Sea Shells

This past weekend my husband, daughter, and I were at the ocean as leaders for a youth retreat.  On Saturday morning I took a break and went for a prayer walk along the beach.  There was almost no one around, and the ocean was so beautiful.  I looked down and suddenly noticed that there were all these beautiful shells!  Not, like, super fabulous big shells, but there was quite a variety in terms of size and shape and color, and so I gathered a number of them to show to my daughter.  Today we played with them.  She broke some of the neater ones, but that's okay.  I'd rather them be used and broken than sit uselessly as clutter in some box.  We put them in and out of the sand bucket.  I started a game where we scooped the smaller shells with the bigger shells to put them in the bucket.  She liked the game, but she liked it best when I was the one scooping the shells, which wasn't exactly what I was going for.  We sorted them according to their similarities.  We looked at their colors, we felt their smooth texture against our fingers and cheeks (she thought the cheek thing felt a little weird), and I made up a song that she loved (to the tune of 'I'm a Little Tea Pot'):

I'm a little sea shell, I come from the sea.

Little fishies swim there and they live inside of me.

When the water rises I go high on the sand.

The water goes back in the sea, and I am left on land.

We just basically handled the shells and put them in and out of the bucket, singing the song, for quite some time.  It became today's favorite game.

"I'm Gonna Thank the Lord" Song

On our walk today, as we came across flowers and trees and grass and roots and dirt, I sang (to the tune of "I'm Gonna Sing when the Spirit says Sing..."):

I'm gonna thank the Lord for the _Tulips_

I'm gonna thank the Lord for the _Tulips_

I'm gonna thank the Lord for the _Tulips_

And praise Him everyday! 

We replaced "Tulips" with the other things we saw as we saw them.  She loved the song, and it helped her learn to notice, care about, and identify the various parts of nature that we encountered along the way.

Shape Jingles

Several months ago I noticed that my daughter learns things when she encounters them in a song.  I was looking for a way to teach her shapes, and so I thought I'd give this a try.  It worked great!  I just made up little jingles for each of the shapes.  (My first thought was to make a song with all the shapes, but in practice that idea sort of morphed into this instead).  When playing with her little shape sorter set or shape puzzle, I would point to the circle and sing the circle jingle over and over, tracing the circle with my finger as I did it.  After a few minutes, I stopped and immediately asked, "Where is the circle?"  It took her few times, but I persisted and she eventually pointed to it.  Next I walked around the room, and wherever I saw a circle I woulde excitedly point to it, sing the jingle, and trace it with my fingers.  I picked her up and we went all over the house.  Circles were everywhere - the knobs of the dresser, the burners of the stove, details in the furniture, etc.  Within a day or two, she had the circle concept down cold.  We did the same thing with the square and triangle, and by that time she totally understood the idea of "shape" and the rest came really, really easy.

These are the jingles I used - not works of art, but they accomplished their purpose:

Circle:

Circle, circle, round and round

circle, circle, round and round

Square: (to the tune of I'm a little tea pot)

I'm a little square, I have four sides.

One, two, three, four, I have four sides.

I'm a little square, all my sides are the same.

I'm a little square, square is my name.

Triangle:

Triangle, triangle, one, two, three.

Triangle, triangle, sing with me.

Oval:

Oooooooooval, long and round.

Ooooooooooval, long and round,

Rectangle: (with kind of a Carribean beat)

I'm a rectangle, 

looooooooong side, 

looooooooong side, 

short and short.

I'm a rectangle,

looooooooong side,

looooooooong side,

short and short.

 

For star we use Twinkle, Twinkle.

For heart I like to use the Christian song:

I've got the joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart! (where?)

Down in my heart! (where?)

Down in my heart! 

I've got the joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart (where?)

Down in my heart to stay.

(Repeat replacing "joy" with "love" and then "peace that passes understanding")