Having Fun Learning

 

Our week in TOTSchool and Preschool

Emily is 38 months old and Juliette is 9 months old

Emily has been obsessed with trying to write her name.  She is always asking us to help her and show her the letters.  This week she was busy in her room working on writing on her Magna Doodle after a while she came in to show me what she did “Look Mommy I wrote my name” and she did!!! 

 

We made tree’s for the letter Tt and had the girls sponge paint the top to look like a tree. 

We a Letter T hunt with the Bingo Daubers that Sarah made.  The girls really enjoy finding the letters and dotting them.

Emily continued to work on her pre writing skills with this printable from Confessions of a Homeschooler.

The Girls all had fun making sandwiches with this Melissa & Doug Sandwich Stacking Games.  Here Emily is following the card to make the sandwich.  They also enjoyed catching the pieces with the giant bread mitts

For our stART project this week we read One Bean and Emily planted some beans in her egg carton planter.

     

While we were at my friends house I saw the cutest Umbrella Counting activity that she did with her daughter and knew that I had to do it with Emily. 

First, I drew an umbrella pattern on a large piece of paper and had Emily paint each section a different color with water colors.

After it dried I traced the outline with a black marker and wrote the numbers 1 – 5 in the sections.  Then Emily cut the whole thing out.

Finally Emily added the matching number of dot stickers for each section.  This was great practice with numeral recognition and counting.

 

Sarah made new number matching printables for the girls to work on.  Emily matched the number of objects to the numeral.

   We worked on grouping.  In this activity the girls circled the one that did not belong on the Which does not belong worksheet I made.  Later in the day we also did some hands on grouping, you can check out the post I did to see some of the fun objects that we used :0)

Emily and I baked a carrot cake with cream cheese frosting for Aunt Jennifer’s Birthday! 

(Check back for the recipe sometime next week)

Tiny Tot School 

Juliette had fun checking out Anna’s  exersaucer and hanging out with her friends while the girls did their projects.

Juliette discovered the “hammock” that Graco sent us to “fix” the defective highchair (the Graco Harmony Highchair was recently recalled and this is their solution to the problem).  She has been crawling up onto this piece and then down from it since I put it on.  Fun for Juliette not so much for mommy :0)

Our favorite books from this week:

• Fisher-Price Little People Lift the Flap Book Spring is Here! (Board book)~ Reader's Digest
• Little Lamb: Finger Puppet Book (Finger Puppet Board book ~ Chronicle Books
• One Bean ~ Anne Rockwell
• Where is Baby’s Belly Button ~ Karen Katz

 

Check out the great things that others are doing with their children by clicking these buttons!!

Awesome Blog Giveaway!!

My friend Sarah is hosting a giveaway from CSN.com.  If you win you get you get to choose anything from their stores, up to $60, how awesome is that.   Head on over and check it out!!!

stART ~ One Bean

Welcome to  stART! I hope that you will enjoy our story and art project and maybe even share your own too.  All I ask is that you link back to A Mommy’s Adventures so that everyone can see all the other great projects that everyone shares 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. 

This week we read One Bean, by Anne Rockwell.  I have to admit that when I saw this book at the library I was drawn in by the cute cover and the excitement of planting our own bean seeds.  When I opened the book I was not sure if it would hold Emily’s attention since there were a lot of words on each page, however I figured it was worth a try.  I am SO glad that I did.  Emily really enjoyed this book.  It is a simple, yet informative book about planting for preschoolers.  The illustrations are bright and simple, yet very accurate.  This is a great book to go along with any planting unit especially planting beans!!

Emily and I planted beans in a egg carton container that Emily painted.  We both agreed that this was the perfect project to go along with this book.

The book started with the description of a bean so I gave Emily one of our beans (I dried and saved them from last years bean plant).  Emily enjoyed actually getting to touch and describe our bean too.

 

Emily sprayed a paper towel with water to get the beans ready to be planted just like in the book.  This step helps the beans to sprout quicker, plus it was fun for Emily she loved using the spray bottle!  All we did was wet the paper towel and then place the beans on it.  Cover them and let them soak a bit.

Now we were ready for our art project.  To make the container for the beans we used an egg carton.  I have seen this done many times before, but have never actually tried it myself.  So I can’t wait to see what happens!  First I cut the top off of the egg carton.  We are going to use this as our holder, I figured it would collect any water that may seep through the egg carton.  I gave Emily different colors of paint and let her cover the whole thing!

We put the top part that Emily painted under the egg carton and then she filled up the egg cup part with soil.  

Emily added one bean seed to each cup.

Then she covered them with some more soil.

Finally she used the dropper to water each section.  I think this was actually her favorite part!

