Into the Forest Interactive Science Notebook with free printable

The kids and I are currently working through Winter Promise's Animals and Their World for Science. I wanted to create something to go-along with the study besides the animal notebook pages. I made an interactive notebook for the first unit - Forest. In this notebook, you will find mini books to create as you read each day. There are books for each animal that you read about and your child can fill each book with as little or as much as they would like. This Interactive Notebook can be used alone as well.

I started with a table of contents that your child cane fill out as he goes along the habitat study. There is a tab for each habitat.

Mini books for each topic studied. My J loves to color so there is plenty to color.

Each major animal that we study has a full page to fill out. It covers food the animal eats, whether it is a predator or prey, three interesting facts that they learned, and any adaptations that the animal has to survive;

Any extra activities such as our owl pellet book (which was found on another site) can be added as well.

At the end of the unit there is a board game with markers and cards. As a review, the kids wrote questions based on their unit and using their notebooks. We played this game a few times. At the end of the year, it can be used a a cumulative review by using all of the question cards.

The kids loved making the game and playing it. It helped them to remember the animals they studied.

This is the cover of our Science notebook. We used a black and white composition notebook because I heard they hold up better than the spiral ones. I had them color the cover and I used clear tape to add it to the outside of the notebook. For my first grader, I assemble the notebook without the facts in the notebook for each unit. Then, all he has to do is open to the next mini book for the lesson. For my older student, I just give her the mini book that we are working on for the day and she adds it to her notebook herself. It has been a great addition to our study and the kids like adding their own illustrations throughout the pages. I hope you enjoy.

Download Forest Interactive Notebook Pages HERE.

Riley's Rhymes - 5 Little Pumpkins

I wanted to have a mini fall unit for Riley and I choose to work with pumpkins. These are a few of the activities that I did with Riley. If you would like the printable pumpkin mini pack, please see my post HERE.

I made a simple sensory bin with black beans and pumpkin erasers. I had Riley find the pumpkins with the tweezers. This fine motor activity is somewhat difficult for him but I have him keep trying.

I made a simple gate and aded velcro to the pumpkin stickers that I found. We added the pumpkins to the gate while reading the 5 little pumpkins rhyme.

We practiced shapes with this cute little pumpkin shape activity. Riley matched each pumpkin to the correct shape outline.

We played with orange play dough and made simple pumpkins adding green pipe cleaner stems.

I made simple shape puzzles that I attached to Mega Blocks. Riley matched the two pieces of the shapes.

Riley separated the color cubes into the correct pumpkin color cups. I had him use a spoon for more fine motor activity.

We practiced number recognition with the pumpkin number cards that are included in my mini pack. Riley added the pumpkin erasers to each number while we counted.

He played with an orange balloon, trying to keep it off the floor. He had fun with the balloon.

He made a pumpkin stamp picture. He stamped orange paint into each circle.

You can tell how much he loves to paint! Love that smile.

Lastly, he made a paper plate pumpkin cutting orange paper and gluing it onto the plate. It was a good unit for October. I hope you enjoy. Stay tuned for our next rhyme unit.

FIAR - The Glorious Flight

Our next FIAR literature selection was The Glorious Flight by Alice and Martin Provensen. It is a great book that teaches determination through the flight across the English Channel by Louis Bleriot in 1909. Louis was determined to fly and continued working on his aircraft until he could fly!

We learned about the different parts of a plane. We read a million books about flight (it felt like a million).

We learned how to fold a paper airplane and then tested to see if it would fly and how far it would fly.

Kaleb loved his plane. He flew it outside all afternoon.

We worked on some simple addition problems using a plane mat and Lego people. He added the people who flew on the plane. He couldn't believe that he was using Lego people for Math!

His most favorite activity, though, was the Lego airplane that I found at a consignment sale. I have had this in my closet for a month, just waiting for this book. Kaleb is a Lego fanatic! He was thrilled.

He didn't waste any time putting it together. It was missing two simple parts but we have so many Legos that it was possible to find a replacement.

He is working on a plane dot-to-dot. But you can see another Lego plane that he made for this story. He found a manual in the set of legos that my friend gave us and he built the plane all by himself. He certainly enjoyed learning about planes! Our next book will be Cranberry Thanksgiving in honor of the up-coming holiday. See you soon.

Links

I Craft Gifts - has a popsicle stick airplane craft that looks pretty easy.

Crayola - has a really neat airplane craft that looks somewhat difficult for my child but may be good for another.

Meaningful Mama - has lessons on perseverance.

Growing Firsties - has a perseverance free printable.

Kids of Integrity - has another lesson on perseverance.

Character First Education - has a lesson on determination.

Tot Tuesday

My tot conquering many things lately...this time a rope swing:)

Hang on Riley...hang on. Enjoy your day.

Corn Maze Experience

It is our Year of Adventures and this week, we went to our first corn maze. I thought that this was a northern activity but I was surprised to find one right here, close to where we live. It was in an out-of-the-place and you would have never known it was there if you hadn't been following your GPS:)

The maze experience started with a hay ride. The driver gave us a bucket of treats for the cows and horses. And those animals knew as soon as they saw our wagon, that there was food aboard! They came running.

There were old tractors to climb on and farm animals to see. But that really wasn't what we came for....

We wanted to try the corn maze and we did. I was somewhat scared because the kids went running far up ahead and I had to keep calling to them to slow down. There were twists and turns and different paths to follow so I was concerned my tot would be the one who got lost in the corn!

No one got lost and we made it out fine. It was a great day and a good experience. The kids have asked to return next year:) See you soon.

Riley's Rhymes - 5 Little Pumpkins

My newest installment for Riley's Rhymes is Five Little Pumpkins. I wanted to do a fall theme but I didn't want to include scary items so I found a non-scary version of the rhyme. I hope you enjoy my newest rhyme mini pack.

As always, I included a visual schedule. I am a visual learner and I like being able to look at the idea that I want to recreate. I found some mini pumpkin erasers at Target and I knew pumpkins just needed to be my next theme. (I hadn't planned on this, so it is a bonus unit!)

If you have been following Riley's Rhymes, we will know that we are focusing on shapes, colors, and nursery rhymes. I made some simple pumpkin shape puzzles that I would laminate and add magnets to for a cookie sheet activity. I also made a version of these puzzles for mega blocks, which is the activity I used.

I made color sorting pumpkins. These colorful pumpkins you can add to a 6 cup muffin tin and have your child use tweezers or tongs to separate colored pom poms. I also included a a pumpkin sewing card and Pumpkin numbers. Use the number pumpkins to add either pom poms or the little pumpkin erasers to practice counting and number recognition. I included a black and white version that you could print on orange paper to save ink. Enjoy our pumpkin unit. Riley in action will be posted later.

Download Five Little Pumpkins mini unit HERE.

Links

Owl Preschool - has a free mini book for the Five Little Pumpkins - the non scary version. This is the book that will be the base of our unit.

Nature Journaling - Week 7

Due to the great weather we were having, we were able to do our nature journaling outside this week. We went exploring a nature preserve and brought along our pencils, watercolors, and journals. Next time, though, I think we may need sit-upons as we got somewhat wet being on the ground! Oh, well, live and learn. (Another item to add to our pack:)

Kaleb had great eyes during this trip. He found an eagle sitting in its nest high in a tree and a baby alligator wading into the wetland before us. It was awesome!

We just had to sit and record what we saw. And for once, the weather wasn't so blazing hot!

Kaleb's page (left) included the eagle and the alligator that he found. J's included a dragon fly that she thought looked pretty.

She made a few pages - she added the eagle we watched, the tiger that we learned about during Science, and the beginning of her pumpkin.

My page included the eagle and the alligator. I was so startled by seeing the alligator, I didn't even get a picture! Oh well, maybe next time!