Treasure Island - Sand Castles

Day 7 was all about Sand Castles.  We started the day at breakfast with our Opening Rhyme.  I am trying to get better at not skipping this part of the day because for one, it's fun, but for two, we kind of failed the rhyming test when I assessed Lachlan in the rhyming department.

Five little sand castles,
Standing on the beach,
In rolls the tide,
And the water starts to reach,
The great big wave,
Takes Autumn out to sea.
Now there are four little castles,
Standing on the beach.

The kiddos would hold up the correct number of fingers to go along with the rhyme.

 While still at the table we moved on to Sometimes I Do, which is a participation story.  First I asked, when do you feel like doing nothing at all?  I love Autumn's answer, "when we sleep."  Yep, that's about right.

Next, when have you changed your mind about something?  Lachlan says "when you get mad and then don't get mad."  I love this answer too!  Lachlan and I have been working on his response to anger.  His response is often aggressive.  Hurting his brother who is not cooperating or throwing something.  I guess it's called an "explosive child".  Poor guy, sometimes when I look into his eyes, it's almost as if he can't control it.  But he has grown leaps and bounds since starting a new little badge program and from just simply talking about it more.  So this answer means a lot to me.  It means he is really absorbing what we are talking about.  Changing his mind when he is mad to not be mad and calm down.  Now that I am writing this out, I realize, I need to use the language he chose here.  I love these question and the insights we can gain into their amazing minds.

The participation story has motions that they act out as I read.  The line that repeats in this story is Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't.  Maybe I will, or maybe I won't.  As they say sometimes I do they shake their heads yes and shake their heads no to sometimes I don't.  For maybe I will, they hold their hands out and for maybe I won't they place their hands on their hips.

 There were discussion questions on the back of the participation story I just had to ask.  What things do you have to do?  Lachlan lists "get dressed, go potty, kiss your mom, brush your teeth."  What should you do? "brush your hair, wipe your face, eat breakfast." What might happen if you choose not to do what you should? "Someone might say, yuck, your breath stinks."  Love it.

Then we started on our Sand Castle Art.  We were still at the table but done with breakfast, so I grabbed the needed supplies.

He really wanted to get the sun just right.

Later in the day we started on the Beach Building lesson which was a memory game.  As we found matches we were to build a sand castle.

 This is still Peter's favorite game.  Oh and the other picture here is of Peter's guinea pig kangaroo.  He has been carrying the poor thing in his "pouch" all day.

Our sand castle.

Lachlan didn't want to participate in the game.  He was watching Ocean Mysteries with Jeff Corwin, so I consider that to be on topic for the day.  No sand castles, but islands and ocean animals. 

But when I told him to come because we were about to do an experiment, he came right over. 

What happens when you stay out in the sun for a long time?  We talked about wearing sunscreen so we don't get burnt.

 Here is our experiment set up.  You can see the experiment card on top of the orange paper.  I love these things.  We get at least one a month.  Some are experiments and some are snack ideas.  I have them all saved in a basket that I can pull from at anytime, if I am looking for something to do.

 The idea of the experiment was to set items on top of colored paper and leave them out in the sun for a few days to see what would happen.  I asked for theories and they all thought the paper would get darker.  I didn't correct them or suggest that it would not be the outcome because I just wanted to carry through with the experiment and let them make the discovery themselves.

Here's the sad part, it's been cloudy and rainy the last couple of days.  So the tray is sitting on top of my entertainment center, waiting for the next sunny day, or two.

I wanted to share with you the results of this experiment.  The day we set this up it started to rain and was rainy for a few days.  So it took a while before we could set it out.  But once we did, it only took about one day in the sun for some awesome results.