Cars & Trucks & Things That Go

In March we get out the cars, trucks and trains and pretend they are heading to the zoo.  Hopefully in a week or so we will actually GO to the zoo. 

Nathan enjoys our Little People Train watching the animals turn and bounce along and hearing the different animal noises.  Won’t it be fun to hear and see the real one at the zoo in a few weeks.  Hopefully only people will be riding on that one.

 

 

 

 

 

Kaitlyn is doing a giant puzzle of the solar system with some but not a lot of help.  We learn that Earth is the planet where we live and that astronauts have traveled to the moon.  We read Me and My Place in Space and a National Geographic Kids book about stars and suns and learn about “light years”.

 

 

Kaitlyn is proud of her finished work and can’t wait to put this puzzle together again of “Earth; the place where we live”.  The very next day I found Kaitlyn at school (she is frequently invited to the art room on that teacher’s free bell during my time in the music room next door) being quizzed on the continents  found on the sitting rug in the art room by the art teacher, Frau Auer, as she colored a picture.  It’s important to know that you live in North America on the planet Earth!

 

Meanwhile, Nathan is “learning to count in Spanish” with this musical frog, courtesy of a gift several years ago from his Uncle Curtis, who teaches English as a second language.

 

 

 

 

 

  Kaitlyn also put together a 5 foot puzzle of endangered animals, some of whom we hope to see at the zoo very soon.  We went through each of these animals, playing games to identify animal names and which one was where.

 

 

 

 

Nathan likes playing with cars and trucks. 

He also likes knocking down block towers.

 

 

 

 

 

This toy is so interesting that Nathan doesn’t hesitate to pull himself up to investigate and manipulate the activities.  Before we got this he was only standing up in his crib. 

 

 

 

 

This cranium game called “Duck, Duck, 123” reminds us of “Swan Lake” at the zoo.  Aside from playing the game following its actual rules we use the Mommies and their Ducklings as manipulatives  for the finger play “5 little ducks”, only here we start with 6 little ducks and take away varying numbers of ducks at a time as we learn subtraction, number patterns and counting backwards.

 

 

 

 

Kaitlyn and I built a zoo with our wooden blocks.  It had areas for the zoo animals and a sidewalk for the little people to walk on and view them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A bus load of little people came to visit the zoo.

 

 

 

 

It was a pretty big zoo and the animals made lots of noise.  That made for great entertainment for all the “little people” visiting.

 

 

 

 

Kaitlyn kept 2 zoo keepers running around the zoo taking care of the animals and made a house for them to live in right in the zoo.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Once again, the kitten is playing with the same toys as the kids.  Little People this time.

Isn’t Nathan funny crawling around carrying this “people” around?

Kaitlyn stacks and counts blocks and cars.  Then she nests them.

We keep Nathan busy with his own set of blocks to knock over.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We also built a race track in the living room and enjoyed running a variety of cars over it and sometimes seeing which one was the fastest.

 

 

 

 

Nathan enjoyed playing with the garbage truck.  It has two garbage cans which can go in or come out of the back of the truck as well as a little driver to pull out of the front of the truck.  It travels very nicely across the floor rolling quickly and smoothly too.

 

 

Kaitlyn works at spelling words with magnetic letters and some old word cards we have around.  Kaitlyn is tremendously interested in reading and spelling and writing.

 

 

March has been busy and fun.