A Week at the Beach

Fun at the Beach

This week was our recovery vacation after our Disney/Universal "vacation." My husband had to go back to work, but M and I were lucky enough to continue on to the beach. We were all pretty exhausted from our marathon week in Orlando, so we spent most of the week trying to relax.

There was quite a bit of TV and movie watching this week. We did stumble
upon a few interesting episodes, like The Cat in the Hat exploring outer space.

World Around Me

There is so much to learn at the beach! We spent a lot of time beachcombing and collected shark teeth and lots of different kinds of shells.

We talked about ocean tides and currents as we swam and jumped the waves. We also talked about how her life vest helps her float in the ocean, and about how lifeguards help people at the beach by watching for dangers and warning swimmers by changing the color of their flag.

We explored the different types of sand - dry sand, wet sand, fine sand that feels good on your toes, and sand with lots of shells that can hurt your toes.

We built sand castles, dug and filled moats, and decorated our castles with shells, rocks and sticks (and even a crab!). We observed how the sand absorbs water (and why we couldn't keep our moat filled up), and how wet sand sticks together and makes better sand castles.

She learned how to collect water from the ocean in her bucket so she could wash off her hands and feet. 

And she watched what happened to the water when she poured it on the sand.

We also pretended to be mermaids in the pool (see our mermaid fins?), and realized that it is much easier to walk with legs! (Interestingly, it is also much easier to swim with legs than it is with a pretend mermaid fin....)

Reading

We, of course, read books this week. I did check out some library books about the ocean and ocean animals before we left on vacation, but she hasn't shown much interest in most of them. Her favorites this week have been "The Bears' Vacation" by Stan and Jan Berenstain, "The Magic School Bus on the Ocean Floor" by Joanna Cole and Bruce Degen, "The Coughing Catfish" by San and Jan Berenstain, "Father Bear Comes Home" by Else Holmelund Minarik (Illustrated by Maurice Sendak), and "Gone Fishing: Ocean Life by the Numbers" by David McLimans. 

I like the Magic School Bus books because they have a story line, but also have extra information on the sides of the page, so I can give M more detail if she is interested. She liked seeing all of the pictures of different types of fish, especially these fish that live on the dark ocean floor. 

In addition to reading, we collected a bunch of flat, smooth shells to make a movable alphabet. I have been reading about Montessori programs, and thought it would be fun to make our own movable alphabet with found objects. M liked spelling her name and singing the alphabet song as we put them in order.

Unfortunately, I was too busy putting the rest of the stickers on the shells to take pictures of her playing with them, but they turned out well. I got the sheets of stickers (above) from the dollar section at Target, and they are sticking pretty well so far (I got plenty so I can replace them as needed). 

Math

We have been practicing counting and recognizing numbers lately. "Gone Fishing: Ocean Life by the Numbers" by David McLimans is nice because each page has a different number with information about a sea creature, so it's a different way to see numbers. M wasn't all that interested in the facts they gave about each animal (habitat, threats, endangered status), but liked looking at the illustrations.

I also found Dr. Seuss Match & Go Fish cards in the Target dollar section, and that was a big hit! I was surprised that M really got the idea of Go Fish, and played through an entire game with me. After we played, I shuffled the cards and put them all face down for a memory matching game (she has been playing something similar on my phone, so she already understood the concept). I like that the cards have the numeral as well as the corresponding number of pictures so she could count them. Each pair of cards has a unique image (Cat in the Hat, Sally, birthday cakes, fish, etc.), so it's easy to find the matches and work on sorting as well.

Art and Music

I didn't plan many activities for this week because I wanted M to be able to relax and enjoy the beach on her own terms. We did a few "paint with water" sheets, built and played with her Little Mermaid Duplo set, and obviously built and decorated sand castles. I found a few beach coloring sheets, but M wasn't really interested. I have a few ideas for next week though.... stay tuned :)

Florida Update #7 - Pool Day 2

Friday

We had originally planned on doing 3 days at Universal (they had a "buy 2 get 1 day free" promotion), but we found out that the promotion ended the week before. It was a blessing in disguise - I don't think any of us were complaining about having an extra day to stay at the hotel!

We checked the hotel schedule, and saw that they were having a reptile show at 2pm and a Hawaiian Luau dinner and show that evening. We spent the morning by the pool, and I even got to take a break while my husband and dad watched M swim!

We took a break for lunch at the restaurant by the pool again. M drew pictures of Mickey while we waited for our food.

The reptile show was in the same area as the restaurant. It wasn't what I was expecting - I thought they would allow the kids to touch some of the animals - but it was still interesting. The speaker was from Gatorland, and brought a tarantula, scorpion, ball python, monitor, alligator, and 6 week old baby alligator.

I even learned a few new facts. Did you know that most lizards can't run and breathe at the same time? We met Mac the Monitor (get it? haha) who is a great predator because he can breathe while chasing prey - cool!

We also learned that it's a myth that you should run zig-zag's if you're running away from an alligator. Alligator's bodies are much more flexible than ours, and they are better able to turn than we are. He said you are more likely to fall and much better off running in a straight line until the gator gives up. The good news? As long as people don't feed wild alligators, they won't be interested in humans! (And that's why you can get a hefty fine for feeding wild gators in Florida!)





