Russell Ramblings: The week where we did an ocean mural

​When I asked the boys what their favorite part was about learning about octopuses I heard, “working on our mural,” “eating octopus hot dogs,” and “watching an octopus video.”  The boys enjoyed learning lots of new facts about octopuses and other sea creatures.
 
The best part of our week (and perhaps the one where they learned the most) was creating our ocean mural.
 
We made a few items together to put on the mural, such as...

An octopus made by our handprints

The hermit crab with his decked out shell from A House for Hermit Crab by Eric Carle (Thanks 3dinosaurs.com for the graphics!)

A school of fish from the book Swimmy by Leo Lionni

On some afternoons while MJ napped I allowed the boys to make whatever they wanted from the mural.  Some of their own creations included...

Crab

A ribbon eel

Crab

A submarine

A sting ray

Here are the boys posing by the mural.

The mural was a great learning experience as we investigated specific ocean creatures, and it will make a nice school room decoration for the next few weeks.  (Although, MJ loves pulling off all the wiggly eyes, and I may or may not have found one in her diaper this week.)
 
During our octopus study, we colored the water on a basic world map and discussed the names of the oceans that border our country. 
 
Another favorite of the week was our octopus supper – hot dogs cut up like an octopus and buttered noodles with green food coloring for seaweed.

Note: To make the octopus hot dogs, cut the hot dog in half lengthwise just halfway up (forming two octopus arms).  Continue cutting the arms until you have eight.  When you cook the hot dogs, the arms will tend to curl up making it look like an octopus.
 
For our nature journals, we sat by our creek and looked for animals that live in or around the creek.  We made a list – a heron, a bumble bee, birds, fish, and a fly.  We picked one to draw a picture of in our journals.  We also made of list of animals that we thought heard or saw us while we were there.
 
In other subjects…
 
AJ is enjoying Xtra Math for learning his addition facts.  I learned about this program to practice math facts when I was a school teacher.  I always assumed there was a subscription fee.  When I looked into it to sign Alex up, I was delighted to learn it is free!  What a wonderful free resource it is – without ads and everything!  Thank-you, Xtra Math!  I highly recommend signing up your child for this to practice math facts.  (And, you don't have to be a homeschooler or teacher to sign up - anyone can sign up.)
 
CJ is working hard on his letter sounds and blending. He does well with the letter sounds, and some days, I think he has blending and some days I don’t think he does.  One activity (from Abeka’s K4 program) that really helped AJ learn to blend was to draw a water line with waves peaking across the white board.  At each wave peak, put letters to blend.  Then have the child sail a boat across the waves and blend the letters.  CJ started this activity this week, but still needs lots of practice.
 
All in all, we had a wonderful homeschool week.  I'm curious if any other moms or teachers out there have any simple, enjoyable activities to help a child learn to blend letters?  I would love to have some ideas to help solidify blending for CJ.

​Thanks for stopping by!

​This post is linked to the weekly wrap-up at Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers.