Littles Learning Link Up: March 26, 2019: Craft Highlight- Recycled Frog Life Cycle in a Pond Habitat

Each month you will find:

• A seasonal round-up (usually toward the beginning of the month)
• Posts where I share what I have been up to with my early elementary children and the preschoolers I work with at our homeschool co-op (including occasional highlight posts where I share how we used ideas that have been linked up here on Littles Learning Link Up).

Each week, I will host a link up, where you can share either what you have been up to recently, or old posts that may go with the theme.  Feel free to link up more than one post.

Each week I will continue to feature a couple of posts from those that have been linked up. 

I hope you will continue to share your wonderful posts, and I hope you will find something new to try with your child(ren).

It would be great for everyone to stop by and visit the other linked-up posts as well. Check them out, leave some comments, pin those that interest you. Let's make this a real party and socialize with each other.

We are still in the middle of our metamorphosis/life cycle lessons in our class at co-op. Last week I shared the construction paper Frog Life Cycle Poster we made. This week's craft is another frog life cycle craft. It was shared on my Frog Metamorphosis/Life Cycle Fun Round Up a couple of week's ago. I loved the look of this Frog Life Cycle Recycled Craft from Still Playing School. Of course, I changed things up a bit, as I tend to do. The original craft just has one body that the child can turn from the tadpole into the frog. I decided to make each stage and place them into a habitat in a box so the children could play with them.

I plan to continue to share my Pre-K unit posts on Fridays, even though it is on Tuesdays that I will be sharing the craft that we made.

Now, onto this week's craft!

Recycled Frog Life Cycle in a Pond Habitat

Here's what you will need:

Brown construction paper

Blue construction paper

Green foam sheet

Green pipe cleaners/fuzzy sticks

Large bubble bubble wrap

Egg cartons (3 sections per child)

Wiggle eyes (6 per child)

White glue

Green paint

Black permanent marker

Q-tip

Paintbrush

Small box or shoebox

Tape

In preparation I painted the outside of all the boxes green to represent the grass. I would have used shoeboxes if I had them; however, I was able to get some used, small boxes from Walmart. Then I cut an egg carton into separate cups. 

I cut the pipe cleaners for the legs. Each child will need 6 larger pieces (about 2 inches) and 6 smaller pieces (about 1 1/2 inches). Each child also needs 2 tails, which I cut out of a green foam sheet. And I cut out pieces of bubble wrap for the eggs. I taped the boxes together at the bottom and glued in pieces of blue construction paper to fit the bottom. I also cut brown paper into ovals for rocks.

The first thing the children did was paint three egg carton sections. One for the tadpole, one for the tadpole with hind legs, and one for the frog.

Then we used the permanent markers to draw dots on each of the bubbles in the bubble wrap.

The children then went to snack and gym. This gave the paint time to dry. Before they returned, I cut slits in the tadpole and tadpole with legs so they had a place to put the tail. And I used a knife to make little holes for the legs in the tadpoles with legs and the frogs.

When the children returned they made the legs by wrapping the smaller pieces around the one end of the bigger piece. It just wrapped around one time. They did need help with this step.

Then we attached the pieces one stage at a time.

We stuck the tails into the slit in the back of the tadpole.

Then we added the tail to the tadpole with legs and added two legs.

Finally we attached four legs to the frog.

We completed them by gluing the wiggle eyes onto all stages except the eggs.

Here is a quick look at each of the stages:

Then the children added one stage at a time to their habitats.

Here are all their finished projects:

Recycled Frog Life Cycle in a Pond Habitat

Recycled Frog Life Cycle in a Pond Habitat

Let's take a look at that review schedule real quick:

Last week I shared my review of the STEM activities from Tied 2 Teaching. This week I will share my review for Poetry for the Grammar Stage from Memoria Press.

In April I will be sharing reviews of CrossWired Science and Techie Homeschool Mom. Then in May I will share my review for a couple of books from 12 Gates Publishing, Pathway to Liberty, and Elementary Math Games from The Critical Thinking Co..

Here are a couple of things I would like to share with you:

Frog Metamorphosis/Life Cycle Fun Round Up

Springtime Fairy Round Up

Focusing on the Cross With 15 Jesus-Centered Books for Resurrection Sunday

Focusing on Jesus Resurrection Day Round Up

Now onto:

Littles Learning Link Up Features

On my last Littles Learning Link Up post, there were 11 wonderful posts linked up. I will be sharing a randomly selected post and the top clicked on posts.

Please, don't forget to stop by other posts that are linked up. See what catches your eye, stop by, pin the post to a relevant board, and perhaps leave a comment to let the author of the blog know you have been by for a visit. I know I appreciate others commenting and letting me know they have read my posts, so I am sure others do too.

This week's randomly selected post is:

Kelli from 3 Boys and a Dog shared Proverbs 19:21 Coloring Pages

And here are this week's most clicked-on posts:

Tara from Homeschool Preschool shared How to Make a Rain Cloud in a Jar with Preschoolers

Brandy from The Barefoot Mom shared Learning About Ancient Rome: Activities and Resources for Elementary Students.

Join the Party!

I would love to have you join in this week! What sort of activities do you do with your young children? Do you have some favorite activities you would like to share? I invite you to link up below. I will be pinning posts on one of my relevant boards, and I would love to feature some of the activities each week from what is linked up.

