Ghost Town at Sundown :The Wild West~Poppins Book Nook

 

Emily loves reading and is working her way through the Magic Tree House series.  I love these books because they combine fiction with non-fiction to create a fun story that children can actually learn from.  For this month’s Wild West theme she read Ghost Town at Sundown (Magic Tree House).  In this book the Magic Tree House whisks Jack and Annie back to a ghost town in the Wild West around the 1880’s. They meet a mustang herder named Slim and also some rattlesnakes, horse thieves, a lost pony, and even a ghost.

Both Emily and Juliette had fun decorating their own Cow Girl Boot to go along with this book and the Wild West theme. 

I found a great Cowboy Boot Template that the girls used as an outline. I set them up with our box of markers and bin of collage materials and let them decorate however they wanted to. 

Ready for some more Wild West fun? Then be sure to check out the co-hosts of Poppins Book Nook and if you have a book and activity post that fits with this month’s Wild West 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

Tops and Bottoms: Folktales ~ Poppins Book Nook

 

This month the girls and I had so much fun reading a bunch of different folktales.  Our favorite was definitely Tops & Bottoms !!  This is a trickster tale about a rabbit who tricks a lazy bear by growing veggies on his land and offering the bear of a choice of which part of the plant he wanted.  The girls were amused by how the rabbit kept giving the bear the less desirable part of the plants.

After reading this book we were busy planting our own garden and talking about the different parts of the plants that we eat.  Now we can’t wait for everything to grow!!!

Check out these other creative blogs to find more “Folktale” themed books and activities

Enchanted Homeschooling Mom ~ 3 Dinosaurs ~ To the Moon and Back ~ Planet Smarty Pants ~ Farm Fresh Adventures ~ Growing in God's Grace ~ Chestnut Grove Academy  ~ 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 ~ 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

Little People Lift-the-Flap Cars, Trucks, Planes and Trains and Magic Tree House Tonight on the Titanic: Sorting Land, Air and Water Transportation ~ Poppins Book Nook

This month the theme for the Poppins Book Nook  was Planes, Trains and Automobiles.  We enjoyed reading the Fisher-Price Little People Lift-the-Flap Cars, Trucks, Planes and Trains.  Emily read the book to Juliette and they both have fun looking under the flaps to see different pictures.  Since this was an easy book for Emily to read she also read Magic Tree House: Tonight on the Titanic.  She is currently working her way through the Magic Tree House series and was so excited to be up to this book and it fit in perfectly with our Transportation theme this month!

For our project the girls sorted different types of Air, Land and Water transportation which we turned into a little art project to make it a little more fun. 

This was nice and easy.  We used green and blue construction paper to make the sky, land and water. 

Then I printed some transportation clip art from the computer and then had the girls cut them out and glue it onto the construction paper in the correct spot. 

Finally, they decided that it would be fun to add the details in with crayons.

     Emily’s Transportation Sort (7 years old) Juliette’s Transportation Sort (4 years old)

 

Check out these other creative blogs to find more “Planes, Trains and Automobile” themed books and activities

Enchanted Homeschooling Mom ~ 3 Dinosaurs ~ To the Moon and Back ~ Planet Smarty Pants ~ Farm Fresh Adventures ~ Growing in God's Grace ~ Chestnut Grove Academy  ~ 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  ~ 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

Recycle Every Day ~ stART

 

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!

This week we have been talking about Earth Day and ways that we can help do good things for the Earth.  Emily and Juliette  really enjoyed Recycle Every Day!, by Nancy Elizabeth Wallace.  This is a great story about a little bunny, Minna who needs to make aposter about recycling for school.  She wants her poster to be picked to be in the Community Recycling Calendar.  Her family helps her learn about the different things that they do to recycle each day of the week.  Finally, she is inspired to create her poster. 

I loved the theme of this book, because all of the different ways that Minna and her family recycled are things we can and in many cases already to in our home.  Emily liked seeing the bottle returns since we just recently took a huge bag to our recycling center.  We also use our tote bags when we go food shopping.  

