Preschool | Buttercup's Babies

Nature in our neighborhood

So I’ve taken on the challenge issued by some awesome blogging mommies to “make this a smart summer”- find opportunities everyday to sneak in a little learning.

The theme this week was “Backyard Science”. On Wednesday, Br (3 3/4) had gone with my hubby to work on the furniture for Br’s school. At some point, Bl(16 mo) strongly hinted (e.g. climbed in our sit-n-stand stroller & pointed at the door) he would like to go for a walk. #Bl REALLY likes to be outside#

I’m a reasonable Mommy, so I grabbed hats, opened the door, and pushed the stroller out. About 1/2 block from our house I realized “I only have 1 kid! Why am I taking a stroller for 2?” Much to Bl’s confusion, I turned quickly back around, popped him out of the sit-n-stand and into… THE JOGGING STROLLER!

My darling Mother-In-Law often complains of being hood-winked by my hubby into buying the expensive jogging stroller. It admittedly has been largely underutilized. Because of this, I do feel a certain obligation to use it, even though I have admitted I have not been working out lately.

Knowing I am fairly out-of-shape, I opted to do a short run-walk on an old favorite route, that also would offer some nice nature views for Bl. I also grabbed the camera, because, hey, I’m trying to write a blog…

Aren't we lucky to have this view 0.58 miles from our home?

I underestimated how out of shape I was. Let’s just say: there was a lot of “wind-suckage.” As I did need to take ~~frequent wind-sucking breaks~~ some pictures of the lovely view, it was handy I grabbed the camera.

And this view 0.74 miles from our house?

We also learned a little about what our neighbors do:

Now we know who to call next time we need our lumber jacked! #Hmm, I hope that's nothing like car jacking# If you are keeping track, I believe this was at 0.98 mi

We also saw some birds, but I was on a slight incline & feeling industrious, so no pictures.

I'm so sorry for whomever did this. I have some tweezers I'll even let you keep. My brain was oxygen-deprived enough I don't recall the mileage.

After my run-walk, I took an extra long cool down (I’m sure you are shocked ) and walked past our house to the end of the cul-de-sac, where we never go, which feeds into another part of the park near our house. This ended up having the coolest nature things we noticed! So cool , as soon as Br got home, I took both kids back out in the sit-n-stand to show him!

Although we were taking our lives in our hands to get these pictures:

but few risks are too great to miss a learning opportunity!

We even found one special one with 3 propellers!

Br remarked on its similarity to helicopter propellers

We tested their flying abilities. They sank like stones. We discussed that they were green, so had lots of water in them, which would make them heavy. We’ll try to remember to test it again later in the summer or fall when they dry out.

We also discussed a little about plants protective mechanisms:

I had Br notice what was growing under the oak tree. Br: “Not much!” I started to explain about “out-competing”, shading out other plants, and taking up the water & nutrients, how oaks have a special chemical in their leaves that inhibits other plants from growing… Br: “Mooommm… I want to go to the park!” Hmmph.

As we got closer to the tree (and the park), I told Br to look at the ground and tell me what he saw.

There were all sorts of holes in the ground. Br’s guess was they were for gophers (pretty good guess!) And the “gopher’s friends must live in the other holes!” I pointed out there were also other types of animals that sometimes live in holes: mice, snakes, etc.

The next thing was possibly the most interesting, but also made me the most nervous:

I pointed the clumps of hair on the ground out to Br and asked him what he thought it was from. He answered with a stock “I don’t know”, so I suggested he make a hypothesis (we’ve been working on that vocabulary) from what he observed. What colors is the hair? And (most clue-worthy in this case), do you smell anything?

“Skunk!” (Luckily, just a subtle “skunkiness”) In the interest of science,we talked about if the hair looked like it would be soft or coarse (coarse, if you are curious), and I did pick up a piece & let Br touch it. (There was precautionary hand washing as soon as we got home) We also sort of glossed over why there might be big clumps of skunk hair on the ground…

The favorite discovery I actually have no pictures of: the patch of thorn-less (I know! How awesome is that!) blackberries our neighbor has growing on the outside of their fence. Their oldest son, whom we had bought a blackberry plant and some of Br’s favorite toys from at our neighborhood garage sale a few months ago, was actually out snacking on them. He invited us to eat some (apparently they have more than they can eat!), and taught Br what to look for to find the “tastiest blackberries”.

My kids went home a tad purple, and not that hungry for dinner, but we totally saw some awesome bits of nature in our neighborhood!

What about you? Any great “smart summer” ideas, or discoveries in your neighborhood?

Keeping little fingers busy- the "poking" job

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“Where were my toys made?”- the aircraft edition

I’d written up a brief summary of this activity in the comments for a link-up for the Smart Summer Challenge “Me on the Map” over at Teach Mama, so I figured I should actually get around to writing the blog post about it.

