St. Patrick’s Pokey

I wish I could take credit for this, but Emily actually did this activity at school.  I thought that it was really cute and she had so much fun with it I figured I would share it.

First they made a Shamrock Paper Plate Shaker.  All they did was staple to paper plates together and fill it with dried beans.  Then the children decorated it with a construction paper shamrock.  The Shamrock is made from 3 hearts for the leaves and a strip of paper for the stem 

On the back is the Song.  I love that her teacher always sends home the words to the songs they are doing in class so that we can do them at home too!  They used the shaker to go with the song.

St. Patrick’s Pokey

(sung to the tune of “The Hokey-Pokey”)

You put your shamrock in,

You take your shamrock out,

You put your shamrock in and you shake it all about.

You do the St. Patrick’s Pokey and you turn yourself around.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

 

You Shake your shamrock high,

You shake your shamrock low,

You shake your shamrock high; then you shake it to and fro.

You do St. Patrick’s Pokey and you turn yourself around.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

 

You Shake your shamrock left,

You shake your shamrock right,

You shake your shamrock left; then you shake with all your might.

You do St. Patrick’s Pokey and you turn yourself around.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

 

Check out other great activities for Tots and Preschoolers

Mr. Groundhog

When I was observing a pre-school class before I was a teacher I saw this project and loved it!  Last year I made one for Emily and found this cute song to go with it.  This year Emily got to help make a new one.  She loved singing and playing with the puppet again this year!!

 

I printed out a groundhog picture and reduced it to the print on a 4x6 card.  Emily colored the groundhog in with brown marker.

 

I cut out a piece of white construction paper and Emily colored it  green, then we glued it around a paper cup.  We taped Mr. Groundhog to a straw and stuck it through a hole that I poked in the bottom of the cup.

 

Emily’s Mr. Groundhog Puppet.

When we were finished we sang the Mr. Groundhog Song

Mr. Groundhog--Tune: "Frere Jacques"

Mr. Groundhog, Mr. Groundhog,

Take a peek, Take a peek.

If you see your shadow

The weather will be awful

For six more weeks, six more weeks.

 

I was so happy to get a video of Emily singing!!

Friday Art Group

Handprint Santa and Salad Spinner Art

Today it was just the two girls but we still had a lot of fun!

They started with play dough free play.  I made new peppermint play dough by adding peppermint extract to the play dough mixture.

These Handprint Santa’s were fun to make.   Emily and E love painting with their hands and fingers!

Santa’s beard is their handprint and they used their fingerprints for his cheeks, nose mouth and trim on his hat.  We added wiggly eyes and a pom pom for the hat.

We glued on this poem:

Look very closely and you will see,

That Santa’s beard was made by me.

