When I Grow Up: What Will I Be When I Grow Up? ~ Poppins Book Nook

When I was little I loved to read all of the different Little Critter Books.  I still remember sitting outside showing my Grandma how I could read the books all by myself.  So as soon as I saw the theme for this month’s Poppins Book Nook I knew that we would read When I Grow Up (Little Critter) .  Emily and Juliette love hearing about all the different jobs that Little Critter’s sister wants to have and I love the message that you can be anything you want to be.

This opened up the discusion about “What do you want to be when you grow up?” and that is always a fun thing to talk about with little kids!

Emily wants to be an Art Teacher, An Ear Piercing Girl and the Tooth Fairy (yes you read that correctly, I guess in reality one day there is a possibility that she will achieve that goal one day!)

Juliette want to be “a builder like Daddy!”

 

Check out these other creative blogs to find more “What Will I Be When I Grow Up” themed books from the other co-hosts of the Poppins Book Nook and if you have a book and activity post that fits with this month’s When I Grow Up theme, feel free to add it to the linky below.

Enchanted Homeschooling Mom ~ 3 Dinosaurs ~ To the Moon and Back ~ Planet Smarty Pants ~ Farm Fresh Adventures ~ Growing in God's Grace ~ Chestnut Grove Academy ~ Faith and Good Works ~ Learning and Growing the Piwi Way ~ The Usual Mayhem~ Preschool Powol Packets ~ Monsters Ed Homeschool Academy ~ Adventures in Mommydom ~ Teach Beside Me ~ Life with Moore Babies ~ Kathy's Cluttered Mind ~ Are We There Yet? ~ Our Crafts N Things ~ Hopkins Homeschool ~ ABC Creative Learning ~ Joy Focused Learning ~ P is for Preschooler ~ Laugh and Learn ~ A Mommy's Adventures ~ Inspiring 2 New Hampshire Children ~ World for Learning ~ The Kennedy Adventures ~ Ever After in the Woods ~ Golden Grasses ~ Our Simple Kinda Life ~ A glimpse of our life ~ Journey to Excellence ~ Happy Little Homemaker ~ Little Homeschool Blessings ~ Simplicity Breeds Happiness ~ Raventhreads ~ Water on the Floor ~ Learning Fundamentals ~ Tots and Me ~ As We Walk Along The Road ~ Stir the Wonder ~ For This Season ~ Where Imagination Grows ~ Lextin Academy ~ The Canadian Homeschooler ~ School Time Snippets ~ Peakle Pie ~ Mom's Heart ~ A Moment in our World ~ Every Bed of Roses ~ Finchnwren ~ At Home Where Life Happens ~ Suncoast Momma ~ The Library Adventure ~ Embracing Destiny ~ Day by Day in our World ~ Our Homeschool Studio ~ A "Peace" of Mind ~ Thou Shall Not Whine ~ SAHM I am ~ eLeMeNo-P Kids ~ Simple Living Mama

An InLinkz Link-up

Custom Built in Bunk Beds ~ Built with Love By Daddy!!

  Emily and Juliette each had their own room until I was pregnant with Clara.  We only have 3 bedrooms in our house so we decided that Emily and Juliette would get to share a room.  Since the bedrooms in our house are pretty small the only option was a bunk bed.  I began scouring the internet and furniture stores for bunk beds, however I couldn’t find anything that I loved and when I did find something that I at least liked I was amazed at how expensive they were. 

During my search though I did find this amazing custom double built in bunk bed, from August Fields.  It had everything that I wanted, a little shelf for the girls to put their “treasures,” a light for reading and I loved that there where stairs instead of a ladder that stuck out into the middle of the room.  After shopping around with my husband one day I came home and showed him the Pinterest board that I had put together with different bunk bed ideas.  I thought he was going to tell me I was crazy, but instead he said “I could do that.”  (Definitely one of the great thing about being married to a contractor!!) We got to work planning them right away and as we were showing the girls what we were going to do they were beyond excited for their new Bunk Beds!!

