Baby Animals - Which babies are carried by mouth?

This day of lessons again turned into 2 days of lessons.  Not because the kids were in bad moods and didn't want to participate, but because they were having so much fun with the first project.  They ended up playing with the fish cups they made for an hour or more.

We were sitting down at the table when I started with the Circle Time discussion question, what do you put in your mouth?  Lachlan answered "chocolate milk", as that is exactly what he was drinking at the time.  We continued to talk about foods we put in our mouth and then laughed a bit when talking about silly things to put in your mouth.

Next I did the Opening Rhyme.
Five baby sharks,
Swimming in the sea,
One came to shore,
And swam after me!

I did this while starting with 5 fingers and took one away each time as I recited the rhyme.  They were in awe.  So simple, but so thrilling to them. 

Next, I got out the cup for Fishy Cup Art.  The question: How big is your mouth?  They all stretched and stretched their mouths to get them as open as possible.  I have to say, Peter had them all beat.  But since it wasn't a competition, I didn't say anything. 

After checking out the size of our own mouths we studied the size of the cups mouth.  We sorted items into 2 categories.  Things that fit inside the cups mouth and things that don't.  The directions said to gather a variety of objects big and small to sort.  We were at the table and we have quite a few objects that just happened to be sitting there most of the time anyways.  So we began to sort.

After our first sorting we started decorating our fish.  I got out coloring crayons and they all had a lot of fun decorating the cups.

Once they were all colored we attached the fins of the fish to the cups and next of course the eyes. 

 Here are all their finished fish.  Quite proud as you can see.

Peter was actually taking quite a while to eat, but Lucy and Lachlan were done and they wanted to continue sorting.  So they did, for a  l o n g  time. 

 Yes, I would say that road is too big for the fishes mouth.

Then Peter joined in as our 2 piles were getting bigger and bigger.

Lachlan got a new fishing pole for his birthday.  Grandpa was over checking it out (he got it for Lachlan) and he accidentally broke it.  So he went to the store and returned it and got Lachlan a different one, one a little more sturdy.  Lachlan just got his new, new fishing pole the day before, so we had his and Peter's out.  Peter's actually has a line and a rubber worm thing on the end.  Lachlan had the idea of actually fishing for these new cup fish we made.

So right after breakfast, Lachlan perched himself on top of the couch and would cast for a fish.  Peter and Lucy would take turns being caught by putting the rubber worm in the cup and swimming towards Lachlan as he reeled in.   Awesome, right?

Later that day we tried the Animal Drop lesson, which was a vocabulary lesson.  It came with the photo cards of different baby animals.  2 of each animal, one a real photo, one a graphic design.  The photo card has the word in English the graphic designed card has the word in Spanish.  I laid them out and gave each child a straw.  The idea was to have them suck the card with the straw to move it into place.  Again we were learning about babies that are carried by mouth.  So this was a great idea.  But I had a hard time reigning the kids in.  They were blowing and drooling through the straws making quite a mess.  I do believe this would have been a much better one on one activity for maybe just Lachlan and I while the other two were napping.  We were able to get through a few vocabulary words before I called it off.

The next lesson, Hiding Five Fish, we got to the following day.  Lachlan was tired and a bit cranky and wanted to lay down.  This sounded like a good plan to me.  So Lucy, Peter and I worked on this one.  I got out each of their My Little Journals and opened one to the page with the 5 on it.  I gave Lucy's hers asked her to find the page with the number 5 on it by herself.  She flipped through the first time and said "it's not there."  Try again, I told her.  She did! And she found it!  I am proud of her for this because Lucy sometimes gives up too easily.  I probably wouldn't have noticed this much, except that when I look back on myself as a young girl I often get sad at how easily I gave up on things.  If it didn't come easy, I didn't want to do it.  Lucy and I butt heads sometimes because I encourage her to try again, or even to just try something once that she doesn't think she can do.  Often times, if I can get her to try, she is successful.  I hope I can continue to encourage her in this, with out causing too much frustration.  It will be a balance.

I got out our ink stamp pad and asked them to pick one finger they wanted to use to make 5 fingerprints.  First Lucy, then Peter made their marks on their page.  I took a pen and turned each of their little fingerprints into fish.  Then I got out some green construction paper and scissors and let them cut away to make sea weed for the baby fish to hide in.  These two love to cut!  Lucy exclaimed at one point "I not hurt myself."  No you didn't Lucy, I am glad you see this as an accomplishment, because it is.  Every piece of paper was cut into shreds.  I had them pick out 5 to glue to the page. 

They picked out their 5 and then I got out the glue sticks.  Glue sticks, no big deal for Lucy. Peter on the other hand, is really hard to control when you put a glue stick in his hand.  Twist it up, twist it down, put glue on my hand, twist it all the way up and then stick the cap back on.  I need to just strip him down one of these days, maybe put him in the bathtub with the glue stick and some paper and let him go to town experimenting.  My brother, as a young boy, locked himself in the bathroom and stuck a whole glue stick in his ear.  I guess he just takes after his uncle. 

So Peter and I battled on and eventually got all 5 pieces of green paper glued to his journal page with only a few tears shed.  Lucy successfully glued all 5 by herself.