plant parts and the kids had to dash over to that area. It took quick feet AND a quick wit to play this game!
This unit was great and the kids are learning so much! Follow us on Instagram @sonoranstylemama to keep up with our fun!
We all know that our kids don’t stop moving, like, ever. It’s in their nature to move as much as possible, especially in their younger years. You see it every day when you tell them to go get their shoes (for the millionth time) and they decide to literally spin all the way to their room and back. No? Just my kid? Let’s move on then. Whether your child is an active little jumping bean or a cuddly couch potato, movement is essential to their development. But even more important than just general movement is movement with intention! If you’ve been following our homeschool preschool journey, you know that we have been incorporating Fun-damental Movement Time into our school days (if you want to catch up, click here). All caught up? Awesome! Below are a few FAQs to help you gain a few nuggets of info. on Fundamental Movement and how important it is for your little ones!
What is Fundamental Movement?
Fundamental movement covers a wide range of skills that contribute to the physical literacy of the child. What is physical literacy you may ask?
Physical literacy is defined as the ability to move with competence and confidence in a wide variety of physical activities in multiple environments that benefit the healthy development of the whole person.
So in other words, physical literacy is not only moving but moving well. Fundamental movements are the foundational blocks of physical literacy. These blocks generally begin their development around ages 3-5. Totally makes sense as to why these little friends are wiggle worms, no? While these terms may seem daunting, these movements are easily identifiable but not often practiced in your child’s day-to-day. For example, during school, our kiddos have been practicing walking backwards, something I honestly didn’t make my son intentionally do before. I thought, well he’ll just figure it out, I guess? I hadn’t really given it much thought! As it turns out, walking backwards works a child’s spatial awareness. Spatial awareness, in turn, contributes to more complex functions, such as navigating successfully through an environment (airports, concerts, theme parks) and driving. Even sooner than that, functions such as dressing also involve spatial awareness. That’s just one example of the many skills children have to work to develop. Other major fundamental movements include:
balancing
running
jumping
catching
hopping
throwing
galloping
skipping
leaping
kicking
Why is Fundamental Movement important?
Children who are physically literate will thrive. When children are confident in the way they move, that confidence is evident in other aspects of their life as well. They will be more willing to try new things or to make new friends all on their own. Fundamental Movement also promotes a healthy lifestyle. When children have developed fundamental movements, they excel in physical activity. It doesn’t seem a chore to have to move, on the contrary, it makes them feel good. The earlier children create healthy, active habits, the more likely they are to continue these positive habits into adulthood. It’s amazing how much the growth of a child involves movement. Success with fundamental movements directly contributes to the well-being of the “whole child”.
How can I get my child moving with intention?
As a parent, I’ve had to pay more attention to how my son moves and give opportunities to practice fundamental movements. We’re lucky to have Dustin of Phoenix Holistic, who is super knowledgeable, curating our Fun-damental Movement Time with our kiddos. Some of the skills we have been working on at school as well as at home are walking/hopping backwards, jumping from a crouched position with hands over heads, and standing/hopping on one foot.
Model the movement– Remember, these things don’t necessarily come naturally to children so you’re going to have to show them what it looks like to do any of these movements.
Provide support- Quite literally, lend a hand to your little one. Chances are, if these movements are fairly new to your kiddo, they’re going to have a hard time starting out. It’s like learning how to workout with correct form before adding any type of added resistance. They need to be able to feel comfortable in what they are telling their muscles to do and that may require a bit of hand holding at the beginning.
Make it fun- Our unofficial motto over here is “Learning Through Play”. Children learn so much better when they’re playing! I recently had the opportunity to take a million trips to the bathroom every day with my 3 year old as we were potty training and we were both over it about 2 days into it. So we decided to bear crawl to the bathroom, and frog hop to the bathroom, and tiptoe to the bathroom, you get the idea. During school, the kiddos were pretending to be seeds and crouched down and as they grew they popped up! Be on the lookout for any time your kid can practice these skills through play!
We’re so excited to be sharing our journey through our Fun-damental Movement Time with you all here on the blog so make sure to tune in for fun ideas and activities to get your kiddos moving with intention!
Also make sure to follow us on Instagram for even more fun!