Later that evening we went to the Hawaiian Luau. They had a special menu with Hawaiian BBQ and Mahi Mahi (plus pineapple chicken and rice for the kiddos). We each got a flower lei and listened to a live band during dinner. They had a show with hula dancers and a flame thrower, but M was too tired to stick around. It was another fun filled day!

Florida Update #4 - Pool Day

Wednesday

We had planned on taking a break on Wednesday to spend the day at the hotel pool before tackling Universal. We stayed at Marriott Harbour Lake in Orlando, which was right near Sea World (which is definitely on my to-do list for next time) and not far from all of the other parks. This hotel was fantastic for a young child - I couldn't have asked for a better place to stay!

We had a two-bedroom, two-bath unit with a full kitchen, spacious living room area, and screened in balcony porch.

We spent most of the day at the pool (there were actually 2 pools - one with a giant pirate ship with slides, and another smaller pool with a larger slide and a small water park). We ate lunch at the restaurant by the pool (which had amazingly good food at reasonable prices), and played some games in the arcade. Overall it was a great day!

 

Water Week Update #2

Tuesday

Lake Placid Trail Hike

This morning we headed over to the State Park near our house for a "hike" around the lake. We love this park because it is mostly shaded and has fairly short loop trails. We met up with several friends to walk around the lake. I love taking M out to actual parks (as opposed to playgrounds or more manicured parks) because there are so many learning opportunities in nature. For instance, check out this crazy insect we found on the water fountain as we were getting ready to start (which turns out to be a male stag beetle)!

We also watched the ducks and geese swim around the pond (and follow us hoping for a snack), found a centipede, several butterflies, an inch worm, spiders, and lots of mushrooms. We talked about how this lake was man-made, and had a dam at one side to control the water levels. She loved watching the water flow over the back side of the dam. We had a great time, and we even had an impromptu learning session about things that sink and float when she decided to throw rocks, sticks and leaves into the water.

 Sink or Float?

M had so much fun throwing things in the water at the lake, so I decided to fill up her baby pool and give her several toys to play with.

On Sunday we had cut up one of the large pool noodles into several pieces. M is really interested in measuring things lately, so I let her help me use the tape measure to figure out how big to cut the pieces.





 

I marked the measurements (I made several 1-inch and 2-inch pieces, a couple of 3-inch pieces, and left one long 24-inch piece) and cut them with a serrated kitchen knife.





We took all of the toys out to the pool (I set it up on the porch so we would be in the shade). The idea was to give M two toys at a time, one that would sink and one that would float, and see if she could guess which was which. She wasn't interested in that game, so I just went with it and watched her throw all of the items into the pool together.

We had a mini music lesson when she realized she could use the straws as drum sticks. She moved from item to item to see what made the best drum sound.

I showed her how she could use some of the containers as boats to fill them with objects that would normally sink. She thought it was fun to fill the "boats" with water until they sank.

Ice Painting

When she got tired of the pool, I brought out the paint ice cubes we made on Sunday. We made these last summer and she really enjoyed them, so I was excited to try them again. Last time I didn't put popsicle sticks in them and M's hands were cold and messy by the end, so I made sure to add them this time. I have seen the directions for this activity on several blogs. Some use paint to color the ice, others use food coloring or even Kool-Aid. We decided to try some with paint and some with food coloring to decide which we liked better.

• Assemble your materials: ice cube tray, water, washable paint and/or food coloring, popsicle sticks, scissors (I cut each popsicle stick in half to make shorter "handles" for the paints)
• Fill the ice cube tray with water, then add a small amount of paint or food coloring and mix until it is evenly distributed.
• Place the ice cube tray in the freezer for about 30 minutes, then add half a popsicle stick for each color.

I used masking tape to secure a large coloring book page and a couple of collage boards to the ground. I asked M to put the ice paints back in the tray when she was finished with each one, but we made a pretty big mess anyway. The good news - everything cleaned up really easily with a quick spray of the hose.

M loved the bright colors, and had a lot of fun mixing the paints. It was very hot outside, so the paints were melting, but that actually made it easier to paint (and we got to talk about melting!). We liked the paints made with food coloring better than the actual paint - I think the food coloring stayed dissolved better in the water.

We definitely should have ended the afternoon with this activity, but I was feeling ambitious, so we tried to tackle one more...

Chalk Paint

I found directions to make sidewalk chalk paint, and since M loves chalk and paint, I thought this would be the perfect activity for her! We took the opportunity to practice measuring again - she loves to measure! We mixed 1/3 cup of cornstarch with some food coloring (neon pink and blue), and then added 1/3 cup of water. It was a little hard to mix, but it came out well. I should have gotten the foam brushes out, but the regular paintbrushes were more accessible, so we went with those instead. As I said, M was really done at this point, and she decided to paint her foot and leg instead of the ground. When I realized the food coloring was staining her skin, we pulled out the hose and packed it up for the day. M was very helpful with hosing everything down - again, this was very easy to clean up (everything except her skin, that is).

We cleaned up, went inside, and wrapped up the day by watching The Little Mermaid. M fell asleep on the couch until it was time for dinner.