Some of the links on this site are affiliate links. This means if you click on a link and purchase something, I'll receive a small affiliate commission at no cost to you. Thanks so much for supporting my efforts with this blog!
Welcome back to Latticed Learning! This year, we're continuing to learn while we play - repeating many of our favorites from the past while adding in all sorts of new activities as well.
This day's post is devoted to our weekly themes - some weeks have more activities than others, but each lesson will be fun for you to explore with your little one!
Read All About It
Raindrop Plop! is one of Gv's all-time favorite books, so I knew it would probably be what we read the most this week. (Luckily, I'm still not sick of reading it yet, despite the approximately 7,392 times I've read it to her)
Bringing the Rain to Kapiti Plain brings a unique perspective to the weather as well as a repetitive, rhyming verse.
Sun Snow Stars Sky is a good, all-around introduction to weather and the seasons - plus, its colorful illustrations kept drawing Gv back to flip through all week long.
The Wind Blew is another fun rhyming book. Gv enjoyed completing the repetitive parts as this story progressed.
The Snowy Day was always one of my favorite books as a child - and despite the fact that Gv hasn't ever been in snow, she enjoyed it, as well.
It Looked Like Split Milk was another of my childhood favorites that Gv was fond of.
Other Great Books We Read
Millions of SnowflakesThe Big Snow
White Snow Bright Snow
Storms
National Geographic Kids Everything Weather
Weather
Lightning! Tornadoes! Floods! Blizzards! Hurricanes! and Weather! from the Science Vocabulary Readers set
What Makes the Seasons?
Sing Some Songs
Weather songs are fairly easy to find. Here are just a couple to get you started:
The North Wind from this album
The title song from this album was great - it's one of the first movies I showed Gv when she was younger and she still loves it!
This song from Bambi also fit in perfectly
I'm a Little Snowflake from the album I wrote about here was great, too
The title song from this album was great - it's one of the first movies I showed Gv when she was younger and she still loves it!
This song from Bambi also fit in perfectly
I'm a Little Snowflake from the album I wrote about here was great, too
And so many more, but I'll let you search through your own music collection to see what types of weather-related songs you can add to a playlist.
Watch Some Videos
We love the Magic School Bus series, so the Kicks Up a Storm episode was a must-watch.
Gv's been enjoying a bit of Sid the Science Kid, so this video was a good fit, too.
Read the book, then watch the movie for this fun take on weather!
This was a bit above Gv's head, but it was short enough to hold her interest anyway
We explored this site and also this one bit to learn more about weather
Gv requested this classic, so I happily let her watch it again
Play and Create
We did several things to correspond to our weather topic, besides, of course, learning all about severe weather first-hand living through Irma:I printed out this colorful weather chart, stuck it in a black frame from the dollar store, then hung it under the rainbow map from this week in Gv's room:
I glued the arrows onto thick cardboard (from a shipping box) and then stuck them onto the frame with fun-tack - easy for Gv to move around by herself!
Using this cute display as a guide, I drew some little cloud people for Gv to cut out, hang up, and play with:
We both fell in love with the rainy rhymes I found on this site. I was excited to see so many other great musical resources here, as well.
We played each little video, sang along, then I'd go play each one on the piano for Gv to sing along with each day, too.
I loved how there were fun actions to get her moving at the same time!
I printed out this weather graph for us to fill in each day, which we'll keep up with for the rest of the month:
I came across this neat idea and since I still had rainbow (of course!) strips from one of Gv's birthdays, it was a snap to tape them up along her table.
I let her choose which things we'd dangle from each strip, although she kept wanting to add something to the yellow one, too.
Before we started "the wind," I asked her which one she thought would move the slowest/least. She picked the green strip, with the crayon. Then I asked which would move the fastest/most. She picked the purple one, with the coin.
I just took a book and waved it in front of the papers really fast to create the "wind."
She was surprised to see them all moving so differently. Of course, the yellow one moved the most, followed by the red feather, then the purple coin. And the orange clothespin didn't really move at all, with the crayon just barely moving. The blue cotton swab was right in the middle.
Making predictions is such a great skill to work on.
 |
| Gv furiously waving the book back & forth to make "wind." Note the stagnate paper strips. It took mommy-muscles to really get the wind blowing. |
I loved this idea when I saw it. It was easy to make and I just rolled the pipe cleaner up a bit at the bottom, to not only make it match the mercury better, but also to provide a bit more of a handle for Gv to use to move the temperature up and down.
I printed out weather and seasons cards for Gv to cut and add to a dollar store photo album.
We created this water cycle bag to hang up in a sunny window and watch all week long. It was a huge hit!
We made a cloud in a jar...
 |
| We keep our ice maker turned off, so I just used one of those cooler ice blocks on top |
...and then a tornado in a jar...
 |
| Lots of foam because I shook it all up really well to mix everything in the beginning. Next time, I'd only shake it a bit and not put quite as much food coloring in the water. It was still cool to watch, though |
I couldn't resist making these neat raindrop sun catchers. Gv loved peeling and shaving off the crayons onto the wax paper:
And, finally, I thought this activity would be perfect to go along with Raindrop Plop! I heeded the given advice and had her drop the paint onto the blank paper, then glue the umbrella on afterwards.
 |
| We just used light blue construction paper for the sky, then dropped blue food coloring mixed with a little water onto the paper. It didn't turn out quite as "pretty" as the guide we followed, but it was still fun to make! |
Whew! It was a busy week, but one full of fun!
Looking for all the great posts associated with this concept in one place? Check out my Latticed Learning page here!
What's your favorite thing that we did this week? I'd love to hear! Either leave a comment below or email me at lisahealy (at) outlook (dot) com.
Also, if you don't want to miss a single minute of great tips like this and all the fun around here, be sure to sign up for free updates and then look forward to having each post delivered straight to your inbox!
Linked up with: Favorite Things, Over the Moon, Share the Wealth Sunday, Dishing it & Digging it, What's for Dinner?, Family Joy Blog Link-Up, Literacy Musings Monday, Practical Mondays, Homeschool Nook Link Up, Happiness is Homemade, Merry Monday, Motivation Monday, What'd You Do This Weekend, Meet Up Monday, Totally Terrific Tuesday, Together on Tuesdays, Show Me Yours Linky, Tasty Tuesdays, Little Learning Link Up, Two Uses Tuesday, Hip Homeschool Hop, Lou Lou Girls Fabulous Party Tuesday Talk, Wonderful Wednesday, A Little Bird Told Me, Everything Early Childhood, Creative Muster, Party in Your PJs,What to Read,I Am Pinnable, Christian Bloggers Link Up, This Is How We Roll, Creative Ways, Hearts for Home, Creative Exchange, 100 Happy Days, Try It Like It, No Rules Weekend Blog Party, Tune in Thursdays, Booknificent Thursdays, Thursday Favorite Things, I'm Lovin' It, Inspiration Spotlight, Home Matters, Pretty Pintastic Party, Weekend Potluck, Awesome Life Friday, Creative Collection, The Beautifully Creative Inspired , Bloggers Pit Stop, Weekend Traffic Jam, Pin Me Party, From the Archives, Family Fun Friday, Friday Frivolity, Bloggers Spotlight, Make My Saturday Sweet, Weekend Wind-Down Party,Friday Features Linky, Funtastic Friday , Best of the Weekend, Sweet Inspiration Link Party, Small Victories Sunday, You're Invited, Love to Learn Tuesdays