Academics – Page 19 – Butterbees and Bumbleflies

Gross Motor Strengthening: Animal Ball

Ok, so I can totally take ZERO credit for this one. We absolutely love watching Daniel Tiger, and this is one that Becca learned from Prince Tuesday on episode “Daniel Plays Ball.” When the kids are struggling, he tells them that they just need to “keep trying, you’ll get better!” Miss Elaina comes up with a game called “Animal Ball”… and Becca’s modified version is where basically whoever is holding the ball says the name of an animal (aka: monkey) and then everyone makes that sound. Then, you toss the ball to someone else, and they say the name of a different animal, and everyone makes that sound. It’s a silly little game, but it’s become a great way for her to practice her throwing and catching skills (which lack a lot…), and every time she drops the ball or doesn’t throw it well, she sings the jingle “keep trying, you’ll get better!”

Some suggestions for playing the game at home: you can easily play indoors or outside. We typically play inside, with a ball that is basically a giant ball of fluff. The lack of weight makes it a little harder to throw, but until she can throw it without hitting anyone or anything, it makes a great ball for the game! If your child is a little better at throwing, you might want to still select a fairly soft ball, since after all… it’s gonna be coming right at ya! HA!

Essentially, it’s just a game of catch, but naming the animals and making their sounds makes it unique and fun… and perfect for your preschooler!

An Invitation to Scrape

In continuing my Fridays of Fun with Art this year, here’s another fabulous way to make several sheets of art to use in your 2016 Calendar! You can do this with any color, though I think it’s best including white. We were able to talk about how the blue stayed blue, but it got lighter by adding the white. This would be a fabulous activity for Valentine’s Day coming up using red and white to make pink!

As an educator, I totally see the purpose behind “process not product” artwork – it’s more important for the children to experience the art than to worry about what it ends up looking like. However, that is a fairly new concept for me… so when I have an idea in my head that we’re going to use these really neat scrapers that Cody got for us, then I kinda think that’s how it should be. Well…. the invitation was there. And I had great fun scraping on my paper. (Didn’t it turn out AWESOME!?!)

Becca scraped some, but I didn’t think about this simple fact – her fine motor skills are such that holding a scraping square might be too challenging to be considered “Fun with Art”… so she went off on her own tangent and ended up painting her hand, and then painting on the paper. I rolled with it, and I’m so glad that I did, because we really had a LOT of fun making these pages together.

In the end, we have some BEAUTIFUL art sheets that are going to go fabulously in our 2016 Calendar collages. I’m so excited to try more painting with her – experimenting with colors and textures, and just seeing where she decides to take my next invitation. 🙂

Just an idea of what I’ve started doing – she does two sheets totally on her own, I do two sheets totally on my own, and then we do one sheet together. So our sheet together was the black one and we ended up making fingerprint snowflakes all over it! I think that will probably be the background for our January 2016 collage. 🙂

Geology 101: Rock Sorting

This week our STEAM subject is Science, specifically, Geology – the study of rocks.

I love blogging activities that I’ve come up with to do with our kids. But, I really love getting to blog about fabulous ideas Cody has come up with and done with them. I love watching him interact with both of the kids, but he and Becca definitely have a very special bond. This particular day was cold and just yuck… not a day for going outside. So Becca pulled out her rock box, and Cody suggested “how about we sort your rocks?”

They proceeded to study each rock. Here they are shown sorting them by size – and putting them in order. But they also lined them up darkest to lightest, sorted like color shades together, and found other ways to group them like “sparkly” vs “not sparkly” rocks.

If your child has a rock collection, this is a fabulous, easy activity that doesn’t require any prep! Just pull it out and use it when they are playing with their rocks the next time! Note: it easily killed 20-30 minutes if you’re looking for a FREE, NO PREP time killer! 🙂

Need an idea for what to keep your rocks in? Check out how Becca made her rock box here.

Gross Motor Strengthening: Bowling/Kickball

All this month on Tuesdays, I’ll be sharing Gross Motor Strengthening games and activities we’re doing to help Becca with her Gross Motor skills. She really struggles sometimes in this area (I did too as a kid), so I’ve been looking for fun new ways to get her moving.