Hang this Santa on your wall,

To remember when I was very small!

~~~~~~~~~

In between the projects we sang a cute Santa song.  I made copies of the songs so they could be practiced at home too.

I'm a Little Santa
Sung to: "I'm a Little Teapot"
I'm a little Santa short and fat,
Here is my beard and here is my sack,
On Christmas Eve I hop in my sleigh,
With a "Ho ho ho" I'm on my way.

 

I can’t wait to try these again, my friend and I thought they would make cute ornaments if they were a little smaller and maybe laminated.

I cut circles of paper to fit into the bottom of a salad spinner.  The girls used droppers to drop watered down tempera paint into the salad spinner.

 

Next we added the cover and the girls turned the handle to make it spin.  It was fun to see what happened when we opened the cover!

Handprint Paper Towel Tube Advent Wreath

Every year at the beginning of Advent we sang this Advent Candle Song with the entire Sunday School and different children would get a chance to “light” the candles. I always knew that when I had children that I would do the same thing with them in our home.

Emily and I made the advent wreath out of her handprints. The candles are paper towel tubes cut into thirds and then wrapped in colored construction paper. We use yellow tissue paper to “light” the candles.

Emily colored the green construction paper first.

She had a great time…it got all over her face!!

I traced her hands onto the green paper and then cut them all out.

Emily glued her handprints onto a paper plate that I cut the center out of.

Emil put the yellow tissue paper into the first candle as we sang the song together.

Our Advent Wreath.

I found a video of the same song that we sing so you can hear the tune! I love this song and find myself singing it all day once it gets into my head :0)

Songs That Make Juliette Smile

We do a lot of singing in our house, we have songs for nap time, snack, bath time and just for fun. Many of them are just made up to go with what we are doing at the moment and others are old favorites from when I was little. Recently I have noticed that some songs make Juliette break out into the biggest smile ever. So here are two of her current favorites.

Ham and Eggs

Ham and eggs
Ham and eggs
I like mine fried nice and brown,
and I like mine turned upside down.
Ham and eggs
Ham and eggs
Flip! flop! Flip! Flop!
Ham and eggs!

Songs for teaching have the sheet music for this song.

Boom Boom Chicka Boom

I said a boom chicka boom
[Students repeat]
I said a boom chicka boom.
[Students repeat]

I said a boom chicka rocka
Chicka rocka, chicka boom
[Students repeat]

I said a boom chicka boom.
[Students repeat]

Oh yeah (echo), uh huh (echo), next time (echo)

A little softer (echo).

A little louder...
A little slower...

A little faster...

The end!!!

Emily loves being able to help out with this song so both of them get to enjoy it!!

Our First Art Group Meeting

My friend Sarah started a Music Class over a year ago and Emily and I have really enjoyed all of the fun things she has done with the group. I love art and Sarah's Music Class motivated me to start an Art Group for the kids too.

Here is how our first Art Group went

1. We started with 15 minutes of play dough free play. I made a cinnamon scented play dough and I think all the Mommy's really enjoyed the scent. I plan on making a new batch of play dough to go with the seasons. To finish we sang "On Top of Spaghetti" while the kids practiced rolling a ball of play dough and smooshing it.

2. Next we did an open ended art project. This lasted about 10 - 15 minutes. This week we painted with feathers using fall colors. This activity is all about the process and not the product. Although I think they all looked amazing :0)

3. After we cleaned up we had a short interactive poem to introduce the craft that we would do next. We did this song about pumpkins. Each child got to hold one of the pumpkins and we sang about how their pumpkin was acting and feeling.

4. Finally we made a craft. This is a project that is supposed to look like something when it is finished. We made cute paper bag pumpkins. I found the idea for these here.

After we cleaned up the children had a snack and some play time.

We all had a great time and I am looking forward to planning more art activities for the kids!!

Music Fun for Juliette

Were going to shake and shake and shake and shake!!

While we were in the hospital I had to come up with some things to entertain Juliette with what I had in a hospital room. Every morning I ordered Cheerios for breakfast and they came in an individual serving bowl. I happened to have one left over that I was saving for a snack later in the day. Instead I used it as a shaker to sing a song and rhythm activity with Juliette that we often do at music. Juliette had so much fun watching and listening to the song she was actually giggling and smiling the whole time I was doing it.

Were Going to Shake and Shake

Were going to shake and shake and shake and shake
Were going to shake and shake until we STOP!
Shhhhhhhhh
Were going to shake and shake and shake and shake.
Were going to shake and shake until we STOP!
