stART ~ One Watermelon Seed

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.

We have been doing a lot of planting and our seeds are starting to grow into some nice big plants.  During our last trip to the library we borrowed the book One Watermelon Seed, by Celia Barker Lottridge.  This is a  beautifully illustrated gardening counting book.  The story starts with two children planting their garden with one watermelon seed, and then two pumpkin seeds all the way to 10 seeds.  Finally they harvest 10 watermelons and then 20 pumpkins and so on.  I loved the concept that just a few seeds could give us such an abundance of wonderful fruits and vegetables! 

Since we have been talking about and growing plants Emily has been asking a lot of questions about them.   She was very curious about the parts of the plants, especially the roots.  We grew some bean plants in a clear cup so  that she was able to see the roots growing in the soil, and I am hoping to do a germination bag with her this week too.  But, for our art project she created a flower which showed all the different parts.

First, I drew some roots at the bottom of a white piece of paper with a white crayon.

Then I gave Emily some crayons and had her draw a flower, she was not in a good mood and did not want to draw so she scribbled a blob (flower) and then asked for help.  I told her we would do the flower a different way and not to worry about it, this made her happy and we were able to continue with the project.

Next she used brown water colors to color in the soil, this made the roots magically appear at the bottom of the page.  She was SO excited when this happened and kept saying “Mommy look the roots the roots!!”

When she finished with the soil, she water colored the sky blue.

Finally I gave her a bean for the seed,  a construction paper stem, leaves and flower and a circle sticker to create her flower out of.  She was much happier with this flower!

Emily’s finished flower with magic roots :)

stART ~ My New York

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 when we went to the library I was looking for books about New York City since we were going to visit my sister in law who happens to live in the city.  We have taken Emily before however she was younger, this time I was really excited because she is so much more aware.  I found the book My New York, by Kathy Jakobsen and Emily and I both really enjoyed it.  It is for older readers, however I took it out because the pictures are amazing.  I wanted to have something to show Emily before our trip (our 30 minute drive) and then to talk about and find things that we saw after and this book was perfect.  The story is actually really cute and I did read parts of it to Emily, but it would be amazing for a little bit older child.  It is about a little girl that lives in New York City telling her friend who lives in the country, but will be moving to the city all about where she lives and what there is to do.

So first we visited the city. Ever time we go into New York City I am amazed that we live so close yet it feels so far from all these amazing things!  We are literally a 30 minute drive, without traffic!  Although we are hoping to take the train in the future since Emily has been asking to take a train ride almost every day now for awhile.  Any way here are some of the fun things that we did and Emily’s stART project.

 

Emily loves horses (although she was scared of this one because it was not behind a fence) so Uncle Patrick picked her up so she could see it.

 

Daddy finishing the 5k (the whole reason we went into the city).  If you look carefully you can see me holding Juliette all the way to the left.

 

Daddy and Aunt Patty (she also ran) after the race with the girls.

After the race we visited the playground in near Battery Park.

Then we had the best surprise!!!

We took a boat ride!!! 

One of Uncle Patrick’s friends happened to be docked and when we walked by and said hello he offered to take us out for a ride :0)

 

We saw the Statue of Liberty from the boat.

Our Family in front of the Statue of Liberty

 

Our family with Aunt Patty and Uncle Patrick

And now for our stART project!!!

I printed out a picture of the Statue of Liberty and our family all together on the boat.  Then I gave Emily markers, paper, the pictures, glue and scissors so that she could make a picture of our trip.

She started by drawing the boat that we were on. 

Then she cut the picture of us out and glued us onto the boat.

Emily’s finished picture.  She added clouds the waves  and the bridge that we went under.

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!!