Tot Tuesday

I was preparing for our Summer Book Camp when I found the plastic Easter eggs. I thought these would be interesting to Riley, something new to play with.

I gave him a plastic yogurt container filled with several empty plastic Easter eggs.

He quickly dumped them out and chewed on the container.

He might like it. If he doesn't, who cares? Look at that smile! Love that cutie!

Tot Tuesday

I was looking for something to allow me some time in the kitchen. Riley was in his high chair and somewhat fussy. I needed something fast and definitely something he couldn't fit into his mouth. This is what I came up with...

an empty tissue box filled with...

lids! Every size lid that was available. He could reach in the box and pull out the lids.

Or he could dump the lids, throw the box, and drool! It kept him occupied for awhile so I could finish dinner. Cheapest toy ever! He is still playing with it. The tissue box may be sagging but it is still a good toy.

Summer Book Camp - Day 6

We are continuing with our adventures of Summer Book Camp. Adventures with library books that are not preplanned and not scheduled. If we have something else fun to do, we skip Book Camp. This week, J and Kaleb went to the beach with their Daddy so no reading that day. We had visitors - no Book Camp. I am not stressing over not being able to do it, we are still reading and having fun.

This day's book was chosen by Kaleb and he picked Dog's Colorful Day by Emma Dodd. It is a cute book about Dog who spends his day getting colorful spots from his adventures. Kaleb loves dogs, so this was a natural choice.

I found a cute color by number page for the book that we made into a game. With two dice, the kids rolled and colored the number bone the correct color. It was a race to see who could color the all of the bones first. This printable came from Happy Brown House (link below).

I also found a simple color word matching game that I printed. They took turns matching the dot and the color word. We also discussed what caused each dot on Dog.

They also made simple dog puppets using paper plates and construction paper.

Then, I read the book and they listened. While they listened, they colored each dot on the Dog. This printable dog came from A Special Kind of Class (link below). Too cute. I had a few more projects planned but it was lunch time. This is definitely a cute book. Kaleb loved it and the copy from the library was well loved! This book is well timed since this week our library has a free program with some dogs who do tricks. Looking forward to that! Hope you are having a great summer so far:)

Links

Happy Brown House - has a free Dog's Colorful Day printable pack where I found the dog bone color by number sheet.

Making Learning Fun - has a ton of ideas for this book with free printables.  This is where I found the cute Dog envelope craft that I had planned to make but the kids were hungry:(
Plus a cute dog paper bowl craft.

A Special Kind of Class - cute Dog printable which we used for our reading/following directions.

Summer Book Camp - Day 5

We are on day 4 of our Summer Book Camp and the book of the day was chosen by J. She picked a book about Abraham Lincoln.

The book was Abraham Lincoln by Wil Mara. It was an easy reader about Abraham Lincoln that J read all by herself. It wasn't the first time we have read about Lincoln but this was the first book that had real photos of him.

J read the book to us while I was feeding the baby. I love this:)

Then, we did and information sort that I found from Deceptively Educational (link below). I didn't use paint sticks for her printable - remember no planning. I just printed off the items, cut them out and had J sort them under each president. She was somewhat unsure if she would know which ones belonged under George Washington but I assured her that she could use the process of elimination. This was a great review of each of the presidents.

Well, I truly wanted to do more for this book like make a stove pipe hat and a popsicle stick log cabin along with a pretzel stick cabin snack.....so much for best laid plans. There was a craft day at the library and that pretty much won out. Oh, well. Maybe next time....J and I will be studying American History this year so the hat might still come up:)

Links

Education - has a cute Abraham Lincoln hat craft.

Mama Smiles - has a cute "log cabin" craft using popsicle sticks.

Deceptively Educational - has another Lincoln hat but also free printable fact cards that you can hide in your hat just like Lincoln did! Another post has a free printable to compare the presidents Lincoln and Washington.

Preschool Playbook - has a cute log cabin snack using pretzel sticks and frosting.

Summer Book Camp - Day 4

We are onto our next book for our Summer Book Camp. We have been reading books from the library and doing fun activities for each one. This is no-plan summer fun. The kids pick the books and I do a quick search of activities and then we do them. No fuss. If I don't have it on hand, I substitute or we just can't do it. I try to sneak in some learning or reviewing when possible. And all of these books go towards J's goal of reading 100 books this summer. If we have plans for the day, we don't do it and we don't worry about it. No fuss, just fun.

