Monday's Discovery

One of Kaleb's favorite books lately has been Panda Bear, Panda Bear, What Do You See? by Eric Carle. It is a board book that I recently brought from the states. Last year, I was so excited when I found this book as well as Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What Do You Hear? in the board book format at a booksale here. I brought them home and low and behold, they were both in Spanish! So, when I found Panda Bear at the Goodwill, I knew I had to bring it back (since at the moment, I don't read Spanish). I only wish that I found the Polar Bear one as well!

Can you tell we are cutting molars? Kaleb loves to look at and chew/drool over this book. I love that it is a board book and he can do that without damaging it.

He is asking....will you read it, please?

We read this book together and I make animal sounds which he thinks are funny, especially the penguin and the buffalo! This is a great book with awesome pictures.

Picture by Keke

I found this picture taken by Keke. She's pretty good, huh? Enough said.

Our Train Table (IKEA style)

I have been wanted to create a train table for J and eventually Kaleb but it was put on the back burner until I got home from the states. It just so happened that we were looking around the mark-down section of IKEA (love that place) and we found an awesome table to use for our idea. It wasn't a bad price either.

DH and I found a coffee table that had a piece of wood at the bottom which could be taken out. (sorry no before pics) So, DH went to work. It took several trys to figure out a good plan for the track, then he and DDs (Keke and J) painted the top. DH then screwed down the track to keep it attached to the board.

We attached handles on both sides for ease of removing from the table. We also glued some rubber shelf paper on the bottom so the train part of the table wouldn't scratch the top of the coffe table. This is a picture of the train track under the coffe table (above).

Here is the final product-our train table. Now, J can play with the train and not take up my entire living room floor. Then, when she is done, it is easily stored underneath the coffee table. Kaleb is just itching to pull himself up when she is playing with the trains. Right now, he will just have to settle for the occassional piece he can snatch from the top when she isn't looking! I think it turned out cute and I love the way we can store it under the main part of the table. I get a two for one!

Night of the Moonjellies (part2)

We are still working on Night of the Moonjellies by Mark Shasha. Some of our art projects this week were....

J made a sign for our in-house restaurant Mar-Gra's. We will be serving hamburgers and hot dogs along with vanilla milkshakes. J will be the waitress and , lucky me, I am the short order cook. Our restaurant will be on our balcony with a view of the ocean, thanks to J's scenic picture.

We sponge painted an ocean scene complete with moonjellies. Then we took the moonjelly pictures off and ended up with this...

We created an ocean sensory bag using a ziplock, foam ocean creatures, sand, glitter, a couple of pumps of hand soap, a couple of drops of blue food coloring, and some water.

I taped the ziplock closed in case of a leak. J actually liked playing with this but if I was to make it again, I would omit the handsoap. I don't think you need the bubbles for the ocean. I am going to let Kaleb play with this while he is sitting in his high chair. I will have to watch him. I want to make sure he doesn't bite it. That could be a disaster.

We reviewed our numbers for math using whale counters (really whale erasers I found at the dollar store).
What did Kaleb learn this week? Well, he learned how to take the top off a marker and eat the marker! (He didn't swallow it, just licked the ink, at least it is non-toxic.)

Sorry, no picture of the blue mouth, maybe next time.

Night of the Moonjellies (part1)

This week's book is Night of the Moonjellies by Mark Shasha. It is a picture book about a seven year old boy who spends his summers helping out in the hot dog stand that his Grandmother owns. On the way, one morning, he finds a jelly looking creature that he collects to show his Grandmother. He finds out it is a moonjelly and, after a long day at the stand, they take a magical trip to release the moonjelly where he belongs.

Using J's playsilks, I tied them around her waist and turned on some music. She pretended she was a moonjelly and danced all around.

More dancing.

J made one eyed robots using our wood pieces from our Handwriting Without Tears kit. We are beginning our handwriting adventure so we will see how it goes. She likes to play with the wood pieces.

We read about the Pledge of Allegiance and we cut pictures from a magazine showing people with freedoms. This isn't part of Five in a Row but something I added. I wanted J to learn about her home country so we are learning about the United States. Last week, she learned about the American flag.

She glued the pictures onto an outline of America.

We played a memory game with creatures from the ocean. This week, we will be reading all about moonjellies and ocean creatures.

How to Make an Apple Pie....(math)

This is the final installment for How to Make an Apple Pie and See the World by Marjorie Priceman. Our last day with the book involved math skills. I made some paper apple pies and we invited our stuffed animals over for a piece of pie. Oh, but how do we give everyone a fair piece of the pie? We learned about fractions (loosely) and how to give everyone a fair share.

J cut apples for the apple pie.

J is finishing the crust while Kaleb kept himself busy....

He had jumped the doorframe into our pantry...

Our apple pie fresh from the oven.

We worked with measurements - cups and teaspoons. We used our rainbow rice to measure and pour.

And we checked on our Science experiment -

and guess what was left - salt! We tasted the salt.

And we worked with a subtraction rhyme of Five Red Apples in the Tree. We had an eventful week learning about apples, different places around the world, evaporation, measurement, and so on...Not bad for the first week of school, huh? See you next week.

Here are some resources for the book:
HomeSchoolShare - great website, lots of free lapbooks to create for all ages and subjects

The HomeSchool Mom another great website with other ideas for the book.

2 Teaching Mommies they have some awesome ideas and free units to download. They are currently updating some of their units and making the downloads easier in one shot!

Along the Way this apple pie playdough looks great. I didn't do this because I found it after we did the unit. I may still try this for fall. I love apple pie smelling candles, I imagine I would love the apple playdough.

Delightful Learning this lady puts me to shame. I only wish I did half of what she did with her kids! I found this post after we finished as well. I was disappointed because she has some great ideas.

Confessions of a Homeschooler this is a great post of A is for Apple things to do.

Mrs. Nelson's Class some really great ideas.

First Grade Parade more great ideas with printables as well.

Monday's Discovery

Yesterday's post explained how J and I dyed playsilks. So, now I get to show you them in action...


I placed all of the pocket scarves into a tissue box and let Kaleb go.

and we played and played and drooled and drooled...

and then he came after me...

I think he likes the playsilk box. Not sure how long the tissue box will hold up but I can always find another one.