Tuesday Morning at "School"

Since it was too cold to play on the beach this morning, I asked O if she wanted to do some shelf work. She enthusiastically replied "yes!" She said "Let's pretend this is school, and you are the teacher. You're name is Miss Linda!" So that's what we did, and we had lots of fun :)

We haven't transferred rice with a spoon in a LONG time, so I added that back to the shelf. O was interested at first, but then decided she wanted to pour the rice. She wasn't thrilled when I explained that the purpose was to practice transferring with a spoon. I told her that transferring with a spoon would help strengthen her hand muscles to help her with writing. She quickly assured me that she could write, and she wanted to show me right then!




O loves the sandpaper letters! She is REALLY into letters and sounds now, so we are having a lot of fun with these :)




She also enjoyed the squeeze and match balloon activity and pouring water. We spent the majority of our time on the letters.

Meet Buddy the Turtle

Meet Buddy, the newest addition to our family! Buddy was a spur of the moment addition to O's Easter basket (2 dollars from Dollar General). You put him in water, and he grows and grows and grows. I was skeptical at first, but he has doubled his size since we put him in water yesterday. O is thrilled, and she loves to frequently check on Buddy. After we remove him from the water, he'll shrink back down to his original size, and then we can put him back in the water to grow again :) Next time we'll measure him before we put him in the water and chart his growth! (I wish I thought of that this time!)

We're Home!

After 2 weeks at Guh-guh and Grandpa's house, O and I are finally home. We had a GREAT time, but it's good to be home. O was excited that it was warm enough to play on the beach! I think we'll be spending most of our mornings on the beach instead of having "school" :)

More Fun in the Dirt!

O loves making rose petal and mud soup and cake!

Earth Day Fun

I had to work on Earth Day, but luckily Guh-guh & Grandpa do lots of earthy activities everyday!
The girls planted lots of sunflower seeds.



They played in the dirt, and they even made lots of mud. O is wearing her daddy's outfit. Can you tell we grew up in the late 70s? :)

Thrifty Thursday

I stopped by the thrift store today after work, and I'm SO glad that I did! I bought this doll for 2 dollars! I'm very excited because I wanted to get O a realistic looking, life-size doll that can share clothes with the real baby. All of O's dolls are small (the biggest is probably 15 inches long), so they can't wear real clothes. Also, her cousin has a doll with a vinyl face, hands, and feet, and O LOVES her, so I think she'll be excited to have a realistic looking baby of her own. The doll needs a lot of cleaning, and her hair needs a lot of work, but I can't complain since I only paid 2 dollars!

Felt Cinnamon Toast

One of O's handmade Easter gifts was cinnamon to go on the bread that the Easter bunny brought her. She and her daddy love to make cinnamon toast on Saturday mornings, so I know she'll enjoy making pretend cinnamon toast in her play kitchen. We (my mom and I) also made peanut butter and jelly, so she can make her favorite sandwiches :)




I really like the bread because it has a strong magnet sewn within the slices which holds the sandwich together nicely. I put cut up refrigerator magnets within the cinnamon and peanut butter and jelly, but the magnets aren't very strong.




I linked to the bread at amazon in case anyone wants to know which bread I bought. However, I am sure that I didn't pay 16 dollars for it. I bought it almost a year ago, so I don't remember exactly what I paid, but that price seems very high to me. 

After Easter Deals

Those of you who've read this blog for a while know that I love a good deal, so after holiday shopping is always fun for me :) I was excited by my after Easter deals, especially the silicone cupcake liners since we can use those now. We'll save the bunny cottage for next Easter, and we may use the chocolate candy molds to make gifts for a couple of special grandmas soon :)

A Busy Monday

O and I are still at G & G's. We planned to go home on Sunday, but since we wanted to be here Tuesday morning, it didn't make any sense to go all the way home for just one day. Everyone around here was either at work or out of town today, so we had the place to ourselves :) Last night O said she wanted to do homeschool today, so we had a morning full of fun activities.

We sorted the nesting dolls by size and then put them back together.







We worked with this fun clock puzzle and discussed shapes, numbers, and telling time while we played.


 




We did lots of puzzles- farm puzzles, matching letters to pictures puzzle, matching numbers to items puzzle, practiced transfer dry pasta with tongs, colored a picture, practiced cutting skills, and took a nature walk.
After the nature walk, O worked on a nature collage. I taped contact paper to the door, and she put bark, flowers, leaves, etc on the contact paper to make a nature collage.





THEN Grandaddy Lewis came over, and we all went to see our cousin's new baby horse. The horse was so sweet and friendly :)





When we got back to G & G's we blew bubbles, played on the slide, and exercised on the ball.





Then M came over to play. The girls played for a while, and then took a fun bubble bath! Phew! It's been a long day :)

Melody Maker

O and I recently made a melody maker that I saw in the most recent issue of Family Fun. I thought it would be a great addition to her banging wall!





To make a melody maker you need : 1/2 by 4 inch threaded eyebolt, teflon plumber's tape, 1/2 inch coupling nut (this was impossible for us to find!), 1/2 inch all thread rod (24 or 36 inches. ours is 36 inches), 10 to 15 1/2 inch washers (I bought washers in 3 different sizes for added visual interest), and a 1/2 inch locknut. Start at the top and assemble the pieces. This was simple and fast to put together (once we finally found all of the pieces!).







Now we can make beautiful music outside. Our neighbors love us!

Apple Cupcakes

We made apple cupcakes for my niece's birthday party today, and I thought I'd share the recipe since this is the recipe that I shared for the postcard swap.
Apple "cupcakes" are simple and fun to make. My sister and I made them this morning and didn't involve the girls since they were so busy playing.
To make the cupcakes cut the apples in half horizontally. Scoop out the seeds. Then spread the apples with your favorite topping. We used cream cheese (with a little sugar) and peanut butter. We then decorated the apples with Teddy Grahams, sprinkles, chocolate chips, and goldfish. Serve the "cupcakes" in cupcake liners :) The kids liked the cupcakes, but most of them did not eat much of their apples. I think the apples were just a little too thick. Next time we'll cut them a little thinner or just buy smaller apples.

Who Needs Toys...

when you have tons of bubble wrap?!!!

Since I'm having Spring Break this week, O and I decided to spend the week at G & G's house. O has had a fantastic time playing with her cousin, M, for hours and hours each day. We've also attended storytime at the library (our library no longer has storytime) and M's playgroup. It's been a busy and exciting week!

Matching Pictures to Letters

O is really into learning her letters and letter sounds lately, so she loves all alphabet activities. Luckily, my mom had this fun letter activity that she let us borrow :) I put out 7 letters at a time and handed O the little pictures to match to the letters. The pictures are fabric and they stick to the letters using velcro. This was a lot of fun! The letters are made by Lakeshore, but I was unable to find them on their website, so they may not make them anymore.

Sequencing Cards

I downloaded these sequencing cards from Montessori for Everyone and introduced this activity to O last week. She had difficulty with the basil cards, but did well with the other 2 sets. There are so many great free printables at Montessori for Everyone. You should definitely check them out!