stART ~ One Red Apple

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 somewhere in your post by either adding my button or a text link, so that others can see all the other great projects that everyone shares too! The linky will be open all week.  Be sure to stop by and visit the different links…every week there are so many different and fun book and craft ideas!

Check out the  stART tab in my navigation bar where you can find our past stART projects.  All the books that we have read and did a stART project for are listed in alphabetical order.  I have also included a list of all the blogs that participate in stART.  **This is a work in progress so if you have participated at least 3 times and would like to be added to the list, leave me a comment and let me know :0)

This week we have been having fun with apples and One Red Apple, by Harriet Ziefert went along perfectly with everything we have been doing.  This is a beautifully illustrated story of the life cycle of an apple tree, from tree to market tree to market, to picnic, to seed, to sapling and tree, and finally to a new apple.  I think Emily loved it because she is always saving the seeds from foods to plant in our garden!

To go along with this book I found this Apple Life Cycle Poem Craft on Pinterest  and new Emily would love making it.

First, I cut out the pieces for Juliette because she wanted to do exactly what Emily was doing.  Then I had Emily cut out her own pieces.  I drew some of the pieces on the paper as a guide and some she wanted to do herself. 

Next, the girls glued the pieces on the blue paper which we folded into 4 equal spaces.  Emily did this part completely on her own, it was like a puzzle for her.  For Juliette I helped her by telling her where to place the pieces (ex.  Glue the red circle in the middle of the first square).  I was really happy with how for the most part she listened to the directions and then followed them.  I just had to point to the box that she had to put the pieces in.  If it was not perfectly placed I did not move it.

Then they used little red dot stickers for the apples in the apple tree.  Juliette also wanted green apples in her tree so she added those too.

Finally, I wrote the words to the poem and we read them together.  After thinking about it I would have liked to write the words on separate pieces of paper and have Emily match them on her own.

Now it is your turn!! Click below to link up a book you read and the project or activity that you did to go with it.

Wordless Wednesday ~ Little Flutists in Training

 

I have played the flute since 4th grade, but packed it away after High School.  After talking about it with some friends recently, I dug it out of the box in the basement and started playing it for the girls.  I couldn’t believe I was still able to play!  Emily and Juliette were very excited to have their turn trying to play the flute too.

Juliette held it up to her mouth and  made the sounds for it, Emily did the same, but after I showed her how to hold it she almost got a sound out.  We will keep practicing. 

Of course Juliette’s favorite part was having me blow into it while she pushed the keys down!!!

Muffin Tin Monday ~ Indoor Picnic Style

This week for Muffin Tin Monday we had a living room picnic lunch!!  I found the Care Bear Blanket in Juliette’s closet and thought that it would be perfect for an indoor picnic.  The girls were both so excited to be able to actually eat lunch in the living room.

The Girls’ Muffin Tin Lunch

Peaches, Vanilla Yogurt with sprinkles, 1/2 an Apple Cider Doughnut and some Apple Slices with Peanut Butter.

Emily set the picnic up and added the Tea Set to the middle.

Juliette wanted Panda to come for lunch and shared her peaches with him.

There smiles say it all!!

Having Fun Learning

Having Fun Learning Together This Week!!!

Emily is 4.5 years old and Juliette is 26 months old

This week Emily has been working on reading.  She enjoys sounding out words and is always looking for something that she can try to read.  We also worked on a few math activities.  Emily enjoyed doing some basic addition so we will continue to work on that next week.

Juliette enjoyed working with colors and began singing the alphabet.  She gets up to "G” and I think she is so cute to listen to.  We are singing the whole song in the car more often now so she can hear it and learn the rest of the letters.

Apple Graphing ~  Emily counted the apples in the picture and then filled in the bar graph at the bottom.

Mickey Mouse Color Matching game.  Emily and Juliette played the beginner version of this memory game, where we keep all the cards face up and they have to pick two that match.  After we played the memory version where we turned them over and they had to remember where the matches were.  I used fewer cards and Juliette did really well with it.  Emily was happy to help Juliette play.  As we were playing we were talking about the colors that we were finding.  Juliette was able to name them all!!

The cards for this game are just the free Disney Paint Chips from Home Depot.

  Scrabble: Junior Edition ~ I found this game at a thrift store for .99 cents.  It is in perfect condition and Emily liked playing the easy version of it with me.   She had to match her letters to complete the words on the board.  When she completed a word she would get a point.  This was great for letter recognition.  Emily practiced cutting out shapes for a project.  She has great control of the scissors and does not want any help at all.

Emily made a cardboard tube castle for our stART project after reading the Fussy Princess, by Mercer Mayer.