Shhhhhhhhh
Were going to shake and shake and shake and shake.
Were going to shake and shake until we STOP!
Shhhhhhhh

Soon Juliette will be able to join in and shake her own rattle, for now we are enjoying the Cheerio container :0)

This is the way Juliette...

...Rides Her Bike!

Juliette loves when we bicycle her legs. One day I started to sing this song to her and she started smiling and cooing. Now it is a fun game we all enjoy playing with her. Emily likes to help out by picking who's house Juliette is going to ride her bicycle too :0)

This is the Way We Ride Our Bike

(to the tune of: Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush)

This is the way we ride or bike,

ride our bike, ride our bike.

This is the way we ride our bike,

to Grandma's* house we go!

*We replace Grandma's house with the names of different friends and family members.

Since I couldn't take a picture and bicycle Juliette's legs at the same time Emily helped out for this one!

If you are interested in other Baby Fun activities check out some of the things we have already done here :0)

Yummy Yummy Watermelon!!

Emily's Fingerprint Watermelon

Emily loves watermelon so when I saw this watermelon craft on Blueberry Pancakes I knew we had to make it. Since we didn't have any watermelon with seeds I decided to have Emily make the seeds with her fingerprints instead.

Painting the watermelon with green and red paint.

Making the seeds with black paint and her fingerprints.

Emily enjoyed singing "Down By the Bay" after we finished our project.

This was one of my favorite songs when I was little!! We loved making up our ownt silly rhymes at the end.

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)

TOTSchool

Our week in TOTSchool.

Emily is 25 months old

Emily enjoyed practicing pouring with her rice tub. We used this almost every day this week!

Emily practiced making some letters and shapes in our Mess-Free painting bag.

We have been counting down the days until Easter with our Easter Lamb Countdown. Emily loves looking for the number each day and gluing a piece of cotton onto it.

Emily and I took turns reading Bible Stories to each other and Emily especially enjoyed reading to Beau!

Emily cooked all different yummy foods for Mommy. She loves pretending to cook and eat too!

We also did a lot of singing. Emily is really getting good at actually singing some of our favorite songs and she loves to do the hand motions.

Some of our favorite songs from this week were:

• Old McDonald Had A Farm ~ Emily likes to pick the animals
• If Your Happy and You Know It
• Skinamarink
• Happy Birthday To You ~ Ever since her birthday this is one of the songs we sing at least 10 times a day :0)

Our favorite books from this week:

• St. Patrick's Day Countdown ~ Salina Yoon
• Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed ~ Eileen Christelow
• If You Give A Mouse A Cookie ~ Laura Joffe Numeroff
• Little Lamb ~ Piers Harper

Check out what others are doing in their TOTSchools by clicking the button at the top of this page!!

Bubble Prints

Pop Pop...Paint!

Last night we were having so much fun singing a bubble song that we do with the parachute at Gymboree. So I thought Emily would love to do some bubble painting today. I had seen the idea for Bubble Prints in "First Art" by MaryAnn Kohl. We had so much fun we can't wait to try it again OUTSIDE!!

Emily blowing some bubbles onto the paper.

Dipping the wand into the colored bubbles.

Blowing some more bubbles onto the paper.

Here's what we did

First you need:

A large sheet of white paper

food coloring

bubbles and a blowing wand (We had a few different sizes of bubble wands that we used so we could get different sized prints)

• Divided the bubble mixture into 4 small plastic containers with lids (so I could store them when we were finished).
• Add a little bit of food coloring to each container.
• Put the paper on the floor and start blowing bubbles. Any bubbles that land of the paper pop and leave a circle mark. The little drops make a nice design too!

This project would work really well outside, but since it is still to cold to go outside we did it in the house.

Since we were working in the house I put an old plastic table cloth on the floor and then put the paper on top of that.

The song we sing at home from Gymboree with bubbles or just for fun.

Bubble Song

1 little, 2 little, 3 little bubbles

4 little, 5 little, 6 little bubbles

7 little, 8 little, 9 little bubbles

Here in Emily's house, or yard today

(For this part pop the bubbles with your hands or pretend to, we sit on a blanket and pull it up and tap the side, it is kind of like what they do if you are using the parachute)

Take your little hand and pop those bubbles

Take your little hand and pop those bubbles

Take your little hand and pop those bubbles

Here in Emily's house today.

(If you are sitting on a blanket be get off of it and then put it over our heads. This is Emily's favorite part at home and in Gymboree!)

Everyone get off we're going under

Everyone get off we're going under

Everyone get off we're going under

Here at Emily's house today