Finding Teaching Moments Every Day

I love to watch my children learn, and most of the time those moments where I know they are discovering little bits of wisdom, are not done in a formal setting. Usually it's in our every day. I think it's important to take the time when these moment arise to talk to my children, or let them touch things, smell things, or ask about things. Sometimes these moments happen while we are driving. Sometimes its when they are helping me make dinner. Here are just a couple time in the last week that we have taken a moment to learn.

While I was out mowing the lawn I saw a little frog hoping away. We rarely see frogs, so I stopped to catch it, and then went and got my girls. They really enjoyed the frog-who they named Damion. We talked about where he came from, why he might have been in our grass, (Because our grass was REALLY long and cool that week,) and what we should do with him.

We decided that for him to be the happiest, he probably should be let go. And so after about 20 min. with us, Damion hopped back to wherever he came from.

I also think play can be a learning experience...even playing with your food!

Maggie was home during the day (while big sister was in school) and enjoying a snack. On her own she made an M-for Maggie. Then we thought it would be fun to try to make other letters out of her snack.

Learning is fun. And it is also very easy to incorporate learning into every day life. It doesn't need to be formal for you to teach your kids something wonderful!

Numbers

We've been working really hard on the numbers 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10. We worked on tracing the numbers.

We made this fun numbers caterpillar. It's pretty self explanatory. We used a paper plate for the body, and construction paper for the rest. The dots are made with a 3 hole punch.

Then we worked on putting all of the numbers in order.

Shadows

To start this lesson I darkened the preschool room and set up a light to shine on the wall. (My piano lamp worked wonderfully.) I also taped some poster board to the wall to draw on.

We started in the classroom and saw what a shadow was, and how it was made when an object came between the light and the wall. Then we went outside to see if we could find more shadows! We found LOTS of shadows!!

Then we went inside and made shadow puppets on the wall. It was fun to make them talk to each other or gobble each other up.

Here are some shadow animals that we tried to make. Some of them where quite hard to make.

Then we traced our shadows. Daddy just happened to be home for lunch and I had him come help Maggie trace mine.

Then we traced our shadow hands.

We talked some more about WHY we have shadows-that it is us, or an object, coming between the sun and blocking the sunlight.

Then I let Maggie watch the beginning of Peter Pan when he lost his shadow.

Germs

Today we had a lesson on germs. Believe it or not I had this lesson planned BEFORE we all came down with colds this week.

It was kind of hard to explain what a germ was to my 4 year old. I didn't want her to think there were really bugs on her hands. But I told her there were tiny bugs that makes us sick everywhere. I told her that THAT is why it's so important for us to be clean, Body and Environment, and to wash our hands regularly. This made sense to her. We talked about how to cough into our elbow instead of onto our hands.

Then we walked about how to correctly wash our hands. We talked about using warm water, soap, and lathering for 30 seconds. I told her that it was good to sing the ABC song while she rubbed her hands together, and that would be a good length of time. Then she could rinse and dry her hands.

Then we watched these youtube videos on Germs and Handwashing.

We did this fun craft-we made paint germs. I thought they were cute.
Wet down water color paints until they are quite runny. Then using a dropper, suck up the liquid. Then drop it onto your paper.

Using a straw, blow the paint all over the paper, making germs.

When you are done they should look something like this. Let them dry completely. We came back the next day.

Then we glued on googly eyes and drew mouths on them.

LINK to color page and lesson ideas.