I also love the illustrations in this book the last page has a list of the different recycled papers and materials that are used throughout the book.  We are working on collecting them so that we can use them to make our own pictures.

For today’s project we made a Puffy Paint Earth Day craft.  I got the idea for this project on Pinterest from Itsy Bitsy Learners.  

Emily’s Puffy Paint Earth

These were fun and easy to make, first I cute out the hearts for the girls, then the girls traced and cut out their handprints.  Emily traced hers and Juliette cut out one while I cut out the real ones (she likes to just cute everything into really small pieces, but it was still good practice in using the scissors!)

  Juliette’s Puffy Paint Earth

Next I gave them each a paper plate and some green and blue homemade puff paint.  First they painted the green on to look like the land and I microwaved it to make it puff up.  Then they painted the blue for the water and I microwaved it to make it dry and puff up.

Finally they glued on the hands and heart to show that they love the Earth.  This was a fun project and looks so cute hanging up for Earth Day!

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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!

Also, be sure to 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. 

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!

stART ~ The Christmas Story

 

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 and would like to be added to the list, leave me a comment and let me know.

This week we have been talking a lot about Christmas.  Emily is very excited to be in the Christmas Pageant both at her school and at our church.  We have especially enjoyed The Christmas Story, retold by Jane Werner Watson.  This Little Golden Book has beautiful illustrations by Eloise Wilkon that help the story come to life.

I was thinking about a project to do for this book, when Emily came home with this perfect one from school.  I liked it so much that I want to do it with the children in my Sunday School class.

I ordered the Nativity Stickers from oriental trading back in October and was just going to have the kids put them on a piece of construction paper, but I loved the idea of using the plastic plate.  Emily loved it because it was something different than we would normally use she couldn’t wait to find a place to hang it when she got home from school.

There are more than 25 stickers so this could also be a fun Advent activity, where you add a different sticker to the picture each night.  Maybe next year :)

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.

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

Read and Stamp

Emily is so excited that she is starting to read so I thought that she would have a lot of fun with this read and stamp activity.

My dad found this Melissa & Doug Baby Farm Animals Stamp Set at our Church’s White Elephant Sale last year for a really great price.  I tucked it away and thought it would be the perfect thing to use for this activity. 

I folded a piece of white paper to make 8 even spaces.  At the top of each box I wrote the directions.  For example, I see 4 red pigs.

  First, Emily read the directions.

  Then she used the animal stamps to fill in the boxes.

Emily was so careful to pick the right stamp, the right color and to count as she was stamping the animals throughout this whole activity.  She did this whole activity on her own.  When she had trouble with any of the names of the animals she looked at the stamps that she did not use yet and made the sound of the first letter of the name to help her figure it out.

This activity can also be done with farm animal stickers.  I just noticed that I have a set in my sticker box, so I might try it another day that way!

 

For more great activities for preschoolers click on the buttons below:

stART ~ The Very Best Daddy of All

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.

We had a great time celebrating Father’s Day this week.  I got The Very Best Daddy of All , by Marion Dane Bauer for Emily to give to Daddy for his second Father’s Day.  This is a sweet story that tells how different animal daddies are special to their children.

After reading this book we made Daddy a special Father’s Day Card since we think he is the Very Best Daddy of All!!  I saw the idea for this card on Thrifty Fun and knew it would be the perfect card for Emily to make this year.

To make the card I folded a piece of green construction paper in half and then cut out a heart shape.  From the scraps I cut out 2 shapes for the collar and one for the pocket.  I also cut a tie shape out of a piece of white paper.

Emily colored in the tie however she wanted.  While I was getting the stuff together Emily finished coloring the tie so I didn’t get a chance to get any pictures.

She added a special message under her tie for Daddy.  She did this all by herself before it was glued on.  I was so excited that the letters were the right direction when you flipped the tie up!  I had planned on gluing the whole tie down, but I actually like this idea much better :0)

Inside I wrote the Message to Daddy and Emily helped write “To Daddy and Love”

Somehow her name ended up on the top instead of under the Love, but Daddy still understood who it was from!