Cheez- it Spelling, Skittles math, Pop rock Painting

I find that anytime I can plan fun school activities around snacks and foods my boys are eager to participate.  Today we had spelling, math, art/science all using candy and food!

To have some fun with spelling today we pulled out a box of Scrabble Junior Cheez- It's and I found two different sheets for the kids to use. 

 Snacking on words was for Evan-- he had to make three letter words using the crackers and we read them together.  Since he hardly knows any words at this point I let him make up nonsense words as well as real words and I didn't make him record them-- yet.  We talked about changing just one letter to make new words and I was so happy when he read BAT!

For Ian and Alec I found a sheet that looked a bit like a Boggle board that the crackers fit on perfectly.   I followed the entire activity that I found on the Relentlessly Fun, Deceptively Educational site.  I too allowed the boys to manipulate the crackers to make it easier for them to find words. 

Then when they were all dons spelling they enjoyed a quick morning snack.

For math today I pulled out a big bag of Skittles and read the book Skittles Riddles Math.

We manipulated some of our Skittles to mirror the pages and mimic what the book was teaching us.  It was quite a long and involved book and I'm not sure how much they absorbed from it but they sure did love eating the Skittles when we were done!

While they were eating all their crackers and Skittles I read a few books aloud to them.  We read The Way I Act and Bats at the Beach.  They loved Bats at the Beach.  They thought the illustrations were great.

After yesterday's day long discussion about behavior the boys asked if that's why I was reading The Way I Act.  It hadn't been intentional but this book couldn't have come at a better time!  We talked about cooperation, consideration and being compassionate.  Ian readily admitted that him an Alec do NOT act like that toward each other and rather rudely asked me if he thought reading a book would change him (guess we'll be talking about attitudes and behavior a bit more today!).

Ian and Alec worked on their friendship bracelets a bit more this morning while waiting for Evan to finish up snack.  Ian has been working on his most every night at bedtime and he's almost half- way done.  I'm impressed with their persistence on this project and with how well the bracelets are coming out. 

My boys were arguing since one wanted to do a science experiment and the other wanted to do art.  I decided to combine the two!

After seeing how fun it was to add pop rocks to our goop yesterday, today we tried adding pop rocks to our paint. 

I let the boys do some free- form painting.

It was neat to listen to all the crackling and popping again.  I had them predict what would happen before we added the pop rocks and we made predictions about whether or not the pop rock candy would change the color of the paints too.

After painting the boys went to play and we ended up swimming in the lake for a bit.

We headed in just in time.  By the time I had lunch ready and on the table it was pouring outside.  They wanted to turn on screens and I encouraged them to keep it educational.  So they watched Bill Nye the Science Guy-- Inventions, Wild Kratts, and Walt Disney's True Life Adventures; Wonders of the Wild (though they found this a bit boring and abandoned it before it was over).  

The boys settled down to watch E.T. after running a few errands.

My husband and I have been trying to remember all the much loved movies from our childhood and through the library we've been able to find most of them for the boys to watch.  They aren't always impressed with our suggestions, but for the most part they really enjoy them.

I enjoy the nostalgia value!

Linking Up With: