Learning Movement Words

The purpose of this activity was to teach the kids (especially my daughter) how to move when I said the following words: travelling, roll, jump, hop, turn and pause.
First I explain the two most common words - travel means move (walk) and pause means freeze (they already knew this one from the Freeze Dance that we did). 
We differentiated hop and jump as follows:
Hop: moving while jumping
Jump: jumping in one spot
But then I learned that was wrong by definition.  The PROPER definition is as follows:
Hop: A hop starts on one foot and ends on the same foot.
Jump: A jump starts on two feet and usually ends on two feet.
I believe that this is my favourite part of playing with my children, I learn right along with them!
So back to the activity.  How did we learn how to move like this instead of mommy just yelling out the words?  We listened to Skip to My Lou.  During the course (Lou, lou, skip to my lou . . .) we travelled in a circle while holding hands.  When the verses came on (Flies in the buttermilk, etc.) we did different movements, like roll, jump, hop and turn.  As the verse ended, I would tell them to pause and they would stop what they were doing and come back to hold hands and we would dance together.  It was a lot of fun!

Photography Challenge - Week One

I have a little bit of a love for photography, but I don't do it professionally or anything.  I just love to take pictures - mainly of my kids!  I found this Photography Challenge on Pinterest and I just had to try it.  So bear with me as I attempt to take a picture every day for a month.  I will post all the pictures that I have taken on Fridays with a small description of each.  Maybe you could play along too!  Click on the link above to get started!

Day One: "In the Morning"
My kids were looking out the window one morning, checking out the cars that were driving past.  Messy hair, PJ's and all!

Day Two: "Empty"
We aren't moving.  We aren't painting.  My baby is moving into a big boy bed.  This is a picture of his empty room, after I had cleared it out on my own while waiting for my husband to return with the bed, dresser and nightstand.

Day Three: "On Your Plate"
Mmm, I made this French Toast Bake with raspberries and I can't wait to share the recipe with all of you.  I want to make a couple changes first though, the recipe that I followed was lacking a little in the flavour department.

Day Four: "Close Up"
This is our "fur baby".  His name is Jax and sometimes (most of the times) we drives us crazy, but we love him anyways.  I think he was getting annoyed of the camera in his face while he was trying to eat.

Day Six: "Hat"

I missed Day Five.  So busy.  But this is my little man with his favourite hat and wearing it his favourite way.  Backwards.  He loves "Cars" and really anything else that has wings, wheels or tracks.

Day Seven: "Drink"

Every morning I must have my coffee in my mug.  I can't drink my coffee black so I either add creamer, hot chocolate or an instant French Vanilla powder.  Mmmm, I can smell it now!

Travel First Aid Kit

I have so many of these containers in my house, I hate to throw them out because they are nice containers, but with my son pretty much potty trained, we can't really reuse them anymore.  When we are out and about, my kids always need things that I don't have on me.  I thought was a great idea to have in the car because we are an on-the-go family!

I didn't put a fancy cover on it like the original, for a couple of reasons.  One, I don't honestly have the time to make it look pretty and two, why does it have to look pretty?  I threw in some bandaids, kleenex, lip chap, hand sanitizer, clorox wet ones and an actual travel first aid kit.  I'm not sure where I got that First Aid Kit, but it works here perfectly!

Melting Crayons

The goal in this little lesson was to teach my daughter that heat would change the look of an object.  In easier terms, I wanted to teach her about melting.  First we talked about the difference between a solid and a liquid.  She got that right away and starting labeling items around the house. 

The next concept was a tough one.  To teach my daughter that solids can turn into liquids if you add heat.  This was an overview of our conversation:
Myself: "What season just finished, when it was really cold?"
Daughter: "Winter."
Myself: "What was on the ground in the winter?"
Daughter: "Snow.  Lots of snow."
M: "What happened to the snow?"
D: "It melted."
M: "How did it melt?"
D: "Cause the sun came out and melted it. It got hot."
M: "Ah, so the heat from the sun melted the snow?  What did it turn it into?"
D: "Water.  There were lots of puddles."

After this conversation, I told her that when things got hot, they changed from a solid to a liquid.  Together we started on our project.  My daughter ripped the paper off of the crayons that I gave her (*NOTE* The cheaper crayons are harder to peel - it also helps to did the crayon in water) and while she did that, I cut the crayons into small pieces (not shaved).

M: "So how do we turn these crayons into a liquid?"
D: "They have to get hot.  The microwave?"
M: "That wouldn't be hot enough.  Something bigger maybe?"
D: "The oven!  Let's put them in the oven!"

We put the small pieces into a muffin tin and put them in the oven (230F) for 15 minutes.  In the end, this was a really cool learning activity and we had so much fun together!  She coloured with her crayons for days and even took them to school to show her teachers and friends!

There are many different activities that you can use to teach your child the difference between solid and liquid.  I think my favourite is a simple recipe for Goop.  It is a solid, but turns to a liquid when you touch it.  The recipe is simply:

Cornstarch

Water
Food coloring (optional)

Add the food colouring to the water, then add one part cornstarch to one part coloured water.

Getting more into the science behind the change, simple ice cubes are probably the best way to teach heat and change.

Matching Pitch - What's a Tune?

The other day, my daughter asked me "What's a tune?".  I'll admit, she kind of caught me off guard.  I hadn't taught her that word, but I guess the Cat in the Hat did.  I was unsure of how to explain it, so I just said it was music.  But the more I got to thinking about it, the more I wanted to teach her.  She loves music - so do I - and we can't afford those fancy music classes - but I could teach her a thing or to from my previous knowledge.

First, I downloaded the "Epic Piano" app on my IPOD.  I was going to go out and buy a kids piano toy, because we sold one and then a week later the other one broke - but I'm cheap, so I downloaded the app instead because they have enough toys - yes, musical instruments too - believe me!

After I had the app downloaded, I sat down with my daughter and we talked about the question she had asked me.  I told her that a tune was the music - not the words - in a song.  I played a couple of tunes on the app and she named them.  How did she know what song it was without the words?  Then I talked about how there are high notes and low notes.  I let her and my son make some music on their own and my daughter helped my son move his finger across the keyboard without lifting to make a beautiful scale.  My son banged on the keys and sang his version of Twinkle Twinkle.  My daughter pushed each key carefully and listened to the sound that it made.

After our discussion and her playing on the app for a bit, we did an activity that I found on Pinterest, teaching pitch to children.  On the high notes, she would get big and on the low notes she would get small.  This leads to a growing flower (low to high notes) and a melting snowman (high to low notes).