Love to Laugh and Learn

Fun and interesting learning activities to do with the children in your life

Shear Fun: Learning Where Fabric Comes From

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Shear Fun: Learning Where Fabric Comes From





It’s springtime and the weather is getting warmer, so it’s time for some “shear fun”. Have you ever heard of shearing? It’s kind of like an animal haircut. Starting in the fall animals beginning growing extra thick fur to keep them warm through the cold winter. In the springtime, they start to shed (or lose) their heavy fur.

There are many types of animals whose fur can be made into yarn. Then you know what you can do with that yarn? You can make clothes, rugs and other items you need around your house.

Have you ever seen an animal being shorn? I’ve seen it at our State Fair but last year I was able to experience it at Conner Prairie Interactive History Museum.

Shear Fun watching sheep being shorn at Conner Prairie Interactive Museum.
Shear Fun watching sheep being shorn at Conner Prairie Interactive Museum.

Each spring they have an event called “Shear Fun” where you can watch different animals being shorn. Last year they had sheep and and llamas.

A llama visiting Conner Prairie
A llama visiting Conner Prairie

We learned about cleaning and carding the wool. Carding is brushing the lumps out of the wool.

Wool from sheep that needs cleaned.
Wool from sheep that needs cleaned.

We were able to see people spinning the wool into threads to be used for sewing.

Shear Fun: Spinning wool into thread.
Shear Fun: Spinning wool into thread.

There was even an area where we were able to watch people turning flax (which is a plant) into thread to create clothing and other household items. Did you know you could make clothes out of plants?! That’s kind of neat.

Shear Fun: Turning flax into thread.
Shear Fun: Turning flax into thread.

Understand, Conner Prairie, isn’t just a museum full of exhibits and demonstrations. It’s an interactive, hands-on, get-in-there-and-try-it-yourself, kind of museum. There was an area where we could try our hand at some simple weaving projects.

Shear Fun: Weaving projects
Shear Fun: Weaving projects

And don’t forget the adorable animals. There are so many animals that you can touch and interact with. We had a lot of fun and we learned quite a bit too.

Shear Fun with baby animals.
Shear Fun with baby animals.

This year’s event happens this weekend, May 4th, 2019. Don’t miss out on the amount of “Shear Fun” that’s waiting for you.

Shear Fun at Conner Prairie Interactive Museum.
Shear Fun at Conner Prairie Interactive Museum.

Ovals: Learning Activities for Shapes

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Ovals: Learning Activities for Shapes


 
It’s time for some fun learning activities with ovals. When I was growing up we had an oval shaped swimming pool in our backyard. I enjoyed playing with Silly Putty which was stored in an oval shaped egg. What fun things do you remember doing with ovals? There are some great books listed below that are all about ovals. Be sure to take time to enjoy the craft. I would love for you to stop by my Facebook page (Love to Laugh and Learn) and share some pictures of the ways you enjoyed learning and playing with ovals.

Content:

Toys
Craft:
Abstract Picture of Circles and Ovals
Snacks
Story Time
Related Posts

Toys

What kinds of oval shaped toys can your child find? Can they build an oval train or car track? Are there some play food eggs in their pretend kitchen? How about some plastic Easter eggs? Get some play dough out and experiment with making balls (circles) of play dough and then squishing it slightly to turn the circles into ovals. If it’s warm out fill up some water-balloons and have a fun time in the yard. Ovals can be found everywhere? What else did you and your child find?

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Craft

Learn about the relationship between circles and ovals with this fun craft.

Abstract Picture of Circles and Ovals

Not all arts and crafts have to form a specific picture or item. Experimenting with different materials and creating your own art work can be very fun and extremely educational. In this craft your child can learn the relationship between circles and ovals while creating their own artwork.

Materials Needed:

Toilet paper tubes
Paint (as many colors as you want)
Plate
White Paper

Instructions:

1. Pour a small amount of paint out on a plate.

Preparing for abstract oval/circle painting.

 

2. Dip one end of the toilet paper tube into the paint and stamp it onto the white paper. Have your child be careful not to squish the tube for the first few “stamps”.

3. After making several circles on the paper, gently squish the toilet paper tube. If your child has trouble keeping the toilet paper roll squished into an oval you can use a rubber band to hold it in an oval shape.

You can use a rubber band to help hold the oval shape.

4. Dip it in the paint and “stamp” onto the paper. What shape are you making now?

Learn about the relationship between circles and ovals with this fun craft.

This is a very simple craft that can be used with a very young child but older children will also enjoy making their own abstract art pieces.

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Foods for snack or meal time

Boiled eggs, olives, baked potato, kiwi (if you slice it end to end), grapes, oval-shaped crackers, pumpkin seeds, cucumbers or pickles (sliced end to end)

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Story Time

I See Ovals (All about Shapes) by D. H. Dilkes
Reading Level: Birth – 4 yrs old
D. H. Dilkes has a great series of little books that discuss different shapes. In this book you will find ovals in many different places. I like the fact that the illustrations are photographs of every day items. The text is simple which is great for a young child that is just being introduced to shapes.

Ovals around Town (Shapes Around Town) by Nathan Olson
Reading Level: Ages 4 and up
There are so many ovals around us. Some windows are shaped like ovals. Watermelons are shaped like ovals. The author does a wonderful job of explaining and showing the difference between a circle and an oval. I especially liked how a couple of the illustrations showed that an arch reflected in water looks like an oval. There are bright fun colors and illustrations throughout the book. You and your child will have lots of fun as you explore ovals.

Ovals (The Shape of the World) by Dana Meachen Rau
Reading Level: Birth – 4 yrs old
Dana Meachen Rau has a great series of little books about shapes. In this book you will see several different ovals. You might find some right in your own house. The simple text and bright pictures will give you and your child a lot to talk about. This is a great little book for introducing ovals to your child.

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Related Posts

Shapes – Overview
The Lessons – Overview
Circles: Learning Activities for Shapes
Squares: Learning Activities for Shapes
Rectangles: Learning Activities for Shapes
Triangles: Learning Activities for Shapes
Diamonds: Learning Activities for Shapes
Stars: Learning Activities for Shapes
Hearts: Learning Activities for Shapes
Learning Should Be Fun
Colors – Overview

 

Diamonds: Learning Activities for Shapes

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Diamonds: Learning Activities for Shapes
with free printables




 

Time for fun with diamonds. What is the first thing you think of when someone talks about a diamond? My first thing is a kite. The second thing I think of is the song, Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star. Below are listed some fun things to do with diamonds. Have fun and please come back and share the different activities you have tried and how you liked them.


Content:

Toys
Crafts:
Kite Picture
Flower Made from Diamond Shapes
Snacks
Story Time
Related Posts

Toys

You may have a shape sorter with a diamond shape in it. I would recommend the Discovery Toys: Playful Patterns (just use the diamond shapes today). Also try a Hape Geo Form S – Diamond Shaped Puzzles or kite. Please stop by and share what type of diamond shape toys you have.

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Crafts

Diamond Flower Craft


Kite Picture

Material for Diamond Kite Craft

Materials Needed:

Diamond Kite Template
Construction paper or paint, markers, crayons
String or yarn
Stickers
Scissors
Glue

Instructions:

1. Print Diamond Kite Template

2. You can either color or paint the kite on the template or use the template as a pattern to cut the kite out of construction paper. For this craft, I decided to cut the kite out of construction paper and glue it to another piece of construction paper.

3. Glue a piece of string or yarn to the bottom of the kite and have it run all the way to the bottom of the page so it looks like the kite is flying high in the sky.

4. Add stickers to the kite for extra decoration. Stickers are great for young children to exercise their fine motor skills as they peel and stick them to the paper.

Have fun learning about diamonds with this Diamond Shaped Kite Craft

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Diamond Flower

Materials Needed:

Material Needed for the Diamond Flower Craft

Diamond Flower Template
Construction or tissue paper
Scissors
Glue
Green marker

Instructions:

1. Print Diamond Flower Template

2. Cut 2 diamonds out of green paper.

3. Cut the rest of the diamonds out of whatever color you want your flower to be.
You can cut out as many diamonds as you want.

4. Glue the diamond petals in a flower shape with their points touching in the center of the flower.

5. Draw a green stem on the flower.

6. Glue the 2 green diamond shaped leaves to the stem.

Now you have a beautiful diamond flower to remind you of spring or to give to mom or grandma for Mother’s Day.

Have fun making this beautiful Diamond Flower Craft

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Foods for snack or meal time

I searched the web and couldn’t find any diamond shaped foods but you can always use a diamond shaped cookie cutter to cut vegetables, fruits, cheese, etc. You could also use triangle shaped foods and show your child how to put them together to create a diamond.

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Story Time

Much to my disappointment, I have not been able to find any books that are only about diamonds. I have found some books that discuss several different shapes and diamonds are included so I am listing those books. If you know of any books that are just about diamonds, please let me know.

Color Zoo by Lois Ehlert
Reading Level: Ages 4 and up
There isn’t much of a story. Actually it’s just a poem on the first page of the book but seeing how the different animals are made with the shapes is very interesting. The pictures are very bright and inviting to a child. The shapes that are covered are circle, square, triangle, rectangle, star, heart, oval, diamond, octagon and hexagon.

Museum Shapes by The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Reading Level: Kindergarten – 3rd Grade
This is a very interesting way to introduce your child to shapes and to the art world. Your child is introduced to different shapes and asked to locate the shapes in famous pieces of art work. A fun way to teach your child to look for shapes in items they run across every day such as wheels, on clothing or in a painting. Not only is this a good book for teaching shapes but it would be good to read before heading out for an afternoon at the art museum. There are reference pages at the end of the book that provide information on each of the pieces of art that are represented in the book. The shapes that are covered are circle, square, triangle, rectangle, star, heart, oval, diamond, crescent and arch.

Shape by Shape by Suse MacDonald
Reading Level: Ages 2 to 5
This book does not actually teach shapes but it is a good review and a fun mystery. The book starts out with two black circles in the middle of the page and it asks, “Do you know what I am?” As you progress page by page you find different shapes cut out of the pages with different hints. By the time you reach the end of the book you find, created over a three page spread, the answer to the original question. You will need to get this book to share with your child. It is quite fun to see what the shapes create at the end of the book. The shapes that are covered are circle, triangle, oval, diamond, crescent and semi-circle.

When a Line Bends . . . A Shape Begins by Rhonda Gowler Greene
Reading Level: Preschool to 2nd Grade
The book starts out by describing different types of lines and then it discusses the different shapes that can be made when a line bends. The book is written in rhyme and gives many, many examples for each shape. There are fun multi-colored pictures to go with each example. Your child will have fun looking for the different shapes that are described in the text. The shapes that are covered are circle, square, triangle, rectangle, star, heart, oval, diamond, crescent and octagon.

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Related Posts

Shapes – Overview
The Lessons – Overview
Circles: Learning Activities for Shapes
Ovals: Learning Activities for Shapes
Squares: Learning Activities for Shapes
Rectangles: Learning Activities for Shapes
Triangles: Learning Activities for Shapes
Stars: Learning Activities for Shapes
Hearts: Learning Activities for Shapes
Learning Should Be Fun
Colors – Overview
When Do Children Start Learning

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Fantastic Spring eBundle 2018

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Fantastic Spring eBundle 2018




Create excitement this with this Spring eBundle of learning activities and crafts. Valentine’s Day, St. Patrick’s Day, Easter and pretty flowers are only some of the fabulously fun themes included. (Affiliate links included in this post.)

Ages: Preschool to Grade 2
Includes: Valentines, Spring, Easter
Sale date: January 14-23
Value: $150 on Sale for $14.95
Save 90%
33 Items

 

 

Spring eBundle

 

 

Item descriptions:

VALENTINES

14 Super Cool Valentines Day Science Activities
This ebook contains bubbly, hands-on, colorful projects that will delight kids ages 3-10. Treat your students to some of their first lessons in chemistry, thermodynamics, acids and bases, catalysts, solubility, surface tension, color mixing, and static electricity with these simple and engaging heart-themed science experiments.

Printable Valentines Day Tracing Sheets
A set of 8 Valentines Day themed tracing worksheets to download and print at home. This love themed pack of tracing sheets are designed with preschoolers working on pencil control, fine motor skills and learning letters in mind.

Valentines Day Activity Pack for Preschoolers
Looking for something to help teach your preschoolers about kindness and friendship, as well as letters and numbers?! This Valentine’s Day Activity Pack includes six super fun activities and multiple variations of each!

8 Valentines Day Adding and Subtracting Activities
These 8 activities help children practice adding and subtracting within 10. There are games, task cards, expression sorts, and more.

Valentines Day ABC Order
This Valentines Day ABC Order literacy center set is perfect for hands-on practice. Students alphabetize differentiated groups of sight words to the 1st and 2nd letters. Plus, there’s a challenge set of words for sorting to the 3rd and 4th letter.

Hands-On Valentines Pre-K Pack
This hands-on downloadable workbook is designed to help anyone teach their preschoolers (and pre-k students) this Valentine’s season. Using fun, differentiated and creative methods of learning.

Valentines No Prep First Grade Math
Celebrate Valentines with a fun math set! Work on addition, subtractions, place value, fractions, fact families, and more!