Juliette had her first Mommy and Me class this week.  We made a cute sponge print apple tree.  I was so happy that she sat for Jesus Time and listened to the story.  She was not shy at all and went right to play with all the different toys.

  She loved the sand table just like Emily did!  She practiced pouring and spooning the sand.

Emily had fun with this Appleseed Addition Math Sheet.  She rolled the dice to see how many apple seeds to draw on the apple.  Then she added both sides together to see how many she had in all.  She totally understood what to do and was happy to do it on her own.

  Juliette colored a paper with her name on it.  While Emily was working.  I told her that this is what her name looked like and read her the letters as I was writing it. 

We visited our Children’s Museum for a special Members Preview for the new Exhibit.  Dragons and Fairies ~ Exploring Viet Nam Through Folktales.  While we were there we were able to sample traditional Vietnamese food, which Emily ate and enjoyed and Juliette did not want any part of.  We also found Viet Nam and our state  on a big globe so we could see how far we are from each other.  Emily loved the globe and wants one of her own so we can see were all the different places are.  (Looks like we will have to be doing a lot more geography soon!!)

Here they are making Rubbings for the animal that represents the year that they were born in. 

Emily ~ Rooster

Juliette ~ Ox

Mommy and Daddy ~ Rooster

I made Juliette a color sorter.  I punched holes in the top of a take out container lid and put reinforcements over them which I colored with marker.  Then I cut up some pipe cleaners in the same colors and gave them to Juliette to stick into the container.  She told me the color she was matching as she put it in.  This was great fine motor skills practice too.

 

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

stART ~ The Fussy Princess

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 somewhere in your post by either adding my button or a text link, so that others can see all the other great projects that everyone shares too! The linky will be open all week.  Be sure to stop by and visit the different links…every week there are so many different and fun book and craft ideas!

Check out the  stART tab in my navigation bar where you can find our past stART projects.  All the books that we have read and did a stART project for are listed in alphabetical order.  I have also included a list of all the blogs that participate in stART.  **This is a work in progress so if you have participated at least 3 times and would like to be added to the list, leave me a comment and let me know :0)

 

Emily has been very into the Little Critter books by Mercer Mayer.  I loved these books when I was little and was so excited to pass my collection onto Emily and Juliette.  While at Grandma and Grandpa’s house we found Little Critter's The Fussy Princess, by Mercer Mayer and Emily has been enjoying it ever since. 

In this book Little Critter tells his fussy sister a story about a very fussy princess that is never happy.  A dragon hears about the fussy princess and how everyone does everything for her and decides that he likes the sound of that and kicks the princess out of the castle and moves right in.  The Princess is forced to sleep outside without her favorite stuffed animals and comfy bed.  In the very cute and funny ending she learns that it is not so nice to be so fussy. 

After reading this book Emily decided she wanted to make a castle of her own.      We used a cardboard cereal box and toilet paper tubes to make the castle.  Emily painted the outside pink.

She used stickers to decorate the inside and outside.  We rolled up construction paper for the turrets and used straws and triangle pieces of paper for the flags.

She even added their pictures to the inside.  These were photo stickers from Snapfish.  She thought they looked like picture frames for the castle wall.

 Emily’s Cardboard and Paper Towel Tube  Castle

Wordless Wednesday ~ The Prospect Park Zoo

We had a fun trip to the prospect park zoo, I loved watching everyone pointing to the animals that they were finding.  I think everyone’s favorite part was the Baboons.  They have a great exhibit at the Prospect Park zoo, and they were running all around playing and chasing each other for the kids to watch!

 

Juliette watching the baboons.    This was my attempt at getting Juliette to try going into the turtle shell…it did not work, but I had fun!

Fun and Learning with Baking Soda and Vinegar

This week the girls experimented with the reactions between Baking Soda and Vinegar to create some pretty cool art!

I had leftover flower and baking soda from when I made some fizzy sidewalk chalk paint, and we had leftover liquid watercolors from art group, that I just couldn’t dump down the drain.  So, I thought the girls would have fun working with these materials in a new and different way!

First, I added vinegar to the liquid watercolors then they used pipettes to drop the colored vinegar onto the baking soda mixture.  This was seriously so much fun all three of us spent over half an hour dropping colors watching it fizz and trying it again. 

 

Emily liked making little drops and watching each one fizz.  She worked one color at a time until the mixture was almost black and would not fizz anymore.

   Juliette liked trying all different colors it looked so pretty!

While we were busy creating we were able to talk about the colors and what happened when the colors would mix together.  I also used the words acid, base and reaction when describing what was happening when the vinegar mixed with the baking soda.

The mixture of flour and baking soda made the mixture fizz a nice amount but not as much as if it were only baking soda.  It was perfect to do inside at the table.  We all agreed that we have to try this with our friends for art group!

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