Happy Groundhog Day!

We found these cute groundhogs to make out of hearts, appropriately! I used brown paper bags, white scratch paper, and black construction paper. Princess' is on the top; Honey's is bottom-left (I put the glue on and helped her place the pieces; Speedy's Picasso-like creation is on the bottom-right. :)
Our seasonal book selection:
Groundhog Gets a Say is kind of annoying to read, but has quite a few interesting facts, so I can tolerate it once a year. :)

The Biggest Valentine Ever follows the other books in the series (biggest pumpkin, biggest snowman, etc.) Clayton and Desmond are mouse friends who compete with each other, but end up working together.
The Valentine Express has a little Valentine history; then has a brother and sister rabbit make and deliver Valentine's to their neighbors.

Hugs and Kisses is about a curious puppy who sets out to see how all the different animals' kisses feel--of course at the end, his momma's is the best. :)
Froggy's First Kiss is typical Froggy. The Day it Rained Hearts is another cute one about a girl giving Valentine's to her animal pals.

Queens and Birthdays

You may be wondering about our paint trays. They are the bottom, cut in half (Princess & Speedy) of a votive candle packaging. Honey has the top. The little divots held just enough paint for her. Sometimes I use meat trays or egg cartons, too. I was going to toss these after we were done, but liked them so much I went ahead and washed them to use some more. :)
We're doing a little bit for school lately. :) Still reading some snow and winter books. Princess picked Q for the letter this week, and we made Queens. It's fun to see how each child does it a bit differently!
From left to right: Honey (I helped her), Speedy, and Princess (does a great job cutting on the lines!)Hopefully we'll get to this:
Geometric Shape Castle

And kind of in keeping with the queen theme, we had PAT playgroup today, in honor of our state's birthday. So there are birthday crowns. :)
We made some cute birthday cakes, wrote the kids' names and birthdates on the front, then glued on candles for their current ages. Then taped those purple pockets on the back to hold a couple extra candles to add. And made construction paper state flowers; and tongue depressor photo frames decorated with stately plants. :)

Winter Wonderland

We haven't done a lot in the way of school and activities lately, but I'm trying to get back in some kind of groove! We had some snow last week, so made Winter W's. I also brought a dishpan of snow inside for the kids to play with in the sink. We made a snowball and put it on a plate to see what happened, then the kids got spoons out and chowed down. Silly me, I thought they'd mush and mash it. We read 'The Snowy Day' by Ezra Jack Keats.

This week we tried salt-water painting. It was supposed to leave crystals on the paper as it dried, but it flopped. I must not have put enough salt in it!
Then we made some snow-dough. (I'll put the recipe at the bottom of the post.) I halved it, and I'm not sure what happened, but it was about like playing with mashed potatoes. Really sticky ones.

So we added flour. Honey ate some and made a face. Who wouldn't? It is cornstarch, salt & water. You can't tell that she already had blue around her mouth from eating a crayon. And she kept licking and eating the dough. We do feed this child, in case you had doubts!
The flour helped, and it was finally something we could work with. I don't think the kids minded the sticky mess at all, and enjoyed kneading their flour in. And silver glitter. I think next time I'd use some of the white/iridescent glitter instead.
He's not called Speedy for nothin'--look at those hands go! :) (I'm still working on getting the photos I want.)
Some of Princess's finished products--she left them out to dry. And after supper Speedy proceeded to poke fingerprints in most of them and mash the snowman down. Grr.
Some of the books we read:
Tracks in the Snow was very cute; Names for Snow was not up my alley. The names were like 'harmonica, when it whistles in the trees,' etc. Hibernation and Migration were very simple, but covered a LOT of different animals that hibernate and migrate!

More books:
Three Snow Bears is a take of Goldilocks; Katy and the Big Snow is a classic the kids love; SNOW is a new favorite, very simple, but they like repeating the words.

We sang a couple songs about what animals do in winter.

Here's the mashed potato, I mean snow-dough recipe:

SNOW DOUGH
calls for melted snow water, but you can substitute tap water. :)

1. Mix 1 1/3 cups snow water with 2 c kosher salt (I just used table salt, same thing??) and bring to a boil. Simmer several minutes, stirring constantly. Remove from heat.

2. Mix 1/2 c snow water with 1 c cornstarch (this makes a very interesting, not quite solid, not quite liquid combo) and add to salt water. Stir well, then let cool. Store snow dough in an airtight container.

3. For extra shine, add silver glitter to dough. Pound flat and make cookie-cutter shapes, or sculpt snow creatures. Dough will harden within 36 hours. (but not fast enough to keep little brother's fingers out of it...)

