Day 28: Science Fair Day

Hello friends!

I can't belive I'm writing my last post for this series! We've been having so much fun!

Our book for today is Science Fair Day by Lynn Plourde.

This is a very cute story about a little girl who might be just a little bit TOO curious, at least on Science Fair Day!

Abbey LOVES science experiments. I ask her every day what she did at school, and usually get "nothing" or "I don't remember" (I think she's training me for high school). BUT, the day they did Sink-or-Float, she went on and on about it. She has so much fun exploring the world around her.

I found this little magnet set on clearance (woot!) at Target not too long ago.

It came with three little magnets, and some goodies to explore them with.

The magnet stand was great for letting Abbey see how the magnets attract or repel eachother.

It was even better when she got to make the guy "float" over the table!

We dug around in the junk drawer, found a bunch of stuff, and set up a little experiment.

First Abbey predicted if the item she was testing would stick, or not stick. Then we tested each object to see what happened. Apparently she didn't have much faith in these magnet things!

Isn't exploring fun?


Just joining in? Make sure you check out the rest of the series!

Be blessed!

Heather




It's A Long Story: blog. facebook. twitter

Day 23: Little Duck

Charlie & Jack enjoy when their daddy reads to them and one of their favorite books is Little Duck: Finger Puppet book.  Daddy likes to make the little duck pop out and they never see him coming. Just a quick peck out and they start laughing hysterically! 

I decided to get a bit creative and thought making puppets would be a great idea. I've compiled some of my favorites from Pinterest. Easy, fun and a great chance for your kids to get their creative juices flowing!

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We finally settled on adorable (similar to these) toilet paper roll owl puppets::

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You just need toilet paper rolls, cupcake liners, some white paper, and a marker! Quick and easy owls for day-long fun.

What's your favorite kind of puppet?

Samantha at The Peanuts Gang

Day 10: Giraffes Can't Dance

Hello friends!

Today I'm going to share one of our favorite books with you. I grabbed Giraffes Can't Dance on a whim at Kohl's when it was one of their $5 books, and it has become a bedtime regular! It is such a sweet story about being true to yourself.

In the story the giraffe learns that "everyone can dance when they find music that they love." Maybe it's the Special Ed teacher in me, but I just love that!

We love music around here. One of our favorite things to do is turn on Pandora and dance around the living room (Pandora has some great kids radio station, FYI). One great way to facilitate music and creative movement at home to to build a creative movement box. Fill it up with instruments and other fun stuff and pull it out when ever the kids need to get moving!

What can you fill it with? I'm glad you asked.

Companies like Melissa & Doug have great pre-made musical instruments.

If your feeling creative, there are also a ton of homemade instruments to make. Here are some of my favorites:

Tubular (cardboard) bells from Minieco

Homemade Bongos from the Kids Activities Blog

Simple guitars, like this one at Teach Beside Me

All sorts of goodies from Mermaids Makings

and I love these cute tamborine drums from I Can Teach My Child!

The best part about all of these? You can pretty much grab anything you have around the house and turn it into a musical instrument! Love.

We've covered music, now how about movement? Here is some good stuff:

Super simple ribbon wands from Atypical Type A.

Or, if you want something a bit more sturdy, check out Prudent Baby's tutorial (this one is on my to-do list!)

Another classic is simple juggling scarves. Oriental Trading has some great prices!

Now...get moving!

Be blessed!

Heather



It's A Long Story: blog. facebook. twitter

Day 8: Flaptastic Shapes

One of my favorite things to teach my boys about is shapes and we LOVE the book, "Flaptastic Shapes." This bright new series uses innovative design and big, bold flaps to introduce toddlers to basic concepts. With exciting shaped- and full-page flaps, clever die-cuts, and bouncy typography, these books are truly a great way to learn!  This book gets kids thinking about shapes and the different places they encounter them, from heart-shaped cookies to heart-shaped leaves.

With two boys (ages 1.5 and 3.5) and living in a small condo, it's nice to have some activities for the indoors when the weather isn't always cooperating. In an effort to combine some learning with play, I started to design "Carpet Shapes" on our living room floor.

I love this "game" because it has quite a few options, depending on what you want to do. Charlie already knows his shapes, but I think it's a great way for Jack to learn also!  All you need is blue painter's tape and some carpet!

Create shapes on the floor (I made mine rather large to accommodate shape-sitting).  We did a rectangle, octagon, triangle, square, trapezoid, and diamond. Charlie requested a circle several times and despite my insistence that it was difficult, he kept showing me with his finger just how easy it would be to "draw"!

Once you have your shapes (and ask your children to guess which is which), you have a few great options for playing and learning!

Spatial Learning

Get children used to phrases that are associated with where certain things are. I asked Charlie to go inside and outside of the square. He did!

You can also work on things like over, under and the like. You can also customize it if your child needs help with particular words.

