Having Fun Learning

  Our week in TOTSchool/Preschool

Emily is 37 months old

Juliette is 9 month old

 

Emily and her friend tried to catch “butterflies” while playing Elefun.  It is so cute to watch the running around trying to get them.  Emily realized she could let them fall and just pick them up off of the floor at one point.

 

 

I printed these Easter Bingo Dauber printables and had Emily use glass beads to cover the dot spaces instead.

We used egg shells from our Egg Shell mosaic to make these fun Easter Egg Pictures.

Emily and her friend practiced following directions while making Resurrection Rolls.  They were a really yummy treat that we will be making every year before Easter!

Emily had a great time coloring  the bunny with this fun Color by Number activity I made for her.  You can click the link for a free printable and instructions for this activity :0)

Emily cut actually cut out the dots on this cutting practice page from Confessions of a Homeschooler.  I gave it to her and when I checked on her she had cut out all three dot lines, not just along the line but cut them out!  I wish I had taken a picture she did such a great job and was so proud of herself, I couldn’t tell her all she had to do was cut along the line.  Next time I will make sure to explain more clearly!

We had some fun with Dot Stickers.

Emily enjoyed some more cutting practice.

We painted with plastic Easter Eggs.  It was really neat to see all the different pictures.  Some kids rolled them around on the paper and others broke them in half and printed with them.

We also decorated Easter Egg Cut outs with confetti.  I must have hole  punched a million little circles, but it was worth it to see so much crafting fun!!

We had some beautiful days that we were able to go outside and enjoy the new swings et that Emily got for her birthday!

I loved this picture of my two little girls watching each other!

Sarah had a great idea to use clothes pins with UNO cards.

Emily did some mazes.  Sarah put pages from a KUMON book into sheet protectors for the girls to work on.  They all did really well passing them around once they finished with them.

We did the Letter Qq and made a Quilted Q out of tissue paper.  It looked really cute when it was finished.

Emily and I LOVED making fried dough.  First they broke pizza dough into pieces.  Sarah fried it for them…

…and then Emily got to roll hers around in sugar and cinnamon!  Yummy :0)

I got Emily a Bingo Dauber from the dollar tree to use for this fun find the letter activity.  Emily LOVED doing this and wanted another one as soon as she finished it!

For our stART project we read Good Morning, Pond and made a frog out of a paper plate.

Tiny Tot School

 

Juliette had fun playing with her friends.  She loves being around all of the other kids.

I gave Juliette a crayon to explore for the first time.  Surprisingly it didn’t go in her mouth right away!!

She moved it all around the high chair tray…

…so I drew some circles to show her what it did. 

Juliette is climbing on everything.  She loves the sit and spin, just wait till she can actually use it the right way :0)

 

Juliette loved the slide, I held her as she slid down it!

The weather was so beautiful that I put out a blanket for us to sit on and explore some of the things that we found in the backyard.  Juliette loved the pine cones that Emily had collected…

 …the sticks were a lot of fun too!

 

Our favorite books from this week:

• What is Easter? ~ Michelle Medlock Adams
• Good Morning, Pond ~Alyssa Satin Capucilli
• Sitting In My Box ~Dee Lillegard
• Little People Lift the Flap Book Spring is Here ~ Reader’s Digest

Check out the great things that others are doing with their children by clicking the buttons on the top of this page!!

It’s Party Time!!!

I am excited to be joining in on the Ultimate Blog Party 2010 hosted by 5 minutes for Mom.  I started blogging a little over a year ago and am hooked.  I have “met” so many creative mommies and am so thankful for all the ideas that we have shared. My name is Michelle and I am elementary school teacher turned  stay at home mom to 2 beautiful little girls.  Emily is 3 years old and Juliette is 9 months old.  On my blog I share all the fun, creative and crafty things that we do during the day.  In June I will be married to my husband,  and best friend for 6 years.   It is because of my wonderful husband that I am able to stay home with my little girls.  They may drive me crazy sometimes, but I am so thankful for this opportunity to be with them and teach them.

I love art and crafting of all sorts, in fact I have an associates in Commercial Art and at one time really wanted to be in advertising.  In addition to that I LOVE books.  I could spend hours browsing the shelves at our local  any library or bookstore.  So to combine my two loves I decided to  host stART (A Story + Art = A great stART) every Thursday.  This gives other families a chance to do projects connected to a book that they have enjoyed and share it with everyone.   Each week I love checking out all the wonderful books and projects to go with them!

Thank you for stopping by my corner of the blogosphere and enjoy the party!!

