Just a little fun with their piggies!

Buzz...Buzz.....Buzz. Now can we go outside and play football?

The boys were using the fort on the swingset as their fire truck. Oh what imaginations! They used jumpropes for their water hoses and hollered out orders as they put the fires out. Katie was their dispatcher. She would answer her pretend phone calls and then announce to the "men" where the next fire was! Very cute!

What a beautiful smile! I hope you all have a WONDERFUL summer and thank you so much for everything!

Good-bye for now friends!

On our last Wednesday together we talked about plants. We talked about the stems, leaves, roots, etc. of the plants and flowers that we had here. Then the kids planted seeds and we talked about what seeds and plants need to survive....soil, water, sun....and bees!

Plants and flowers need bees to help with pollination. They used Honeycomb cereal to make their own bee hives.
Charlie hard at work on his bee hive.

Even dandelions have stems, leaves, flowers and roots!

Garrett and Charlie playing together with the barn and the farm animals.

Several weeks ago we discovered that there were three robin eggs in a nest on our porch. Last week one day I peeked into the nest and saw that there were only two eggs. Later that day Alex found the lost egg broken and in the mulch near the porch.....but we still had hope for the remaining eggs.
The next day I found another of the eggs broken.....on the porch. The remaining single egg was all alone in the nest and the mother never came back. Maybe a cat? Another bird? A naughty neighborhood kid? (I know it wasn't my kids as they were so excited about the eggs and anxiously waiting for them to hatch!:)) Anyway, I decided to let the kids hold the egg. They were so excited and so gentle.

It is so blue....or is it green?
Is there a baby bird in here? Exploring, touching, questioning, growing......ahh.....childhood!

The kids made nacho dip mix to give to their moms for a Mother's Day gift. The card read...."I'm so happy she's "nacho" mommy, she's mine! giggle...giggle.... This is Garrett smelling the ground cumin before he added it to the bowl. We had to smell everything of course!

Katie is taking her turn stirring all of the spices together. We put the mix into bags with directions and a gift card. Everyone helped! Then they made cards for their mommys with their handprints. They love to have their hands painted.....it tickles! We also read a Mother's Day story about a little mouse who came up with a secret gift for his mom. He sang her a song!

After all of that work upstairs we headed downstairs to play. We hung streamers down from the chair so the boys could drive their cars through and pretend they were driving their cars through a carwash!

Of course it costs money to go through the carwash! Cha-Ching! The cash register is one of their favorite toys!
We used our flannel board when we read the story "Under the Big Red Umbrella". The kids all took turns coming up to put the animals from the story under the umbrella.

Katie making her own "magnet magic" on the serving tray!

Charlie watching carefully as he connects several magnetic items together on the tray.

I wonder how many things I can pick up with this big red magnet......hmmmm.

For our snack today we had raisins and string cheese. We had a story to go along with our raisins to make snack time..."math time". For example....You have five raisins...the raisin monster ate two of them....now how many raisins do you have? And so on......Also, they have been pouring their own drinks at snack time. This is quite an accomplishment and I am happy to say that we have not had any spills!

I just had to take a picture of Garrett helping Charlie dry his hands. How cute is that? Of course Charlie can dry his own hands (and he always does) but for some reason this Wednesday he ran out of the bathroom after washing his hands without drying them. Garrett noticed, grabbed the towel and did it for him! Now that is what friends are for!

This week they made up their own "shape designs" and we introduced two new shapes, the trapezoid and the hexagon! Those are big words for these kids!

I read them the story "It Looked Like Spilt Milk" by Charles Shaw. This book is about all of the different "things" you see when you look at clouds. The kids made their own "paint" clouds and then decided what he/she thought it looked like. They came up with some clever ideas!

For a little science fun I got out our tub of magnets! At first we just played with them. Then we did a couple of experiments with plastic fish, wooden puzzle letters, and metal paperclips. Ask your child which of these things would stick to his/her magnet. Then we tried stacking some magnets and found that sometimes they stick and sometimes they push away from each other. Then we ran our magnets under a wooden serving tray and watched the items on top of the tray move around. The magnet worked right through the tray!!! Science is fun!

