Miller Academy: Our Heart

What do most of us think of when we think of February? Valentine's Day, but I decided I didn't want to spend an entire month on those crafts, books, etc. While we will cover that, don't worry ;) we are spending a week on our real heart. You know the one that pumps blood to the rest of your body and keeps you alive. Yep, that one. I know it's slightly advanced for a three year old, but he has been very into his doctor's kit he received for Christmas. So the heart seemed like a good starting spot, especially since it's February.

Here are a few of our Healthy Heart activities...

Number matching with heart stamps.

Listening to his resting heart before we played a game. (I know it doesn't look like it's on his heart...he moved as I snapped the picture).

Jumping on numbered hearts, afterwards we listened to our active hearts to hear the difference.

We also read books and talked about how our heart works.

Freeform fingerpainting of a heart.

Another freeform art heart; he squeezed painted onto a piece of paper, folded it in half and flattened it. This was the result.

We had a fun ~~scavenger~~ treasure hunt, looking for letters all over the house. Each heart has a letter that spells B's name. After we found each one, B would tell me the letter, what sound it makes and what starts with that letter. When he found B, he said B that's starts my name. He was right, once all were found we worked on what it could spell. He wasn't so impressed that the 'treasure' was spelling his name, so we had to find a better treat. Thanks to our neighbor girl scout, we had just the thing! Thin Mints ;)

This week has also been all about the letter H. I found this worksheet on first-school and wasn't sure how B would respond to it, but he surprised me. He was actually having fun making H's and matching the words.

Here's B's first real attempt at writing letters.

Tracing the letter 'H' with hearts.

Our hearts need healthy food to stay strong and we learned about what foods are healthy and bad.

and we even made some heart shaped and heart healthy food.

Heart PB & J - a fun way to make a favorite even better!

We were also in luck this week because one of our local hospitals had a mock surgery event. They opened up the entire teaching hospital for tours, presentations and a few hands on activities. While this was really geared for older children B got to use some interesting equipement.