Friday, February 22, 2013

The Very Hungry Caterpillar

Today has been full of activities so far. We started our day early with breakfast and clean up, then moved into the living room. I haven't used my felt board lately, because DJ was to young to use it before. It's been sitting on top of one of the toy shelves, looking ever so lonely. I decided it was time to give it a try.

I pulled out my first attempt at a felt story board, The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle. You're most likely familiar with one of his books. The illustrations in them are beautiful and very eye appealing. So far, we only own this book by him, but I'll likely pick up more in the future. Both kids sat on the couch and played/placed the pieces are I read the book. It went much smoother than I anticipated. Typically DJ won't sit still for a book, so this was a fun interactive way to do story time and have both kids involved.

 
Yes, they're still in jammies, and yes, DJ is half naked.

 


 

 


After we put away the felt board, Friends came over for a play date. We decided to try the DIY moon sand ( 8 cups flour + 1 cup baby oil). We tripled the batch and placed it in one of those under the bed storage totes. It was large enough for three kids and two adults to play around. It was a messy activity, but the clean up was easy and bath time was fun. The kids played with it for a good 45 minutes or so. Talk about a successful activity.

I think my next felt board will be Chicka Chicka Boom Boom. Or I may make it larger and stick it on my wall. We will see :)  Have a great weekend everyone!

Thursday, February 21, 2013

Play at home Mom

Today I would just like you to take a few minutes and visit my favorite blog; Play at home mom. I promise you will be hooked. If you're looking for a fun story time activity, start here and make your own story jars.

One of their ideas that we've tried, was this one :



Christmas lights and a box, so simple. We put two boxes together, and made a window between the two. We did this activity quite some time ago, yet when we pulled the box out to make our puppet theater this week, Katie was asking me to turn the lights on. Children amaze me.

Have a good Thursday!

Sunday, February 17, 2013

The Frog Prince

Katie is going through a phase where anything that remotely fits on her fingers, becomes a finger puppet. She will turn anything from marker lids to megablocks into a " PUPPETSHOW" ( She gets very excited when she says that word). For Christmas we bought the kids a few Fairy Tale books. One of the stories is The Frog Prince by the Grimm Brothers. Mix that story, with Finger puppets from IKEA and a cardboard box, and Voila! you have your very own puppet show.



Our theater includes three different sceneries; mountains, a river and a forest. The kids had a blast colouring it with us. DJ didn't realize that he was colouring with the lid on, and Katie was enjoying helping to colour in my tree with a pink marker :) I think it looks beautiful. It has since been flipped on it's side and used as a boat, and then folded in half and became a fort. Imagination is wonderful.

Do you read Fairy tales with your kids? Have you come across any that you didn't know from your childhood?

Friday, February 15, 2013

Pizza Party

Another level reader book that I remember well, is Pizza Party by Grace Maccarone. We found a stack of level reader books at a baby consignment sale, and I was delighted to find a copy in that stack. It quickly became one of Katie's favorite books. At two and a half, she has most of it memorized. She will typically repeat each phrase after you've read it, but if you delay long enough, she'll often say it first.

 
My daughter is just starting to enjoy matching items, so after she's done her nap, I'm going to bring out one of our busy bags from the swap in December. Click on over to Second Story Window for a tutorial on how to make a pizza factory busy bag.  We scoop, we pour...