We were able to cathedral the ceilings in their room which was great because it made a small narrow room feel much bigger and we were able to make the bottom bunk bed higher so even my husband could sit in it and read with the girls without bumping his head. 

The other really great thing is that the beds are actually built in to the studs in the walls so it is probably the strongest bunk bed ever.  My husband can sit up in the top bunk with the girls to read bedtime stories without any worries.  I thought that was important because Emily was so used to having us snuggle in her bed to read at night, I didn’t want her to miss out on that!

I absolutely LOVE how their bunk beds came out!  Here you can see the steps leading up to the top bunk on the left hand side and they each have their own little  built in shelf to put their treasures on and their own reading light .

  I love that although they have to share a room, they each have their own special space in the room. 

Balloon Pit Sight Word Hunt

 

Juliette is so excited about learning how to read.  She is recognizing many different sight words so now I am looking for fun ways for her to practice them. 

We had a bunch of balloons leftover from Emily’s Lego Friends Birthday Party which I gathered into the corner to keep them away from Clara and that is when this idea came to me!  Since Juliette is an active child I knew she would love this fun way to hunt for her words.  I took 5 balloons and wrote one of the sight words we have been working with on each balloon.  Then I told her what word to find.  She loved pushing around all the balloons looking for the ones that had words on it, and she was even more excited when she found the word she was looking for!!  We will definitely be playing this gave many more times since it was a big hit.

Be sure to check out my Sight Word Board on Pinterest

What fun ways have you used to practice sight words with your children? 

If you have a post about sight words be sure to add it to the linky then check out the other great activities that have been linked up.   I can’t wait to check it out!!

Letter and Number Sticker Matching

This is a simple activity to put together that helped Juliette recognize uppercase and lowercase letters.

First, I wrote all the letters of the alphabet in capitals on colored dot stickers. Then I wrote the lowercase letters on a plain piece of paper. I did these in a random order so Juliette really had to hunt for them. Finally, she used the stickers to cover the letter matches.

This was the perfect activity for my sticker loving preschooler!!! After she finished she said "another one, another one!!"

So next we did this with numbers and dots. She practiced counting the dots and covering them with the matching number.

Penguin Shapes

Juliette made this adorable penguin craft at school while working with squares, rectangles and circles. The body is a white paper plate and the eyes are white reinforcement stickers. Then they used white shiny paper cut into squares and rectangles for the ice. She was so proud of her penguin!!

Roll and Fill a Counting Game

Check out the fun counting game that Juliette is playing…I posted all about it over at Totally Tots today!

stART ~ 10 Little Rubber Ducks

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 week I was the Special Reader for Emily’s Preschool class and I don’t know who was more excited about it, Emily or myself!   Emily and I picked out 10 Little Rubber Ducks, by Eric Carle to share with her class.  This book  was inspired by a real shipment of bathtub toys that fell off of a container ship and floated to various places.  In this story, 10 Little Rubber Ducks are made in a factory and packaged and shipped.  Then on their way over the water a fierce storm knocks a box overboard and into the ocean.  The 10 rubber ducks float in various directions until the 10th one finds a real duck and her ducklings.  I love the fun way that this book incorporates ordinal numbers, as well as directional words (over, under, north, south).  Emily, Juliette and I think Emily’s whole class LOVED the special squeaking sound that is on the last page of the book, it definitely adds a special touch especially when you are reading it to a group of kids!!

To go along with this book I set up a project for Emily to do when she came home from school.  I love Eric Carle’s illustrations so we made ducks in the ocean inspired by the cover of this book.

I gave the girls a  duck template (click on the picture above for a free download) that I drew on a piece of construction paper.  

First they glued on pieces of yellow tissue paper for the body and orange tissue paper for the beaks.

When they were finished the glued on a blue wiggly eye.

For the water Juliette decided to finger paint the piece of paper.  I gave them a few different shades of blue and some green to make it look like the picture on the cover.

