Lunches March 26th - 30th

Boogs' lunches are inspired by the books we read at bedtime the previous evening. Each night, Boogs reads one book to me and I read two books to him. I usually post his lunches once a week. Click on the "lunches" label at the end of this post to see lunches from previous weeks.

Ducky by Eve Bunting
This book is based on a true event. In 1992, a crate carrying 29,000 plastic tub toys  was washed overboard at sea.  Hundreds of toys have been found along the eastern coast of Alaska and one little duck was found on the coast of Washington State. Ducky is the story of that lone duck. Boogs was very interested in the real event that sparked this story. He wanted to go throw some floating toys into the ocean with special trackers on them to see where they would go. In the lunchbox: almond butter & jelly duck, Babybel duck, DUCKY spelled in fruit leather, goldfish, blueberries for the ocean, salad, and a cereal bar. 

Guess What Is Growing Inside This Egg by Mia Posada
Each two page spread in this book, alternates between a rhyming verse of clues about what is inside each egg and then the reveal of the creature with information about how the babies grow. Boogs had a good time guessing what each baby would be. There is a lot of information packed into such a fun, short picture book. In the lunchbox: homemade bread egg surrounded by cheese turtle, alligator ham, cheese bird, & ham duck, boiled chicken egg, salad nest with three tomato eggs, and a pear nest.

Puzzle Buzz by Highlights
Boogs has been a fan of mazes since he was 2-years-old and saw a Curious George episode about a corn maze.  He is funny because he does not like to write in his puzzle or maze books. He usually traces or circles things with his finger so he can do them over and over again. He is having a good time with Puzzle Buzz. I had fun making this lunch with the Lunch Punch Match & Munch cutters. In the lunchbox: puzzle pieces of homemade bread, cheese, & salami, cantaloupe puzzle pieces with blueberries, yogurt, and a broccoli maze in ranch dressing.

Mrs. Wishy-Washy's Farm by Joy Cowley
I have enjoyed Joy Cowley books since became I familiar with them while doing my student teaching. Her early reader books have engaging stories which encourage early readers' skills. Mrs. Wishy-Washy was one of my students' favorites. In this book, the animals get tired of being scrubbed clean and head off for an adventure in the big city. In the lunchbox: mini cow, pig, and duck sandwiches made with different combinations of almond butter, peanut butter, jelly, & Nutella surrounded by nibbles of tomato, blueberry, hummus, carrots, & Puffin cereal, and cantaloupe.

Brother Wolf by Harriet Peck Taylor
This book is based on a Seneca Indian Tale.  It explains how wolf gave birds their painted feathers.  Boogs enjoys these kinds of tales. He has even made up some of his own. Boogs' tale of how the sting ray became flat and electric still makes me smile. Today's lunch is an example of a lunchbox fail. The other side of Boogs' sandwich has a very badly drawn wolf on it. I decided to turn it face down and cut it in half. I spent so much time on it that I did not get a chance to make any birds. Boogs came in and looked at his lunch and said, "Oh no! Are you just making me a regular lunch today?" So we compromised on a mostly regular lunch with a wolf marshmallow. In the lunchbox: wolf marshmallow, raisins, dried apricot, carrots, pirates booty, grilled ham & cheese english muffin.

Check out the wonderful sites I link to on my sidebar! If you want to see more book inspired lunches, click on the "lunches" label at the end of this post.

Homemade Lava Lamp

We made lava lamps for our Wednesday learning playdate. I bought Steve Spangler's Secret Science book at an NAEYC conference for work a few years ago. His presentation at the conference was amazing. Boogs and I have used his website for project/experiment ideas and have purchased many things from his catalog and website.

On the very first page of Secret Science, it says "Don't try this at home... Try it at a friend's home!" I laughed as I showed that statement to my friend C, whose house is where we do all of our messy playdates. The lava lamp experiment is very simple. You need a bottle with a cap, vegetable oil, food coloring, Alka Seltzer, and water.

It was a rainy day, so the kids kept themselves occupied inside the house while we gathered the supplies.

B cutting up Alka Seltzer tablets into 8 pieces.

Fill the bottle 3/4 full of oil.

Fill the rest of the bottle with water.

We let the water settle while we discussed what was happening. One kiddo thought the water sank while another kiddo thought the water floated. We talked about the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and the kids figured out that oil floats on water.

Next step, add food coloring. 

They each started out adding a few drops.

But eventually, they squeezed every last drop out of all four bottles of food coloring.

Watching the color sink. The food coloring only mixes with water.

Adding the Alka Seltzer tablet. The colored bubbles danced up to the top of the bottle then floated down again. The carbon dioxide bubbles attach to the color blobs and float the color to the surface. When the bubbles pop, the color blobs sink.

While C and I were cleaning up the mess, Boogs and B brought over this pan and said, "Look we made oil for the car. Can we go put it in?"

We left the bottles alone for a bit to settle. 

This was a fun and quick experiment. I can't wait to figure out what we are going to do next week. Any suggestions?

(I forgot to take my camera with me so these fuzzy photos were all taken with my camera phone.)

Backyard Campout

Boogs has been asking for a backyard campout for a couple of months. I finally agreed to it this past weekend. The weather was perfect! GM, Boogs would rather go camping with you and GP but he made do with our backyard for now. The first two pictures are flashbacks to our backyard campouts from 2010.

May 2010

May 2010
He ended up not sleeping outside that night.

Setting up the tent.

Yep, the zipper works just fine.

Pretending to be asleep in the tent.

Gathering firewood for our "campfire".

Snuggled up on the back porch by the fire.

