Cloud School

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Our theme book this week (thanks to Itty Bitty Bookworm) was It Looked Like Spilt Milk by Charles G. Shaw.  Which was a fun book – but with a pretty simple storyline that didn’t warrant much re-reading.

So we read lots of others, too.  Among our favorites:

• The Cloud Book  by Tomie de Paola.  This was our “fact” book of the week.  Now I can tell you what cumulus clouds are!  And I know all about clouds that produce lightning and thunder.
• Moongame by Frank Asch.  This was my FAVORITE book of the week!  I love Bear and Moon and all this author’s books!  (And Mom loves the science concepts in them, like echoes and shadows and in this one – how clouds can help Moon hide in a game of hide and seek.).  
• Little Cloud by Eric Carle.  Another fun one that tied in really well with the theme book – pretty much the same concept.
• The Police Cloud by Christoph Niemann.  A fun little story about a cloud that wanted to become a police officer, but realized that perhaps he should choose a different service role!
• Wind Says Good Night by Katy Rydell.  A look at all the things that impact each other in nature – clouds included.
• The Mouse Bride by Joy Cowley.  A similar theme to the previous book – how everything in nature interacts (including clouds), and a mouse can actually be the most influential of all.  Cute story.

Now on to the activities…  Let’s start with food.  Food is always a good place to start - especially cloud food!  We had cloud pudding (whipped cream on top of blue-colored vanilla pudding).  Yum-MY!


And since we happened upon our cloud cookie cutter, we made cloud sugar cookies, as well.  Those would be cumulus, by the way.


We did cloud painting!  First we painted clouds using a cloud (cotton ball) and white paint.


Another day we painted clouds using puff paint (a mix of shaving cream and white glue).  Very cool effect!  (even cooler when you wear your swimming wings and flippers…)


I also practiced writing letters in shaving cream.  I am working on my S a lot these days.

Also for art, I used a dropper to drop raindrops (blue liquid watercolor) all over a nature scene.


Here I am tossing my cloud bean bag (made from felt, beans, and hot glue) into a basket.  I got lots of work to do on my throwing!


We played hide and seek, just like Bear and Moon.  Only we didn’t have any clouds inside to hide behind, so we had to pretend.

We spent some time looking at clouds outside.  Here we are charting whether the days were cloudy or sunny.  It gets complicated, because some days start cloudy but end up  sunny!


We did a little with rainbows, since rainbows and clouds sort of go together.  Here I made a pipe cleaner rainbow and glued it with clouds (cotton balls) onto a beautiful gardeny stationery.


We talked about how wind and breeze makes clouds move.  To demonstrate, we put cotton balls on the table in front of a fan.

We made a rainbow streamer thingy with streamers that I waved around.  Then I had lots of fun TAKING OFF the streamers…


I did beginning sound drills with cloud shapes.  Easy peasy…  Though I thought the angel was a bird and needed a little help with “sheep.”


I practiced counting and adding with cotton balls.


And I practiced reading with my It Was a Cloud book.


We did some science stuff like making clouds and making rain.  I’ll tell you more about that in my science post this week.

Mom tried to get me to build a city in the clouds (tulle/ribbon) with my legos, but I didn’t like the cloud part.  I DID spent a lot of time with my new legos!  They are the big kid kind…


Not so much on the cloud theme – I LOVE washing dishes.  I could spend hours playing in the sink…


Also, I got some lessons on tricycle riding from my cousin.  (We got lots more cousin photos – we’ll try to post them as we’ve got time.)


African tricycle riding – let’s get the whole family on board!


They helped me put this zoo foam sticker craft together, too!  (One of Mom’s thrift store finds.  She LOVES finding ready-to-make kits like this for cheap…)


Another thrift store find – Junior Scrabble (with NO letters missing).  Mom had this game as a kid, so it brings back memories…  I haven’t figured out all the rules, yet, but I can match up letters!


I played with Bendaroos.  Kind of like play dough but with a twist.


And I made lots of tea!  With rice cakes and crackers.  Would you like some?  I’d love to serve it to you!