Our next book was chosen by Kaleb - Carrots Grow Underground by Mari Schuh.  This was a timely pick since we are currently growing carrots in our box garden as we speak. They weren't, however, ready to pick. I have been collecting carrot activities to do with The Carrot Seed for some time now, so finding activities for this book was easy. The hard part was picking just a few activities!

We started our activities with a simple cut-n-paste of the growth of a carrot seed. This printable was found at Education.com. I had to sneak some science into this:)

A simple and easy craft we did was to make carrots prints using corks and orange paint. After the paint dried, they added green tops.

Here is a completed photos of our carrot garden. I couldn't take any photos of the process since I was trying to prevent orange footprints on my floor! But I even had the chance to add baby Riley's piggies to the mix.

J's carrot garden picture using the corks. Pretty cute. My favorite, though, is the footprint picture which is hanging up in my dining room/homeschool room.

Links

My Pinterest Board for The Carrot Seed

My Pinterest Board for Summer Book Camp

Education - has the free printable carrot seed life cycle.

One Kreiger Chick - has the idea for the carrot footprint.

Crafty Morning - has the idea for the fingerprint carrots, we just used corks for less mess.

Pamela Holderman - has a super cute idea for a garden picture. I really wanted to do this but time wouldn't allow. I like that you could take this farther and discuss/make other veggies that grow underground.

Summer Book Camp - Day 3

We are continuing on our Summer Book Camp journey - reading library books and doing fun activities for each one. We are working toward our goal of 100 books read by the end of the summer. This is day 3 and J had picked a book from our library bin - From Milk to Ice Cream by Stacy Taus-Bolstad.  Ha, this is an easy one! No problem here finding activities for this book!

Again, I did not plan for this book. She picked the book before breakfast and I did a quick search of fun things to do. We used what we had on hand and nothing more.

Since I was feeding the baby, J decided to read the book to us. She has definitely become stronger in her reading skills and I love that she will read to us!

We then watched a movie about how ice cream is made on the internet from Year Round Homeschooling (link below).

I printed a quick and easy math game from B-Inspired Mama. It was a simple toss and cover game which was a good review for Kaleb.

I also found an ice cream coloring sheet. I thought it would be nice to use watercolors since it has been awhile since they have painted with them. Kaleb is in a "blue" phase. He wants everything blue.

We had some ice cream play dough accessories. I thought it would be fun to make an ice cream store and practice our counting of money. J is making a menu complete with pictures of the cost for Kaleb.

We used play dough to make the cones. If I had the ingredients on hand to make ice cream dough, I would have loved to make it but no planning  - remember?

Each child took a turn playing the shop keeper and scooping out the ice cream. We eventually added several different flavors to our shop by adding more play dough.

Kaleb brought a friend - Snoopy in for ice cream and "counted" the money for him and his friend to each have a cone.

I printed an ice cream cone and scoop for their names. Then I hid the scoops around the house. This idea came from Tot Schooling (link below).

They had to find the scoop with the letters from their name and put their name in correct order. To make it easier, I color coded J's and Kaleb's letters - his were blue and hers were red. That way Kaleb could figure out which ones were his.

After they found the scoops, they put them in order on top of their cone. This was a great review for Kaleb and his name. J already knows her name so I made hers somewhat harder to find. I didn't want to waste the colored scoop leftover so I just added an exclamation mark at the end for fun.

Here are the finished ice cream cones. I love watercolors. We also had to have ice cream cones after lunch! Luckily, I had some in the pantry! I love when things work out:) Have I said that before? What's our next book? Who knows - it is Kaleb picking next.

Links

Tot Schooling - has the free printable ice cream cone for name recognition.

B-Inspired Mama - has a free printable ice cream themed math game.

Counting Coconuts - has cute and easy idea for a pom pom ice cream sensory bin.

Year Round Homeschooling - has a free mini unit on Ice Cream which is where I found the video of how Ice Cream is made. It also has some links for other printables.

From ABCs to ACTS - has a cute number matching game as a free printable with an ice cream theme.

Scientific American - has a recipe to baggie ice cream. I really wanted to do this but I didn't have half and half on hand and I promised no preplanning. So we didn't make ice cream.

Smart Schoolhouse - has a recipe for edible ice cream play dough.

Tot Tuesday

What a Cutie! Just enjoying that great smile complete with dimples!

He actually let me capture a smile on camera! Loving this boy!