Wonderful Summer 6.Long trip of the little ant.

Today our curriculum was based on the story about The Little Ant by Valentin Bianki, famous Russian writer. Today we should to review all our previous lessons about Nature: animals, bugs, insects and amphibians. So let's start!
Once upon a time in big dark forest beside old birch was an ant hill. Big family of little ants was living there. that was huge house with entrances and hallways , storages and rooms. Ants were working hard from sunrise to sunset. they were bringing food to food storages, repair and renovate anthill;

 but there was one little, very curious ant Freddy, who always was asking many question. He got closer to the birch and looked up. "What is there, hight above?" He decided to go up along the birch. He climbed and climbed, climbed and climbed and finally reached top of the tree. He stopped on the leaf and looked around:"WOW....There is a lot of different sites around our anthill....Big water, yellow field, green meadow valley.....The leaf was old and had tiny stem. Suddenly wind blows and leaf fly in the air!
"Nooooooooo!" yelled Freddy watching how fast change surroundings - anthill disappeared behind the pond, the  leaf was flying above the yellow field and got a spill exactly on the edge of the forest. Freddy  frozen for a while, looked around and get try to rise. Leg was hurt and he couldn't step on it. At that time sun started to go down..."No!" whispered Freddy -"I am going to be late to my house!What I should do?"
And he started to cry...
"Hey! Why you crying?"  - he herd the vice. Freddy looked around and descried Spider who was swinging on the net.
"Wind blow my leaf away from my Anthill , dropped it here, I hurt my legs, Sun goes down, my house going to be locked, but I cant  reach it in time...." was crying Freddy.
And.... of course different animals helped Freddy to get his house
Spider brought him on the meadow, Lady bug helped him to reach field, Rabbit brought him to the pond, Frog helped arrived on another side of the pond and Dragonfly put him on the birch beside Freddy's Anthill.
And Freddy arrived exactly in time!
During this activity children pretended to be an animals, insects and reptilians, showed how they were moving, sounding; they arranged surrounding for their animals or insects.
I didn't have time to take pictures because we absorbedly were playing Bianky's tale.
I just want to share with my friends this wonderful story about little ant as an opportunity to play with children role play game which included Science, Math, Literature, teach children mutual help and communication.
A little bit of imagination and ....

Blossoming mandala.

I am so excited all the time to look Natalia's and Alena's blogspots and thinking thinking about my own class with mandalas for very young children.As Natalia recomended I am visiting many sites such as
Anna Fenina site
Jay Mohler site
Valeriya Guryanova's site
Mandalas

AND....  

Find out that mandala is originally from America yet....Really? I share my knowledge with my daughters, which are working in Summer Camps.
 And still I am collecting materials my daughter,  got my ideas and make it in her own way. They pin their mandalas on stick and spin they between their hands to look how colours mixed. They realize some mandalas had very pale colour , close to white, some more brown, some more green. They discussed rainbow and how colours by mixing become white.
Look what they got!

Wonderful Summer 5. Chinese fan

The weather becomes hot and more people use water park in front of my house. Just reminded - last summer through the activity of "Hot weather" project we were making "Chinese fan". For very young children I used plain paper, grade 3-4 children used tissue paper. Detailed instruction you can find on web site Activity village, it is quick and easy.

Mushrooms, mice and a lot of fun.

Today we were talking with my children about animals. Just regular lesson. Little mouse building house....

Wonderful was idea taken from Bulgarian website http://krokotak.com/ . Highly recommend everyone to visit. I always can find something new, very special and age appropriate.

Did you hear about "Kapla"?

What do you know about "Kapla"?
Once you tried to play  you certainly fall in love with this toy!
"KAPLA was invented in 1987 by Tom van der Bruggen. Born in the Netherlands, he studied the History of Art."
Kapla is a wooden block construction toy for children and adults. Each block is an identically sized and shaped piece of pine with dimension in the ratio of 1:3:15, i.e. 1 unit high, 3 units wide and 15 units long.
Nothing special, but this toy, made with real wood, takes children and adults in a fantastic land of building. We can play with my children hours and build whatever we have in our mind...do you know what is the most interesting part in building? 
Yeppp! You right - to break it!)) As long as we do not need any glue or other gluing materials, you always have an opportunity to break it.... and build something absolutely NEW!!!
Oh....Why I did not hear about it when my children were growing up?
Just share with you a few pictures and few web sites where you can find information if interested.

that how our Kapla looks like. there are some less pieces completion. You always can find anything About Kapla here

Those plain wooden block can make a magic like this

or like this

or even like this!!!

Watch how much fun people have,  playing with Kapla!

