R Week

          When we moved into our house back in May, we discovered that several rabbits (or as Brooklyn likes to call them “hop hops”) lived in our front yard bushes.  They are pretty big rabbits and are rather brave.  They often stay very still and let us walk somewhat close to them to get a better look.  Brooklyn loves them and spends lots of time looking out of her window watching them during the warmer months.  As the weather has started to warm up after a snowy winter, we have just started to see our rabbit friends come out again.  Brooklyn was very excited about our song of the week, “Rabbits Here and Rabbits There,” as it reminded of her little furry friends.   

We had a typical Monday which consisted of learning a new song, poem, letter, and verse.  Brooklyn did her R dot picture and glued together her rabbit R.  She had raisins for snack - one of her favorites.  

On Tuesday we talked about rain and rainbows.  As soon as I told Brooklyn that was the theme for the day, she gave me her Bible and wanted to read about Noah.  So we started our day by talking about Noah and the very first rainbow (not in my lesson plans, but I’m so glad that Brooklyn thought of that!).  We said our rainbow poem and talked about the colors that are in a rainbow.  Next, I gave Brooklyn scrap pieces of red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple paper.  I told her to tear the paper into small pieces.  Madelyn had fun helping with this part too!  We put all of the little pieces of paper into a bowl for the next part of the craft.  I had drawn six arches onto a piece of white paper to form a rainbow.  I wrote the names of each color (using that color marker) into each arch.  I then filled each arch with glue, one color at a time, and had Brooklyn fill that arch with the correct color paper.  In order to do this, she had to search through the bowl of colored paper to find the correct color.  When she was finished with each color, she had a beautiful rainbow.  Lastly, we did a little science experiment about rain.  I boiled a pot of water and then placed ice cubes into an empty round cake pan.  I held the cake pan, which represented our cloud, above the boiling water.  Droplets of water formed on the bottom of the pan.  Brooklyn watched as the droplets got bigger and finally began to rain.  What a fun way to learn about rain!

Madelyn helping Brooklyn tear up paper

Brooklyn tearing up paper for her rainbow

Adding color to her rainbow

On Wednesday we talked a little bit about rockets.  Somehow Brooklyn had no idea what a rocket was before today.  After explaining what a rocket is and what it does, Brooklyn made her craft.  I drew a rocket onto a piece of paper and let her color it with markers and decorate it with star stickers.  Meanwhile, I found two plastic disposable cups, cut four slits into the bottom of one, and attached rubber bands across the opening by slipping them through the slits.  I cut out the rocket and taped it onto the cup with the rubber bands. Brooklyn then enjoyed launching her rocket into the air.  You can find the full instructions for this fun craft here.

 

Thursday was a cold, rainy day.  Brooklyn was very sleepy and wanted to cuddle and read.  Instead of doing our rock and river activities, we decided to have a reading day.  So we snuggled up in a chair by the window with a blanket, listened to the rain, and read books for about an hour.  I did add one more R activity later in the day.  Brooklyn wanted to make pretend banana muffins in her play kitchen.  I quickly jotted down a pretend recipe and read it out for her to follow.  Brooklyn used her play food, spoons, and cups to follow the recipe perfectly.   We had so much fun baking those yummy pretend muffins together!  

On Friday we read the story of Ruth from the Bible.  We talked about how she was loyal and stayed with Naomi even when she didn’t have to. We talked about how Ruth took care of Naomi by collecting leftover wheat in the fields.  For our craft, we made a Ruth puppet.  First, Brooklyn colored a picture of Ruth that I printed out.  I then cut it out, and she glued the head on the bottom of a paper bag and the body on the side of the bag.  To complete the craft, she glued wheat into Ruth’s basket.

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