Having Fun Learning

Our Week Having Fun Learning Together!

Emily is 39 months old and Juliette is 10 months old

We have been so busy the past 2 weeks I haven’t had a chance to sit down at the computer and get anything posted.  So here are all the fun things that we have been doing while having fun learning together!!

Emily and Juliette had a great time playing and checking out books at our library, which is one of our favorite places to visit!!

 

We were given this amazing bounce house for FREE!!!  Emily and Juliette both really enjoyed playing on in it while Aunt Christina watched them.

We had an amazing trip into NYC to visit Aunt Patty and Uncle Patrick.  We watched Daddy and Aunt Patty run in a 5k and then we got to take a boat ride to see the Statue of Liberty.

Emily loved working on these Melissa and Doug Farm Puzzles.  I took them out after they were away for awhile and it was like a brand new toy.  She was so excited when she saw them and did them almost every day for the past 2 weeks.

 

Emily really enjoyed these little people paint with water coloring pages.  She did about 8 of them in a row!

 

Emily and Daddy made  homemade pizza for dinner…yummy!!

 

Emily went to her friend’s birthday party, they decorated shirts and also did some dancing.  She was very excited to wear her pajamas and ballet slippers.

 

We headed to New Jersey to visit our friends who were doing Historical Dancing at a Spring Festival for the Bergen County Historical Society.  Naomi and Jesse gave us a tour of the historical houses, Emily played some games, and we got to watch the dancing and listen to music.

 

The girls made the letter W with stickers, this was a great fine motor skill activity that Emily really enjoyed working on.  Juliette had fun watching too :0)

 

We made Watermelons for the letter W.  Emily used her fingerprints for the seeds.

 

To go along with our W theme the girls made waffles for lunch. 

 

Emily loved that they had the imprint of Tigger and Winnie the Pooh on them!!

We went for a walk through the park and then the girls got to play on the playground.  I loved this picture of Emily in action!!!

 

For our stART project we read One Watermelon Seed and made a magic root painting flower picture.

 

I got a sample of a Highlights Puzzle Magazine in the mail and Emily had a great time working on it.  Although the magazine was for 4-7 year olds she was actually able to complete the sample activities with only a little bit of help from me.  Here she matched the stickers to complete the picture then we talked about the silly things that were going on in the picture.  On the other pages she had to find the hidden pictures and circle them which she did almost completely on her own and then find two pictures that were the same.  I helped her with this one.

My dad just got her Highlights High 5 and now I can’t wait for her first issue I think she is going to have so much fun reading and doing the activities in it!

 

Emily and Ryliegh had fun playing on the swing set in our backyard.

  We went to Aunt Christina's Bridal Shower this weekend.  Emily was such a big help.  She got to sit next to Aunt Christina and collect all the bows to make her hat!  It was so amazing to watch her and see how big she is getting.  She was such a little lady the whole day!!

 Tiny Tot School

Juliette has been enjoying playing with this Melissa and Doug Stacker.  She pulls the pieces off and can put them back on too.  This keeps her busy for a while and Emily enjoys helping her out and playing with her.

 

Juliette is starting to eat some of her foods cut up into little pieces.  She LOVES being able to feed herself like this, I can’t believe how big she is getting!!

Braeden, Anna and Juliette playing with bin of blocks!

Juliette in the stroller at the park.

I gave Juliette a crayon and some paper to see what she would do.  We tried this a few weeks ago and she tried eating the crayon almost right way.  This time she did push it around on the paper a little bit…then try to eat it :0)

Juliette LOVES climbing!!

She goes all the way up the slide…

…and then pushes herself down.  ALL BY HERSELF!!!!!   She is and adventurous little girl, she also climbed the rock wall on the swing set by herself, I couldn’t get a picture since I was right behind her the whole way!!

Juliette exploring some grape scented purple play dough.  She was pretty good with this…it took her a while before she finally decided to taste it!  I loved watching her pull it apart and study it :0)

The 4 amigos plotting their escape from the play pen during art group!!

