Bird Center

Posted by Cindy on July 5, 2007

Here’s the newest summer center at our house – Birds!

The box of books on the right includes nonfiction books about all sorts of birds – everything from birds we see around here to penguins to toucans.  I’ve also included some really good children’s literature that have birds as characters – Make Way For Ducklings, Angelo, and The Raft to name a few.

The books laying out are bird identification and drawing guides.  These will be used with their nature notebooks as they go bird watching.  That just reminded me, I need to set out binoculars.  I’ll do a post soon about the nature notebooks.  I just love these!  (Ignore the toes in the picture!) 

I found the little birdhouses at The Dollar Tree for……….$1.00!  I’ve also set out a bird memory game and some bird activity sheets that I found in Considering God’s Creation.  Finally, the game in the back on the left is really pushing it to fit into the bird theme.  It’s a spelling game with bird pictures on the back of the cards!  Ha Ha!  Whatever works, right?

Patriotic Fun

Posted by Cindy on June 20, 2007

Here’s the latest summer center at our house.  The topic for the next couple of weeks is the good ol’ USA!

I’ve included a few library books, a book on tape, 4th of July/American history songs, The 50 Great States Game, The Game of the States, a US puzzle, a magnetic states puzzle, a red,white & blue chemistry experiment set, picture timeline cards of some famous US events of the 20th century, and some patriotic stickers.

Behind the scenes:  Everything on the table (almost) was under $1.00 or free!  I’ve told you many times before how much I love curriculum sales, yard sales and Goodwill.  Well, when I find something cheap, I usually buy it.  When I decide on a theme for my center, I go on a treasure hunt around the house to see what goes with the theme.  Even the star fabric was 1/4 yard of  $1.00/yd fabric = 25 cents!  The only thing I paid “real money” for was the experiment set.  I bought Mahayla a few fun sets from Home Science Tools last Christmas.  You wouldn’t believe how much fun I have putting these together!  It’s okay to call me a nerd!

Art Center – Cassatt

Posted by Cindy on June 10, 2007

This week’s art center focuses on Mary Cassatt.  I’ve only put out pastels and watercolors this week to encourage them to really use each medium.  I found that putting out more than a couple of choices last time didn’t give them much practice with any one thing.  As a side note, if you need to buy watercolors, I’ve found the Prang brand to be the best (of the cheapo kids brands, that is.)