Leapin' Lily Pads!

Today we started off our morning with some unscheduled  snow fall.  This allowed the kids some fun snowball throwing, snowflake licking fun in first part of our morning, but aside from that I had other kind of fun planned for our day.   You see today is of course Leap Day!   While us adults understand it (the best we can) to be some extra day to make up for extra daylight the space time continuum (that's not it?... well sounds good to me.)   For kids it is a fun opportunity to learn more things about the calendar and frogs.   Yes frogs!

I found a fun idea while trolling Pinterest!   To make lily pads and have the kids jump around.   The idea of hopping around on lily pads comes from Toddler Approved (she has a template for the lily pads too.)  I went a little more freestyle with mine and made some 'smooth' and some 'wavy' lily pads to throw in some additional instruction options.   I numbered them and we began our fun!

Before we began jumping we looked at a calendar from last year and one from this year.   Showing him the extra day and then talked about how that happens every 4 years.  In fact the year he was born and now once again! (I can't believe he's FOUR this year!)   After that I asked him what animals jump and he excitedly said FROGS!    So from there we did some Bing image searches and looked at frogs and then moved into the lily pad elements.   Marry the two lessons together by talking about synonyms.  Yes, yes I did in fact broach the subject of synonyms with my son (and yes in fact spell check had to correct every attempt at my spelling of synonym.)  I told him that synonyms means that two words have the same meaning and it's an alternate word that can be used.  (Yes, I use words like 'alternate' also with my children.)   He said 'oh ok' and then I prompted him to see if he knew a synonym for jump... and he thought for a moment and said "leap?"  BE. STILL. MY. HEART.  YES!!!!   Hooray!  So we lept around the room some for the connection there!  

Next up was the activity!  Ace started the activity jumping in a row from 1 to 5.   He had a lot of fun (but mommy forgot to get her settings right for 'action' before we began, so alas the quality is less than stellar... but you can get the idea!)

After some in a line jumping I moved the lily pads to a more open space and moved them around and out of numerical order.   I had him jump from 1-5 again.  Then I had him jump on the lighter colored ones and then darker.   Then jump on the 'smooth' ones.   There was many different combinations that we tried out and he had a blast throughout.  

Mae even joined in on the jumping which was adorable... and her outfit is living proof that I don't stage all my photos.  Isn't  her outfit just smashing?   Yes, that's post snow-wear while her matching pants dry.  She had a good time cheering on her brother and jumping, stomping on the lily pads herself.  It was cute and adorable and an excellent energy burning indoor activity!  

Happy Leap Day from our lily pond to yours!