Father's Day Delima

Are you tired of buy the same things for Father's Day...ties, tools, or whatever they are into? Is Dad predicting what he's going to get before you've even bought it? Well we aren't quiet at that point, but I couldn't bring myself to buy another shirt or tie, so this year I got a little creative. DH has said that he wants to teach science (yeah!); he looks at the boxed science kits at the store and can't wait until B is old enough. Which got me to thinking, there are so many fun experiements that can be done with most of the things we have in the house. Plus what a great father/son experience. So an idea was born...

Meet our 3L Laboratory box...

Here are some of the goodies inside...

magnets

magnets

eye dropper

funnels

compass

rubber bands

twizzers

test tubes

petre dishes

batteries

baking soda

corn starch

tornado tube

 Of course I couldn't fit everything for all the experiments, but it's a good start.

I even included two science experiments books that we had.

I can't wait to see these two creating science memories together!

Animals in Winter

This week we are learning where the animals go in the Winter.

Do they Hibernate, Migrate or Adapt? This sorting activity is from itsy bitsy learners. We also used our animal photos to find the homes (caves, burrows, trees etc.) that animals lived in the Winter. I forgot to take pictures of that. ;)

Hibernation game to help with number recognition. Sorry no link on this, I made it using clip art & a few other programs I have.  

We went ice fishing for numbers & letters. I ran out of time, but was going to make a box that B actually had to 'fish' through and make it white like ice; but he enjoyed it this way too. 

Polar animal patterns

Polar animal footprint matching game. You can find all the polar animal activities here.

Our creative art this week was super fun and simple. We made porcupines with playdoh & toothpicks. This was all B's work...I only supervised, isn't he cute! I did show him a photo of real porcupine and we talked about the animal, he was very interested in the quills.

Another free form art activity was painting with white paint on black construction paper, the simply gluing google eyes to it. Afterwards I asked him what animal he had painted he picked porcupine. I think I can see the quills. This is a great way to demonstrate abstract art.

Science experiment - how do animals keep warm when it's cold out? We felt an ice cube & talked about how cold it would be to live on ice/snow. B says 'we couldn't do that we'd freeze, we need warm clothes.' Then we felt a baggie with shortening in it. It was warm and thick. We talked about how animals had blubber just like this that helps keep them warm.

Then we saw what happened when we held the 'blubber' and put the ice on it. Did we feel the cold or was it warm? This was such a simple experiment; B is still talking about it.

Begins with Polar animals clip cards.

Our book this week was The Mitten;

it's about animals that try to make a mitten their home...all squeezing together. I found these cute print outs on janbrett, we used them as an interactive story by putting them on Popsicle sticks.

Do you have any fun activities about hibernation?