Emily’s finished planter!!

***It seemed like most people liked the thumbnail linky, I was able to make the title a bit longer so I am going to give this a try.  Let me know if this is better.  I can’t wait to see all your great projects!!!

Which One Does Not Belong??

We have been working on grouping and these activities are perfect for practicing and reinforcing this important early math skill. 

First, I created a Which One of These is Different worksheet (click on the link for a free download) for Emily. 

She had to find the picture that was not like the others and did not belong in the group. 

First, she pointed to it, then she told me why it was different and then she used her marker to circle it.

Another fun hands on way to practice this grouping skill is to collect a group of items that are all the same and then include one that is slightly different.  I showed them to Emily and then she picked up the one that was different and told me why.

You’ve got to love little people, so many wonderful activities that you can use them for!!  Which one doesn’t belong???

 

I love these links too, they are awesome teething toys, they keep Juliette’s toys off of the floor, and great for grouping with Emily, so which one doesn’t belong??

 

Check out some other great math ideas at:

Muffin Tin Monday

This week there was no theme for Muffin Tin Monday and thank goodness for that!  I wasn’t planning anything special for lunch and thought I might do Muffin Tin Monday for dinner.  However when we pulled up to Grandma’s house for lunch today, Emily said “Mommy what day is it?”  I said “Monday” and she smiled so big and said “That means we are having Muffin Tin Lunch!”  We dusted off Grandma’s Muffin tin (which happens to be identical to mine…)  and filled it with Emily’s Muffin Tin Lunch which is basically leftovers take 2!!

Emily’s Muffin Tin Lunch leftovers take 2!

 

Top Row: Blueberry Muffin, Fruit Cup, Penne a la Vodka

Bottom Row: Pizza, String Cheese, more Penne a la Vodka

Having Fun Learning

Our week in TOTSchool and Preschool

Emily is 38 months old and Juliette is 9 months old

 The girls playing with the instruments waiting for Music Class to begin.  I love that both Emily and Juliette are able to participate together.  They both enjoy the class so much! 

The girls  made star covered S’s to add to their Alphabet Books.

Then they did a letter hunt that Sarah made and used bingo daubers to mark the S when they found it.

 

Emily planted strawberry seeds.  This was a kit that came with the pot, compressed soil pellet, and seeds.  Emily liked watching the soil expand as we added water to it.  Now she is excited to see her plant grow!

Emily picked the green stamp pad to do some stamping. 

 

Emily sorted Plants and Animals.  She practiced cutting, pasting and classifying in this activity. 

Sarah printed these cards from Confessions of a Homeschooler and I laminated them.  We gave the girls clothes pins.  First they counted the dots, said the number and then clipped the correct number of clothes pins onto the card.  This activity was great practice in number recognition as well as practicing fine motor skills.

Emily did this number match worksheet.  She counted the hearts and drew a line to match it to the numeral.  When she counts I had her put a dot on each heart so that she remembered which ones she counted.  It also helps with one to one correspondence.

For our stART project we read Fancy Nancy Every Day is Earth Day and made Earth Day Cookies.

Emily built towers with her Duplo’s.  She spent all afternoon building, counting and sorting with these toys.  Even Juliette had fun joining in and playing with them.

Emily used a dropper to water her plant.  She has checked it every morning to see if there are any sprouts.  I can’t wait for her to find them!!

During Art Group we focused on Triangles.  We did negative space paintings.  Emily taped cut out triangles onto a piece of construction paper and then painted the around the edges of the paper.  Then she pulled of the triangles.  It is such  a neat effect!

We also made a triangle collage.  I cut out all different sized triangles and then Emily placed them onto the sticky side of a triangle shaped piece of contact paper.  She said that she was making hers look like a tree and stacked a bunch of the triangles together.

Tiny Tot School

Juliette enjoys exploring all of Braeden’s toys.  The rain stick entertained her for a while.

       Juliette explored her nesting cups.  She loved pulling them out and then clapping them together.  She was so focused on them the whole time she was playing with them.

Juliette digging for Duplo’s.  I loved how she climbed up and over the bin and tried to get all the different pieces.

When Emily’s tower fell over Juliette grabbed a group that stayed stacked together.  She worked really hard at pulling them all apart all by herself.  I kept putting more together to give her once she finished.  She was so focused on this.

  

Our favorite books from this week:

• Fancy Nancy: Every Day is Earth Day ~ Jane O’Connor
• Fletcher and the Springtime Blossoms ~  Julia Rawlinson
• Peekaboo Bathtime ~ DK Publishing
• I Love Bugs ~ Emma Dodd

 

Check out the great things that others are doing with their children by clicking these buttons!!