museum monday!

We hadn't hit up a museum in a few weeks so I thought it was time. We headed out to the Museum of Science this morning and had a really lovely time there! It was relatively empty with only a few school groups, the typical toddler crowd, and a few other homeschoolers. Here are a few highlights of the trip.

We checked out a fun Pixar exhibit which showed elements of digital design, lighting, and modeling, and had a fun station to build your own mutant toy (like Sid in Toy Story).

F's mutant toy.

H playing with 3D modeling.

If there are tubes, my kids are there. Word. 

Squee! Definitely the coolest part of the trip imo.

Found: Rodent mandible and tons of other bones!

When H spotted the Periodic Table, he skipped over quickly to check it out. He has been choosing different elements to learn about from the library and was excited to recognize some. Nearby, we checked out a cool leaf shape sorting activity.

Of course F was enamored with the ocean themed I-Spy table. He loves I Spy books right now and we looked hard to find everything!

There was a seashell game very much like "Guess Who?" which the kids really liked! They played several times.

This station was fun: sorting shells, then rotating the table and guessing how your partner sorted their shells.

We also saw a 3D movie about Sea Monsters!

Wicked awesome. I was thrilled to be able to add to our Engineering is Elementary storybook library as well:

Hooray!

After our museum fun, we came home and raked, and I pruned the blueberry bushes and tended the strawberry beds. It was a perfect homeschooling day!

Top 5 freebies over at Primary Paradise

Have you seen Primary Paradise's Top 5 freebies list? I am thrilled to have one of my products featured today:

Be sure to check out the freebies archive as well for more fabulous freebies, and check out Primary Paradise's TpT store too! Tons of great products!

Wonderful NBT blog posts by a fellow blogger!

Brenda over at Teaching...Seriously has just completed a series of blog posts highlighting resources for teaching Numbers and Operations in Base Ten, grades 3-5. If you need to teach to the Common Core, you are going to want to check out these resources! Here are a few of the resources she has included:

Fine Motor Paper Pumpkin Crafts for Halloween

Pumpkin and Origami Halloween Crafts 

Here are two crafts that are so much fun for Halloween! I hope you enjoy these pumpkinspired ideas. Not only do they help use fine motor skills, you can incorporate measurement tasks and logic as well!

Woven pumpkin!

Materials Needed for Woven Pumpkin Craft

• orange paper (I used extra large construction paper for the pumpkin)
• pencil to draw your pumpkin
• scissors to cut out your pumpkin
• paper trimmer or cutting blade to make slits on your pumpkin and to make weaving strips

1. Draw a pumpkin and cut it out!
2. Cut some slits either vertically or horizontally. Mine are spaced about 1" apart.

 3. Cut strips of paper (there are 1" wide) in another color. I chose another shade of orange.

 4. Weave!

5. Glue the ends down and stem to your pumpkin. If yours came out really well, laminate it! It makes a lovely fall place mat!

Origami Balloon Halloween Crafts

Here is another cute one! I was obsessed with making origami balls/balloons as a kid and I thought they would translate well to mini jack-o'-lanterns! There is a great tutorial with videos on how to make the balloon. After you have made your shape, use a marker to draw your face! I trimmed a pipe cleaner for a stem and put it through the space where you blow up the balloon. Voila!

 

Some more ideas: a black cat, some ghosts, and...

Spookley the Square Pumpkin Halloween Craft

Spookley!

If you need to draw on a flat surface, unfold it. The face goes as shown.

This is where the logic skill can come in. Because most young kids will need help with this project, you can ask them where they think the face should go before you fold it up. Then after you make a few you can show them that it's easier to find the location after it's been folded up once! You can even fold it, lightly pencil in the face, unfold it, darken and detail the face, then fold it back up again!

Enjoy!

exploring drag

Today we started our Aeronautical Engineering unit from the Engineering is Elementary curriculum Designing Parachutes. After reviewing the storybook and completing the worksheets that correspond to the first lesson, we went outside to get some hands-on exploration of drag!

Running with a parachute.

Cycling with a bag.

Running with different bags.

 In addition to our engineering fun, we also learned about George Washington and then the boys had a grand time playing with all of the magnets! There was some serious imaginative awesomeness going on today!

NEW Halloween FREEBIE

I hope you enjoy this Halloween freebie! Please kindly leave feedback if you enjoy this activity!

Happy Halloween, all!

wordless wednesday: acids and bases and autumn, oh my!

autumn word search freebie!

Head over to my TpT store to download my newest freebie!

Enjoy!

pin to win these baby products

I just have to share this contest with you! My BFF for the last 20+ years (eek, that can't possibly be true!) has a wonderful Etsy shop, HippySticks. The contest officially closes at 11:59 CST on Saturday, October 5th, so get on over to incredible infant to enter right away! Good luck on winning one of her fabulous hand knit products!