VERY BUMMED

Well, I have to say I am very bummed due to the fact that my computer crashed this summer. In fact, they had to order a whole new motherboard to have it fixed. I have about 6 weeks of photos from projects and weekly themes accumulated on my camera. And at this point, it feels daunting to go back and explain them all.

I have always wanted to keep a journal of sorts to record our crafts and activities as Avery grows. This one unfortunately did not get to live up to my expectations. So, we will pick up where we left off. I might add photos here and there of fun things from the summer.

For the next couple weeks, before preschool starts, I have two themes that I am excited about - 1) the 5 senses, and 2) school time! Lots of fun things planned and hopefully my computer and camera hang in there :)

DINOSAUR WEEK!

It is DINOSAUR week! I can say that with all caps because I hear that with a
ROAR in my head :)

We have a very long dino book list this week. I couldn't help myself, I just kept finding great ones at the library! I am having a few problems with this post tho, maybe a few too many photos?

Oh my oh my oh DINOSAURS - by Sandra Boynton: I just love Sandra Boynton's books. They are fun, goofy, and I just love to read them.

Brontorina by James Howe: This is such a cute book and has a great message in it.

Dinosaurs Galore by Giles Andreae: A great bright and colorful book that has fun poems for each of the various dinosaurs (and it includes pronunciations!)

Detective Dinosaur Undercover by James Skofield: My son loves this book. It is a little goofy but we have been reading this book over and over again.

Have You Seen My Dinosaur by Jon Surgal: A fun rhyming book about a lil boy looking for his beloved dinosaur.

Ten Terrible Dinosaurs by Paul Stickland: A fun counting book about dinosaurs getting into trouble or into a bind - I like this one because it counts backwards!

Dinosaurs Dinosaurs by Byron Barton: A short and colorful book.

Bones, Bones, Dinosaur Bones by Byron Barton: My son loves this book, and starts repeating it around the house when he is playing. a fun short book about putting dinosaurs back together.

The Dinosaur Who Lived in My Backyard by B.G. Hennessy: A fun book with cute illustrations about a lil boy who used to have a dinosaur in his backyard.

Drumheller Dinosaur Dance by Robert Heidbreder: I was not quite sure how my son was going to like this book as it shows dinosaur bones coming to life, but he really liked it. I thought it was fun.

Digging Up Dinosaurs by Aliki: This book is a little long and has a few too many facts for my son's attention span, but it is great for showing the progression from live dinosaurs to bones and what/who it takes to put them back together again.

The Dinosaur Alphabet Book by Jerry Pallotta: This book is just that - an alphabet book with lots of dinosaur facts.

A T. Rex Named Sue by Natalie Lunis: A good book about the discovery of the T. Rex Sue and Sue Hendrickson

The Dino-Pedia: Just that, a huge book on everything dinosaur.

A New Week

Last week was Oceans Week - we got in a handful of fun activities, but my lil guy was just down and out with the crud. So, that leaves us with a handful of fun activities that will be left over for next time we do something with oceans, fish or water.

We went on a very mellow camping trip over the weekend, so I am a little behind with posting books and the first activity of the week - but will catch up soon!

Octopus Pretzel

For our cooking activity this week we created an octopus out of homemade pretzels. We had a lot of fun. I love this recipe, I have had since I first learned how to make it in kindergarten class. Yes, that is right, this is the same recipe that I learned how to make pretzels when I was five.

Ingredients:
2 1/2 C whole wheat flour
2 1/2 t sugar
2 1/2 t yeast
10 T finely shredded cheese
1 C warm water
(1 egg & salt for later)

Mix all the ingredients together until it forms a soft, but stiff dough - try not to over knead. Usually a bit of the four does not mix in and I use it on the counter for rolling.

Next roll out the dough into your desired shapes - we have tried it all: pretzels, balls, shapes, mini muffins and they all work great.

Once you have all the dough formed, brush with beaten egg and sprinkle with salt.