She loves the Amazon Original show – Creative Galaxy. Arty and his friends solve problems through art! In one of the real life craft examples between episodes, some kids were making bowling pins out of water bottles. Well, we don’t have water bottles, but we do have lots of puffs containers from lil Brother’s snacks! So, we decorated puffs containers and turned them into bowling pins! (I taped the lids on with Washi tape and then she added stickers. And… bonus… if you pick 3d stickers to put on them like I did, it takes quite a bit of fine motor control to get them off of the sticker sheet, as well. 😉 I’m a sneaky Mommy like that. ) So to do this activity in your own home, you could easily use water bottles, puffs containers, Pringles containers, or even empty shampoo bottles – get creative! They just need to be tall, skinny, and lightweight so your child can be successful at knocking them over.

We set them up, and she tried rolling the ball to knock the pins over. It worked partially. And then she decided to kick the ball and see if she could knock them over. Success! So, the fabulous thing about this activity is that it includes some art and creativity, and then the pins can either be for kickball or for bowling! One day use it for one, the next day, try it for another! Talk about really working out those Gross Motor skills all with one simple activity! You could easily do this outside on the driveway if it’s a beautiful day, or inside if it’s cold and rainy/snowy! I love the flexibility behind this activity.

Like this post? Please be sure to check out my Facebook page, where I share not only my own ideas, but also posts from other parents & professionals that can help you with your kids! Simply click on over to www.facebook.com/butterbeesandbumbleflies or click “like” on the button to the right.

The Importance of Family Playtime

I’m sure you’ve all read those stories about how to set up the perfect movie night, or how to start having a family game night in your home. If you’re like me, you’ve filed those ideas away for later – when the kids are older. Those ideas sit in your little folder in the “picture perfect middle school family” file cabinet that your brain refuses to realize may never happen, because the “picture perfect middle school family” might just be a pipe dream.

But what are you doing now? RIGHT NOW with your baby bees? I know how hectic the evenings are. Daddy heads home from work, Mommy starts dinner, sometimes family mealtime happens, or maybe you’re frantically finishing feeding the kids when Daddy walks in the door. Or maybe you are a single Mommy who works and when you all finally pile into the house in the evening after a long day of work and day care, the last thing you want to think about is anything other than bath-bottle-bed kinda stuff as you long for a few minutes of “me” time.

Might I just challenge you with this post to set aside 30 minutes. Just 3o. Goal would be every evening, but goals aren’t always attainable. So shoot for every other evening to begin with. And have a family play time. Not only is this good for your older kiddos, it’s VITAL for your Baby Bee. Baby Bees learn best through observation. They’re learning how to move, how to laugh, how to speak, from YOU. So in amongst all the crazy evening schedules, we have worked to build in 30 minutes with our kids. We put our phones away (although Mommy often snaps pictures!), the four of us go into Grayson’s room, we close the doors to contain the savage beast (ha!), and all four of us play on the floor together.

We get to monitor Big Butterfly as she learns to carefully play with Baby Bee, and we also get to interact all four of us together – whether it’s playing with his big Fisher Price train, or reading books, or working puzzles, or building with his tool set, we are in the room with HIS toys that are all safe for him, and we are just hanging out. Both of our kids have benefited from this time all together so much. They often end up snuggling up to us, and wanting to be close. Becca loves to get to play with Grayson’s toys, and to show him how they work. It is a time of the evening that I have come to cherish – when time almost stands still. When the stress and worry of the day gets left at the door, and we just go and laugh with our kids. I hope and pray that you will take time to stop, and start smelling the roses. Don’t miss the opportunity to spend time with your kiddos.

Just keep in mind that your Baby Bees are watching. And learning. Fill up their little love tanks while they’ll let you… and maybe, just maybe they’ll continue to want that play time with you so that you really can become that “picture perfect middle school family.” Because before you know it, it’ll be time to start planning those perfect movie nights, and family game nights will no longer be Memory and Candy Land, but Monopoly and Life and Ticket to Ride.