A few helpful links:

http://kapla.org/page/6/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kapla

http://www.kapla.com/kapla/galerie_photos.en.htm

https://www.facebook.com/KAPLA.Lovers

http://www.atelierenfant.com/stage/Atelier_Kapla

I hope you will enjoy playing with Kapla!!

Pictures taken from internet collection

Wonderful Summer 4. Oh, Canada!

This weekend we were celebrating 146 Anniversary Confederation of three colonies into a single country called Canada, named Canada Day. It is actually Birthday of our wonderful country. So, we decided to discover more about Canada and were talking about what did happen in Northern North America many years ago, who did live here, what did do first people, how they were looked like, why does Canada have a red maple leaf on the flag. So many questions....we decided to explore many of them during the Summer and Fall up to Thanks Giving Day!!!
So, let's start!

 The red stripes on the Canadian flag symbolize the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, between which is Canada. White square recalls the Arctic snows in the north of the country, and the Maple Leaf, Canada's long-standing emblem - on its vast forests. Canada named the country of Red Maple Leaves, because here is a lot of special kind maple trees which have really red leaves and  in spring people make Maple syrup.

Most common for Canada animals are Moose, Beaver, Raccoon and Skunk. Last one, but not least one presented only in North America, and nowhere else around the world.

May be, I will tell you something interesting about beavers....

                                       

They  have very sharp teeth, so they can break huge trees and build the beaver dam;  Beavers build Dams for food storage and protection. They build a dam to make an artificial lake, and then they proceed to build their lodge nearby. 

The deeper water in a dam allows the beaver to travel near its home protected from other animals and predators. After the dam is built, the beaver will also dig channels leading away from the new dam, to create safe transport channels for when it is gathering more wood to continue building its dam and lodge. Beavers usually use their tail as a paddle when they are swimming, but beaver use their tails to communicate!!!! by using there tails to tell other beavers that they are there or to tell them where the food is or even if there in danger they just slap there tail in water!

Hey! let's try to be beavers! We clapped  with our hands different pattern on the floor and tried to repeat it again! Children even guess that different pattern might have different meaning!!!

First people.... How did they look like? Where did they live?

What is North American Indians Totem Pole?

What is Dream Catcher?

Can we build a Tepee?

There were so many questions...

We solved the puzzle "Red Maple Leaf"

But most interesting was play with rocks. Some rocks I collected during year in stores, but some of they I made by myself in special shape with Air Dry Clay. I needed a few flat rocks...

Who is Inuksuk? 

Imagine walking across the vast tundra, and coming across a human-sized stone structure. Inukshuk (plural: inuksuit) means “likeness of a person” in Inuktitut (the Inuit language), and is a pile of (unworked) stones arranged by the Inuit into the shape of a human being. They are sometimes seen as representing the strength and determination of the Inuit people, who live in one of the Earth’s harshest climates and terrains.Used for thousands of years, the Inuit make Inuksuit to identifying routes, to warn people of impending danger, to mark a place of respect, or to remember a good hunting or fishing spot. Most every Inuit constructs his own stone figure at some point, and they are a distinct feature in the Arctic region. They usually are around the height of a human being (5-7 feet tall). 

(more about Inuksuk  for children here and here)

For younger children who was not able to build 3D Inuksuk we decided to build it on the tray with smaller stones.

The most important for Canada Birthday in our opinion was the red maple leaf, which we made with red Play-Dough

And, of course, we sing "Happy Birthday Canada" and the National Anthem of Canada, together with

Red Deer Children's Choir

We love our country!

Happy 146 Anniversary Canada!

A lot of helpful materials I found here and here.

I would like to share our experience 

with my friends here

Wonderful Summer 3. Who is living in the forest?

Hey! Haloooooo!!!! Where you are?????
We lost in the forest!
Do you know How to dress up if you decided to have a trip in the forest?
Sure, jacket, pants, rubber buts and hat! Because in the forest lives very scary..... not actually wolf or bear..
Do you know who is that?

 It is forest mite, so that why we are dress up in that way when we have a trip in the forest!

But we might have some more wonderful meetings in the forest! let's see!

We saw in the forest a fern, ivy(but that was not poison ivy) , 

true hemps( we even count circles on it!) 

True pine cones, not actually true mushrooms, but they really looked as real                 

Amanita muscaria, Slippery Jacks, Brown cap boletus.

We counted spots on amanita , listened forest animals and birds, collected pine cones....By the way, do you know the trick with pine cone? If you wet the pine cone it going to be closed! As it dries it opens again.

We touched bark and discussed how it is, 

and finally we went to art table to create our own amanita: very red with white spots from play dough! 

Who-hoo! That are our amanitas!

More Summer ideas for children are here