Shining Our Lights: June 2011

Tuesday, June 28, 2011

4th of July Sensory Bin

I just finished our 4th of July Sensory Bin and I can't wait to show the boys!

Here's what is inside...

(most of my materials are from the Dollar Tree)

sight words and letter, number and color match ups

I made the color match up using pom poms with velcro to attach to the card

ribbon curls

stars and stripes balls

"fireworks" bows

star necklaces

pom poms

star confetti I made by stripping the stars off of wire garland

shape mazes

The box label was made with peel and stick Crayola letters

Here are some other awesome 4th of July Sensory Bins I have found...

1+1+1=1

Counting Coconuts

Do you have any 4th of July activities on your blog? I would love to see them so please leave me a comment!

Monday, June 27, 2011

4th of July Calendar Board & Fireworks Art

Carisa from 1+1+1=1 just created these July calendar numbers as well as connection cards for each day realated to the 4th of July theme. These have to be the coolest calendar numbers/cards I have ever seen! It is the perfect learning tool. I am not sure if my kiddos will grasp all of the connection cards yet, but it will be a great introduction to these concepts and we can reuse them in the years to come!

Carisa uses a pocket chart for their numbers, but since we don't own one of those yet I am using a cork board and push pins for our calendar. I made the July label with peel and stick crayola letters.

We will be using a USA flag key chain to mark what day it is.

The boys made this fireworks art with glue and glitter after I found this adorable idea on

I Heart Crafty Things.

Sunday, June 26, 2011

Glitter Jellyfish

The boys made glitter jellyfish as part of their

Ocean and Beach unit

we have started working on. Needless to say I will have to buy more glitter now!

I drew the shapes of the jellyfish with glue and then let them shake (aka pour the entire bottle of glitter on each of the jellyfish. Then we shook off the excess and let them dry flat overnight. I think they turned out so cute!

We went to the beach again this weekend and while the boys were helping me collect more shells and beach rocks we found a jellyfish floating in the water with a little crab attached to the bottom. We "rescued" them into our beach bucket and watched them swim around for a few minutes. The crab had evidently been eating the jellyfish because most of its tentacles were missing. It was so much fun even for me because I have never caught a live jellyfish before! It was neat to watch him "swim" I love hands on learning like this!

Thursday, June 23, 2011

Teach Me To Read Thursdays 8 (with linky)

"The more that you read, the more things you will know.

The more that you learn, the more places you'll go." ~ Dr. Seuss

Welcome to week 8 of Teach Me To Read Thursdays!

Here you can share your posts on how you are teaching reading skills in your home or classroom.Topics can include a wide variety of topics such as:
phonics & letter sounds
ryhming
sight words
word families

Here is what we have been up to this week!

We played a few review games this week and concentrated on our Ocean & Beach Theme Unit. We started a unit on letter B to reinforce letter sounds and also to work on his recognition of letters b and d which he tends to mix up like most kids his age.

Here are some pictures of our activities this week...

REVIEW

Reading Skills Log Book