Broken Hearts Letter Matching Game
A set of A-Z letter puzzle matching cards with a Valentines Day theme!

Valentines Letter Games Bundle
These letter games are designed to have fun while practicing letter recognition. Just print, play and enjoy learning!

Nature Crafts for Kids
Fun Nature Crafts

SPRING

Bug Theme Pom-Pom Match Packet
These are perfect for preschoolers and young learners to develop fine motor skills & color recognition!

50 Nature Crafts for Little Kids
50 Nature Crafts for Little Kids is a fun book that is packed full of nature-themed crafts for your kids to enjoy throughout the year.

Spring Science Packet
Spring is the perfect time to get outside and learn about the world we live in! This spring science packet contains 10 fun and easy activities to do with your little learners. 7 of the activities contains printables for the lesson.

Spring Printables Pack
The Spring Printables Pack contains 75 spring-themed printables with activities for kids ages 2 to 7. The activities in this pack cover a range of skills, including colors, same vs. different, patterns, puzzles, fine motor, mazes, math number identification, counting, addition, subtraction and literacy letter identification, alphabetical order, phonemic awareness, word searches.

Spring-Themed, Editable Name and Word Tracing Pack
This spring-themed printable tracing pack can be customized for names, words, or numbers … a low-prep activity that is perfect for classroom or home! This is a Montessori-inspired pack to help with name recognition and writing, sight word reading and spelling, and identifying cultural spring symbols.

Flowers Word Family Picture Sort
Sort the short vowel pictures on each flower into the correct short vowel word family flower pot.

Plant Life Cycle
Plant life cycle vocabulary cards and activity sheets for preschool students.

Spring Beginning Sounds Bundle
Add these beginning sound matching cards to your spring literacy centers. Practice beginning sounds and phonemic awareness with frogs, ducks, and rainbows! Bonus Rainy Day themed rhyming match up cards also included!

Insects, Bugs, and Creepy Crawlers Yoga
Kids yoga poses that are themed to go with your favorite insects, bugs, and creepy crawlers. Included is twelve yoga cards with descriptions of how to get into the pose and 12 full sheet pictures of the yoga poses. All poses included pictures of real kids in the insect, bug, and creepy crawler themed poses!

Spring Theme Pack for Preschool & Kindergarten
This 300-page theme pack has a huge variety of activities for your spring seeds, plants, and gardening unit in preschool or kindergarten! You’ll get printable vocabulary cards and nonfiction books with real photos, emergent readers that your learners can read and color all by themselves, clip cards, beginning reading games, printable math centers, activity pages, and more.

Rainbow Activity Booklet to Teach Colours Through Hands-On Learning
Promote play-based learning with this interesting and engaging printable activity This booklet includes colouring pages, interactive activities, and bonus material that you can print off again and again!

Rainy Day Make Ten Addition Activity
Help kids learn how to add numbers to make ten with this printable rain cloud activity! Kids can color in the correct number of raindrops and attach them to their clouds to make ten!

Garden Themed Early Learning Printable Pack
This garden-themed early learning pack is great for the pre-K to K age range! With 4 games and activities, it includes a Bingo game for 4 players, cutting and pre-handwriting sheets, an I-Spy game, and a matching game! The pack is B&W so that kids can color the games in themselves.

Spring Theme Color Graphing Set
Work on colors and graphing skills together with these fun spring themed centers and activities! Use the whole class winter color graphing set to graph umbrellas during circle time, use the spring spin, color & graph printables for morning work or independent math practice and use the spring spin & graph sets for math centers.

Butterfly Life Cycle Easy Reader Books & Journal
There are four easy reader books with the life cycle words. Plus it includes life cycle bookmarks and an easy to make a journal in an easy reader book style. It also has some writing activities and reader strips that match up to the books.

Sheep Beginning Sounds Match
This Sheep Beginning Sounds Match is an engaging and hands-on way to practice identifying beginning sounds! To prep, print out the sheep and the pastures on cardstock, then cut out. Let your kids match sheep with matching pastures.

Awesome Printable Flower Activities for Kids
Get ready for the amazing season of Spring, we have some really fun and completely awesome flower activities for kids to celebrate while learning and practicing skills such as color matching, fine motor skills and so much more!

Easter Coupons for Kids to Create
Spring eBundle: Personalized Easter Coupons

EASTER

25 Printable Easter Activities
Explore Easter with these printable easter learning activities! Cut, paste, shape, mold and manipulate as you learn!