Christmas Sweets

Some holiday craft projects:
Shape Nativity from thrifty craft mama. Princess's is on the top, Speedy's on the bottom. I drew the shapes, then the kiddos colored and cut them out. I helped place them on the paper, then they glued. Honestly, I placed Speedy's in about the same place as Princess's! (And he also chose to exercise his own color judgement, see the star.) :)
Cellophane peppermints: this idea is one I saw on the community tree of our old town. I drew stripes on paper plates; let the kiddos paint them red, then we tied red cellophane around to look like the wrapper. Sorry for the dark picture, you can kind of see the stripes on the middle candy!
Some new books to go with it:
Gingerbread Baby by Jan Brett and
Can You See What I See? Christmas by Walter Wick.
Lastly, some gingerbread kids cut from grocery bags. (Pattern here). I helped Honey pick her items, put the glue on, and helped her place them.
The other two had free reign. (I was even out of the room for awhile, you can tell by the amount of glue on Princess's tummy.) Speedy's has the orange eyeballs. :)

Christmasy Activities

We haven't been doing much school-wise since Thanksgiving. Partly because I lack motivation to do it; partly because I've been on a mission to get gifts and such all done; partly because the kiddos have been having a pretty good time playing and pretending together, and I hate to interrupt that! We have a stash of Christmas and winter books that we have broken out, so of course we read some of those everyday. 2 different days, Speedy has picked 2 versions of 'The Mitten' for his 2 stories. We have the one by Jan Brett, and an older one with some different animals. Another fun one has been a compilation of Little House on the Prairie chapters about their Christmases. I found it on a garage sale, and Princess has been enjoying it.


Here's a couple activities:


Christmas Bow sorting and Wrapping Paper Patterning from No Time For Flashcards.
And these suncatchers, inspired by some of Hubby's old school artwork. His are on the left (the more faded tree and the green bell.)
I drew a shape on construction paper; had Princess cut it out (through 2 sheets of construction paper). Then used some of my scrapbooking tools (see, justified!) to cut circles or the wavy shapes out. We fit pieces of tissue paper over the holes, glued them on, then glued the 2 construction paper shapes together.

Speedy didn't make his till today, and I didn't get a pic; but he wanted to add a star to his tree. He had colored a yellow block on some white paper, and I used my star punch to make his tree topper. (and one for Princess, because of course she wanted one, too.)

Turkey Time!

We haven't done a lot this week, but we read the historical Thanksgiving account:
From here:

It sparked some good conversation, and a look at the map to see how far the Pilgrims sailed and where we live in relation to where they landed.

Here are some other Thanksgiving themed books we read:

And our Turkey T's! Made from a paper grocery sack, construction paper scraps, and tissue paper for the feathers.

We also have some turkey puppets from years past, to sing some songs with, like:

"There's a turkey on your nose, on your nose.

There's a turkey on your nose, on your nose.

Oh will that turkey stay, or will he wander away?

There's a turkey on your nose, on your nose."

(Substitute other body parts.)

We're also working on our annual thankful chain--strips of paper we use to write down things we're thankful for; then we'll make these strips into our countdown chain for Christmas!

I'd like to get to these cute bubble-wrap ears of corn from no time for flashcards; and these leaf turkeys from dltk.

We'll see. I also need to pack for heading north for some family celebrating with my side.

Have a great Thanksgiving, giving thanks to God for all he has done for you!

**Updated! Dinosaur ROAR!

Our theme for the week is Dinosaurs. But, it's Wednesday and we haven't done anything yet. And Princess started throwing up last night. So this will probably be continued next week!

The Letter D (Instead of Dragon D's, we did Dinosaur D's.) The white things are the teeth that the kids each drew, cut out, and place themselves. :)

Dinosaur Eggs
**I don't know if we're going to get to this...our week has been disrupted again by more throwing up.**

Dino Activities

**Watercolor painting some printed dinos from Preschool Express; cut them out and glued pictures of houses, people, animals, vehicles, etc. to show how dinos are bigger than the other stuff. **
**There are some cute dino stories here.
**Some of the MANY dino books available from our library:

A good one we read today, but didn't get pictured is Daniel's Dinosaurs by Charles Helm. It's a true story of a boy and his friend in Canada who found some dinosaur tracks while they were rafting; and a bunch more tracks and skeletons were found in the area. Pretty intriguing!

Owls

Check back for pictures and more details, but here's what we're up to this week! (And may I say, I enjoy looking at the pictures of owls a LOT more than the creepy pictures of bats!)

The letter O.

