We Love Our Library!

 

I grew up in the town that we now live in and have such fond memories of our library.  It has looked pretty much the same since I can remember, but it is so special to see Emily and now Juliette enjoying the same things that my sister and brothers and I enjoyed so many years ago and hope that they will both love the library as much as I still do today!

  

The girls love playing with the bead maze table.  I love that I can look at the books in this area while they play.  It is sectioned off with bookcases so the children have a special place to play.

The chairs are also a lot of fun.  The kids always have fun playing with them.  They have on many occasions been lined up and turned into a make believe train!

   

The carpeted steps are the other awesome part of the children’s section.  All the children love climbing, playing and reading on these steps.  As you can see Emily and Juliette had a great time on them :0)

There are also lots of fun puzzles and games to choose from. 

Emily loves picking out the large floor puzzles to do here.

This picture should probably be first, since this sitting area is actually at the entrance to the children’s section, but we always visit it as we are leaving.  It is shaped like a carousel and there are lots of cushioned seats to sit on and read.  It was my favorite part of the library when I was little and I love that Emily gets to sit on it and read just like I did!!

Thank you to Christianne @ Little Page Turners for hosting this fun link up.  Be sure to click on the link to check out all of our friends libraries too!

Having Fun Learning

Our Week Having Fun Learning Together!

Emily is 38 months old and Juliette is 10 months old

 

During Music Class Sarah introduced the kids to the piano/keyboard.  Emily was very excited about this and followed Sarah’s direction once it was her turn at the keyboard.  She loves listening to and watching my mom play the piano and is so excited to learn how to play herself, even though right now we are just starting out with very very basic concepts.

 

We made pumpkin bread with our friends at Sarah’s house.

 

The girls did a find the V letter hunt with the bingo dauber.

 

We did a listening and following directions activity/game that went really well.  I am excited about doing more of these kind of activities to strengthen their listening skills.  It also reinforced placement concepts (ie. under, above, in…)

   I made another Which One of These Is Different printable for the girls to do since they liked the other one.  In this one they had to find the different shape.   I had Emily point to the one that was different, tell me why and then circle it.  She did really well with it. 

We worked on patterns with these printables from Confessions of a Homeschooler.

 

We did the letter V and made a Vase with foam and felt flowers.  It came out really cute, I can’t believe that we are almost finished with our alphabet book! 

Emily painted with bug sponges.

 Emily LOVES frogs and her friend got her this cute Melissa & Doug Funny Frog Gamesfor her birthday.  We brought it to Aunt Jennifer’s house and everyone had fun playing it.  It was good practice with colors and taking turns.  Each player spun the spinner and then had to through their frog onto that color lily pad.

For our stART project we read Splish, Splash, Spring and Emily drew a picture of herself with a rain hat and umbrella.

 

Emily helped me fold towels.  She always asks to do the little ones so I give her the washcloths, hand towels and dish towels to fold.

 

Tiny Tot School

Juliette has been very busy!!  She went to Mother Goose Time at the library again this week and had a great time.  She is always on the go and I can’t believe how daring she is, she wants to walk so badly.  I also noticed that she is gesturing so much more recently.  She is pointing and waving at things that she wants or likes.  She practically lunges out of my arms if she sees something that she wants to get closer to.

Juliette is very strong she was pushing Emily on this lion walker. 

The babies watching the big kids at the keyboard.

 

Aunt Christina trying to get Juliette to walk, it really looked like she was going to let go and walk to the froggy!

Juliette “helping” fold clothes, she loved playing in the laundry basket.

Juliette and her friends hanging out in the play pen.

 

Our favorite books from this week:

• Rosie’s Walk ~ Pat Hutchins
• Splish, Splash, Spring ~ Jan Carr
• The Amazing I Spy ABC ~ Ken Laidlaw
• Little Lamb: Finger Puppet Book ~ Chronicle Books

Check out the great things that others are doing with their children by clicking these buttons!!

stART ~ Splish, Splash, Spring

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 so that everyone can see all the other great projects that everyone shares too! The linky will be open all week.

I added a stART tab in my navigation bar to make it easier to search for past stART projects. Be sure to check it out!! All the books that we have read and did a stART project for are listed in alphabetical order.

It has been a very rainy week so we have been reading Splish, Splash, Sprint by Jan Carr. This is a great rhyming story about three kids that explore all the fun things that happen on a spring day in the rain.

I planned on having Emily draw a picture to put out in the rain so that she could how the rain would blend all of the colors however once Emily started drawing she did such a great job of drawing herself in the rain with a rain hat and umbrella I didn’t want the picture to get ruined. Thank goodness Emily agreed and we just kept the picture. We will probably try another rain picture on another rainy day :0)

Emily working on her rainy day picture. It is so much fun to see her drawing people and adding lot’s of details to her pictures.

Emily’s finished picture.

It is a picture of her with a rain hat and an umbrella.

Listening and Following Directions Can Be Fun!!

