Sink or Float Center

Here's a great activity that's as simple as it comes. Do the items sink or float? Before the kids were allowed to touch water, we made predictions and sorted the items between what they thought would sink or float. 

After testing everything, we discussed our predictions. 

To create a little bit of flare we added a writing component to the activity. The kids drew pictures or wrote letters or words to represent the items that sunk and floated. Do you see that cute little "roc?" I was so proud of the kids for trying letters and sounds to create words. And that adorable little two legged dog is pretty fun too. 

Click here for a free printable of our sink/float chart to use with your little ones. 

When you click on the link, there are a lot of ads on the page. You want to click the small grey download button right beneath the box that says view document. You will need to sign in to download the paper. You can sign up for a free 4shared account or use your social media outlet to download. Please leave a message below if you have any problems or questions. 

E is for Emotions

When you work with children you aren't just teaching them academics. You are helping them learn how to be a human being that is part of a community. For my kids, our community is our classroom and hopefully the things they are learning in class will go with them out into the world.

     Talking about emotions is kind of a big deal with 3, 4, and 5 year olds. It's pretty obvious that controlling emotions isn't necessarily their strong suit and that's where we come in. When talking to little ones about emotions there are some important truths to help them understand.

1. Feeling emotions is totally normal. Everyone feels sad sometimes, everyone feels angry sometimes, it is normal.

2. Recognizing how you are feeling is a huge deal. As adults, we can teach our kids empathy when we help them see that we recognize how they are feeling and help them through it. My son Brandon was crying during carpet time. So we stopped to talk about it as a class. Why are you crying? "We put away his blocks when it was time to clean up and he wasn't done." Did you know we would clean up even if he wasn't done? "Yes" I asked the other kids, what are things you do when you are feeling sad to cheer yourself up? Madden sang a cute song about taking 4 deep breaths. Jaxon said he goes to his room to cry and then comes out to play when he's done. I said I like to get hugs or sometimes listen to music. Then we asked Brandon if he has a favorite song we could sing to cheer him up. So we rocked out to Dr. Jean's "Bear Hunt" and he felt better.

2. What we do when we are feeling those emotions is important. Yes we feel angry, but is hitting someone okay? Nope. Is there something you can do to help you calm down? Take deep breaths, run around outside, kick a soccer ball outside, talk to a friend . . . This is our job, to give them tools to keep in their tool belt that they can pull out when they are struggling.

      One of my kids especially struggles with keeping her emotions in check. So we have worked on putting tools her tool belt.  When she is upset I can use key words to talk to her about choosing a strategy to help her through those hard times. Here's what we talk about - balloon breaths (breath in deep, puff out your cheeks and blow the air out slowly like you are blowing up a balloon), belly breaths (breathing deeply and slowly so your belly goes in and out - in the nose and out the mouth), get a hug (it's usually a pretty long hug), lay in bed and snuggle your favorite stuffed animal, put on headphones and listen to music (we have a kid friendly mp3 player with a playlist on it of their favorite, appropriate songs. This one is HUGE for kids who can get out of control. On a side note, this also helps get them going on doing their chores too), are we being flexible, are we trusting mom that everything will be okay, or read a book. It's not perfect and we have been working on it for years, adding new strategies to fit her age, but it has helped improve the melt downs and stress.

  We spent some time in class talking about emotions. We discussed what emotions are. We listed different kinds of emotions. We read Today I Feel Silly by Jamie Lee Curtis.

Then we used my new favorite activity to explore emotions more deeply. I found this amazing make a face toy at Mr.Printables.com. We took turns making our face show different emotions. First I made a few faces and the kids talked about what emotion they are seeing. Then, we had two friends come up. One friend made a face and the other friend changed the paper face to match. It was really fun and a really great way to explore our emotions.

He couldn't quite do mad without smiling. 

You should definitely give it a try. It might just be so much fun that you find a single tear of joy rolling down your face. Have a great afternoon! 

Truth

D is for . . .

 . . . dumping things that start with the letter D. Read more about this activity below. (Do you like Brandon's homemade Halloween decorations? There is Frankenstein, a ghost and he wrote "beware." So adorable!)

. . . drawing. Squiggle pages are the best!! If you want more information, click here.

 . . . dotted diamonds. We used Bingo markers to make dots on diamonds after we read the book: Lots of Dots.

Here's what we did for our letter D dump station.

I hung a bucket with the letter Dd written on it. To hang it I just put a small nail right above the door frame. You can't see it from the ground so it isn't noticeable after we were done.

Below the bucket I had a box with various items. Some started with the letter D (dolphin, diamond, dice, dinosaur, dragon, Dora, duck, etc.) and some didn't.

The kids sorted out the things that started with the letter D and put it in the bucket. After they found all the items, it was time to DUMP! Then they did it again.

Fire Station Visit

It seems like every year I discover new reasons to love where I live. This year we went to the annual Orem fire department open house and it did not disappoint. They had amazing demonstrations of how they do what they do, safety tips and learning, free food and goodies, and cool vehicles that they let us climb in. I even got to participate in a demonstration and put out a small fire with a fire extinguisher! It was amazing and I think it will become and annual trip. 

Here are some pictures of the things we did and saw. Don't mind all of the thumbs up pictures, for some reason they kept asking the kids to give them a thumbs up when they took them so, that's what we get. :)

Checked out the inside of a helicopter

 While we were there we watched a demonstration of how the firemen rescue people from being trapped inside cars. First they took the car door off of the car. 

 Then they used the jaws of life to cut the car open.

 They completely removed the top and basically made the car into a convertible. It was amazing

 Another demonstration showed what to do in case of a fire. They had an little trailer that was filled with "smoke." The kids had to crawl through it to get out safely. It was a little scary for them, but they were brave and learned about fire safety in the process. 

We met Smokie the Bear

Sitting in the stands with our swag and free snacks

 This demonstration was by far the coolest. They made a huge tower of fire and demonstrated two ways they put fires out. The first was done by the firefighters. Fun side note, that guy in the middle is a guy I know from my home town in California. It was a fun surprise to see him there. 

 The second time they put it out using the hose from the top of the fire truck. The kids weren't too excited about getting wet, but it was amazing to see how much water they can pump out quickly.

The kids even got a turn shooting the fire hose!

Checking out the inside of an ambulance. 

 To end the day, we tried on some of the firefighter's clothes. They were heavy! It was a really amazing day and we all had a ton of fun. Thank you Orem Fire Department!