the biblical side of the week finished off our last venture into the creation story but was also a nice transition into our third week (colors and noah's ark/rainbow). the options for learning about animals are endless so i just picked a few fun activities for each day. i am hoping to come back to animals again in the future when we can go on a nature walk and discover animals outside for ourselves, but that just does not happen very easily for this nine-month pregnant mama!
day 1: butterfly craft and Jesus Storybook Bible - creation, day
- again, i could have picked any animals for this week, but i went with the cool crafts i had seen online. brendan is really interested in painting these days and seems to improve his brush skills each time i pull out those yellow tubes of fun. the only prep for the butterfly was choosing a color of paper. on the first butterfly, i drew the wings ahead of time. however, i quickly realized that my son did not care to be restricted to my little wing area so i let him paint first and then the paint dry on the second butterfly before i outlined the wings. he also loves anything that involves a glue stick so we added an antennae to each butterfly...he picked the colors, applied the glue, and helped me press down the pipe cleaner.
- we also went back through the JSB version of the creation story, but this week we mainly focused on the page that includes the God creating all of the animals. brendan can recognize and name many of the animals, and thanks to living on the seminary campus, now knows what a deer is!
- no, i did not pick all winged animals for this week. in fact, the bird was not even originally part of the plan but when i thought about how simple it would be and found a bag of craft feathers for $1.50 at a local craft store, i had to include it! after a brief google search for a basic bird outline, i cut out the bird, attached the wings, and drew the face. brendan knew right away that it was a bird, and i think he knew what feathers were. but, he had never played with feathers before. the glue stick made an appearance once again and before long, brendan had created quite the colorful bird. i hung it up with the rest of his artwork and he was so proud to show lee when he got home.
- i also unveiled another library book that had been hiding out until the animal week: Dog's ABC by emma dodd. this book is so cute and is apparently part of a series of books, including one i am hoping to use during our color week.
- for those of you who are my facebook friends, you may remember a status about animal puppets not going so well. i was fully prepared for one of these activities or crafts to not be as awesomely spectacular and perfect as i pictured it in my mind. and that's ok. i had already colored all of the animals...which is quite therapeutic and relaxing for those of you who have not picked up a crayon in a while. on this day, brendan helped me glue the animals to the paper bags and greatly enjoyed the surprise of each animal i unveiled. once they were all complete, i draped a blanket over a couple of chairs to create a stage for the puppet show. this is where i did not factor in the fact that my two-year-old son saw me behind the chairs and did not understand why i was trying to hide there. whenever i would attempt to hide behind the chairs, he would just walk around and find me...maybe he thought it was a game!
- an update to that facebook status that i am happy to report is that he has played with the puppets more on his own since then than he attempted to when i tried to make it formal. note to self: let him lead the way more often! (*can you tell someone has learned how to be silly when the camera comes out?!*)
- side note: i found the puppet templates here. some are free and others are not.
- today, we were pretty low-key and used one of our very own resources: the awesome eeboo puzzle pairs, alphabet and numbers recommended by my friend, liss, and purchased by grandma and papa. i love these puzzle pairs because brendan can literally put together a picture and the letter it goes with. plus, he can also start word recognition with the pictures. we mainly played with the animal letters, but brendan has some non-animal favorites, too.
- one of brendan's new favorite songs is B-I-N-G-O thanks to a nursery rhyme cd birthday present from aunt beth. on the cd, the song includes a dog barking which makes it even more appealing to brendan. this activity incorporated music, letters, and paint so i thought it was a nice wrap to the week.
- we also reread the JSB creation story, and the ABC book i mentioned on day 2 continued to be a big hit.
Yay for the puzzle!!! We love those!
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