This is a simple activity I’ve done with Br (3 3/4) a few times. He seemed do get a kick out of it, and it resulted in his first actually decent joke (I’ll save that for the end. But don’t get your hopes too high. It is still a 3 y/o’s joke). Oh, and some geography knowledge & awareness….

The activity is “Where were my toys made?” All you need is a pile of manufactured toys and an atlas (or world map, or globe). We’ll deal with the issue of global outsourcing later…

We peaked at the tiny writing on the bottom of the toys in Br’s aircraft bin (yes, we have enough small metal vehicles there is a subset of “aircrafts” in its own bin. Br was the first grandson. And he REALLY likes all things mechanical)

I opened the atlas to the “Asia” page (We had done this activity before with some trucks. But, really, would any of you NOT have opened it automatically to Asia?) and we found the country listed on the bottom: in this case, Thailand.

We grouped the items by country and next to the atlas, relative to where the countries were found on the map. There wasn’t as much “diversity” with the airplanes as there had been with the trucks (apparently Thailand has a bit of a monopoly on mini aircrafts?), so we had only 3 piles: Unknown (didn’t list a “made in…”), China, & Thailand (by far the most).

Where were my toys made? — Br decided he wanted to lay down in the picture. Man, nothing like posting pictures to the internet to make you notice you need to shampoo the carpet....

One of the aircrafts also listed it was designed in Sweden, but made in Thailand. I showed where Sweden was on the inset world map, and we traced how far the information would have to travel (using the big map, so it was more impressive)- through Russia, China, etc. We had a brief discussion about “designing” & “making”.

Here’s a link to the atlas we used: Usborne Children’s Picture Atlas *This has been a favorite of Br’s since he was probably close to Bl’s age (lots of great pictures of animals, people, and landmarks around the world, as well as pages explaining different types of areas to be found in the atlas)

This also gave us an opportunity to “hypothesize”- working on both the vocabulary and the concept. We have 2 helicopters that are exactly the same. When I got to the second one, I asked Br what his “hypothesis” was on where it was made, and reminded him what a hypothesis was. Br said he didn’t know. I told him MY hypothesis was Thailand. I explained to him the reason I hypothesized Thailand: because I could see the other helicopter that was the same in our Thailand pile (and most of the aircrafts were made in Thailand). If they looked the same, they were likely made in the same place.

* I sell the Usborne & Kane-Miller books, so if you buy through this link, I will receive a small commission. But I SELL them because I BUY them.

Oh yeah! The joke: We’d gotten some “Animals of the World” cards at the dollar are of Target. When we were looking through them the other day, it said the Sifka Lemurs were from Madagascar. One of Br’s trucks was made in Madagascar. Br responded “Maybe the Lemurs made my trucks!”

I’d warned you not to get your hopes up. Maybe I should explain: my standard for “decent”= makes sense.

Do you have any suggestions for other activities we could try with our Atlas? We’d also love to hear if you try this and how it went!

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Recycling for the toddler set- quick, cheap, & easy transfer activity

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Recycling for the toddler set- quick, cheap, & easy transfer activity

Bl (16 mo) is at the developmental stage where he is really trying to understand spatial relationships- particularly “what fits into what”. I’ve stockpiled lids and containers for a while (must to my poor husband’s chagrin), figuring they would useful at some point….

We’d just emptied out a particularly interesting container (one of the “Super Puffs” baby snacks containers, by Plum Organics), so I made a simple activity for Bl with it:

Bl recycling activity 1 — It was so interesting, Br (3 3/4) had to "help" too

This is the most basic version: I added a mixture of lids to a small bowl, made sure the lid was open on the container, and modeled for Bl dropping a lid inside.

I think the “kerplunk” as they dropped in and the mix of bright colors made this especially appealing. Br even wanted to do it! Bl did get frustrated when he closed the lid, and didn’t have the fine-motor skills to open it on his own. I modeled for him how it opens, in case he wanted to try later.

Bl went back to this multiple times throughout the day. After the first occasion where he’d actually put ALL of the lids in the container, he immediately walked to our pantry & “asked” for a snack. Apparently he’d worked up an appetite!

With an older child, you could increase the challenge by:

having them use tongs or tweezers to transfer the lids (works on the hand shape & muscle control for writing)
have them sort the lids first: by color, size, etc.
Draw numbers or letters on the lids and have then put into the container “in order” (numerical or alphabetical)

Here is a list of other great suggestions for activities with recyclables from Teach Mama

Do yo have any great ideas for activities with recyclables? Or suggestions on how to save them without it taking over your house?

My husband’s really hoping for some good answers to that last question

Are you interested in learning more about Montessori? I certainly am! Right now, they have an amazing giveaway for a Montessori Training Course & 12 Montessori albums at Living Montessori Now (giveaway ends July 19th, so hurry over!)

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Category: Preschool

Nature in our neighborhood

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