Emily used the same colors, but she decided she wanted to use a brush.

When everything was dry the girls glued their ducks onto the water backgrounds.

Emily’s Little Rubber Duck

Juliette’s Little Rubber Duck

Juliette loved this project and was so proud of it, she asked if she could hang it in her room when it was ready!

Exploring Alternate Canvases ~ Sticker Balloons

I love giving the girls alternate canvases to work on.  It is a great way to have them think out of the box and use materials in different ways.

Balloons and Stickers are two things that almost every child loves so for this open ended art project I put the two together and the girls had so much fun with it.

The little kids (21 months – 2.5 years) placed the stickers all over the balloons. The older girls (5 years old) turned them into people.  They made eyes, hair, a mouth, teeth, a nose and even a bow to go in the hair all with the different shaped stickers.

After they finished their creations it was fun to use the decorated balloons to play keep it up.  They tap the balloon trying to keep it from touching the ground.  It was interesting to feel the difference between a plain balloon and one that is covered in stickers!

Bible Alive ~ Turning Water into Wine

This year I am teaching Emily’s Sunday School class at our church.  As we prepare for Easter during this season of Lent we are talking about Jesus’ miracles.  Since I love doing story and art projects (stART).  I try to do the same with the kids in my Sunday School class.  I think this helps make the story come alive and be something that they can remember and re tell a little better.

To start I read Jesus Goes to a Wedding (John 2:1-11) from Jesus for Little Ones: Illustrated Bible Stories for Children, by Charles Foster.  I like this book because the stories are written in a way that makes them easy for children to understand.  It also tells you where you can find this story in your bible so it is very easy to make the connection between the two.

After talking about the story we made the Turning Water into Wine craft from Crafts From Your Favorite Bible Stories , by Kathy Ross  to remind the children of Jesus’ first miracle.

To make this craft you will need 2 paper plates.  I cut out a curved section from one of the plates before the kids started. Then I traced around the cutout onto the bottom plate to give them a guide for coloring with the blue and red markers, but after completing the project realized you don’t need to do this, you can just have them color half of it blue and half of it read. Emily colored one half of the plate blue and the other half red.  Then she colored the top piece with the cut out green.

Next, we put the green plate on top of the red and blue plate and attached them with a paper fastener.  (I already made the holes so it was easy for the kids to do on their own.)

Finally Emily glued the brown Jug that I cut from construction paper on one side of the plate so that it looked like the water/wine was pouring out of it.

Now for the fun part,

as you turn the bottom plate around it looks like the water is…

…turning into…

  WINE!!

Check out Bible Alive! Tuesday at The Fantastic Five for some more great ways to make the Bible Come Alive as you share God’s Word with your little ones.

Wordless Wednesday ~ Letter Sort

Juliette loved this letter sort “game.'” 

Find out more by checking out my Little Hands-on ABC’s and 123’s posts on Totally Tots

Sticker Club

Juliette received her sticker club invitation in the mail today!!!  She was so excited to get her own mail, and even better in about 6 weeks she will hopefully be getting even more mail and about 36 packs of stickers too.  Mail and stickers are definitely a few of Juliette’s (possibly most children’s) favorite things!

But, she needs your help I have to send the invitation to 6 people that are willing to participate.  If you would like to be part of this fun project just contact me at KME0310@yahoo.com with your address and I will get a letter out to your little one right away.

All this requires from you is 1 pack of stickers and 7 stamps!

Muffin Tin Monday

It has been awhile since we had a Muffin Tin anyday, so when the girls asked if we could have a Muffin Tin Monday, I couldn’t say no!

I made them an extra special lunch with a yummy Banana Strawberry Smoothie.  They also had some Honey Wheat Pretzels, Avocado slices and Turkey and Cheese Roll-ups

  I think that this picture says it all…two very excited little girls!