There are so many cool prizes to be won at this year’s Ultimate Blog Party, but my top three picks would be:

1. The Grand Prize: Toshiba Satellite L505D-ES5025
2. #32 – $25 Target Gift Card
3. #31 – A $20 Amazon gift certificate

stART ~ Good Morning, Pond

  

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.

This week we read Good Morning, Pond, by Alyssa Satin Capucilli.  This book starts off with a frog leaping into the pond and waking up all the animals that live in and around the pond and ends with three children coming to see all the animals in the pond.  Emily loved acting out the different sounds and motions of the various animals in this story, of course the frog was her very favorite.  I liked that it was written in a semi cumulative story form.  It made if a lot of fun to read and easy for Emily to follow along.

I picked this book out because Emily loves frogs at the moment and I thought that she would enjoy reading a book with a frog in it and then making a frog project to go with it.  I love projects made out of paper plates so I thought it would be fun to make a frog out of one.  To go along with this book.

Paper Plate Frog

First, Emily painted the front and back of a paper plate green.

While the paper plate was drying Emily colored in black circles on the top of two green bottle tops.  (We had these in our huge bottle top collection.)

I drew and cut out frog arms and legs on green construction paper.  Emily received Do-a-Dot markers for Easter (She was so excited!!) so she wanted to color in the frogs arms and legs a little more with them. 

After all the pieces were dry,  Emily folded the paper plate in half and I made a small slit in the middle of the fold to slide the tongue which I cut out of craft foam through.   Then Emily glued on the arms, legs….

… and eyes.

Emily’s Froggy

Color By Number Activity

I came up with this fun twist on the traditional color by number coloring pages. Emily had a great time opening each egg to see what number and color each section of the picture would be.

To make this activity all you need are 6 colored plastic eggs, craft foam in colors to match the eggs and my color by number bunny printable (click on the link for a free download).

I cut out oval shapes from 6 different colors of craft foam and numbered each one from 1-6. Then I placed them inside each matching colored plastic egg.

Emily took out and egg, opened it up and colored the numbered space on the picture with the corresponding color.

Easter Fun!!

We had a great time spending time with our family celebrating Easter.  On Saturday we had the cousins come over for Pizza and Egg Coloring and an Egg Hunt.  Emily couldn’t wait for them to get here and had a great time running around and playing with them in the backyard.

On Easter the girls looks so cute all dressed up in their Easter Dresses for Church.  My favorite part of the service is the Living Cross that the congregation creates (I was so disappointed that I was not able to get a picture).  At the front of the alter their is a large cross covered in chicken wire.  At the beginning of the service each person comes up and puts a fresh flower on the cross.  It is beautiful to watch this dark empty cross bloom with life Easter Morning.  Michael lifted Emily up so that she could put her flower up near the top.  Even Juliette was given a flower to add to the cross.  I loved watching her hold it as we were waiting for our turn.  She smelled it and just rolled it between her fingers. 

 

Juliette and Grandma coloring Easter Eggs

Emily coloring eggs while Juliette watched.

Running to find the eggs.

There’s one!

Emily’s basket of eggs.

She was so excited to open her Easter Basket.  It was filled with craft goodies and some candy. 

Juliette’s Easter Basket

      Emily and Juliette in their Easter outfits after Church.

Juliette was so excited to help Emily open her Easter Present from Grandma and Grandpa.  The funny thing was that she had her very own identical present to open!!

Dot Sticker Fun

We do not have any Do-A-Dot markers or Bingo Daubers, although I really, really, really want to get a set.  However, until I get to the store and remember to by a set Emily will be enjoying those activities with Dot Stickers!!

I printed out some fun Easter Printouts and then gave Emily Dot Stickers to go with them.  She peeled them off and put them on.  It was a great fine motor activity and she had fun doing it to.   

stART ~ What Is Easter?

Welcome to stART! I hope that you will enjoy our story and art project and maybe even share your own 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.

This week we read What Is Easter, by Michelle Medlock Adams.  We have been getting ready for Easter and this is a great board book that explains to children the true meaning of Easter.  I love that it starts with all the fun things that we do around Easter, like having egg hunts, getting chocolate bunnies and  jelly beans and asks is this what Easter is?   Of course it isn’t!!  Then it goes on to tell the true meaning; that Easter is so much more special than all of that, that it is all about Jesus.

Emily made a beautiful stained glass cross art project at Mommy and Me that I think goes perfectly with this book.

 

This was a fun easy project that looks great in the window! 

To make it cut the black part out of construction paper.  Then cut a piece of contact paper in the shape of the outline of the stained glass window.  Tape the contact paper onto the table sticky side up and let your little one fill in the paper with colorful tissue paper squares.  When they are all finished press the black construction paper cross onto the contact paper and hang in the window!