V Week

We took a couple of weeks off of school around Easter for a little spring break and a week of Easter crafts.  Once again, getting back into the swing of things after taking a break was difficult (especially with the nice weather again!).  We only ended up doing three days of activities out of the five I had planned - but we still had lots of fun!  On our “Vacation” themed day we were able to incorporate many different activities which made up for some of the ones we missed.  I spent lots of time preparing, and Brooklyn and I spent an hour or more enjoying the different activities at each stop on our pretend vacation.  It was also fun to sing our Vacation song and pretend to travel on different forms of transportation along the way.  

Monday was typical with the introduction of the letter v and the song, poem, and verse that went along it.  Brooklyn glued together her vase full of violets and practiced writing v’s on the chalkboard.  

Tuesday we talked about vegetables.  I used some of Brooklyn’s pretend food from her kitchen to show her which ones are fruits and which ones are vegetables.  We talked about the different ways vegetables grow - some grow underground and others grow above the ground on a plant.  I then gave her a print-out of different vegetables that she colored.  As she colored, we talked about what color they usually are.  In the original instructions for the craft, it says to use two paper plates.  I decided to cut large circles out of construction paper instead.  I cut three large circles, all the same size, one was blue, one brown, and I let Brooklyn choose the other color - she chose orange.  I then let Brooklyn cut the blue circle in half and glue it to the top half of the brown circle to create the sky (the brown represented the ground).  After cutting each of her vegetables out, we talked about where they grow, and Brooklyn glued them either underground or above ground.  Once all of her vegetables were in place, I cut the orange paper in half (to match the skyline that Brooklyn had cut).  I placed a brad on the edge of the circle to attach the top and bottom of the orange paper to the sky and ground paper.  I then labeled the top half “above ground” and the bottom half “underground.”  Later, as Brooklyn ate some carrots with her lunch, we talked about the benefits of eating lots of yummy vegetables.  

We had MOPS on Wednesday.

Thursday was our big Vacation day.  I started by having Brooklyn color each of the six vacation signs and cut them out (she always loves cutting!).  Next, we made a vest.  I cut a paper bag to make the vest then used some of the extra paper to tape on a pocket.  For some reason Brooklyn was scared of the vest and didn’t want to touch it.  I was planning to have her decorate it and then wear it for our vacation so she could put the signs in her pocket as she collected them.  Oh well, things don’t always go as planned!  Next, I had her play by herself for a few minutes while I set everything up around the house.  Once everything was ready, we sang the vacation song and pretended to zoom like an airplane to our first stop.  Brooklyn was instructed to find the signs in order from numbers 1 - 6.  Several times along the way, we would stop and read out the numbers she had collected so far to see which one was next.  Here’s how I set it up and what we did at each stop.  Stop 1 was the violin.  I placed the sign beside a stick and when we arrived, we pretended to play our pretend violins and make music.  We sang along as we played.  Stop 2 was a volcano.  I placed the sign beside a volcano experiment (I used brown paper to form a mountain around a small bowl with baking soda inside.  I put it on a cookie sheet and placed a measuring cup full of vinegar beside it for Brooklyn to pour inside to make a volcano erupt).  We visited “Hawaii” and watched a volcano erupt.  Stop 3 was vegetables.  I placed the sign beside a play basket and had placed vegetables around on the floor for Brooklyn to collect in her basket.  We had fun visiting a “garden” and picking some fresh vegetables.  Stop 4 was a vineyard.  I placed the sign beside a bowl of grapes in the kitchen.  We talked about how grapes grow on a vine and pretended to sit in a vineyard as Brooklyn enjoyed her grapes for snack.  Stop 5 was violets.  The sign was on the back door.  We went outside and picked some flowers (we pretended like they were violets).  Our last stop, stop 6, we were back at home and had to vacuum up a messy house after a busy vacation.  We finished up our busy school day by stringing the six signs together to make a scrapbook of our vacation.  

Making her volcano erupt 

She picked lots of yummy vegetables

Stopping at the vineyard to eat her grapes

Brooklyn's vest with her cards in the pocket (even though she wouldn't put it on).

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