Simple Machines and Sick Days

This week we are exploring simple machines.  Monday we played with wheels, pulleys and gears.  Genevieve and Tobias both enjoyed playing with the gear caterpillar and with toys with wheels.  Tobias played with his car while Genevieve practiced using wheels to move items, rolling a bag of grapes across the floor.  We demonstrated how a pulley works by wrapping a string around two bottles.  We used a clothespin to attach some clothing to the string and rolled the upper bottle to see how the clothing moved and the bottom bottle spun.  We read Goodnight, Goodnight Construction Site and looked for pulleys and wheels.

Genevieve added penguins, polar bears, pandas, peacocks, porcupines and quetzals to her animal book.  She showed the animals to Tobias and signs for many of the animals.  We also read If Animals Kissed Good Night and reviewed the animal signs in this book as well.

We had lots of free time so we also grabbed our art supplies and had some free art time.  Genevieve experimented with the pattern a fork creates in her glitter glue, played with more colored sand and noted the way it flows, and painted.  We also spent some time dancing.

Genevieve wasn't feeling well on Tuesday so we had some quiet lap times, reading Bear Feels Sick and Llama Llama Home with Mama.  I also let her play ABCmouse and her Eric Carle caterpillar game on the tablet, which we usually limit.

Although she still wasn't 100%, she was feeling a little better Wednesday.  We skipped our outings, but went ahead with our simple machines play.  She used her tools and balance to explore some of the ways we use levels and screws.  She also played with a new magnet drawing board while she recovered.  Although she doesn't mind, it's not the best magnet board I've seen.  She requested that I not take pictures while she's sick so there's no images to accompany our activities.

Thursday, she watched some wedges in action while watching me cut vegetables for dinner.  For being good while I did that, I let her help me measure and pour in ingredients to make some cookies. She experimented with inclined planes, wheels and levels at the park and in gymnastics on Friday.  We also used the walking tunnel under the trains to see how much easier it is to push our tricycle up the ramp than to take it up the stairs.