I have more pictures to share with you but cannot figure out how to post more than five at a time. I will add them as a new post so you can see them.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Since playing "restaurant" was such a hit with the kids I decided to accumulate food boxes and other containers for a "grocery store". The red wagon served as a grocery cart for the shopper. Then of course we had a cashier and a bagger! They have wonderful imaginations!

We talked about the letter "M" and the sound it makes. After they came up with a list of "m" words we headed upstairs for a little "monster" business. We read three great monster books by Mercer Mayer....."There are Monsters Everywhere", "There's an Alligator Under My Bed", and "There's a Nightmare in My Closet". They loved these stories! Of course we discussed that monsters are not real so your kiddos should all sleep fine tonight!

We baked "monster" cookies. I'm not sure why they are called "monster" cookies but that is what the recipe calls them. They are oatmeal, peanut butter, m&m, and chocolate chip cookies. I guess it is just easier to say "monster" cookies! The kids dumped all of the ingredients in the mixing bowl and did MOST of the mixing. While the cookies baked we watched another clip from the "Kids for Character" video. Today it was about "respect". Ask your child what respect means.
While the cookies cooled we made our own crazy monster creations! Notice the "p" on Harrison's monster. He did not plan this, it just turned out this way! They worked very hard on their monsters and I think they turned out great. After our cookie and banana snack we headed outside to enjoy the beautiful weather!

We had so much fun "cooking" last week that I decided we should do it again this week.....and maybe every week! We reviewed the letter "p" and the sound it makes. Then we made our own personal pizzas!
Before we started cooking we read the story " The Little Red Hen Makes a Pizza". She discovered that her friends didn't want to help make the pizza but they did want to help eat it. Then when it was time to do the dishes and clean up they all decided they needed to pitch in and do their part.

We read this story for two reasons. First, we were going to make pizzas just like the Little Red Hen and second, we talked about being helpful and doing our share of the work. Even though these kids are young and their hands are small, they can do many things. We talked about families and how everyone in a family has a job to do. We traced our hands and cut them out. We glued them onto a sheet of paper titled "My Helping Hands" and then they told me what their hands can do to help out. They listed jobs like picking up toys, getting dressed, helping with younger siblings. We read a story called "We Help Mommy" and discussed what kind of "work" they can do around their houses.

We learned a new song today that was sung to the tune of "Mary Had a Little Lamb". Each time we sang it we inserted a different child's name. They each loved hearing us sing a song with his/her name in it. We also inserted a line in the song that told what each child liked to do with his/her family. I hope you all get a chance to sing the song your child brought home and insert your own ideas!
When my sons were very young we bought them a VHS tape called "Kids For Character". It is a wonderful video that talks about being a good person. I think there are seven different short stories on the tape that each last ten minutes or so. We watched one of the stories today (while our pizza was cooling off) called "Caring". It was about a boy who yelled at his friend for breaking their limbo stick and ruining the game. The boy who gets angry ends up feeling just as sad at the one who gets yelled at. They sing songs in each story that teach a lesson. I tied this in by talking about feelings and how families and friends need to care about each other. Your children LOVED this short story and wanted to watch it again! We just watched it one time but I told them that maybe we can watch one short story each week. They talk about trustworthiness, fairness, etc. These children are still learning and it is so difficult not to be selfish when you are so young but I truly believe that they "get it". It is obvious to me that they care about each other......even when they don't want to share......

Then we headed outside and struggled to walk against the wind as we made our way to the swings!

This week we introduced the letter "P" and had all sorts of fun with it. First the kids finger painted with chocolate pudding....yes, we have done this before but when you are three or four you just can't get enough of this activity! Smear, lick, smear, lick.....and so on! They were making mud puddles for their "P"igs! Garrett is carefully painting his piggy that he is going to put in his pudding puddle! We also took out our pink and purple markers and colored construction paper "P's". PPP!

