Tot School

Izzie is 42 months old and Mac is 13 months old.

Our main themes for this week was Noah's Ark and Rainbows.

Each morning, we read Noah's story from the Bible and Izzie retold the story using her story cards and felt board pieces that she created. For more details, see original post.

She spent time completing several Letter U activities (U is for umbrella, Izzie loves using an umbrella when it's raining, so it kinda fit into our theme for the week).

For our stART project, Izzie read Duckie's Rainbow and completed a few rainbow activities.

New shelf activities included:

Creating a rainbow using pipe cleaners and styrofoam (I've seen this activity on numerous blogs). Izzie really enjoyed it and it was great for fine motor skills.

Leap Frog Dominoes game...matching up colors.

Just for fun...

Drawing family members on her easel. She informed me that the big circle in the middle of the body is the belly button!

Washing dishes, or possibly washing her clothes...that she's wearing!

She helped make Rice Krispies bunny treats for our playdate.

We spent one morning at a group playdate, where the hostess had planned a ton of great activities!

Izzie colored her Easter eggs, all by herself....as she kept reminding me. She did not want any help from me; she is becoming so independent.

Izzie hopped around with her bunny ears on that she made. She also made a bunny cupcake and another bunny craft.

We had a hoppin' good time!

Tiny Tot School

Mac concentrating on her rainbow stacker...you can tell by her tongue!

Playing with her rainbow stacking bowls.

I walked in the living room and found Mac reading a library book! We keep the weekly library books in the basket beside their little couch. The girls love to snuggle and read books together!

Coloring with Izzie in their super new coloring book. Mac is starting to mimic everything that Izzie does!

She learned how to climb on and off her Rocking Horse.

She really enjoys helping me do the laundry, putting in and taking out the clothes. Here she's taking a break for a quick game of Peek-a-Boo!

For more Tot School, please visit 1+1+1=1.

stART: Duckie's Rainbow

Izzie read Duckie's Rainbow for her stART project this week.

Then, she made a rainbow using tissue paper!

Rainbow template (I color coded it for Izzie).

The completed rainbow with clouds!

Afterward, she decided that we needed to make another craft, so we made a rainbow letter R.

Izzie singing her rainbow song and reciting the colors of the rainbow on her letter R.

To see more stART projects, be sure to follow the rainbow over to A Mommy's Adventures!

Letter U Activities

Izzie completed the Magnet Page with her Dot Markers. I've been wanting to make these Magnetic Pom Poms for Izzie to use on the Magnet Pages too. She may get them in her Easter basket this year!

For letter recognition (capital and lowercase letter U), she completed this activity that I turned into a file folder game. For me, it's easier to store and locate being in a file folder. I attached a small snack Ziploc bag to the inside of the file folder to hold the smaller pieces.

U is for umbrella. Inspiration from No Time For Flashcards.

I'm starting a letter template binder for Izzie. I printed the letter U template and simply slid it into a clear page protector. This time, she used Play-doh to construct the letters, but the options are endless to use with the templates.

She practiced writing the letter U. These are the reusable uppercase flashcards from Kumon. I bought these at a used resource sale and they are wonderful. I'm really wanting to purchase the lowercase letters too!

More writing practice. I recently found an amazing site, Preschool Palace, with a ton of preschool activities. It's worth the time to check out!

Matching capital letters and lowercase letters. Again, I made this activity into a file folder game. She used her lowercase letter tiles.

She really enjoyed matching the number umbrellas to the correct amount of raindrops with
the number flip book.

I found this counting activity and thought I would introduce Izzie to the concept of counting by ten. She was able to recognize numbers 10, 20 and 30, but wasn't interested in learning the other numbers. I went over it with her a few times then left her alone to "practice". I was quite surprised when I came back and she had the grid completed in the correct number sequence! However, it was a little deceiving...I asked her to count the numbers for me. Well, she started counting 10, 20, 30, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 100! She recognized that she could put them in correct number sequence by just looking at the first number...it's a start!

Raising Rock Stars: Noah's Ark

This week, the girls are learning about Noah's Ark. Each morning, we have been reading the Noah's Ark story out of their Read and Share Bible. Then, Izzie uses her story cards to retell the story, while using her felt board pieces too.

I laminated and attached the story cards to a ring.

Izzie making felt board pieces...

Coloring Noah (I'm not sure why she insisted on him having purple skin).

Helping Noah build the Ark. She also colored several animals, 2 of each.

Noah's Ark with animals on felt board, watching it rain...I found the raindrops and an adorable song that we sing as Izzie places the raindrops on at ChildCareLand.

To create the rainbow, Izzie completed the Color A Rainbow Dice game.

Roll...

Count...

Color...

The completed Felt board.

Izzie is loving being able to retell Noah's Ark story, using her story cards and felt board pieces! It's been raining this week, perfect weather for our story and on Monday we even saw a rainbow!

In addition, Izzie has been practicing her writing skills by helping the animals on the ark with this cute tracing page.

To see more Raising Rock Stars, please visit 1+1+1=1.

How to make Maple Syrup?

We spent the day at the Maple Festival to celebrate the "opening" of the sugar maple trees! The best part of the festival is eating the food made from the local maple syrup. This year's menu included: pancakes, chicken, trout, BBQ and even desserts...donuts, fudge, candy, ice cream, and lollipops.

It's always a challenge getting a family picture with everyone smiling and looking at the camera!

We spent the morning strolling downtown enjoying the crafts and activities.

Then, we headed to the Sugar Farms to buy some local Maple Syrup! We visited two Sugar Farms, where we observed the process of maple syrup making. There are two different ways to remove the sap from the Sugar Maple Trees...

One: Tap it. It was really neat to watch the liquid being removed from the tree and watching it travel through the plastic tubing hundreds of yards to the main building.

There were multiple tapholes on each tree. One taphole can produce 5-15 gallons of sap.

The first Sugar Farm we visited used reverse osmosis to make their maple syrup.

The second farm used more primitive techniques to make their maple syrup.

Collect the sap.

Boil the sap.

It was a nice Spring day in the mountains...good weather, good food, and great company!