January 2014 Learning Highlights

January was full of fun learning when the boys weren't sick. 

We had a rough couple of weeks, but thankfully they seem to be much better. 

Here's a look at some of our learning...

We introduced some simple addition this month.

 

We've practiced adding with Duplos...

  
and with a few board games. 

We did a few snowman crafts.

We learned about hibernation and migration by reading several books. Some of our favorites were When It Starts to Snow and Is this Panama?: A Migration Story. One day the boys pretended they were hibernating animals and searched for seeds that I hid in little bags around the house.

 

After they had enough "stored up" they pretended to 

hibernate in a "den" that we made using a small table and blanket.

  
We also did an experiment with Crisco where the boys learned how
fat can help animals stay warm in the winter. (This was very messy!)

We read The Mitten and practiced lacing a mitten I made out of construction paper.

 

The next day we retold the story and stuffed our

 mitten with the characters from the story.

 

 I also picked up a few learning mats from Mighty Dollar 

last month and we've enjoyed using those.

 

We've also experimented with ice.

We've watched ice melt. We've had races to see if water freezes faster in the freezer or outside. We've tried twice to blow frozen bubbles (this didn't work for us either time).

 We've also just had some fun playing in the snow.

We've also been reading lots of books about community helpers and transportation lately. We haven't done too much with those specific themes, but we have in the past. 

Next month we're looking forward to Groundhog's Day, Winter Olympics, Valentine's Day, and learning about the five senses.