F is for Flood

Yep, I missed E.  E was for exhausted.  Catching up from vacation was surprisingly hard!!!  But, I'm back for F.

Yesterday, we took a field trip down to the Mighty Mississippi River.  We had a crazy storm last week that dumped anywhere from 2-7 inches of rain in about 12 hours time!!  EVERYONE had water in their basements, and our road had all kinds of new ruts in it!  Well, all that water dumped QUICKLY into the river.

Last week it was normal or below normal levels.  But, yesterday it was more then 11 feet above flood stage!!  It rose that quickly in just 3 days time!  The kids weren't really all that thrilled, but we had to go see history being made.  I think it was the first flood on the Mississippi they had ever seen.  2 summers ago we were able to see a bunch of flooding on the Missouri, so I guess flooding isn't completely new to them.

To be fair, I have read of some crazy amounts of flooding going on in other parts of the Midwest.  Ours didn't cause any damage that people aren't used to.  While the flooding doesn't come up this high very often (they say this was the 5th highest in recorded history) these are still areas that are 'used' to or at least have preparation measures for floods.  The levees have all done what they are supposed to.  But, it's still very neat to see!

The river does not have a levee here, so there is a lot of ground underwater!  Maybe a mile or two.

The only house we saw under water, but as you can see it was built up.  

Road closed :).

The Mighty Mississippi.  Looks a lot different then it did last year!

The old bridge.  It was closed, but it used to be the only way to get across here!

They have since built the bigger bridge that I was on while taking the photo.  They had traffic going both ways on what is usually a one way bridge.

The riverfront.  Looks a little different normally!

What the farmers do with their equipment during a flood.

This is our good friend's field. I guess it will be a bit before he gets to plant!!

I know that the kids weren't too excited about this Sunday drive to look at water, but it will be nice to have a frame of reference when we study floods or talk about them in our learning.

To see what other people found for letter F, be sure to check out the weekly link up at Ben and Me.  Feel free to join us, too!

Thanks for stopping by!!

God Bless,

Lisa

Tot School: Letter F Week 2

Charger is 26 months

This last week we finished up the letter F before heading out of town to visit Grandma and Grandpa for a few days. So, another short week, but lots of fun.

Some of our highlights:

Using our abundance of tractor magazines, I made a tractor cover all game. Charger was supposed to take the gems and place one on each tractor 1:1. All he did was take the gems and pour them out on the game board. He picked them up and dropped them over the board, threw a few on the floor, everything but what he was supposed to do with them. I do think he liked it, though.





I made him a file folder game where he had to match the color fish. He liked this very much and did a great job with it.





I made Charger these number puzzles from craft foam and stickers.



I presented them to him like this:



He did not understand what he was to do with them. Even after I explained it to him, he didnt get it. I think I confused him in the presentation. So, I put them away and tried later in the week. The second time, I put all the puzzles together and then took them apart and had him try. He did much better the second time.

A little Valentine's sorting. I found that even with the little hearts taped inside the big heart cups, I had to show Charger what I wanted him to do. I still give him a chance to do it without my direction, first.



Charger glued feathers to an F. Can you see the F under there? :)


We made this cute fishbowl craft inspired by Homeschool Creations.



Charger got to practice cutting. But, after he refused to hold the scissors even remotely how they should be held, he got to practice tearing paper.



He also practiced counting with fish that I made. He knows all his numbers, but doesnt know they go in any sort of order. We strung them onto the pipe cleaner in order, counting as we went a long. I plan to do this a lot more in the future.



We also read the book Flap Your Wings and Try by Charlotte Pomerantz. It is in a textbook I picked up for 10 cents this summer, I love yard sales :). Both Mustang and Charger enjoyed flying around the room.




Thank you for checking out our blog this week! To see what others did in Tot School this week check out 1+1+1=1. God bless!

Preschool: More Letter F

We continued learning about letter F this week. I still didnt get everything done I had hoped-but who ever does? I'll have to work them in another way in the future.

In reading, we finished up Dod the Dog from Progressive Phonics. Mustang did very well with this unit and I am excited to see how the next book goes. As part of this unit, she also practiced writing d, o, and g.

We also read the book Flap Your Wings and Try by Charlotte Pomerantz. It is in a textbook I picked up for 10 cents this summer, I love yard sales :). Both Mustang and Charger enjoyed flying around the room.



She practiced gluing with a few fun projects. We glued feathers on an F, and made a cute fishbowl inspired by one at Homeschool Creations.





In math, Mustang counted out pebbles for each fish. I got this idea from here.



During table time we went over Fruits and Vegetables. Later, I let her see how many she could remember. She didnt do very well, but we will be going over this more in the future. I made this game by simply cutting out pictures from the Sunday ad, gluing them to card stock, and laminating them. I put an f or on the back so she could check her work.




Mustang started helping me make her lunch each day. She was quite excited to make her peanut butter sandwiches.



And our trays this week:

Moving pom poms with tweezers. I gave Mustang tweezers last fall and she hated them, said her fingers hurt. They must have gotten stronger, because there were no complaints this time.




Practicing patterns with felt hearts. I cut hearts out of felt and then cut mini hearts from card stock. I laid out a pattern and had her repeat it with her felt hearts. She didnt really like this, which is too bad since I spent a decent amount of time making this one!



Tractor coverall. Living on a farm, there are always a ton of tractor magazines laying around. I decided to use them to my advantage. Mustang took one card and I took the other. We rolled the big die and covered that many tractors with our gems. She won.




Well, those are the highlights for our week. Thanks for stopping by! Check out the Preschool Corner from Homeschool Creations to see what others did this week.

Tot School F is for Fish

Charger is 26 months.

We had another fun, but short, week in Tot School. Our letter for the week was F. There are so many things you can do with the letter F! Our sight word was fish. I decided that I dont really want to do a theme in the future, but I do want to introduce a word each week. At the beginning of our sessions we go over the letter, sound, sight word, and the spelling of the word.

Charger stamped footprints on his letter F. Then, I asked if he wanted to color the F. He did not want crayons. He wanted markers, so I gave him one. He colored with it for a few moments and then colored his hand and lost the marker. Then, he wanted a pen. He never did want crayons.



I pulled out the Twister game and gave Charger a large frog. I used the spinner to tell him what color to move his frog to. Mustang really wanted to play, too, and ended up being a big help. Charger didnt really seem to understand the came completely, but followed Mustang. The frogs were soon lost and instead they just jumped from color to color.




Our trays for the week:

Cutting FOOD with our new Melissa and Doug toy-thank you Aunt Becky!




FLOWER arranging




Catching FISH with our new puzzle from Aunt Julie-Thank you!




Hammering golf tees into Stryofoam, thanks to our new washer. Charger did not do very well with this at all. He ended up putting the tees into the holes that Mustang had made when she played with it. He didnt seem to understand how to hold the tee and hammer it at the same time.




Sorting FISH by color. Last week, I gave Charger green and blue pom poms to put in green and blue bowls, so I thought this would be easy for him. He didnt know what to do when he got this tray. I had to put one of each of the fish in the bowls and then he understood to seperate by color.




Putting glass beads on wood sticks. I got this idea from The Adventures of Bear. Charger understood the color sorting this time, but wasnt able to put the beads on the sticks very well at all.




As I mentioned before, there are so many things to be done with letter F, and we did not get done with everything I wanted to. So, we will be continuing letter F this next week. For tons of fun things to do with your Tot (ages 12-48 months), check out 1plus1plus1equals1.blogspot.com.