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Thursday, April 30, 2009

Unplugged Project ~ Yellow

Yellow Scavenger Hunt

This weeks Unplugged Project was "Yellow" and I decided it would be fun to do a scavenger hunt with Emily.


I typed up clues for some yellow things that Emily was familiar with and printed them out so that I could read them to her during the hunt.

You and Grandpa like to build with this when he watches you on Mondays.


What is it?

Duplos!!

Mommy puts these in your hair to make it look pretty and keep it out of your eyes.

What are they?

Clips!!


These grow outside in the middle of the grass.

What are they?


Dandelions!!

Emily did a great job listening to the clue, telling me what it was and then going to find it. We will definitely have to try this again. She was so excited to run around the house and front yard to find the yellow things on our list.


After we finished the Yellow Scavenger Hunt we also made Yellow Dandelion Prints which was a lot of fun too!

Dandelion Prints

Emily's Dandelion Prints

I saw this idea on My Two Happy Homeschoolers and couldn't wait until our lawn had some dandelions (I can't believe I just wrote that...don't tell my husband!! ) so that I could do this with Emily.
We had so much fun picking them and even more fun painting with them!


Emily hunting for some dandelions.

Blue Baby found some too!!

Dipping the dandelions in paint

Emily printing with the dandelions.


Adding stems with a green crayon...she even tried to draw a ladybug in the corner of the paper.

Our Seeds Have Sprouted!!

Emily and I have been checking the seeds that we planted every day since Tuesday, April 21 and finally today, a little over a week later we were able to count 3 little Parsley sprouts!!!




Emily was so excited to see something in the dirt. I can't wait to see how excited she gets as they get bigger and bigger!!


Monday, April 27, 2009

TOTSchool

Tot School

Our week in TOTSchool!

Emily is 26 months old

We made a coffee filter earth to celebrate Earth Day


Emily loved building with her new Alphabet Nesting and Stacking Blocks...they are tall as she is when they are all stacked up!!

We planted parsley.

We read some great books!! This was Turtle Splash and we made little turtles to help us as we counted the turtles with the story.

Emily took out her counting piggy bank for the first time in a while and had fun counting the coins as she put them into the bank.

We made a flower pot puppet.


Emily practiced lacing flower petals onto a green pipe cleaner. This kept her busy for a long time. We made patterns with the flower petals and we also practiced matching the colors...there were two of each color.

Our favorite books from this week:

Thursday, April 23, 2009

Emily's Garden

Pop Up Flower Pot Puppet


This week we have been talking about planting seeds and flowers growing. This project is a lot of fun to make and play with! Emily and I made a similar puppet for Groundhogs Day and Emily still loves to sing the song and play with the puppet more than 2 months later!


First, Emily painted the inside of a cup brown like soil.





Then Emily decorated the outside of the pot with bug stickers.
Emily really enjoys peeling and sticking stickers recently!


I made the flower with foam, a pipe cleaner and a green straw.

I cut out 2 flower shapes from pink foam and one circle from yellow foam to fit in the middle of the flower. I punched a hole in the 2 flower shapes and poked 2 small holes in the circle. Next, I threaded the 2 flower shapes onto the pipe cleaner leaving a tale at the end. Then I added the circle foam and put the pipe cleaner back through the holes and twisted it around the tale to secure it. Finally, I put the tale end of the pipe cleaner in one end of the straw with some glue to help hold it in place. For the leaves I just cut out a double leaf shape from green foam, punched a hole in the middle and stuck the straw through it.

**I actually might try this with Emily to make a spring flower bouquet for the table...they really look pretty!!


I poked a hole in the bottom of the paper cup and put the straw through the hole so that the flower can be pulled and pushed up and down into and out of the cup.

The Way We Plant Our Seed

To the tune of "Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush"

This is the way we plant our seed, plant our seed, plant our seed.

This is the way we plant our seed so early in the morning!

(Keep the flower in the cup and pretend to plant a seed)

This is the way our seed will grow, seed will grow, seed will grow.

This is the way our seed will grow so early in the morning!

(Push the bottom of the straw up to make the flower pop out of the cup)

Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Emily has a question for you...


Emily is very excited about being a big sister!! I made this shirt to tell our friends and family about our exciting news. It was so much fun to see every ones reaction to Emily's shirt telling them.

Reading Theme Challenge ~ Turtle Splash

Turtle Splash ~ Cathryn Falwell

The book for this weeks Reading Theme Challenge was Turtle Splash!: Countdown at the Pond, by Cathryn Falwell. Emily really enjoyed reading this book and counting the Turtles on each page. I decided to do a turtle craft with Emily that we could use to retell the story. This project turned out to be a big hit!!

Emily painting the egg cartons for the turtles' shells with green, brown and yellow paint. After they dried I cut out foam bodies and glued them to the bottom of the egg cartons.

Emily counting the turtles in the book.

Emily showing our turtle the turtle in the book.

Our egg carton turtles.

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Unplugged Project ~ Science

Earth Day Planting

This weeks Unplugged Project was "Science" and I knew that I wanted to do planting with Emily for this project.

I went to the dollar store hoping to find a small bag of soil and some cheap seeds, but found a really cute planting set instead. It came with a nice sized Terracotta pot, a soil pod and celery seeds. I had Emily decorate the pot with markers and stickers...we had really cute flower and ladybug stickers in our sticker bin!! Then we had to "make" the soil. This turned out to be a fun project in itself. Finally we got to plant our seeds. I can't wait for them to sprout. I know that Emily is going to be so excited to see the first little green sprouts popping through the soil!!!



Emily coloring on the pot with markers.

Emily adding ladybug and flower stickers to her pot.

Making the soil ~ First, Emily had to drop the seed pod into a cup of warm water.

Next, we both had to wait patiently for about 5 minutes to see what would happen. To make the time go faster we read The Carrot Seed, by Ruth Krauss. The pod tripled in size as it absorbed the water. Emily thought it was really neat that it was growing!!


Then, Emily fluffed up the soil with a fork. I helped her get it started because it was a little hard for her at first. It was all stuck together and our plastic fork was not that strong :0)

It's planting time! I added most of the soil to the pot and Emily sprinkled the celery seeds over it.


I was planning on putting the rest of the soil on top myself, however Emily insisted that she could do it and she did a great job! She didn't spill any of it...what a big girl.


Emily patted the top down with the fork.

We set it in a sunny window to wait for the seeds to sprout and grow so we can eat it!