Owl Books:
OWL by Rebecca Stefoff
Owl Moon by Jane Yolen
Owl Babies by Martin Waddell
Bear's New Friend by Karma Wilson (the new friend is an OWL). I love this series of books, I think they are adorable. :) (Bear Wants More, Bear Snores On, Bear Stays Up, Bear is Sick)

Owl Puppet


HOOO-HOOO by Jane Kitson

Hooo...Hooo said the owl, in the middle of the night,
The moon is shining awfully bright,
I'll fly to the garden out behind the house,
To see if I find a little brown mouse!

Hoo..Hooo said the owl, in the middle of the night,
The moon is shining awfully bright,
I think I'll fly down to the lake,
To visit with the rattlesnake!

Hoo...Hooo said the owl, as the sun began to shine,
Morning is here, it is not night-time.
I'll fly to my nest in the old oak tree,
I'll close my eyes and go to sleep!

OWL IN THE TREE (from Preschool Express)
You can make a fun pop-up owl puppet to amaze your child.
First, you will need a clean toilet paper cardboard tube.
Next, cut a 1” hole about 2” up from the bottom of the tube.
Now, decorate the rest of the tube to resemble a tree, using a green marking pen to add leaves.
Finally, mark two big eyes on your index finger, and stick it into the tube so it can be seen from the hole. Your finger becomes the owl in his hole in a tree.

We made owl thumbprints on a branch; counting to 5. We drew in details.

Bats, Ghosts & Halloween

PUMPKIN SONG (tune: Have you ever seen a lassie?)
Have you ever seen a pumpkin, a pumpkin, a pumpkin,
Have you ever seen a pumpkin, that grows on a vine?
A round one, a tall one, a fat one, a small one.
Have you ever seen a pumpkin, that grows on a vine?

Pumpkin painting fun! Here's Princess, she painted 2 faces, one rainbow, and one face with permanent marker to carve.

Honey takes her painting very seriously, she had purple & green squiggles on her pumpkin.
We tried a Halloween scene resist with our leftover tempera paint mixed together, but I should have followed my instinct and watered it down. We couldn't see our drawings. :)

Handprint bats! These were fun and easy, I was going to leave Honey out (black paint on a 20month old's hands??) But, I was helping an older kid wash up and turned to see Honey up on Speedy's chair, using the foam brush to paint her own hand. She was NOT going to be left out!
I let Speedy leave his bat head the way he had cut it. Princess cut out her own and Honey's. DEEP IN THE BAT CAVE (Tune: “Down by the Station”)Liz Ryerson
Deep in the bat cave

Early in the evening,

See the little black bats

Hanging in a row.

Now it’s growing darker,

Time to leave the bat cave.

Zip! Zip! Zip! Zip!

Out they go.

One little bat was trying to behave.
He hung upside down from his feet in a cave.
Another bat flew in, and said, "How do you do?"
The second joined the first, and then there were 2!
2 little bats were trying to behave.
They hung upside down from their feet in a cave.
To help pass the time, they sang "Do re me"
Another bat joined the song, and then there were 3.
3 little bats were trying to behave
They hung upside down from their feet in a cave
From their cave perch, they looked down at the floor,
A new bat joined the game, and then there were 4.
4 little bats were trying to behave.
They hung upside down from their feet in a cave.
One little bat zoomed inside and did a dive.
He stayed to take a rest, and with him there were 5.

Happy Heart H's!
Honey and Princess showing off their hand-ghosties (I saw this idea on a blog somewhere). I draped a paper towel (one select-a-size sheet) over their middle 3 fingers, wrapped a rubber band around, and colored eyes.

They didn't really like them on their fingers, so we modified by crumpling up some paper for the head, wrapping the rubber band around, and sticking a pencil through the rubber band for a handle.
FIVE LITTLE GHOSTS (by Jean Warren)

5 little ghosts knocked at the door, Then one flew away and that left 4.

4 little ghosts up in a tree, Then one flew away and that left 3.

3 little ghosts drinking witches brew, Then one flew away and that left 2.

2 little ghosts having lots of fun, Then one flew away and that left 1.

1 little ghost now all alone, He got bored so he flew back home.

Books: Bats by Bibi Boynton; What is a Bat? by Bobbie Kalman; BATS by Amy-Jane Beer

These non-fiction books are not recommended before bedtime! All the bats (except fruit bats) are pretty scary looking. I didn't know that there are fishing bats (they catch them with their feet!) and that vampire bats really suck blood from animals. Eww.

Stellaluna by Janell Cannon is a good one about a lost bat taken in by a family of birds, that eventually gets reunited with her mother. Baby Bat's Lullaby by Jacquelyn Mitchard had pretty pictures, but was kind of lame reading. It's a rhyming song a momma bat is singing to her baby. For what it's worth. :)