Like I mentioned in our previous post, we are starting a little homeschool preschool with the name Harrison Halls. Our philosophy for now is “Learn Through Play” so a lot of these activities have multiple skills the children will be working on while doing one particular activity. For example, our third activity, “I Spy Wall Ball” has the children using their sense of sight to find and throw a ball at certain objects . While we are reviewing basic preschool shapes and colors, we are also having them work on their hand-eye coordination with the game we chose to incorporate in the lesson.
Our first unit was just recently completed and it went great! Here are a few of the activities the kiddos got to do to teach them all about the five senses:
1- What’s In the Bag?
Using their sense of smell, the kiddos had to guess the secret object hidden inside each bag. Contents included things like coffee, vanilla, and rosemary!
2- Sensory Finger Painting
This is also a fun no-mess activities for those of you that aren’t big fans of big messes! Clear, resealable plastic bags were filled with paint and taped to the window where the kiddos used their sense of touch to practice some writing. This is a really great activity to prepare preschoolers for more difficult tasks, like writing with a pencil!
3- I Spy Wall Ball
Our “I Spy” game had the kiddos find certain shapes and numbers in varying colors and sizes on the wall. The fun part was that once they spied it, they got to hit it with a ball!
4- Mood Dance!
“Mood Dance!” had everyone using their sense of hearing to match the mood of the song with their style of dancing. We played some Queen (P’s favorite!), Beethoven, Monster Mash and more to show all the different kinds of sounds we can enjoy and how many moods we can convey through dance!
5- S! Book Sort
Along with the five senses, our letter for the unit was “S”. We went through a big pile of books (previously chosen by me) and sorted them by titles that started with S and titles that didn’t start with S.
6- Count the Stars
“Count the Stars” was a fun little math lesson that involved counting up to 10. We got 10 pieces of black construction paper and taped it up to the wall then added star shaped post-its to them , each card having anywhere from 1 to 10 stars. Each kiddo got a chance to go up and pick a card to count with their friends. Once they figured out how many stars were on the card, they found the matching digit from a stack of cards from a previous activity to place on it.
All of our activities are geared towards learning through experience but we want it to be easy on us mamas too! We understand the pressure one can feel to make sure our children are being challenged and stimulated but not have tons of crafty things or the time, or the patience, to create something every day. So we’re mostly playing, but guiding the playing to make it more meaningful and deepen learning. So join along mamas, on this messy train, Harrison Halls!
Hi friends! We have been hard at work over here trying to get something really excited kick-started…drum roll please… a homeschool preschool, Harrison Halls.
Two friends who both happen to be teachers, along with their sisters and their kids, were brainstorming of ways to create meaningful learning during these crazy times. Each of us were already working on things on our own so why not bring us all together?, we asked. So we did! We found a curriculum that goes through a number of units that cover all kinds of fun stuff. The kids just got through a two week unit on The 5 Senses and it was so much fun! If you’re interested in the curriculum I will post the link for purchase here.
We are loosely following the curriculum; more like using it as a jumping point for the weeks’ lessons and activities that will suit our kids’ learning styles and schedule best.
Our children range from ages 1-4 and everyone participates, with modifications, so that each child gets a rich learning experience!
Apart from keeping our minds healthy, our children are also being taught to keep their bodies healthy with help from our in-house massage therapist, Dusty with Phoenix Holistic(some of the kids refer to him as “Dad”). With our “fun movement time”, the kids work on Fundamental Movement Skills which are essential building blocks for competency in movement.
So tune in for our first unit wrap-up of The 5 Senses!
Hello internet friends! I’m back today to share some helpful toys for the beloved toddler in your life.
Toddlers, wow. I mean… well you know them! They are ready to rumble the second their eyes open. They are two going on thirteen. Their imagination knows no bounds. There are no bounds, actually. That’s where we. ruin. everything. How dare I not let him “fix” the tv by banging the hammer on the screen? What kind of a monster makes him share? Why can’t he say “Shit!” when he drops something? Why can’t he run into the street? Ridiculous, right?
