Monday's Discovery

This Monday, my Kaleb discovered play dough. He discovered that it isn't good to eat, that it is good for poking, and smashing. This is the first time I gave him play dough and now I know why. If you don't keep a good eye on him, into the mouth it goes. I was helping J with her painting and in a sec, he was chewing it, then spitting it out. Yuck!

 Always the finger, testing things out...

Funny, I didn't get a pic of him eating it, I was too busy scraping it off his tongue - eww. We will revisit this again some day. I love to see something new in his eyes.

A Pair of Red Clogs

We started a new book this week, A Pair of Red Clogs by Masako Matsuno. It is about a little girl who gets a brand new pair of red clogs but she plays the weather game and cracks them. The little girl then tries to hide it from her mother. She feels awful and learns the value of honesty. This book takes place in Japan so we will be learning a little about Japan. J began by coloring some Japanese dolls to cut out.

J took her time coloring the dolls and cutting them out.  I haven't done sensory bins in awhile since we have the colored rice, salt, and bean bins that J plays with. So, I decided to put together a sensory bin for the month of February. I gathered some heart shaped beads, pipe cleaners, pom poms, heart shaped stickers, silk flowers, and pipe cleaners. I put it all together and gave J some containers to play with. She played with this bin for a good hour. 

I would like to give this to Kaleb to play with but it has too many small pieces. I will be making him a large noodle bin soon for him to pour and scoop. He seems to want to be in the middle of what we are doing so I need to come up with some ideas to keep him occupied while we are working. More on that later...On to our school week.

In Kindergarten, J is supposed to be able to identify all of the numbers through 100. So we are focusing on numbers and number order. This week we are working on the number 1 through 10. I made two sets of cards and we have matched them while saying the numbers and J has worked on what number comes before and after. She definitely knows her numbers to 20 but I want her to be able to recognize through 100.

One of our sight words this week is the. J is decorating the word the with wings, eyes, and feet. We hang these pictures in the hallway in order to review her sight words.

We played a sight word matching game. I will be adding more words as we learn them.

And we used our letter beads to make the words we know. I forgot that these beads did not come with all of the letters so we had to make do with some. For this activity again I will use other letter beads that I have. We are still learning about Japan and reading our book, The Red Clogs. Have a good day.

A Year of Finished Projects

I have officially declared this year - the year of finished projects. I have a a basket full of unfinished projects - quilts, crafts, etc... - that I will finish this year. It started with finishing the nativity at Christmas. Yeah, it was technically last year but I feel the need to finish all of the projects that I have been working on. So, I am sharing some finished projects so far. The silly thing is that these weren't projects in my project bin. I saw them and just had to try them out. So, I actually added to the project bin but I also finished them, so I am back where I started, right? Here are my finished projects so far....

I saw this quilt pattern here and I knew that I could make it without the pattern. It was easy enough and I used scraps of fabric that I already had so the project didn't cost me a thing. It doesn't look exactly like the original but it turned out okay. It is a smaller version and is now hanging in my hallway.

This was something I saw on another blog and it looked easy enough to finish in a day. I made the pattern 50% smaller than the original. It was a lot harder than expected but I perservered and finished it. I can't say that I will be doing this type of piecing again. I used my scraps, actually I used the scraps from the Hungry Caterpillar quilt that my mom made for J. I knew I wanted it to be bright but for some reason, most of my scraps are pink. (I know why, I made J a duvet cover and it seems all I have is pink.) This is small and it turned out cute. But it was a pain to make. Two finished projects down and ? to go. I also had time to start the binding on my table runner and stuff some animal toys for Kaleb. I had a busy day today. I hope I can keep it going....and finish all of my projects without adding too many more.

Monday's Discovery

This week's discovery is a quiet moment on the couch. I was cleaning the kitchen after lunch one day and I came into the living room to this....

Why is this so special? Well, usually when they get on the couch, they are jumping on each other or J is trying to watch a movie and Kaleb is pulling her hair for attention. Today, they were just sitting, no fighting, no hair pulling, just sitting. One reading, the other playing with toys. It was great, it was special. It reminded me that not all of their days will be fighting, just some of them.

Monday's Discovery

This week's discovery was a simple one. I had seen this recipe for Nutella Ice Cream on Pinterest and I knew I just had to try it. It is simple enough - a jar of Nutella and bananas. We just happened to have an unopened jar of Nutella in the house. The results are great. It reminded me of my chocolate bananas. Well, after dinner, I decided to give Kaleb a treat - his own popsicle.

It took some doing but he finally figured out how to hold the popsicle.

He is a happy boy cause he knows this is gonna be good!

This one's funny.

He's getting every last drop.

I think he liked it. In fact the whole family liked the Nutella Ice Cream. Give it a try!

Monday's Discovery

Monday's Discovery is crayons. I have waiting for the day to introduce crayons to Kaleb and the day finally came. I was working with J at the dining room table and Kaleb wanted to be right in the middle of what we were doing (which he couldn't). So, I put him in the high chair and gave hime some paper and a couple of chunky crayons. He proceeded to bite off the tips of several crayons, as you can tell from his face. Luckily they are non-toxic.

He colored alittle bit (there's that finger).

Ate a little more, yum!

Colored and then

Ate a little more. Crayons, a fun, edible activity. I wonder if his poop will be different colors? (I just had to ask.)

The Story of Ping (part 2)

We are still learning about China, ducks, and penguins. Quite a combo, huh? We talked about Chinese New Year which is coming up soon, the year of the Dragon, I believe. J made Chinese lanterns from construction paper.

She cut these herself, great practice. We then explored the concept of sinking and floating.  J determined which items would sink or float before actually trying the experiment. Then, we collected the items and saw which items she was correct on. She surprised me and knew most of the items and what they would do.

She liked doing this experiment and after working through the items on her list, J found some other things to see if they floated or not.

We made a model to see how penguins breathe and swim, They are great swimmers, especially when trying to get away from their predators.

We also made a booklet on what eats penguins and what penguins eat. 

J started her penguin picture. First she sponge painted the background blue and then added white icebergs for the penguins to sit on. 

J started out using potatoes to stamp her penguins but after awhile she just wanted to free paint. She made quite a few penguins on this picture.

She added white tummies and eyes. We are all most done. This painting has been done in stages, since we have to wait for each section to dry before painting the next. Maybe I will have a completed pic soon.

Lastly, I leave you with our UP art. J's sight word of the week was up and J created this picture by finger painting the balloons and I took the picture. Isn't it cute? I framed it and it is in the hallway. Well, China's been fun and learning about ducks too but we are off to another adventure....We will still be learning about penguins but our book will change. Smile It's Friday.