Little Eye Dropper

The use of an eye dropper activity is a great fine motor skill builder. This fine motor practice helps the child prepare for writing. 

Materials: Color Water (should be dark enough to show up in the individual suction cups), eye/medicine dropper, suction cup (I found mine at the dollar tree), sponge, and a tray. 

Using the pincer grip take in water from your cup or container. Only drop a little to fill each suction cup. If possible present the lesson with filling each suction cup top to bottom, left to right.

When all the suction cups have been filled, take a sponge and dry up the water. If the sponge becomes full show your child where to go to dispose of the water. A child should have been given the how to use a sponge lesson before the eye dropper lesson. 

Ava wanted to repeat the lesson again! :)

Life Cycles

Ava's grandma was so sweet to purchase the Safariology life cycle kits from Ava's Amazon wish list. She was eager to get started with them so I let her choose 2 sets to start with. She chose the frog and chicken life cycles. There are plenty of sites you can purchase the matching picture cards but I chose to find a few free links. (chicken and frog) They are not identical to the figurines but look close enough.

If you have the time and want to make some of your own here is an idea: For my classroom I used to find a blanket or some kind of neutral material for a back drop and take pictures of figurines. I would get the pictures printed out and then paste them on card stock. Also, you can make your own fact cards by listing the information that comes on the back of the figurine packaging.

The figurines

The fact cards

Lucy wanted to try out the chicken life cycle. 

I read the fact cards and Ava found the coordinating figurine.

I liked that this set of fact cards had numerals 1-5 to help with the order.

These cards came with the print out. They are just the picture with the correct title for each figurine. Ava liked that they were round.

Bounce Like A Kangaroo

We were in Raleigh but it was super hot so we decided on something indoor to do. We came across this indoor trampoline park. Ava's never been on a trampoline before so we thought this would be a great experience. I didn't take too many photos because we were too busy bouncing. Ava gave me tons of giggles as she learned to bounce. She went through obstacle courses as well. Overall we had a blast and hope to visit again.

Lucy and I watching sister jump!

Taking a little rest with daddy.

Climbing up the ladder before falling back into the styrofoam. 

A Trip To Fort Macon

Our neighbors offered us their beach condo so we decided to take them up on their offer. We really like Atlantic beach. I have to say it's one of the cleaner beaches we've been to in NC. We wanted to take a look around and see what there was to get into. We've been to the aquarium there several times so we settled on visiting Fort Macon.

2 for 1 pearl special!

This exhibit displayed what all you find on/in the sand. There was also a section that let you press buttons and they allowed you to hear different bird calls.

Heading into Ft. Macon. Ft Macon was constructed between 1826-1834. This fort was used in  the  War Between the States (1861-1865), the Spanish American War (1898), and World War II (1941-1945). Fort Macon also served as a military prison from 1862-1877.

It was interesting to us that the south's food supply was coming from New York. (North)

Mess Hall

Standing inside one of the barracks. 

I love the brick work in the barracks.

Example of loaves of bread inside the glass.

This oven had been rebuilt but it's where they would bake the bread. 

Our little prisoner. (jk) She stood there and as the breeze would come off the ocean she would tilt her head back and just smile.

From one of the top ledges of the fort.

This furnace was used to heat non-explosive cannonballs red hot for use against  the unarmored wooden enemy warships of period.

At the top of the ft overlooking the ocean. 

Weapons

General store

How they washed their clothes.

We learned that the soldiers didn't sleep with blankets or pillows. If they wanted a pillow they would use their coat. The bedding was full of straw. It was also said that once a week they would have to dismantle their bunk beds and disinfect them because the bed bugs were horrible.