But watch how fast they learn something. A song and dance, a prayer, a curse word! And how sweet they can be when they look at you and tell you they love you. It’ll melt the coldest of hearts! The way they interpret the world is full of innocence and often times, hilarious. One time P saw a picture of Janis Joplin and he pointed at her and said, “Lion.” I died.
So when picking out a toy for your little angel this holiday season, why not make play time have purpose? Aiding development through play is the most natural way to teach your tots about big concepts like motor skills and spatial awareness. Here is a pretty fun little Amazon list I made for my kid that gives play time more value instead of driving everyone (everyone is ME btw) bonkers with those other kinds of toys. You know the ones. Yeah.
Click here to take a look at that Amazon list on your own. If you’d like to see why I picked those specific toys read on.
Fine Motor Skills
Toys that have your kiddo practice those small movements are helpful in very practical ways. Fine motor development becomes increasingly important as children start school. I can’t tell you how many students I have seen that struggle to hold and use scissors well. These types of toys will lay the foundation for later!
Dolls
Dolls are perfect for toddlers to practice their social skills. Toddlers get to create social situations and then role play them out in a safe place. They become more aware of and, in turn, more in control of their emotions and reactions to the things happening around them. Dolls allow toddlers to change their role from learning to teaching.
Puzzles
Puzzles are really fun because they provide so many developmental skills. They are great examples of how easy it can be to teach a kid something through play. Some fun ones I found that are great include sorting, counting, and body parts. Your toddler will be practicing problem solving skills, memory, and visual spatial awareness while playing!
There are a few more things on there I did not include on this post so be sure to check it out if you’d like to see some more fun things!
Little by little (but not so little) your life changes. You definitely miss sleeping. Comfort trumps the hottest fashion trends most days. The drying rack now holds your wine glasses AND the baby bottles. Sleep regressions. The amount of time it takes to get out of the house is just unreal. Coffee is life, quite literally. And you are LIVING for these changes. The little baby grasp around your finger. When they melt into you when you breastfeed after a long day. The way they say hi to every person in the grocery store with the biggest smile. The first time they sing happy birthday to you. Watching that little one experience life is awesome. Also, Mom buns are real, y’all.
As a mother works to find the balance in life, things get prioritized and while she would like to attend to it all, that list just never ends. You know the big ones: keeping the house clean, laundry, WHY DO THEY HAVE TO EAT DINNER EVERY NIGHT?!?, practices, groceries, school functions, it goes on and on. The days blend into weeks into months into, “It’s Christmas in how many days??”. But it’s all good. The kids are good, the husband is good, the job is good, the pets are good.
The mom is good too. Yeah, Girls’ Nights are few and far between. And you’re lucky if you can A.) get in the shower today B.) by yourself. Going grocery shopping on your own has become a delight. Time you might have had to yourself is now for sleeping, getting some silence, and eating candy without sharing. It’s all about the little things. But one day, that mother might look at her reflection in the wine glass she’s holding and see just that- a mother.
You’re welcome to all that just came for the list of ingredients needed and did not want to scroll through my tales of why I decided to do this!
If you are still reading this, yay! You rock.
I found variations of this recipe on Pinterest (duh, where else?) that I will attach here. I got lucky and found the Zote flakes at Wal-Mart so I didn’t have to mess around with having to grate the block soap out. It was also cheaper and it had slightly more product than the bars anyway so double win! People also add fragrance boosters to theirs but I decided not to. I wanted to see how it would clean and smell without it first. This makes a lot of detergent so I found a nice big glass jar to put it all in. I also recommend mixing the detergent in batches with a handheld mixer then putting it in whatever you are using to hold it. It’ll kick up a little bit of powder so use low and slow!
It cost about $15 for all of the ingredients and I ended up putting the date on the jar with an Expo marker so I could track how long it lasts. My family leaves me some hardcore laundry (sweat, grease, dirt, general boy-stench) to clean so I have to use more than the “recommended” 2 tbsp. per load. I gave it a try but I need to use more for my clothes. Start with 2 and add more as needed.
The detergent so far is holding its own. The clothes come out clean and have a neutral “washed clothes” smell (which I don’t hate). I’ll update the post when I run out and see how long it lasted and we’ll do some math about whether or not it’s worth it for my family to keep using!
Sonoran Style Mama 