Please know I may share a picture from your post and link back to it, along with sharing how we used your idea in our school time. By linking up you are giving me permission to use a picture from your post. I will ALWAYS give credit and link back. Additionally, if you choose to try out any of the ideas with your child, please make sure you give credit where credit is due.

Linky will be open through Monday night, to give me time to check out all the posts and get the Features organized. Please take the time to visit some of the other wonderful posts linked up.

No button currently, and there won't be one until I can figure it out seeing as Photobucket has changed things. Feel free to still share the picture in place of the button. Just link it to my Littles Learning Link Up permalink please.

I am sharing over at

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

School Time Week 35: The Start of Rr

Well, this week didn't go entirely as planned.  The girls were not interested in the new curriculum at all.  We did have our muffin tin on Monday of course.  I went with a patriotic tin:

The girls also colored their R pictures.  This week's words are:

rabbit, Rosie the Robot, rat, radish, raccoon and rocket.  I realize you can't really see the R pictures in the following shot.  I actually wanted to share how much Amelia's cutting skills have improved.  She cut this out all by herself.  

I did cut them a little smaller so they would fit on the R though.  Unfortunately I only have a picture of Tabitha's:

The girls spent a lot of time coloring this week.  Mommy spent a lot of time rethinking her plan, trying to decide if the curriculum is going to "work."  All in all there were a lot of distractions this week, so I have at least decided to give it another try.  The girls really did enjoy it last week.  

I thought they did a nice job working on rainbows this week.  I actually worked on this one with Tabitha:

Tabitha wanted me to draw some fairies, then she tried one.  And for some reason she was making lots of bathrooms for them to use.  

Then a storm came along.

I didn't get any details from Amelia:

One day Tabitha planned the lesson and wanted us "girls" to color a picture.  For the life of me I can't remember if it was supposed to be a church or a castle.

The girls decided to have a box boat race (race conveniently starts with r).  They started in the kitchen and went clear through to the living room.  Of course I didn't get a picture of the actual race and Amelia didn't want to be in the picture.

We spent a lot of time with daddy this week. On Monday we had a cookout over at the park. We got to sit at the new picnic tables.

And daddy came with us to play group:

More fun at the park (we are over there every evening after dinner when it is not raining):

Tabitha sat in the stroller and I set Hannah down on her lap for a short stroll from one swing set to the other.

Then the girls found something to follow:

Can you see the tiny toad?

And they had some fun watering the garden

While we didn't get much school work done, we did get a lot of learning done.  In fact today we went grocery shopping and Tabitha was asking what everything was in the produce section and I was asked to weigh a bunch of fruits and vegetables.

I did read some R books this week too.

Our Sesame Street R book is titled Ernie's Riddle

Ernie asks Bert, who of course is busy reading, if he would like to guess a riddle.  Bert spends time guessing R items while Ernie gives him different clues.  When Bert guesses right he gets a  prize.  He gets to listen to Ernie sing "Row, row, row your boat."

I thought it was appropriate that the next book was also one big riddle.

Round Like a Ball! by Lisa Campbell Ernst. 

In this book we are trying to figure out what is round like a ball, beautiful, both wet and dry, hot and cold, surrounded by air, among many other attributes.  On each page there is a round hole cutout to show increasingly more of the final picture.  The answer is the earth and we are then told how important it is to take care of it.

Which lead us right into our next book

Recycle Every Day! by Nancy Elizabeth Wallace

In this story Minna is to be working on a poster about recycling for a school poster contest.  The winners' posters will be featured in a calender.  Each day of the week Minna's family learns a different way to recycle and take care of our Earth, from giving used clothes to a community clothing bank to using reusable containers instead of plastic wrap and lots of other ideas in between.  Each day she is asked if she knows what she is going to do for her poster and she replies that she is still thinking.  The reader has to wait to the very end to see if Minna's poster has been chosen for the calendar. We also get to see each of the other winning posters which give even more ideas on how to recycle.

As soon as we were done reading this book Tabitha wanted to make her own calendar.  She started coloring a page for each month and gluing a mini cupcake paper on each page, for some reason.

And then we had the children pick a toy to "recycle" and we took it to the thrift shop.  

Plus we are reading some books from the Sonlight P 3/4 curriculum  I really am enjoying the Harper Collins Treasury Picture Book Classics.

The book list for the P 3/4 has a lot of treasuries on it.  So far this is my favorite because each page in the book is one page from the original book.  If you have never seen some treasuries before you may not realize that some will include multiple pages on one page in order to fit lots of books in the treasury.  I also enjoy that there are activity suggestions after each story.  So far we have read Eric Carle's From Head to Toe several times.  We acted out dogs and cats and then we spent some time online finding out what different animals sound like.  I never knew what rhino's sounded like.  They are really cute.  Youtube is a great place to find animal videos and sounds.  The girls also requested A Baby Sister For Frances by Russell Hoban a couple of times. When Frances feels things are not quite great at home anymore with the new baby she runs away, to under the dining room table.  Pretending Frances can't hear them her parents remind each other of how much Frances means to them. And we read Pete's a Pizza by William Steig today.  When Pete is having  a bad day because he can't play ball because of the rain his dad pretends to make him into a pizza.  

I am looking forward to reading more of these selections.  I am probably going to write a list of all the other books in the other treasuries and just get the books out a few at a time.

Tiny Tot Time

Hannah loves going through the cupboard.  This time she found the plastic knives and started putting them in a empty (clean) juice container.  I believe it was in the recyclables bag.

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