In honor of Independence Day, we started of July with a few patriotic "America" themed activities.
Fireworks Painting
In addition to lighting some mild (but fun for a toddler who just learned the word "WOW!") fireworks on the 4th of July, we created a red, white, and blue fireworks painting inspired by Learning 4 Kids.
We gathered some paper towel rolls and I cut into the ends of them with scissors to create a "fan" of small strips attached to a "handle." I used the end of a paintbrush to sort of roll out the strips so that they were flatter.
I dipped the fans into red and blue paint and T stamped them onto the paper.
I think the fireworks shown on the Learning 4 Kids website turned out a bit better than ours. But I attribute that mostly to the fact that a 20 month old was the one doing the stamping. He had fun with it either way! An older kid could probably follow the suggestions provided at the learning for kids site to get a more firework like appearance.
Patriotic Sensory Bin
I created a small sensory bin with any items I could find around the house that were red, white, and blue (and toddler safe!). Ours included Megabloks, foam blocks, cotton balls and pom-poms, twisted pipe cleaners, plastic gears, and glass beads (reused from our cloud sensory bin).
This was a simple activity that was easy to set up but offered a variety of textures for T to explore. We were able to use a variety of descriptive words, such as fuzzy, soft, hard and smooth.
This was a simple activity that was easy to set up but offered a variety of textures for T to explore. We were able to use a variety of descriptive words, such as fuzzy, soft, hard and smooth.
Songs About America
The list of songs about America is pretty much endless - from sing-along songs that are good for kids to mainstream music that talks about our country.
Here were a couple of our favorites this week to sing:
My former marching band self also loves a good march - and what better week to listen to those? So we enjoyed clapping, dancing and marching (and playing our drums) to:
Here were a couple of our favorites this week to sing:
- 50 Nifty United States
- This Land is Your Land
- My Country 'tis of Thee
- Star Spangled Banner
- God Bless America
- Yankee Doodle Dandy
My former marching band self also loves a good march - and what better week to listen to those? So we enjoyed clapping, dancing and marching (and playing our drums) to:
- Stars and Stripes Forever
- You're a Grand Old Flag
- The Caissons Go Rolling Along
- Anchors Aweigh
- Off We Go Into the Wild Blue Yonder