Bake @ 425 degrees until golden brown (definitely want it brown otherwise it will be doughy)

One delicious treat!

Creative Play at it's Best!

Some of my absolute favorite moments with my son are during creative play - either when I am with him, or when he thinks I don't hear him!

Today, I know that what we are learning in ocean week is really sinking in and he is having a lot of fun with it.

After we made our peanut butter jar aquariums he told me to 'stop, stay right there'. Then I could hear his pitter patter of feet running around the house. Then he came up to me and said "Are you ready for your aquarium tour?". He handed me a ticket and took me on a tour of the aquarium in our house... none of the photos were staged by me. He had a ticket, fish, and an "X" marks the spot made with popsicle sticks at each station marking where we needed to stop.

The first stop: blue monster truck transporting the fish and the aquarium book in case we had any questions.

Next stop was to the bench at the front door - where he told me about the fish in detail... actually named what kind they were and what they like to eat. And to watch my fingers because some of them may pinch you.

And so on.... I will save you the other stations... there were about 5 of them.

He is such a cool kid!

Peanut Butter Jar Aquarium

We made mini aquariums out of an old peanut butter jar today.

The pictures didn't turn out too well - but we had fun.

We also dropped in an alkaseltzer to give the fish some fizz!

On a bummer note - our rubber fish did not float, so it was a little bit of a boring aquarium. And, if you try and make one with craft sand... it really makes a murky mess... I went with small craft marbles for the bottom.

Sick Kid

One sick kid = pause in creativity.

Poor guy has lil energy to do much of anything that includes concentration. But we did play ocean games today... just no pics or end products to show for it except fun play time.

Fishing for Goldfish

In the past, this is how I have been able to get Avery to eat vegetable soup - we go 'Fishing for Goldfish'! Works every time! Even tho we do consume a lot of the crackers. And why not go fishing during Ocean's Week!

Where are the oceans & Fingerprint Fish

Where exactly are the oceans?

We do spend quite a lot of time looking at maps in our family, so this was an easy question for our son. But, I still thought a ocean vs. land coloring project was fun. We colored the 'ocean' are very hard with crayon (which he loved) and then we watercolored over the globe with green watercolor.

This is Part 1 of our Fingerprint Fish.

First we picked out a fish picture and printed it out. Then we got out the watercolors. He had a lot of fun doing thumbprints with the watercolor paints to make scales. We have not used watercolors as finger paints before.

Ocean Week Book List

This week is Ocean Week!!!

Here are the books we borrowed from the local library. I try and put holds on the books we want to check out in advance, so my search for theme related books is done primarily online rather than in the library. This week it was a little difficult to get the books I wanted, but I think we have a few good ones... and a few okay ones :)

The Seashore Book - by Charlotte Zolotow: This is a beautiful book that does a wonderful job describing a day at the beach... makes me want a vacation!

Somewhere in the Ocean by Jennifer Ward and T.J. Marsh: A great rhyming and counting book about sea creatures. Bright and beautiful pictures and fun facts at the end.

My Visit to the Aquarium by Aliki: This story follows a little boy as he visits an aquarium. It has a lot of facts in it, maybe a few too many for a 3 year old's attention span - but the pictures are worth it.

The Underwater Alphabet Book by Jerry Pallotta: This book has fantastic illustrations for sea creatures living in the tropics from A to Z - watch out for the shark!

The Octopus by Denys Cazet: So this book is cute, but a little different. About a Grandpa who tells a scary tub story to his grandchild involving an octopus.

Seashore Treasure by Stan & Jan Berenstain: The Berenstain Bears are on a seashore treasure hunt and find a treasure of their own.

Fish School by Nancy Poydar: A story about a boy and his favorite goldfish who take a class trip to the aquarium.

Ocean World Sticker Book by Maurice Pledger: This last book we purchased at Costco as a fun activity to incorporate during the week.

Rainbows

We worked on rainbows today. We used watercolors to paint a rainbow on some butcher/freezer paper.

