F Week

         We are so lucky to have a fish pond in our backyard.  We have spent so much time feeding and watching our fish since we moved into our house back in May.  We’ve also enjoyed watching our fish multiply – at least 8 new babies have been born in the last 3 months.  Brooklyn loves watching them swim around through the window while she eats her breakfast every morning and is even able to feed them all by herself.  We spent a lot of time this week talking about how F is for fish.  Brooklyn loved the “Four Little Fish” poem.  At the beginning of the week we pretended to be fish and did the actions that the fish do in the poem.  Later in the week, I printed out 4 fish and let Brooklyn color them.  We then glued each one to a popsicle stick, and we made those little fish swim around while we said our poem.  Our verse was a shortened version of John 3:16.  Brooklyn learned (with a little help) “For God so loved the world, that He gave Jesus.”  We talked about how Jesus is God’s Child just like she is my child, and how God loved us, and everybody else in the world, so much that He gave His Son to save us.

Saying the "Four Little Fish Poem" using her little fish puppets

 

          Brooklyn enjoyed learning a few fun new songs on Monday.  I taught her “Five Green and Speckled Frogs.”  She loved sticking out her tongue to eat the “delicious bugs,” and quickly caught on to say the “yum yum” part in the song.  We also acted out the “Four Little Fish” poem quite a few times.  We talked about the letter F, and since she already knows the sound that the F says, I tried to help her say the sound and try to come up with words beginning with the F sound.  We read Fox in Socks, Brooklyn glued together her Fox F craft, and she picked one of her favorite fruits for snack – pineapple.

          Tuesday was fish day.  We started off by painting our fishbowl blue (I cut a big circle out of an empty cereal box, but the craft instructions say to use a paper plate – either would work).  We also painted our fish with finger paint – Brooklyn chose to paint hers red and yellow.  While the paint was drying, we acted out our “Four Little Fish” poem, and then we read One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish.  We had goldfish for snack and while Brooklyn was eating them, we used a few for our math game.  I cut a pond out of blue paper and had Brooklyn count out 10 goldfish to put in the pond.  We then did a little subtraction; I would say “two fish jumped out of the pond,” and Brooklyn would take 2 fish out.  Then I would ask her how many were left in the pond.  Once all of the fish were out of the pond, we had the fish jump back in the pond, a few at a time, and practiced some addition until we had all 10 in the pond again.  Brooklyn enjoyed the game but was excited when she could finally eat the goldfish.  After our snack and math game, we went outside to feed our fish and tried to count how many are in our pond now – I counted 13!  Later in the day, we finished our fishbowl craft by gluing dried beans to the bottom of our fishbowl, attaching strips of green paper, and then gluing on our fish.  I loved how this craft turned out! 

Gluing on the beans

Painting water in her fishbowl 

The finished fishbowl craft

     























          Wednesday we talked about faces.  We reviewed from last week that we use our eyes to see and ears to hear.  Then we talked about how our mouths are used to eat and our nose is used to smell.  I then gave Brooklyn lots of random objects – scrap paper, string, popsicle sticks, dried beans (leftover from our fishbowl craft), craft foam, eye stickers, pom poms, tissue paper scraps, and streamers along with her scissors and glue.  I gave her a white piece of paper and told her to

make a face.  She chose green paper for her face and told me that she needed a circle.  I helped her cut out a “circle” (she is still learning how to use her training scissors, although she was able to cut out her face almost by herself).  I then guided her through the craft by asking her what parts she saw on my face.  The first thing she said was “cheeks.”  She chose the 2 pom poms to use for the cheeks and chose to glue them on the sides of the face.  Other than asking her which part she wanted to do next, she did this entire face all by herself!  I was so impressed!!  She used eye stickers for the eyes, beans for the hair, a triangular piece of foam for the nose, another piece of foam for the mouth, 2 rectangles (that she cut) for the ears, a popsicle stick for the chin, a piece of white streamer that she tore for the neck, and some pink tissue paper for the hair bow.  I love her creativity!!

          Thursday was flower day.  It was rainy in the morning so we looked out the window at the different flowers in our yard.  We talked about the things that flowers need to grow.  We are planning to plant some tulip bulbs this weekend and will continue our discussion then. J  For our craft we used watercolor to paint 3 cupcake liners.  (The watercolor may have not been the best option since the cupcake liner seemed to be a little water resistant, but we went with it anyway.)  We then used a green marker to color 3 popsicle sticks.  After the paint had dried, we glued the cupcake liners to the tops of the popsicle sticks, and then glued a pom pom to the center.  We displayed them in a little “vase” that we made out of half of an empty toilet paper roll, but you could also glue these to a piece of paper.

          I was so looking forward to Friday’s craft, and it was just as fun as I had hoped!  We talked about Jonah and the big fish.  I told Brooklyn that God told Jonah to go to Nineveh and tell the people to stop doing bad things and instead of being a good listener, Jonah ran away from God.  We talked about the storm that God sent and how Jonah felt bad about not listening to God so he told the other people on the ship to throw him into the ocean.  I know the concept of getting eaten by a big fish and living in the fish’s tummy must seem a little bit scary to a 2 year old, but I tried to focus on the fact that while Jonah was in the fish’s tummy, he prayed to God and said he was sorry for not listening.  We counted out the 3 days that he stayed in the fish’s tummy, and how God made the fish spit Jonah out on land.  Then we talked about how Jonah was a good listener and obeyed God this time and went to Nineveh.  After our Bible story, we made our craft.  I found this craft idea from this website. You can click on the link to see the instructions.  (This required a little prep work that I did ahead of time.)  I found that taping the corners of the contact paper down to keep it in place made it easier for Brooklyn.  She really enjoyed sticking the orange tissue paper onto the “sticky paper” and also sticking her fingers onto the sticky paper to make funny noises. 

         

Watching the little frog on our window
(just above Brooklyn's hair bow)

          On Thursday night, as we were finishing up dinner, a little frog hopped onto our kitchen window.  He stayed there for a while, and we were able to watch him breath.  Then all of a sudden, a little bug landed on the window near him.  We watched him quickly hop over to the bug, stick out his tongue, and eat the bug up!!  It was the coolest thing ever, and how awesome that it happened during F week when we’ve been talking about frogs.  We watched him for a little while, and were able to see him eat two other bugs.  I love those surprise teachable moments, and they are even better when the go along with our theme for the week!

          For details and instructions of these crafts and activities, please click to see my lesson plans.  If you have more ideas for the letter F, please comment and share - I would love to hear them!!