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Monday, March 29, 2010

Muffin Tin Monday ~ Blue and Purple

 

This weeks theme for Muffin Tin Monday is Blue and Purple

Emily wanted English muffins for breakfast and right away I thought that would be perfect for a Muffin Tin Breakfast since she loves grape jelly on them and I really had no idea what I was going to pull out of the pantry to pull of a Blue and Purple lunch (other than a lot of food coloring!!).

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Top Row: Blue Milk, English Muffin with Cream Cheese and Grape Jelly

Bottom Row: Frozen Blueberries, Applesauce with Purple Sprinkles, more Frozen Blueberries

IMG_2737 Emily even had a matching purple outfit for her Muffin Tin Breakfast!!

Sunday, March 28, 2010

Having Fun Learning

 Tot School

Our week in TOTSchool/Preschool 

Emily is 37 months old

Juliette is 8 months old IMG_2625

Emily and her friend went to the Circus!   Both girls really liked the glow in the dark bracelets that my friend got for them from the Dollar Tree instead of buying the over priced light up toys that they sell thereIMG_2635

Emily’s favorite part was seeing the elephants.  

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This week we made the letter P for Piano.  I thought that Sarah did a great job putting this together for the Girls.  The finished P’s looked so cute! IMG_2665Emily loves using the bingo dauber.  She used this print out from Confessions of a Homeschooler to make the  letter p.IMG_2666IMG_2667 The girls made Easter Egg Collages.  First they colored an Easter Egg printout, Emily used green since that is her favorite color.  Then they had foam stickers, shiny stickers, ribbon and pom poms to decorate their egg with.  I really liked how this project came out.IMG_2671

We also made Pizza’s for lunch.  These were really yummy and went along really well with our P theme!!

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Emily received the Leap Frog Word Whammer Fridge Phonics for her first birthday.  We have always had it out around the house but the only thing she ever really did with it was push the button to listen to the ABC song (which is actually how she learned to sing her ABC’s)  Since she has been watching Leap Frog - Letter Factory, she is obsessed with letters and has really started to enjoy using the Word Whammer.  She was able to follow the directions to make the words.  Here she is pushing the letters that she put into the correct spots. 

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For our stART project we read Good Egg and Emily painted Tin Foil Easter Eggs.

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For some fine motor skills practice I cut up straws and gave them to Emily to thread onto some green lanyard.

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Emily helped me make The Pioneer Woman’s Prune Cake.  She loved sifting the dry ingredients together as well as practicing scooping, pouring and dumping!

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Emily recieved Dr Seuss Super Stretchy ABCsgame for Christmas.  Since she has been doing so well with her letter recognition I thought she would enjoy this game and boy was I right!  We have played this every day this week and she absolutely loves it. 

This game is excellent not only for letter recognition but also for following directions.  It is similar to the idea of twister, you have to try to put your hands, feet and even ear to  as many of the letters as you are directed to.  For each one you are able to do you get to keep that letter token.  The winner is the player that has the secret letter at the end of the game.

IMG_2725After art group on Friday we drove out East to visit Emily’s cousin.  My sister-in-law invited us over for lunch and then to go to a bunny program at their local library.  Emily was so excited to get to hold a little bunny.  The woman that came did a fantastic job talking to the children about bunnies.  She also taught them to count in sign language.  Emily was really into it so I think I am going to start trying to teach it to her and Juliette.

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Emily holding the bunny on her lap while her cousin pet it.

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Emily and me with the bunny.

 

Tiny Tot School

Juliette is doing so much recently that I am so excited that I am able to include her in my TOTSchool post!

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Juliette loves other kids, while the girls were working on their projects she was excited to be “playing” with Braeden.

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   I put four of the balls that we had in Juliette’s toy box into this muffin pan.  I moved it around and she watched the balls move in holes.  She enjoyed picking them up and banging them together.

While she was playing I caught some of it on video.

 

Our favorite books from this week:

  • Little Critter’s Easter ~ Mercer Mayer
  • Good Egg ~ Barney Saltzberg
  • Chicka Chicka Boom Boom ~ Bill Martin Jr.
  • Bye-Bye Big Bad Bullybug! ~ Ed Emberley

Check out the great things that others are doing with their children by clicking the buttons on the top of this page!!

Friday, March 26, 2010

Color Wheel ~ Purple

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This week we completed our color wheels.  I really enjoyed watching the kids working on this project.  I also think it will be a great tool to use with future color projects.  The kids seemed to enjoy making them too which is always a good thing!
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First they colored the last section in with purple crayons and markers.
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Then they glued on lots of fun purple collage materials. We had purple pipe cleaners, craft foam, felt, Easter grass,  and pom poms.
Purple Paint and Prints
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I gave the girls Red and Blue paint and had them mix it together to make purple then they were able to paint however they wanted!  I enjoy seeing how each child chooses to paint, some love to use their fingers and others enjoy using the brushes and sponges. 
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Open Ended painting always seems to be a hit!  