Boogs did not go to sleep until almost 11 p.m. He really enjoyed looking at the stars.

Bonus for me, Boogs slept in until 7:20. That is extremely late for him.

We spent two nights in the tent before we took it down. On Monday, he asked if he could sleep on the floor of his room in his sleeping bag. We need to plan a real camping trip before it gets too hot.

Brain-Based Obstacle Course

A couple of weeks ago, my friend C and I were going to put together a "Brain-Based Obstacle Course" to wrap up our Internal Organs unit of study. We had no idea what we were going to do, we just wanted to make something fun for our kiddos with a little bit of review. Illness and Spring Break kept us from getting back together until this week. We let the kids run wild inside C's house while we tried to figure out what to put in our obstacle course. We had fun setting it up. Our kiddos had a blast getting through it.

The occipital lobe controls vision. We
blindfolded the kids to have them complete
a task without being able to see.

Big Sis led them up to the maze.

Without their sight, they had to hold
and follow the rope to complete this part
of the course.

It was fun to watch them.

This task used the frontal lobe for planning
and problem-solving to make it across the
uneven path of squares while hopping on
 one foot.

We taped some boxes together for
a tunnel. The kids crawled through
on their knees.

Then they slid through on their backs.

When Boogs went through, the
other kids shook the box and
yelled, "Earthquake!"

E went through last.

A mini-obstacle course through
two chairs and a table challenged
the control and coordination of
their muscles. This coordination is
 controlled by the cerebellum.

Yes, I know they should have been wearing helmets.

Everyone took a turn.

Even Big Sis.

It was a beautiful day. B made
quite a few baskets.

Boogs loves and looks forward
to Wednesday afternoons.

See, I did make him wear a helmet while bike riding.

H had a heavy load to pull.

Look at those smiles of joy! Go faster H!

The kids are wearing their organ t-shirts made by using downloads from Relentlessly Fun, Deceptively Educational's blog.

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Lunches March 19th - 23rd

Boogs' lunches are inspired by the books we read at bedtime the previous evening. Each night, Boogs reads one book to me and I read two books to him. I usually post his lunches once a week. Click on the "lunches" label at the end of this post to see lunches from previous weeks.

It's Probably Penny by Loreen Leedy
The books in the Penny series are fantastic!  This story is all about probability and making predictions. The students' homework in "It's Probably Penny" is to predict and record several things throughout their weekend. Boogs and I read this last Friday. The following are Boogs dictated answers to the homework assignment in the story.

1) Predict three events for this weekend one that will happen, one that might happen, and one that can't happen. Boogs: Saturday will be green day (St. Patrick's Day). We might go to McDonalds. We can't go to school on Saturday or Sunday.

2) Think of two events, one with a tiny chance of happening and one that is impossible. Boogs: McDonalds could happen if Daddy doesn't say no. School can't happen because Saturday and Sunday are just days the school is closed.

3) Write an event with 3 equal possible outcomes. Boogs: If we go out to eat this weekend, we have an equal chance of going to Chuy's, Chipotle, or McDonalds.

 4) Tell about an event with several possible unequal outcomes, order them from most to least likely to happen. Boogs: I will wear green. I might forget to wear green. It is least that I will see grandmaman tomorrow.

We enjoyed working on this together. We have continued to make predictions and discuss probability. Boogs also enjoyed answering some probability questions on a PBS' Prankster Planet game.  In the lunchbox: 5 jelly beans with an equal chance of picking green, pb&j Penny sandwich with fruit leather glasses & tongue, oatmeal raisin muffin for the probability of which flavor pancake Penny's owner would have, blueberries for the blueberries in the story's pancakes, orange for the balloon Penny popped, and veggies like the ones from the farmer's market in the story.

Moosetache by margie Palatini
Boogs thought this book was hilarious! Moose has a  horrible mustache that constantly gets in his way. He tries all sorts of ways to tame his hairy problem. In the lunchbox: Moose almond butter and jelly sandwich, shredded cheese stick mustache, carrots with hummus, mango, and yogurt.

How I Became a Pirate by Melinda Long
David Shannon's illustrations in this book are amazing. The little boy in the story tells a tale of life at sea with pirates and treasure. Boogs enjoyed repeating the pirate phrases in this story. In the lunchbox: chicken gold pieces, cantaloupe jewels, rotten and slightly green pirate teeth tortellini, fruit leather Jolly Roger, and a treasure map disguised at as a yogurt tube. Boogs insisted that I leave out veggies in this lunch because the pirates in the story never, ever ate vegetables.

Pete's A Pizza by William Steig
We spend Wednesday afternoons at a friend's house, usually have pizza for dinner, and then come home late. I have been taking Boogs' pajamas and story books with us so that when we get home I can transfer him from the car to bed. Boogs and his friend "B", pretended to be the boy in this story who was made into a pizza. We acted out the story. They were kneaded, sprinkled, topped, and put into the oven. They had a great time. This is a fun book to read. In the lunchbox: pizza, black olives, cantaloupe, grapes, and salad.

Rumble in the Jungle by Giles Andreae
The page Boogs liked best in this book was the snake page. "The boa constrictor's a slippery snake who squashes then swallows his prey. He knows that it's not very friendly or kind, but they do taste much nicer that way." In the lunchbox: a boa constrictor squeezing a ham & cheese squirrel sandwich, a nest of baby snakes made out of pasta salad, snake orange pieces, and yogurt tube snake.

Check out the wonderful sites I link to on my sidebar! If you want to see more book inspired lunches, click on the "lunches" label at the end of this post.