Pattern Block Pictures

Emily and Juliette always ask to use our wooden pattern blocks, but then get frustrated when the pieces will not stay still for them to work with.  They slide all over the table and the girls end up walking away from them after a few minutes.  So, when I was cleaning out a cabinet and found a roll of  rubber drawer liners I immediately thought of the pattern blocks.  I had a long piece so I cut it in half and gave each of the girls a mat to work on. 

The pieces stuck to the drawer liner and the girls had so much fun making all different designs with the pattern blocks. 

After more than half an hour this turned into…

  …a beautiful flower with a butterfly and sun.  Emily couldn’t wait to show me her masterpiece.

Wordless Wednesday ~ She’s a hair twirler…

…even in her sleep!!

Juliette is sound asleep in this picture and stayed like this for awhile too.

Cooking with Kids ~ Cranberry Sauce

Last year we made homemade cranberry sauce for the first time and it was a lot of fun and super easy.  So this year we did it again and both Emily and Juliette were able to help with every step!

First we tested to see if the cranberries would sink or float.  After that we cut one open to see why they float and found out that there is a huge air pocket in the middle of them. 

Then we got down to business, we washed the rest of the cranberries and picked out any bad ones.

  We combined orange juice, cranberry raspberry juice and sugar and heated until the sugar was melted.  Then we added the cranberries and waited a minute.  We started to hear some popping and it was very exciting.

We all took turns stirring it until it was nice and think.  This was Emily and Juliette’s favorite part!

Cranberry Sauce

• 1 bag cranberries (12oz)
• 1 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup orange juice
• 1/2 cup  100% cranberry raspberry juice

Melt sugar into juice over medium heat.  Add rinsed cranberries and cook over medium heat for about 10-15 minutes.  Cranberries will pop as they heat up then bubble until it finally gets thick.  When finished pour into a small casserole dish and refrigerate.  Will firm up and set while in the refrigerator.

 

For more great ideas for cooking with kids check out Watcha Making Wednesdays at The Ramblings and Adventures of a S.A.H.M.

Happy Halloween!!

Costume Fun 2011

Emily the Peacock

Since last Halloween, Emily decided that she was going to be a Peacock.  We had a lot of fun making her costume.  She wore a pair of brown leggings and brown boots.  Then she wore a hooded sweatshirt (it actually has Ariel on the front of it) and a long sleeved teal shirt (to hide Ariel).  I made her feather fan from a piece of foam core board, which I covered in felt half circles in different shades of yellow and bright green.  Then I glued the peacock feathers to stick over the top.  The feather fan stayed on with elastic that I sewed into a circle and threaded through 2 holes in the middle of the foam core board so she could wear it like a backpack.  Finally I made an alligator clip for the head feathers.  I covered it in teal ribbon then hot glued 3 pipe cleaners to the middle and then hot glued pieces of black and blue feathers.

We were stopped throughout the night by other trick-or-treaters of all ages to comment on how cute her costume was!

Juliette the Ladybug

I am not sure how we decided that Juliette was going to be a ladybug, however the whole month of October if you asked her what she was going to be she knew and answered “a ladybug!”

My mom and I sewed the wings for her costume out of felt and used elastic to attach them over her arms like a back pack too.  She wore a black long-sleeved onesie and black leggings with black socks and shoes.  I knew she would never wear a headband for the antenna so I lined 2 alligator clips with black ribbon and hot glued a pipe cleaner to each one.  Then I rolled the top of the pipe cleaner into a ball.  She loves clips so they stayed on the whole day without any problem.

She loved wearing her costume.  I love that we can now add it to our dress up collection.

  Trick or Treating 

The girls loved being able to pick their own candy at the different houses!

Waiting to yell “Trick-or-Treat”

Cousin Brianna the Cat walking with Juliette…they had so much fun together!

Off to the next house for more treats!!

Once we got home Emily couldn’t wait for Daddy to dump all of her candy on top of her, I think this will be a yearly picture!!

      Then Emily sorted all of her candy!

(I used to love doing the same thing with my candy when I was little too)

Happy Halloween!!!