Thursday, March 25, 2010

stART ~ Good Egg

 

 

Welcome to stART! I hope that you will enjoy our story and art project and maybe even share your own too! The linky will be open all week.

I added a stART tab in my navigation bar to make it easier to search for past stART projects.  Be sure to check it out!!  All the books that we have read and did a stART project for are listed in alphabetical order.

Good Egg

This week we read Good Egg, by Barney Saltzberg.  If you click on the link you can see a great video of this book in action…yes I did say ACTION!!  This is a really simple but amazingly cute lift flap, pull tab book.  Emily received this book from her Aunt as a Big Sister present when Juliette was born.  She loved helping egg follow all the directions in the book.

I wanted to do a fun Egg Art Project that did not involve coloring hard boiled eggs since we will be doing plenty of that very soon :)  I got the idea for this adorable painted egg from Kids Craft Weekly and knew right away that this would be perfect, especially since I have been wanting to paint on tin foil with Emily for a while now!

 Tin Foil Painted Eggs

I cut out an egg shape from a cardboard box and wrapped tin foil around it.  Then I filled up the perfect for paint palettes that I recently bought from Oriental trading with yellow, pink, purple and green (Emily insisted on the green paint) paint. 

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Emily painted the egg with a paint brush.

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Finally while the paint was still wet she used a q-tip to make a design in the paint.  This revealed the shiny tin foil that was underneath.

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Emily had so much fun working on these she made 2 more!  

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Playing Pretend

Nail Salon

Emily loves play nail salon and paint my nails with water! 

This is a fun, clean  “painting” activity that is often requested in our house.   IMG_2118

I fill up a clean empty applesauce container with water and give her a paint brush.  The rest is up to her.  Sometimes she asks me to paint her nails too!

Monday, March 22, 2010

Muffin Tin Monday

There was no special theme for Muffin Tin Monday today.  Emily has been asking for Peanut Butter and Jelly almost every day for the past few weeks.  Since today was a dreary day and I didn’t have much else in the house for lunch I brightened up her day with Peanut Butter and Jelly and a Muffin Tin Lunch!! 

This same lunch was on a regular plate only seconds before this picture, until I realized that it was MTM.  I have to say it is so much more exciting in a Muffin Tin :0)

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Top Row: Peanut Butter and Jelly Sticks, Cucumber Slices, Mini Cheddar Rice Cakes

Bottom Row: Peanut Butter and Jelly Sticks, Cucumber Slices, Prunes

Sunday, March 21, 2010

TOTSchool

 

Tot School

Our week in TOTSchool

Emily is 37 months old

Juliette is 8 months old

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I got a big bag of Rainbow Colored Buttons from Oriental Trading along with these great muffin cups.  Emily had a great time sorting the whole container of buttons for me!  This was a great fine motor skill practice, along with color and sorting.

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Since Emily has started watching the LeapFrog - Letter Factory DVD  she is OBSESSED with letters.  She finds them wherever we are and gets so excited about them.  I often hear “MOMMY look a T” when we drive past Target.  While we were baking for this week’s stART project, she found the letters for KITCHEN-AID and pointed them all out to me!

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We celebrated St. Patrick’s Day with a Green Shamrock Pancake Breakfast!  We also did a lot of fun St. Patrick’s Day activities during the week.

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We mixed blue and yellow paint together to make potato prints.

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We made some Irish Soda Bread with our friends.  This was great practice mixing, scooping and kneading.

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We did water transfer with yellow and blue water.  Emily used a pipette to transfer the water in the muffin tin.  I loved how sturdy these tins were for this activity.  They were very inexpensive from Oriental Trading and can be used for so many different activities!

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We made the Letter O for Octopus.

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Emily has been cooking up a storm in her play kitchen.  Juliette usually sits on the floor and dumps the food out of the bins, but she has discovered that she can stand and reach the counter.  I was so glad that my camera was handy for this picture!

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Emily was working on her Melissa & Doug Alphabet Train Floor Puzzle

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…and Juliette played with her Melissa & Doug Farm Chunky Puzzle.  She loved handling the pieces.  I talked about the animals and the sounds that they made.  She had fun with this and it kept her from destroying Emily’s puzzle for a little bit :0)

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We had such beautiful weather her this weekend, so we had our first backyard picnic for lunch…

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…while Daddy set up Emily’s new Trampoline!!

IMG_2616 Can you tell that she loves it!!

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Juliette got to sit on it for a picture, she will have to wait till she gets bigger to actually enjoy it ;)
 

Here is a video I got of Emily playing on the trampoline.

Our favorite books from this week:

  • Bear’s New Friend ~ Karma Wilson
  • Where is Baby’s Belly Button ~ Karen Katz
  • Warthog’s Paint ~ Pamela Duncon
  • Little People Worlds of Adventure ~ Reader’s Digest

 

Check out the great things that others are doing with their children by clicking the buttons on the top of this page!!