N is for Nest (year 2, week 31)



To do this week: hang bird feeders (if the fence is up otherwise we'll just find them)

We started the week at the Mobius Children's Museum.  It offered my kids all of their favorite sensory experiences all one place!  They loved it- as you can see from the pictures;

Top Left: Skimmer and Tadpole loved the construction area.  The "dirt" is rubber shavings.

Top Right: Skimmer on a plasma car.  They had a "neighborhood" where the kids could drive around.

Bottom Left: The neighborhood had a fire station area where the kids could put on gear and turn a water valve.

Bottom Right: Tadpole spent a lot of time pushing shopping carts, lawn mowers, and cars around.

Top Left: The staff were very helpful and patient.  Skimmer is attempting to send a silk hankie through a pneumatic tube.

Top Right: The museum had something for every still level.  Tadpole is in the "baby" area.

Bottom Left: Dragonfly spent probably 20 minutes pouring, raking, and scooping sand.  She also really enjoyed running the sand through her fingers.

Bottom Right: Skimmer loved the "mud" area with it's running water.  He spent a long time getting toys dirty and then cleaning them off.  He got very wet.

Top Left: Tadpole and Dragonfly spent 30-40 minutes playing at the water table.  The water had a current, so it was fun for floating boats, but it was a very pleasant sensory experience.

Top Right: Skimmer was fascinated by the large fan that would blow silk parachutes up into the air.

Bottom Left: One area was dedicated for dentistry.  The big mouth had big dentist tools and rope floss for practicing good self care.

Bottom Right: Dragonfly was drawn into the digging area by the dinosaurs, but decided that it was too noisy for good pretend play.

One of my favorite things about the museum was all the ideas it gave me for sensory and science play around our own house.  Even then, we bought the membership so that we can go back again many more times.

Playground
My mom found us a used playground that we could take for free.  My family came on Sunday to build the playground in our yard.  It was quite the day, but the kids loved every part of it.

They were able to use the U-haul to move the playground in large pieces.  That cut the assembly time by days, probably.

The kids helped and pretended to help where they could.  The excitement was catching.

They didn't even wait until the entire thing was assembled before they started climbing on it and going down the slide.  They ended up with a climbing wall, monkey bars, steering wheel, playhouse, digging pit, picnic table, and three swings.  The swings are pretty close to each other, so we'd like to take that section apart someday and extend top beam to accommodate more swings and a greater variety.

Mommy School
As you can imagine, the kids spent most of the week on the playground.  We still haven't gotten our library card in our new town yet.

We made chocolate peanut butter nests this week.  I started with bittersweet chocolate and added just a little bit of sugar.  So they were chocolate-y but not too sweet.  Yum!

Then, we counted jelly beans for the eggs.  We talked about how the jelly beans are the size of hummingbird eggs.  We aimed for three candies in each nest, but we weren't always successful.  After all, why would anyone like to limit the best part of the nests?

We saw a chickadee in our yard this week, so we bought a bird feeder and packed it with a finch blend.  We have a lot of starlings in our yard now, though, so I don't know when we'll see the chickadees again.  We practiced our scissor skills and cut up yarn for a nest box.  We'll have to see what happens.  Both of these are on the side of the house where the kids don't play to give them the best chance of being used.



Printables
- backyard birds 3-part cards
- predator and prey matching
- birds and their nests matching
- parts of a bird labeling activity
- parts of a bird mini book
- birds and their eggs matching
- bird hatching sequence
- male and female birds matching
- 50 birds around the world
- bird puzzle and labels
- preschool pack
- kindergarten pack

Ideas
- hummingbird unit
- bread grating for bird food
- candy bird nests
- drink like a hummingbird
- super simple bird food sensory bin
- egg counting into nests
- comparing birds and reptiles
- measuring bird seed
- cheerio bird feeder
- eating worms with a clothespin beak
- making/painting bird houses
- giant nest
- robin sensory bin

Videos
- baby hummingbirds
- forest sounds (CD)



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