Metric Measuring: Length

When we arrived in the US, the non metric-ness (not the best grammar) really caught me off guard. Teaching inches and pounds last year was a bit hair raising to be honest. The only thing I can relate to in imperial measurement is sewing, hemlines and seam allowance. Thanks to my amazing Nana that's how we learnt to sew. Love you Nana!
Anyway, I was extremely relieved that this year Miss K was onto metric measurement! I am going to have to start tutoring myself on conversions between metric and imperial for next year I suspect.

We started with length this week and made our own meter 'sticks'. You can print them off here.
Printable meter sticks and tape measures. We colored them in while talking about the increments on the 'stick' and them set off to measure things. The task was to find 3 things that were less than a metre, 3 more than a metre, 3 more more than 2 meters and 3 about a meter.

It was a busy time with Piwis running all over the house. Perry the cat did not appreciate being measured, nor categorized.



Yo Gabba Gabba Theme begins....

Inspired by Mini Piwi's new obsession with all things Gabba Gabba, I decided to find or make a Pre K pack for her. While searching for clipart I discovered that Nick Jr has a lot of printables that I could use in the pack. I just needed to add a few pre writing, letters and counting activites...

We started off by making some 'super skates' inspired by Mini Piwi's favorite episode 'super spies'

We recycled some tissue boxes, covered them with Piwi decorated paper and flowers

 I was reminded by mini Piwi that Super skates had a button you push to make them go fast. Flames are also required.

Demonstrating how to push the buttons on the Super skates

What happens if you go too fast on super skates! 

We arelooking forward to having fun with the rest of the Gabba activities

From Nick Jr
Yo Gabba Gabba Brobie and Plex book mark printables
Dance Party Decorations
Character Mask Printables
Gabba Gabba Dominoes
Picture Puzzles
Backyard Bingo
Reading theme bookmarks
Yo Gabba Gabba 'Lets be safe' pack
Memory Game
Printable gabba land backgrounds

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D is for Dinos

While we were at the Houston Nature and Science Museum last Month we got to take a look at their huge new Paleontology Hall...wow! even if I wasn't a Dino fan I would have been impressed. This isn't the dusty musty Museum halls I visited as a kid! After our visit Mini Piwi started talking about them a lot! It was a good thing we were ready for the letter D!

This week we did a lot of cutting, gluing, tracing and coloring. Instead of making up the tot book this week I just pulled out one activity at a time and then added them to a folder to make a 'Dino guide'. This seemed to work well. Mini Piwi often took an activity and put her own swing on it. 


Inspired by her first visit we have been making Dino prints, Dino parks, Dino houses...

Instead of Dot markers this week, she wanted to 'write' like big sis



Dino Size sequencing

Our second trip to HMNS -'wow that is big!'



. I checked which skeletons they had in the exhibit and printed off there pictures from Zoom Dinosaurs.  Mini Piwi colored each one as she found it.

Making her own dino cards from the Dino Number stomp printable

Coloring the dinosaurs for the creature feature match cards we made from the Dinosuar train printable

creature feature matching



Dino train car sizes

• Dino number  stomp from Pre K pages -'Stomp' with a stamp or dot marker the number of times shown on the dinosaur.
• Counting Dino mat from Pre k pages
• Dino dot/magnet from confessions of a homeschooler
• Dino bottle cap from confessions of a homeschooler
• D dot page from confessions of a homeschooler
• Roar for Dinosaurs pack @two teaching Mommies
• Dinosaur train print ables from PBS kids:we used the runners, horns, toe claws and armor themed pages as match/comparing activity and matching the dinosaurs to the correct size train car.
• Enchanted learning's Zoom Dinosaurs for 'Museum Field guide'

The Wonderful wizard of Oz literature unit

Miss K enjoyed watching the original MGM wizard of OZ movie last year. This week we began reading the book by L. Frank Baum. It is amazing that kids and adults alike have been enjoying this story for over 100 years.

Within minutes of starting the book Miss K spotted a difference. Dorothy is given silver shoes not ruby red ones. Later, after bedtime I did a quick google check. Somehow, I missed the 70 year old memo that the MGM movie screenplay was very different to Baum's book. Miss K is enjoying the story but is pretty much convinced the book is wrong. Her skepticism is in part because she recalls we bought the book on clearance and is convinced  it was on sale because it is not the real version.I showed her the google article and Miss k pointed out that i had told her that not everything you see on TV or the computer is true. Wow I suppose I should have anticipated that one. I tried to explain again but (as i felt gray hairs growing) decided sometimes you need to learn something for yourself and no amount of convincing is going to help.

For now we are reading the book and then at the end we will watch the movie and compare and contrast the two.
Thankfully I didn't even need to come up with the Venn Diagram template. Walking by the way has included one in their Wizard of oz pack

I am working on the rest of the notebook pages for this unit.
Included are:

• A mini unit on Tornadoes -an extension of our weather science unit
• A shoe themed language mini unit
• Wizard of oz pack: create your own Oz character, word find, comprehension questions and copy work
• Character studies
• Lessons from the story
• Book report: Chapter timeline, Setting and ending

So far the links I have found for my printables:
Book sequencing template for chapter summary Free @TpT

Story retelling cards @ First grade parade

Home school Creations also have a Wizard of OZ tot pack I was thinking of using since Mini Piwi has been enjoying the story and cute illustrations too. The characters in the tot pack are so cute that Miss K would probably like them in her notebook too.

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