Shape Recognition

Ask your child to find things around the house that are shaped like the shapes you made. We found a square pillow, a triangular sailboat, a stop sign, and a rectangular bed pillow. This is a great opportunity   for your child to "see" shapes within the world without just seeing straight lines.

We even managed to find a trapezoid! (If you look closely, I promise!)

Car Tracks

With boys (and girls!), the lines also make great "racetracks"! My boys had fun having races on the different tracks and jumping from shape to shape.

I love this concept of mixing play with learning, especially when it requires little to no money AND is something new and fresh for my kids. They easily played with this for over an hour and came back to it frequently. It was also perfect for organizing snack time!

What ways to do you combine learning with playing in your house?

Samantha @ The Peanuts Gang

Day 7: Who Ate All The Cookie Dough?

Hi friends!

Today's book is simple, but we enjoy it. At Abbey's age, I love books with lots of repitition. It gets her listening to the cadence of the book, and I can get her involved in the reading by having her finish the phrases. This is a great book for that!

Today's book is Who Ate All The Cookie Dough by Karen Beaumont.

(source)

After reading this book with Abbey, I knew just what kind of activity it was calling for. Play dough!

I started out with my go-to recipe for play dough. I doubled the recipe for this batch, since I knew I was going to split it three ways. FYI: Doubling that recipe will give you a LOT of play dough, and your arm may fall off in the process. Consider yourself warned.

I split the finished batch into three sections, and added the next ingredients to them separately. I just mixed everything together in a ziploc bag. Here's what I added for each "flavor":

        - Gingerbread: cinnamon, ground ginger, nutmeg

        - Chocolate: cocoa powder

        - Sugar: vanilla extract

Sorry there aren't exact amounts. I just kind of added things until I got the result I wanted.

We busted out the mini cookie cutters and went to town!

I even grabbed our mini cookie sheet (best dollar I've ever spent!) so Abbey could bake her cookies.

This was such a simple, fun activity. It kept Abbey busy, and this play dough lasts forever so we will get a lot more play out of it!

Be blessed!

Heather



It's A Long Story: blog. facebook. twitter

Day 6: It Could Always Be Worse

Read

By Margot Zemach

"It Could Always Be Worse" is a story of a man who is very unhappy.  He is a poor farmer and his home was too crowded with his wife, kids, grandparents, and pets.  The man went to a wise Rabbi, told him about how terrible his predicament was, and asked for advice.  The Rabbi asks the man if he has any chickens outside his home.  The man says yes, and the Rabbi tells him to bring the chickens in to live with him.  The man does, and the situation in the home gets even worse.  Now everyone is knocking into each other, there is never peace and quiet, and the house is chaotic.  Returning to the Rabbi, the man again seeks advice.  This time the Rabbi tells him to bring in his cows to live with him.  Next time another farm animal until finally the man returns exhausted, telling the Rabbi he cannot take it anymore.  The Rabbi finally tells the man to let all of the animals out.  Upon doing this, the man and his family have the best night's sleep they've had in months.  

The moral of the story is, no matter how bad your situation is, it could always be worse.

Play 

Many college professors and life coaches use the above activity as a demonstration for time management education.

Find a clear, empty bucket, collect several groups of items, ranging from large to small to smaller to smallest.

Tell the kids that we are going to see how much fits in this bucket.

Have them start with the sticks.  Once the bucket is full of sticks, ask them, "Is the bucket full?"  My kids said "yes"!

Next, tell them to see if they can get the leaves in there too.  They will find that they can.  After the leaves are piled to the top, ask again, "Is the bucket full?"  Again, they will probably say yes.  (Mine did).

Now, give the kids a handful of Cheerios each.  Ask them to see if those will fit as well.  They will find that their Cheerios fall right in.  Prove the point even more by pouring more in right out of the box.
 Again, ask, "Is the bucket full now?"  Yes will again be your answer.

Finally, pour all of the sand in and have the kids watch as it falls easily through all of the crevasses.  The kids will be delighted to see just how much they were able to fit into that bucket.

Just like the man in the story thought his house was full, he did not even know how full it could be until he added all of those animals.  After all of those extras were gone, he was able to appreciate his house full of, (as this example would indicate), just sticks!

Eat

Just like the poor farmer couldn't fit anything more into his little house, fill up a jar with your child's lunch!

To make the lunch shown, place 7-8 baby carrots in the bottom of the jar.  Next, make half of a turkey sandwich (one piece of bread cut in half for each side of the sandwich), and cut that in half.  You will have two little quarters to place atop the carrots.  Next, add some fruit like green grapes.  Finally, cut a cheese stick in half and place on top.

I made one of these for both of my girls as we retold the story at lunchtime.  They both loved it!

This meal could even be "To-go".  Who needs a lunchbox, right?