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.

Trip to the nursery (the garden kind)!

To finish off the week I took Avery to the plant nursery and he got to pick out some flowers all on his own to plant in his very own garden next to his sandbox. It was fun to see his eyes light up at all the different kinds of flowers and fruits/veges available for us to chose from.

This is what he picked!

Happy Gardening!!!!

How do plants grow?

All this week we have been learning about things in the garden... dirt, bugs, seeds, plants, etc.

At the beginning of the week we planted some seeds with very little soil in ziplock bags. I attached them to our window via suction cups. This was a great visual exercise to see the seed sprouting, roots growing, and the first green leaves peek out of the dirt. Takes a little bit of the mystery of what happens underground when planting seeds.

G is for Green

Today we focused on the letter 'G' and all that goes with it!

Garden
Green
Grow
Grass
Grasshopper

For our craft I cut out a large 'G' out of scrap cardboard. Avery then painted it green. As the paint dried we went outside and collected as many different leaves as we could from the yard. Add a little glue, and voila! A green garden 'G'.

We also did a little finger painting. I find that my son is intimidated to write certain letters with crayons/markers. So I write them on butcher paper/finger painting paper and we finger paint over them, and before you know it he is 'writing' the letter all on his own. We got a little distracted today, and this is as far as we got on the finger painting :)

Caterpillars

The weather has been tremendous this week and has allowed us to spend a ton of time outside playing in the yard, digging in the dirt for insects, and planting in the garden. Perfect timing!

Today we worked on caterpillars (prelude to butterflies). In the book list there are some great ones that include caterpillars and the transformation they make.

For our first project we made caterpillars out of old egg cartons, tempura paint, pipe cleaners, and googly eyes (and don't forget glitter, always lots of glitter!).

So far, it seems that our cooking activities have included treats. My son helps me cook all the time - I love it. He gets bummed when he notices I prepared ingredients for dinner while he napped. He is already good with a knife (we give him a very dull one) and does most of the chopping/peeling when I cook. We try to eat very healthy and don't eat too many sweets in our house. When I started research for our weekly themes there were so many cute 'treat' style cooking activities that the child can do all by themselves I couldn't help but include them. So my son has been loving the latest recipes... but I plan to search a little harder for healthier cooking activities that are simple, fun and doesn't take too much help from Mom.

Today's tasty treat was rice krispy caterpillars.

These were so fun to make however, ours didn't quite turn out quite like the picture we went off of - so don't laugh :) Ours looked more like melted blobs of something....They tasted great tho!

We made rice crispy treats per the instructions: 3T butter melted with 4C mini marshmallows stirring in 6C rice krispy cereal on very low heat. My son did all the measuring and I had to help stir a little bit at the end. Then we made little balls of treats and smushed them together to 'resemble' a caterpillar. Then we took strips of fruit roll ups -which is the first time my son has eaten these... I wasn't kidding when I say we don't eat a lot of junk food and he thought they were amazing! Deprived?.... I digress.... we took the fruit roll ups and wrapped them over the rice krispy balls and added M&Ms for eyes. The combo was really tasty and he had a blast!

We ate DIRT!

Our first 'cooking' activity for the week was to make 'Dirt Cups' for dessert!

My son had an absolute blast making these. First of all, he LOVES to cook. And secondly, he was thrilled at the idea of fooling Dad with these cups of dirt with worms sticking out of them. He could not wait to see Dad's reaction as he took a bite out of one after dinner.

Ingredients are simple (yet not the healthiest by any means):
Oreo cookies, chocolate pudding, and gummy worms.

If you have clear plastic or glass cups they work perfectly! First make the pudding according to directions. Put a small amount of pudding in each cup - we used about 1/3 cup pudding per cup. Next insert one worm per cup. Sticking the worm halfway into the pudding and halfway sticking out. Then, mash up several oreos (I think we used 6) so they are in very small chunks. Spread the oreo 'dirt' on top of the pudding partially covering up the worm. And - tah dah! You have Dirt Cups! Enjoy :)

F is for Flower!

This week we have two letters to practice - 'F' & 'G'.

Today we worked on the letter F, for Flower!

Our first craft I cut out a large 'F' out of scrap cardboard. Then I cut out small flowers of different colors from left over wrapping tissue. We spread glue all over the letter and stuck the flowers to the 'F' - some flat, some crinkled, and some just totally smashed... my son seemed to like the totally smashed tissue flowers the best. :)

Next we decorated a flower. I cut out a flower shape out of leftover cardboard. We used watercolors and glitter. He LOVES glitter... who doesn't?

Garden Week!

We are kicking off Summer Camp 2011 with Garden Week.

We will begin planting our flower/vege beds next week so I thought this was a great precursor to playing in the dirt to discuss plants, bugs, dirt, and how things grow.

Our book list for the week includes (all checked out from our local library):

Your First Garden Book by Marc Brown - a very cute book which explains how seeds grow and includes planting ideas, crafts, and step by step directions with great pictures.


Buzz by Eileen Spinelli - is a really sweet tale about a little bee who loves everything about being a bee, especially flying!

The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle - Colorful and bright counting book about a very hungry caterpillar who transforms into a beautiful butterfly.



A Fruit is a Suitcase for Seeds by Jean Richards - is a great book for the question, 'where do seeds come from' and 'how to seeds move from one place to another'?



Jack's Garden by Henry Cole - I love this book because it has lots of pictures of dirt, insects, and tools - great for my boy :) The illustrations are beautiful.



The Tiny Seed by Eric Carle - another fun book by Eric Carle. This book tells the adventure of one tiny seed and the obstacles seeds overcome to grow.


Growing Vegetable Soup by Lois Ehlert - a very colorful picture book showing how to grow the perfect vegetable garden to make vegetable soup!
How a Seed Grows by Helene Jordan - A neat book showing the stages of seed growth - this would make a great 'science experiment'!