 

Our favorite books from the past two weeks:

• My New York ~ Kathy Jakobsen
• One Watermelon Seed ~ Celia Barker Lottridge
• Go Dog Go ~ P.D. Eastman
• Millie Moo ~ Roger Priddy

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

stART ~ One Watermelon Seed

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.

We have been doing a lot of planting and our seeds are starting to grow into some nice big plants.  During our last trip to the library we borrowed the book One Watermelon Seed, by Celia Barker Lottridge.  This is a  beautifully illustrated gardening counting book.  The story starts with two children planting their garden with one watermelon seed, and then two pumpkin seeds all the way to 10 seeds.  Finally they harvest 10 watermelons and then 20 pumpkins and so on.  I loved the concept that just a few seeds could give us such an abundance of wonderful fruits and vegetables! 

Since we have been talking about and growing plants Emily has been asking a lot of questions about them.   She was very curious about the parts of the plants, especially the roots.  We grew some bean plants in a clear cup so  that she was able to see the roots growing in the soil, and I am hoping to do a germination bag with her this week too.  But, for our art project she created a flower which showed all the different parts.

First, I drew some roots at the bottom of a white piece of paper with a white crayon.

Then I gave Emily some crayons and had her draw a flower, she was not in a good mood and did not want to draw so she scribbled a blob (flower) and then asked for help.  I told her we would do the flower a different way and not to worry about it, this made her happy and we were able to continue with the project.

Next she used brown water colors to color in the soil, this made the roots magically appear at the bottom of the page.  She was SO excited when this happened and kept saying “Mommy look the roots the roots!!”

When she finished with the soil, she water colored the sky blue.

Finally I gave her a bean for the seed,  a construction paper stem, leaves and flower and a circle sticker to create her flower out of.  She was much happier with this flower!

Emily’s finished flower with magic roots :)

stART ~ My New York

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 when we went to the library I was looking for books about New York City since we were going to visit my sister in law who happens to live in the city.  We have taken Emily before however she was younger, this time I was really excited because she is so much more aware.  I found the book My New York, by Kathy Jakobsen and Emily and I both really enjoyed it.  It is for older readers, however I took it out because the pictures are amazing.  I wanted to have something to show Emily before our trip (our 30 minute drive) and then to talk about and find things that we saw after and this book was perfect.  The story is actually really cute and I did read parts of it to Emily, but it would be amazing for a little bit older child.  It is about a little girl that lives in New York City telling her friend who lives in the country, but will be moving to the city all about where she lives and what there is to do.

So first we visited the city. Ever time we go into New York City I am amazed that we live so close yet it feels so far from all these amazing things!  We are literally a 30 minute drive, without traffic!  Although we are hoping to take the train in the future since Emily has been asking to take a train ride almost every day now for awhile.  Any way here are some of the fun things that we did and Emily’s stART project.

 

Emily loves horses (although she was scared of this one because it was not behind a fence) so Uncle Patrick picked her up so she could see it.

 

Daddy finishing the 5k (the whole reason we went into the city).  If you look carefully you can see me holding Juliette all the way to the left.

 

Daddy and Aunt Patty (she also ran) after the race with the girls.

After the race we visited the playground in near Battery Park.

Then we had the best surprise!!!

We took a boat ride!!! 

One of Uncle Patrick’s friends happened to be docked and when we walked by and said hello he offered to take us out for a ride :0)

 

We saw the Statue of Liberty from the boat.

Our Family in front of the Statue of Liberty

 

Our family with Aunt Patty and Uncle Patrick

And now for our stART project!!!

I printed out a picture of the Statue of Liberty and our family all together on the boat.  Then I gave Emily markers, paper, the pictures, glue and scissors so that she could make a picture of our trip.

She started by drawing the boat that we were on. 

Then she cut the picture of us out and glued us onto the boat.

Emily’s finished picture.  She added clouds the waves  and the bridge that we went under.