Learning as we grow: Ocean Week 1 and 2

Well Ocean week started two weeks ago, and we are still struggling to get started. For some reason we just aren't home that much anymore. These girls keep us busy with their school, and social activities. At this point I'm debating whether or not to drag ocean week along for another week, or just let it go. We have butterflies ready to hatch soon, so I was thinking of doing a bugs and butterfly theme while that was going on. We'll see how tomorrow goes.

Alli is wearing her hearing aides, but not really talking. I'm a little worried, because it seems she should be learning some words by now. She is getting a lot better with sign language thanks to the signing time DVD's. I have realized that she learns much better through iPad and TV. She's been having speech therapy twice a week since September and it just doesn't really seem to sink in much. She likes playing the games, but totally ignores the sign language. Then you put a signing time DVD on and she's doing all the signs right along with the show. It wasn't until she found an animal app with sounds on the phone that she started repeating actual animal sounds. So I figure this is just how she learns. She must be really visual and tactile. Which makes total sense when you have hearing loss.

In Keira news she is starting to talk up a storm (book, ball, fish, duck and maybe water), in her own way of course, and she is walking! Not full time, but definitely walking. Several times today I have come into a room only to find her walking across the room all by herself. She's a late walker compared to her sisters, who both walked at 12 1/2 months. Keira is 15 months, but all that chunk must be hard to carry around so she deserves a break for being a little late. :)

Anyway here are a few photos of our Ocean unit so far...

The girls were very excited to see the new theme when they came home from school, Emily especially, played with the felt set for quite awhile.

Then she moved onto making a craft. This one is a mermaid. It wasn't long before we headed outside to play.

We started off with some fishing..

Then moved into the big pool to cool off

Not ocean related, but we finally got our relaxation grotto, thanks to Matt moving his work stuff downstairs. :) I love it here!

Water play is over, and we've moved onto the magnetic ocean puzzles.

I finally got Alli to try an activity, and she is humoring me, by putting glue on one piece of paper.

So she matched one animal, and then spent the rest of the time gluing her hands and then picking the glue off. Paper projects are just not her thing.

Emily is loving this math counting and measuring game we are doing. So she is measuring ocean animals and recording how long they are.

We used math links to measure, so she counted each cube and that's how long the animal was. She loves counting activities.

Meanwhile trouble lurks...

Alli decided to hang out a little longer and "color" a jellyfish.

Then we moved onto celery painting the rainbow fish! Remember that celery we used for rainbow week? Here is the rest of it. :)

Trying her hand at little celery stamping...

Another counting game. Count each animal and put a clothes pin on the correct number.

The next day's set up...

Keira started off with the do a dot markers, and quickly was banned for eating them...

Emily doing another mermaid craft, which involves sewing and I have no clue how to sew. She learned a little bit in Montessori school, but couldn't quite remember. There is another fish project that requires sewing too, and I'm going to have to get Matt to show us how to do it.

I made an ocean in a bag for Keira. Which they all liked, and Emily even made her own bag, and took it to school to show everyone. This was really popular, but Keira and Alli both wanted to get inside. I have the top duck tapped, but Keira got inventive and bit through the bag which of course sprung a leak. And then it had to be confiscated.

Working some do a dot activities. In this one she is supposed to follow the arrow to the end of the page. It doesn't just go in rows either you have to pay attention to what direction they are going in which was a little hard for Em, as she sometimes got on a roll and didn't always follow the arrow.

Marking which animals live in the ocean

This do a dot page you need to follow the blue whale to the end. I had a whole stack of these pages, and Em just blasted through most of them in no time at all.

Alli actually tried the rainbow fish celery painting, but it didn't last long before she was mixing up the paint and painting herself.

She just loves to get messy!

Once the finger painting and clean up was over, I set up this tub with water, droppers, cups, spoons, and trays.

Playing with the ocean puzzle

Earlier in the day I had set up this contact paper and pattern blocks area, and this is what Emily made. Pretty cool!

I set up an invitation to play with Plah Doh and some gems, buttons, and seashells. Both girls really liked this one. Of course Alli just rolled hers up and tried to stick it to her clothes. In this picture is Emily's rainbow fish.