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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
There are some great children's books out there that go along with the oceans theme! Here are some of our favorites:
Fishy Facts not only has cool, colorful graphics, but great little tidbits of information on all sorts of underwater critters.
Sharks is typical Usborne wonderfulness: the perfect blend of child-sized facts in a visually appealing package. Gv and I both enjoyed reading this one.
Little Otter's Big Journey is a sweet tale of a little otter who gets separated from his mom and meets all sorts of other ocean critters before being reunited with her at the end. It's full of adorable illustrations and lots of love.
In the Sea is a collection of poems focusing on twenty different ocean creatures and unique, bold artwork.
An Ocean Adventure is another tale of parental separation (obviously a popular theme for underwater stories!) What sets this one apart are all the sparkly foil inserts on every page. This was one of the earliest books that really appealed to Gv as a baby and it's still one she enjoys flipping through quite often.
Kermit the Hermit not only includes rhyming verse, but tells the heartwarming tale of a curmudgeony crab who learns what it's like to give love to others.
Turtle in the Sea
Coral Reef
A Dolphin is Not a Fish
Ocean Tails
One Lonely Sea Horse
The Underwater Alphabet Book
What's Under the Ocean
Fishy Facts not only has cool, colorful graphics, but great little tidbits of information on all sorts of underwater critters.
Sharks is typical Usborne wonderfulness: the perfect blend of child-sized facts in a visually appealing package. Gv and I both enjoyed reading this one.
Little Otter's Big Journey is a sweet tale of a little otter who gets separated from his mom and meets all sorts of other ocean critters before being reunited with her at the end. It's full of adorable illustrations and lots of love.
In the Sea is a collection of poems focusing on twenty different ocean creatures and unique, bold artwork.
An Ocean Adventure is another tale of parental separation (obviously a popular theme for underwater stories!) What sets this one apart are all the sparkly foil inserts on every page. This was one of the earliest books that really appealed to Gv as a baby and it's still one she enjoys flipping through quite often.
Kermit the Hermit not only includes rhyming verse, but tells the heartwarming tale of a curmudgeony crab who learns what it's like to give love to others.
Turtle in the Sea
Coral Reef
A Dolphin is Not a Fish
Ocean Tails
One Lonely Sea Horse
The Underwater Alphabet Book
What's Under the Ocean
Sing Some Songs
We listened to three main things this week:
This soundtrack was an obvious choice.
The album I wrote about here had a couple of really fun and appropriate songs on it that we enjoyed.
This album also had some ocean-themed songs that we played, over and over.
We did several things to correspond to our topic this week:
We constructed this fun paper plate sea turtle. Pretty much because Gv had all things Nemo on her mind after watching the movie. I cut out some flippers and a head from green construction paper, then we glued them on and she cut out squares of green and brown to glue onto its back. Some googly eyes completed the project and she was all excited to hang her very own Crush up on the wall!
We worked together to create this fun scene with Nemo and Dory:
I painted her hand in orange and white stripes (but not the thumb) for Nemo, then two tones of blue with a stripe of yellow for Dory. She kept wanting to spread her fingers (since that's the way these hand prints usually go), but finally got the hang of keeping them fairly squished together.
She added a googly eye for each (although she kept wanting to give them two eyes, which led to this whole discussion of how fish eyes work), and then we cut out some green grass strips and brown and gray stones. We added some bubbles, she glued everything down, and then she hung up one of the cutest pieces of art yet.
Gv made this adorable seahorse at our playgroup. You can find all the directions here.
I printed these cute memory cards for Gv to cut out and match. Kimberly has all sorts of other neat ideas on her blog, so I'll definitely be poking around there more in the future.
I printed page 49 of this fun pack so that Gv could refine her cutting skills a bit.
I just loved this ocean I Spy game. Gv just recently discovered a page like this in a magazine from my classroom, so this printable was perfectly timed.
I downloaded this oceans pack and printed pages 7 & 8 of the Tot 1 collection as well as pages 4 & 5 of the Tot 2 collection. The zig-zags and loops were just right for where Gv's writing skills are at the moment.
This soundtrack was an obvious choice.
The album I wrote about here had a couple of really fun and appropriate songs on it that we enjoyed.
This album also had some ocean-themed songs that we played, over and over.
Watch Some Videos
She also wanted to watch this movie to go along with all the songs we were singing, but I managed to put that request off a bit.
There were plenty of Wild Kratts episodes that were appropriate. This one is a great choice.
Play and Create
We did several things to correspond to our topic this week:
We constructed this fun paper plate sea turtle. Pretty much because Gv had all things Nemo on her mind after watching the movie. I cut out some flippers and a head from green construction paper, then we glued them on and she cut out squares of green and brown to glue onto its back. Some googly eyes completed the project and she was all excited to hang her very own Crush up on the wall!
We worked together to create this fun scene with Nemo and Dory:
I painted her hand in orange and white stripes (but not the thumb) for Nemo, then two tones of blue with a stripe of yellow for Dory. She kept wanting to spread her fingers (since that's the way these hand prints usually go), but finally got the hang of keeping them fairly squished together.
She added a googly eye for each (although she kept wanting to give them two eyes, which led to this whole discussion of how fish eyes work), and then we cut out some green grass strips and brown and gray stones. We added some bubbles, she glued everything down, and then she hung up one of the cutest pieces of art yet.
Gv made this adorable seahorse at our playgroup. You can find all the directions here.
I printed these cute memory cards for Gv to cut out and match. Kimberly has all sorts of other neat ideas on her blog, so I'll definitely be poking around there more in the future.
I printed page 49 of this fun pack so that Gv could refine her cutting skills a bit.
I just loved this ocean I Spy game. Gv just recently discovered a page like this in a magazine from my classroom, so this printable was perfectly timed.
I downloaded this oceans pack and printed pages 7 & 8 of the Tot 1 collection as well as pages 4 & 5 of the Tot 2 collection. The zig-zags and loops were just right for where Gv's writing skills are at the moment.
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!
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!