Oh my goodness does Emily need to work on listening and following directions.  I usually have to repeat myself 5 times before she begins to do something that I ask her to do.  I know as a teacher that you should not keep repeating yourself, because then it just becomes a habit and then there is really no need to listen the first time since it will be repeated over and over and over.  So I will be working on that for myself and in the meantime I made up this activity, which turned out to be a fun game for the girls!

First I printed out this shape mat that I made to go with the activity (you can click on the picture above for a free download).  Then I got out three objects that I could have the girls manipulate(this time we used 3 mega blocks in 3 different colors, but any objects that you can describe will work ie. little people, counting bears, bottle tops…)

The girls placed everything in front of them.  We started by talking about names of the shapes on the mat and the colors of the blocks.

Then they had to follow our directions to place the colored  blocks on the correct spot on the mat.  At first we repeated ourselves and then we reminded them to listen because we were only going to say it one time.  Once they were all used they cleared them off and we started again.

Some of the directions they had to follow were:

• Pick up the purple block and put it on the circle.
• Pick up the green block and put it on the square.
• Pick up the red block and put it on the heart.
• Pick up the red block and put it under the square.
• Pick up the purple block and put it above the circle.
• Pick up the green and purple block and put it on the circle.

I was really happy that all the girls seemed to enjoy this activity, it will be a great way to practice listening skills and following directions as well as reinforcing placement concepts too!

 

This is being shared at:

 

Happy Mother’s Day

 

Before you were conceived I wanted you,

Before you were born I loved you,

Before you were an hour old I knew I would die for you !

February 13, 2007 ~ Holding Emily for the first time

May 13, 2007  ~ My first Mother’s Day with Emily

 

July 9, 2009 ~ Seeing Juliette for the first time

May 9, 2010 ~ My first Mother’s Day with Juliette

 

   Me and my beautiful girls on Mother’s Day 2010

(I love that Emily insisted on having pink baby in our Mother’s Day picture)

Having Fun Learning

 

Our Week Having Fun Learning Together!

Emily is 38 months old and Juliette is 9 months old

Emily got to wear her new ballet slippers to Ryleigh’s birthday party.  Emily had fun trying out different ballet moves and dancing all around!

 

Daddy’s friend had a very cool bowling birthday party and Emily got to bowl for the very first time.  She really enjoyed it even though her ball went really really really slow! 

We baked Zucchini Muffins at Sarah’s house.  This was great practice following directions as well as, mixing, pouring and scooping!

 

We made Umbrellas for the letter Uu, I can’t believe we are almost finished with our Alphabet books.  They look so cute!!

 

Emily enjoyed checking out her beans every day so far.  They have sprouted and even have their first 2 leaves already!  Hopefully we will be able to plant them in the garden soon.

 

Emily worked on this cut and paste sorting activity that I made for her.  She loves cutting out the different pictures and gluing them in the correct spot.

I made Emily a green tutu to so that she could practice her ballet moves and have fun dancing around the house.  She loved it so  much she insisted on wearing it to Aunt Jennifer’s house for dinner!!

 

Emily made a paper plate ladybug after reading I Love Bugs! for our stART project this week.

We planted some cucumber and zinnia seeds since it has been so nice out this week.  Emily liked poking the hole for the seeds to go in.

  I was working on teaching Emily how to pump on the swing so that we won’t need to push her all the time.  She said she would rather we push her so she didn’t really try very hard to learn how.

We have been doing a shape theme for Art Group, this week was squares so we made Popsicle Stick Frames for Mother’s Day too!  The girls had a great time and they came out so cute.

While Emily was at Grandma’s they played this cute domino game my mom had from discovery toys.  Emily totally understood how to play and she got so excited when she could make a good match!

Tiny Tot School

 

Juliette loves the dolphin swing.  She usually holds on to the yellow and giggles as she is swinging!

Juliette is old enough for the library class now.  We sing songs together, read a book and then get to play with all the fun toys that they have.  Here she is talking on a pretend phone (actually it is a plastic piece of mail,  she is just using her imagination, maybe I talk on the phone way to much!!)

 

Playtime with Braeden, they both got into the music bin!

Juliette is oblivious to the photo shoot going on around her, finger castanets are much more interesting!

Juliette looks adorable in Emily’s tutu, she loved feeling the tulle between her fingers!!

My little climbing girl, she goes directly for the stairs as soon as I put her on the floor!

Me and my cutie pie, I was blowing into her hair and it made us both giggle!!

Juliette also spends a lot of time playing in the kitchen set, she is always busy dumping the buckets of food and  carrying things around with her!

 

Juliette showing her friend how to walk around the play pen!  She was having so much fun with her :0)

  

Our favorite books from this week:

• I Love Bugs! ~ Emma Dodd
• The Giving Tree ~ Shel Silverstein
• Sitting in my Box ~ Dee Lillegard
• Where is Baby’s Belly Button ~ Karen Katz

 

Check out the great things that others are doing with their children by clicking these buttons!!