O's Halloween Puppets

O(5) and I have really enjoyed having "O and Mama Craft Time" after E(2) goes to sleep at night. We usually spend about 30 to 45 minutes crafting and reading. One our first projects was sewing Halloween puppets from a Family Fun craft kit (that I bought after Halloween last year from WM). O loves to sew, and this was lots of fun for both of us.

We made one puppet per night for 3 nights of "Mama and O Craft Time." After she finished the puppets, she decided to draw pictures of them in her drawing journal.

I spelled the words for her for the ghost and witch drawings.


I had to bite my tongue to not correct her when she was writing the "E" in Wendy. I'm so glad that I didn't correct her...I love the 6 lines on the E!

I encouraged her to sound out the words herself when she was writing "Scott the Skeleton." I love how she wrote it! What a treasure these imperfections will be once she is reading and writing with ease!

Painting & Washing A Pumpkin

I've been suggesting that the girls paint their mini pumpkins for weeks, but they haven't been interested. However, as soon as I set up the activity as a "work" on a tray, they were all over it! Luckily, I had 2 pumpkins, and they both got to work immediately.


After they finished painting their pumpkins, I asked if they wanted to wash them. O(5) initially said "no," but she changed her mind almost immediately. (you can see her hand on the spray bottle in the picture...she couldn't wait to get started!)

O said that washing the pumpkin was more fun than painting it!



E(2) had difficulty with spray bottle, but didn't want any help. She didn't stay with the task very long, but she still seemed to enjoy it.

"Mathiplication"

O(5) was SO excited that she has learned to do "mathiplication" at school last week! She loves working with the multiplication board, and she was excited to record her work on this sheet.
O has requested to have a multiplication board at home, so I'm working on a homemade one (and I'm VERY excited about it!). I'll write a post about it once I'm finished with it!

Matching Tree Bark

E(2) and I have had a great time touching and talking about the bark on all of the different trees in our yard during our "B" weeks! E was very interested in the bark, and I was inspired by Playful Learning (which I was sent to review about a month ago) to put together a bark matching activity.

To prepare this activity, I took pictures of the bark of 4 trees in our front yard. I printed them on photo paper and laminated them. I gave each of the girls one picture at a time and told them to match them to the trees. They took off running to find their matches, and they had SO much fun!

This is a wonderful activity that really got the girls interested in learning more about the trees in our yard. As they matched the trees, we talked about the names of the trees. Last week when we were touching the bark, E picked up a pinecone and said "This pinecone! It goes with pine tree!"

As I'm writing this post, I'm thinking of more tree and bark related activities :) I love spending time outside with the girls and try to have them outside for hours each day, so activities like this one are perfect for us!

Word Treasure Hunt

O(5) has had a fantastic time finding and writing the words from 1+1+1=1's Read and Write the Room set.

I told her that she was going on a word treasure hunt, and she had to write each word as she found it. She loved hiding her eyes while I hid the words, and she loved for me to say "hot" or "cold" when she was close to or far away from the words.

She also loved writing on a clipboard!


What a fun way to motivate a child to practice their writing skills! Thanks, Carisa!

Science on the Beach...Sink/Float

Lately, E(1) has been excitedly saying "It floats!" whenever anything floats in the lake. So, I decided to gather various objects from our house and yard to take to the beach for a sink/float experiment. O(5) excitedly took her mask out with us to the lake, so that she could retrieve the sunken objects. (Her swimming skills have improved dramatically since she has started swimming with a mask!)

Before dropping each object in the water, we predicted whether each one would sink or float. E predicted that everything would float :)


It was interesting for the girls to see that the shells floated if we placed them gently on the water, but they sunk if we threw them in the water. Fun times on the lake!

Telling Time Game

We had some rainy days while on vacation, and the girls and I spent this time playing on the porch. We painted with watercolors, played with playdough, read books, knitted with our looms, painted faces, played Memory, and played with these telling time cards.

This set includes analog and digital clocks to match, and they fit together like a puzzle which is a self-checking feature. The clocks show the time on the hour and half hour.

O(5) enjoyed setting up the cards, but she got upset when E(1) accidentally scattered a few. She wanted to quit, but I sat with her and we matched them together until we finished. Lately, she has been wanting to quit activities before she is finished, and while I don't want to force her to do "work", I also don't want her to be a quitter. It's hard to know (while in the midst of the situation) whether to insist that she finish what she started or whether to step back and just let her do her own thing. *sigh*

Straws & Box Lid Marble Maze

My niece(7), O(5), E(1), and I made marble mazes using straws, box lids, and glue. This idea came from Family Fun Magazine (I LOVE that magazine!).

The girls cut the straws and glued them into the box lids to make the mazes. Super simple and fun (for some!).

My niece really enjoyed this activity, but O was not that interested. E(1), however, was VERY interested. She insisted that she make a "bahbble maze,too!," so she and I worked together to make one for her.

Here is my niece's maze.

O decided to take the easy way out and make a non-maze.


Here's the maze I made with E. I put down the glue, and she put the straws on the glue.

Excavating Toys from Ice

Excavating small toys from ice is a yearly summer tradition at our house. This is at least the 3rd summer (maybe 4th) that we have done this very fun activity.

To do this activity, I gathered a bunch of small plastic toys and put them in a glass bowl. I filled the bowl with water and put it in the freezer. I forgot about it for about a month until one really hot day.



When I finally remembered the activity awaiting us in the freezer, I gathered the supplies needed...I put the bowl of ice and toys on a tray along with a hammer, salt, cup of water, water dropper, dull knife, etc.



The girls got to work immediately! They loved hitting the ice with the hammer. They poured a whole salt shaker worth of salt on the ice to help it melt, and they had fun dripping water onto the ice with the water dropper.




They enjoyed this activity so much that they immediately wanted to do it again. We put the toys back in the bowl, added water, and put it in the freezer. It was ready the next day, and they had a super time again. We are on vacation now, but I'm sure we'll do this activity several more times before summer's end.

Shell & Stickers Memory Game

I made this shell and stickers memory game for O(5) about 2 years ago, and I take it to the beach with us every year.

I tried to teach E(1) the ins and outs of memory, but she's not quite ready for that :) However, she had fun matching the stickers.

To make the game, I gathered (from around my house) a bunch of shells that looked similar (O's grandmother brought them to her from the Bahamas), and I bought 2 packs of beach/sea life stickers. I put stickers on each shell to make about 10 matching pairs. Simple and fun!