Angry Birds Mini Unit

The Angry Birds mini unit is ready! I had hoped to get this out here sooner, but my sweet little girl came down with a viral infection and was quite ill for a number of days. : ( She's on the mend now, though - thanks for your kind thoughts and prayers for her!

Here's a closer look at what's inside this unit:

DIY Angry Birds Game. We used our set of Lincoln Logs, a few items from our sensory tub, and our homemade slingshot for this game. I ordered these plush Angry Birds and we'll use them to try and knock down our structures.

Tic Tac Toe. I found the Angry Bird images here, and I made the game board. Easy peasy!

Launch-A-Bird. For this activity, James uses the slingshot to shoot the "birds" (puff) across the room. He then uses the measuring tape to determine how far they flew, and makes note of it in his nifty homemade Angry Birds notebook. :)

Bingo. I made these myself - you can download them here.

Gluing Practice. James really enjoyed this one (though anything involving glue is usually a hit!) - he glued googly eyes and bits of colored felt onto some of the jumbo puffs to make his own Angry Birds.

REAL Angry Birds. I made these cards, but I credit this website for giving me a jump start on the information. James thought it was neat to see his favorite birds in real life!

LOTS of worksheets from 1+1+1=1 and Teaching Happily Ever After.

Thermic Tablets. Since there are a variety of materials used in the Angry Birds games, I thought it'd be fun to dig out the tablets and have a review of them.

Memory Game. Using the same images as in the Tic Tac Toe game, I (haphazardly!) cut these into cards for a memory game.

Tweezing Pigs & Birds. James got a bunch of these little pigs for his birthday one year, and the birds are from who knows where. I've had them forever. :)

War Card Game. I found the cards here.

Parts of a Bird Puzzle.

Patterning. Images are from this site.

Measuring "Bird Seed". I didn't want to go out and buy a huge bag of bird seed, so I bought some sunflower seeds instead (yum!). James uses the measuring spoons to find out how many of each measurement is inside of the container. He records his findings in his notebook.

Angry Bird Craft. I printed these off from here. Once they're all put together they're little cube shaped birds. :)

Sensory tub - click here for the original post.

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Mini Unit - Halloween

Here's the last mini unit! This makes seven total. More than I had originally planned to make and the recent ones have been more involved (compare the robot mini unit to the transportation unit - it's laughable!), but that's how I roll. I get an idea and then I run as fast and far as I possible can with it!

Certain themes we've covered in our 2 years of homeschooling have been more interesting to James than other themes. Halloween is one he looks forward to all year. So, since my teaching hiatus will occur over the month of October, I thought I'd devote a unit to all the fun and not so scary aspects of Halloween. To see my posts from Halloween past, click here and here. :)

~an overview~

Tweezing Spiders (Practical Life). This activity reminds me of the game "Operation" because you have to be careful to get the tweezers into the small opening, pinch a spider, and then carefully draw it out of the pumpkin without dropping it!

Finger Puppets (Just For Fun!). Ha! Love the little orange arm peeking out of the bag! :)

Pencil Sharpening (Practical Life). These pencils, like the finger puppets in the above photo, are things James received while trick-or-treating last year. Hooray for non-candy treats!

Lacing Spiders (Practical Life). These spider rings have nice, big loops and bunch up in a fun way to create a spooky spidery necklace!

Patterning Cards (Language/Math). I made these last year using clip art from abcteach (yes, I have a membership, and yes, I think it's worth it). :).

Pumpkin Manipulatives (Math/Sensorial). These acrylic pumpkins are very pretty and come in a variety of colors and sizes. I found them at Micheal's in the US. James can use them for sorting, math, imaginative play, and as our bingo counters.

Mini Sensory Tub. To see past sensory tubs, click here and here. This one is full of all sorts of goodies: feathers, chip board signs (found at a scrapbooking store), spiders large and small, puffs, erasers, skull beads, purler beads in black, purple, and white, and letter buttons that spell out the word "Halloween".

Make A Pumpkin (Art). James isn't much into art whether it be free creation or prepared crafts. He is, however, a big fan of pumpkins so I think he'll enjoy the end result of this craft. I've prepared everything he needs to create two cute little pumpkins.

Skip Counting (Math). As in some of our other mini units, I created some blank skip counting cards (on Word) and then added puffy stickers to make them more interesting. This set counts by 5 up to 100.

Parts of a Skeleton (Science). I printed the booklet from Montessori Print Shop (note: it's actually a set of 3-part cards - I just used the title cards) and I included a little glow in the dark skeleton (found at the dollar store). James can match the parts from the booklet to the corresponding parts on the skeleton.

Stamping (Art/Just For Fun!). As a photo, this activity looks extremely dull. :) But James loves stamping and will cover page after page with stamped images.

Life Cycle of a Pumpkin (Science/Language). This is also from last year and I printed it off from the Montessori For Everyone website.

Scissor Practice (Practical Life). I love these stickers - they're puffy, shiny little candy corns. :)

Punching (Practical Life). I just strips of scrapbooking paper for this activity and there's a little container (not pictured) for James to dump the punched pieces into.

Counting Cards (Math). No counters with this activity. James enjoys numbered items and spends a good amount of time simply putting them in order and creating new numbers.

Poetry Basket (Language). Also from last year - in fact, it was our first poetry basket and the poem was written by me. :)

Books (Language). Pumpkin Eye by Denise Fleming, Arthur's Halloween by Marc Brown, Clifford's Halloween by Norman Bridwell, and Happy Halloween by Rosemary Wells.

Bingo (Language). I made this myself using clip art I purchased from here. You can find a link to download this here on my printables page.

Worksheets and Mini Activity Book (Language/Math/Art). The color pages were found free online and the worksheets were created by me. The activity booklet was another trick-or-treat giveaway.

Collage (Art). These are foam stickers in Halloween shapes. James likes stickers, so I'm thinking he'll enjoy sticking them on the paper and also tearing the paper to make a collage. He has access to scissors, paste, and other art tools in our supply basket.

Pumpkin Playdough (Sensorial). This playdough, like last year and the year before, is scented with pumpkin spice and smells de-licious!

All packed and ready to explore!

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Mini Unit - Mickey Mouse

I have to admit, I don't usually buy into the whole mainstream commercialism thing when it comes to my classroom. It just seems a bit distracting to me. But, I decided to bend a little just this once and I created this Mickey Mouse themed mini unit for James. He's digging Mickey right now (and truth be told I'm a big Mickey fan, too!) and I figured if I could make the activities educational, why not let the Mouse come over for a visit? :)

I should note that because Bermuda has limited supplies when it comes to specialty items, I made many of these materials myself. In the rare case that I did purchase items, they were cheaply found at our local dollar store, thrift shop, and party supple store.

~an overview~

Here's a closer look at what's inside this unit:
Mini Sensory Tub (Sensorial/Language). I thought about making a full size version of this tub, but with only 3 weeks left to go in this pregnancy, I just haven't the energy. I used red pony beads and black marbles and foam squares as the main filler. Also included are bottlecaps (dollar store), buttons, letter beads to spell with, poms, tiny Mickey Mouse buttons, a couple of vellum stars, and a Pluto Pez dispenser.

Telling Time (Math). I made this myself by using the back of a Mickey Mouse paper plate. I purchased the button embellishments from a scrapbooking store (years ago) and then cut the clock hands out of cardstock and pinned them loosely to the plate with a brad.

Lacing (Practical Life). Another use for the paper plates - I simply punched holes around the perimeter and added a shoelace.

Pin Punching (Practical Life). I create the Mouse heads in Word and printed a few of them so James can repeat the work as desired. I provided a sheet of black foam paper to absorb the pin. I've been asked a zillion times about the jumbo pins I use - I found them at our local dollar store over a year ago, but I've seen them available on Amazon as well.

Dominoes (Math/Language/Sensorial). These dominoes are another dollar store find and boy are they teeny-tiny!

Bingo (Language/Sensorial). Two kinds - one is homemade and involves reading, the other is a thrift store find and focuses on shapes. I had already created the homemade version (by using clip art), but couldn't pass up the other one when I found it for only 25 cents.

Worksheets (Language/Math/Art). I made all of these myself using free clip art I found online. While I would normally share these with you as PDF's, I don't feel comfortable doing so this time around. I'm fearful of some unknown copyright I'd be breaking if I shared them. Sorry!

Books (Language). Going through our bookcases I found only these three Mickey Mouse books. In fact, these were MY books when I was young and I *think*, perhaps with the exception of The Sorcerer's Apprentice, they're now out of print.

Activity Books (Math/Language/Art/Just For Fun!). Birthday gifts from a couple of years ago.

Manipulatives. I found these at our local party supply store. I envision them being used for sorting, sequencing, math, storytelling, and whatever else James comes up with. Oftentimes I will just put materials out there and sit back to see what HE decides to do with them. His ideas are usually much more creative than mine!

Stick Puppets. I used some of the above manipulatives and pasted them to popsicle sticks. Again, I'm curious to see what James will do with these.

Memory/Matching Game (Sensorial). These are paint chips, which I believe you can find at most large home-retailers. The ones in the photo were a gift from my sweet bloggy friend, Susan. :)

Pasting Practice & Collage Making (Practical Life/Art). The paper and stickers are several years old and from my scrapbooking stash. I cut up various aspects of the papers and it'll be up to James to arrange them however he'd like.

Cutting Practice (Practical Life/Math). As with all of our sticker cutting strips, James will need to cut in between the stickers. He can then use the snipped pieces for a sequencing or sorting activity.

All packed up and ready to explore!

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