Easter Coupon Booklet & Easter Egg Hunt Printables
Set up your own Easter Egg Hunt in minutes with these done for you clues that work in any home & use the personalized Easter Coupons as a basket stuffer or a gift!

Montessori Inspired Easter Preschool Pack
This unique Montessori inspired Easter pack is perfect to teach preschoolers language, math concepts, literacy, fine motor skills and much more. The pack is made with a mixture of real photos and gorgeous watercolor clipart giving it a realistic touch.

St. Patrick’s Day

St. Patrick’s Day Activity Pack
In preschool, we use the month of March to teach our students about the weather and rainbows, but it’s also a time to have fun with leprechauns, fairies and gold coins! These printable St. Patrick’s Day activities are all about rainbows and all things green and yellow, making them the perfect supplement to your weather theme or St. Patrick’s Day parties.

March ABC Order Literacy Center Set
A differentiated ABC Order literacy center set and related worksheets, all with a March theme including St. Patricks Day and more. Students alphabetize sight words to the 1st and 2nd letters. Plus, there’s a challenge set of words for sorting to the 3rd and 4th letter.

MIXED

Fun Felt Busy Box Ideas – Holiday Edition
Fun Felt Busy Box Ideas for Valentines Day, Easter, Birthdays, Christmas etc. Perfect for traveling with young kids!

Think Spring Bundle
THis bundle has 20 easy crafts, 12 printable activities and 14 coloring pages – All with a spring, Easter or St Patricks Day theme!

Don’t miss this great deal on Spring activities for your kids.

Let’s Play with Toy Guns

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Let’s Play with Toy Guns

I believe toy guns are getting a bad rap. I must say I hadn’t given it a lot of thought before but now I have a grandson and a couple of great-nephews, so an interest in guns is something we are going to have to deal with.

I raised two girls so guns were never a big subject around our house. We played with water guns and bubble blowing guns but that was about it. But when I was a little girl, I had a cap gun. I wore it in my holster as I strutted around in my cowgirl boots and hat. I loved playing with my cap gun when I was really young. As I got older, I was allowed to use our BB gun. I have always been fascinated with guns but I am definitely not a violent person. The first time I shot a bird, I cried. (We were trying to keep sparrows out of the purple martins’ birdhouse.) It only stunned him, so he eventually flew away but I didn’t shoot at any more birds.

Let's play with toy guns.
Let’s play with toy guns.

The idea of toy guns around the house hit me the other day because I was adding pieces to our dress-up clothes. I had purchased a soldier outfit and a police officer outfit. I was looking for a badge at the Dollar Tree when I ran across a package with a toy gun, a badge and a pretend walkie talkie. I hesitated because I have heard all the controversy about playing with guns and the possibility of instilling violence in our children, but are we missing a teaching opportunity?

My son-in-law serves in the army. Carrying a gun is part of his job. I have deep respect for all of the individuals serving in our armed forces. They carry guns to protect us and people in other countries. I believe that teaching our children how the military men and women are protecting us is a wonderful lesson. Yes, it is sad that there are wars but it is wonderful that there are people willing to put their lives on the line for others.

Then there are the police officers. They also carry guns as part of their jobs and put their lives on the line for others. Teaching respect for our police officers and learning about how they serve us are just a couple of lessons that can be incorporated into your child’s play with toy guns.

There are people that use guns to hunt for food. Wild game is healthy for you and is fairly cheap, in comparison to store bought meat. Many people around the world depend on hunting for their food. They don’t have or can’t afford to run to the grocery store to pick up something.

Lessons that can be slipped in while the children are playing with their toy guns:

  1.  Respect for our military and police.
  2.  Serving and protecting others.
  3.  Honoring our veterans.
  4.  Our Constitution and the 2nd Amendment.
  5.  How to properly handle a gun.
  6.  Where our food comes from.
  7.  The benefits of forgiveness and the consequences of revenge.

If we are worried about how our children will grow up and handle guns, shouldn’t we be talking with them about it, while they are young? Rather than avoiding or not allowing the opportunity for role playing and discussion, we should be giving them the opportunity to play and explore.

As children turn into young teens, many start playing violent video games or start sharing their interest of guns with their peers. Is this who and what you want to influence your child about the use of guns?

Some parents are worried that allowing their children to play with toy guns will create violent adults. According to an article on WebMD, titled Toy Guns: Do They Lead to Real-Life Violence?, “studies show no link between playing with toy weapons in childhood and aggression in adulthood”.

So let the kids play with their toy guns and let’s use the opportunity to instruct and raise more gun responsible teens and adults.