When we were done painting we went on a "P"icnic and only ate the food that started with the letter "P". The kiddos were great at making the"p" letter sound and finding the "p" foods in the basket. As you can see from the picture, these "p" foods were not real but have no fear.......we did manage to work in a real "p" food.....

"Pigs in a blanket"........they rolled up their sleeves, washed their hands, and put on their chef hats! They made their own snack. Some of the pigs were wrapped a little more neatly than others but they all tasted the same! Yum! They ate yummy "p"eaches too!

After all of that hard work they enjoyed some well deserved play time! They had so much fun playing restaurant. They each had a job to do and took turns with the different roles. In the above picture you can see the paper and pen by Charlie. He was the waiter and scribbled out Garrett's order. Garrett was the customer and Katie was a server. Harrison was there too, he was the cashier! Cha-Ching!

Charlie is taking his job very seriously from the looks of this picture. I'm not sure what he is saying but he has cash in his hands! This in no time for monkey business!

Every week I find myself smiling as I listen to these children talking to each other. They have become friends and truly care about each other. Here they are waiting in line to wash up after our project.

The boys are reading a book while they wait for Katie to finish washing her hands.

We talked about spring weather today. The kids made paperplate umbrellas and marched around the room chanting "It's raining, it's raining, oh me, oh my, but my umbrella will keep me dry!"

We made flowers from cupcake liners and popsicle sticks. They added a sun, rain, and grass.......because we all know that those are the things flowers need to grow!

Today we read a book about opposites and looked at pictures of opposites. Then they learned the "Opposites Cheer".......

Hello Everybody.....Come on over here.....we are going to say the opposites cheer.....I'll say "hot" ......you say "cold".......Hot......Cold......Hot ......Cold! I would point to the children when it was their turn to shout out their word! Try it at home!

I went to an Early Childhood conference at UW-Platteville this past weekend. I heard a couple of wonderful speakers. One guy who spoke was Stuart Stotts. He is a children's song writer from Madison. He talked about music in the lives of children and the LACK of music in many homes. It was very interesting. I bought his CD and sang several songs with the kiddos today. It might take a couple of weeks but your child should be coming home with some new songs soon! There are FIVE Wednesdays this month so we should have plenty of time to learn some fun new songs!

Happy Day! See you next week!

Another wonderful Wednesday was had by all. It just amazes me how much these kids have grown socially over the past few months. They are so much better at sharing, working together for a common goal (racetrack and tunnel building!), asking nicely and taking turns, etc. They are doing great!

If you remember from an earlier post, I read "The Three Little Pigs" to the kids and they loved it. They loved to huff and puff while I read the story. Well, lucky me, I happened to find a great set of "The Three Little Pigs" wooden puppets (with scenery!) when I was shopping one day and couldn't wait to share them with the kids! They had so much fun with them! Did I mention that they were marked down to $3!!! What a steal! I clutched the box to my chest and dashed to the checkout lanes......just kiddin'! Okay, maybe not, but anyway, the kids had fun pretending that they were the three pigs and the wolf.


I narrated as the kiddos maneuvered their puppets from house to house as they escaped from the big mean wolf!

Notice the wolf knocking at the front door of the brick house! Not by the hair of our chinny-chin- chins chorused the pigs!

Can you guess what character Garrett was pretending to be? He was really huffing and puffing!

After our puppet play we had an Easter egg hunt in the family room! So many eggs, only two hands! The kids were SOOO good about sharing and finding eggs for each other. They are so sweet! Of course, we COUNTED all of the eggs.

Oops! I forgot to rotate this picture! We played "Elefun" to get those little bodies moving. For those of you who are not familiar with this game the children get a net and have to try to catch the butterflies that float out of the elephant's trunk. Sounds easier than it is! They stretch and reach, dash and swoop in their attempt to snag a butterfly. I can hardly wait until we can get outside and run through the backyard chasing real butterflies!