Then we ate a rainbow! Our cooking project this week included a trip to the store to find fruits with the same color as the rainbow. Fun, easy & healthy!

Wind

Today's activities were based around wind.

Our first craft we made a kid sized wind sock out of a toilet paper roll, construction paper, and some leftover ribbon.

Avery decorated the paper as much as he wanted, and then we glued it to the toilet paper roll. Next we punched holes in the windsock to attach ribbons as the streamers. We also used a chopstick as the handle. It looks a little rough around the edges, but he LOVED it and had a blast playing with it in the yard today.

Next we made 'wind' paintings. I watered down some white tempera paint, and put globs of it on dark blue construction paper. Avery then blew through a straw, creating 'wind' to make funny shapes.

We tried blowing far away from the paper and very close to it to see the difference in how it spread the paint. And yes, some did get splattered across the table with BIG wind gusts... so maybe I watered down the tempera paint a little too much!

Next we played a game that I saw in a magazine a while back. We battled cotton balls!

Our playing field consisted of an old box from Costco and some decorations to make it (slightly) resemble a playing field. We put a cotton ball on the center line, and each of us had a straw to try and blow the cotton ball into the other person's goal. This held his attention a lot longer than I thought it would - after 30 minutes I was pretty done playing the game, but he still wanted to play :) So this one will stick around the house for a bit longer when we are looking for something to entertain us!

More Clouds

Today we worked on crafting with clouds as part of Weather Week.

For our first craft we concentrated on the letter 'C' - for clouds!

First we cut a letter 'C' out of scrap cardboard. Then I had Avery paste it to a piece of 'sky' blue paper. Next he spread glue all over the 'C' and glued cotton balls to the 'C' to look like a cloud.

Then I wrote the word 'CLOUDS' on the top of the paper with a white crayon and asked Avery to write the word too - I thought he did an awesome job... especially since he often is intimidated to write out his words. It is a little hard to see in the photo.

Next we did some cloud paintings!

We used dark blue construction paper and painted clouds with a cotton ball using white tempera paint. I also had Avery spell out 'clouds' using sticky foam letters. He picked out the letters and put them in the right order by himself.

Clouds

Today was all about clouds.

I found this great picture showing the different types of clouds and what their names are.

And so, we spent a fun day cloud watching and trying to match the clouds up. We had a great weather day with lots of clouds - sunny to the west with high clouds, and very cloudy to the east by the mountains. I was amazed at how well a 3 year old could pronounce and recognize the various types of clouds.

Weather Chart

Each day this week we are going to record the weather. Here is an example weather chart like we are using. I like the idea of taking the temperature morning, afternoon, and evening. Also, if it happens to rain, we are going to put a small dish outside to measure the rain as well.

Weather Week!

This week is WEATHER week!

Here is our book list for the week - all from our local library.

I Can Read About Weather - by Robyn Spuraner: This is a nice factual book about everything weather related.

Rain Song - by Lezlie Evans: Cute rhyming book about two kids waiting out a rainstorm.

Planting a Rainbow - by Eric Carle: This is a good book to carry over from garden week. I talks about planting a garden of all the colors in the rainbow. Nice bright pictures.

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs - by Judi Barrett: This is a bit of an odd book (we have not seen the movie) where there is really no rain at all, it rains food.

Un-brella - by Scott Franson: Very cute picture book with no words. A little girl has a magical umbrella to change the seasons.

Rabbits & Raindrops - by Jim Arnosky: I love this book. Great pictures and sweet story about a rabbit family waiting out the rain.

Little Cloud - by Eric Carle: Another great Eric Carle book about a little cloud changing into shapes in the sky. Great book to kick off watching the clouds drifting by on a nice day.

Bringing the Rain to Kapiti Plain - by Verna Aardema: By luck we just got this book in the mail yesterday through the Imagination Library program - if you have not heard about the program, I highly recommend looking into it! The book is about a drought and the importance of rain.