Saturday, January 30, 2010

S is for Snowman



Even though all of our snow has melted, we've been learning that S is for snowman. Now, don't get me wrong....it isn't warm here. It was warmer for a day or two and is now bitter cold outside. Yuck! Anyhow, today, we made a snowman out of the letter S.
Here's what we used to make our S is for Snowman:
A letter S cut from white construction paper, two black "coal" eyes, one orange carrot nose, two brown twig arms, a top hat with stripe, and blue construction paper to glue it onto.


After I drew and cut out a white letter S, Bekah glued it to a piece of blue construction paper.


Next, Bekah glued on the eyes and carrot nose.



We added the twig arms.


And topped him with a top hat complete with colored stripe.


Here's our finished S is for Snowman:

We have also really been enjoying the printables from Confessions of a Homeschooler. These were so awesome and we had a ton of fun with these printables.


Thursday, January 28, 2010

Yummy Felts Giveaway

Yummy felts is a great new blog by Michelle from A Mommy's Adventures. She is having an awesome giveaway HERE. They are giving away a sweet sugar cookie dough felt set. You can enter by clicking on the link above. Can't wait to see who wins!

Wednesday, January 27, 2010

The Biggest Snowball


This week for our stART project we have been reading The Biggest Snowball Ever! by John Rogan. When I requested this book from the Library I had no idea this was Christmas related. However, I have a little girl obsessed with Christmas, so it worked fine for us.
This book is a lot of fun to read and Bekah wanted to keep looking at the silly illustrations. We decided to make no-bake snowball cookies to go along with our book. Here's the recipe:

Here's what you will need:
2/3 cup butter -softened
1/2 cup sugar
1T. water
3T. cocoa
1/2 t. vanilla
2 cups rolled oats
1/2 cup powdered sugar

Mix the butter and sugar together. Add the water, cocoa, and vanilla. mix well. Add rolled oats, mix well. Roll about 1 tsp. of the mix in your hands to form a ball. Roll in powdered sugar.

Mixing the butter and sugar.

Stirring in the oats.

My official "taste tester".

Bekah's snowball cookie!

You can see what others are doing at A Mommy's Adventures.

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Raising Rock Stars - Creation




I've really been wanting to teach Bekah more about God's Word. She "learns about Jesus" in Sunday School and Church, but I want her to see that Mommy and Daddy see it as important too. So, I've decided to link up with 1+1+1=1's Raising Rock Stars.

For our first week we did the story of Creation. I think since there is so much information we might do a two week study.

We read from our Children's Bible as well as the books The Seven Days of Creation adapted from the Bible and illustrated by Leonard Everett Fisher and the book, The World God Made by Donna D, Cooner. The Seven Days of Creation book had such beautiful illustrations. It was definitely a favorite!

Our project this week was a HUGE poster of what God made on each of the seven days. Bekah was so excited when she saw the size of the poster board. She couldn't wait to start!

First, we used the coloring sheets found at Christian Preschool Printables. Bekah colored them in and I cut out the picture. (I really think she rushed through these to get to the point where we were ready to glue them on the HUGE poster board!)


I wrote on the poster board Day 1, Day 2, etc. and Bekah had to match up the correct picture to the day.


This was so simple to do, but she loved every minute!


Here's our finished product...

Monday, January 25, 2010

Muffin Tin Monday ABC's and 123's



The theme for today's Muffin Tin Monday meal was ABC's and 123's. This is what we did:


A - applesauce
B - bananas
C - cupcake (which I removed until after she ate some "real" food.
1 - 1 juice
2 - 2 homemade ham and cheese hot pockets (these are delicious, by the way. You can get the recipe from Our Best Bites.
3 - 3 goldfish crackers

I was so surprised when she ate almost her whole lunch! Yay for Muffin Tin Monday! You can find out what others are doing at Muffin Tin Mom.

Saturday, January 23, 2010

Snip, Snip, Snow


This past week Bekah was sick with a virus, so we ended up snuggling on the couch watching Blues Clues numerous times. When she was finally up to it, we read the book Snip, Snip, Snow by Nancy Poydar.

The story is really cute. It's about a little girl who really wants it to snow. She goes to school and begs her teacher to make snowflakes, so they make them out of paper. When they finish making the snowflakes they look outside and are so excited to see that it's finally snowing. At the end, there are directions to make your own paper snowflakes, so Bekah and I did just that.


We actually used coffee filters and just flattened them out a bit.

Bekah needed quite a bit of help folding and cutting the snowflakes out, but the look on her face when we unfolded the filter to reveal the snowflake was priceless!


After we had finished quite a few snowflakes I suggested hanging them up on our living room window. She is so proud of these snowflakes!

Friday, January 22, 2010

Polar Bear Paper Bag Puppet



Bekah has suddenly taken to paper bag puppets. We started with a polar bear puppet, since that's what we were learning about this week.
Bekah put glue on the paper bag.

She then added the polar bears head and ears. (I had drawn on the eyes).

Bekah drew on the nose and mouth.


We also added hands to our polar bear and she colored in claws.

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Cotton Ball Polar Bear


We continued our polar bear week by making a cotton ball polar bear from here. We made it into a bit of a math lesson by using the numbers to go along with it.

First thing I did was to cut out all the numbers. I then put them inside a paper bag and had Bekah pull out a number.


She would then find the same number on the polar bear and glue a cotton ball on that number. (I cut my cotton balls into 4 pieces to make them go farther).


It was a great introduction to numbers 20-31, since she's not too familiar with these numbers. However, this takes awhile and I could tell I was losing her attention, so I joined in and we made it into a little game by taking turns.

I think it turned out pretty cute!

Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Polar Bear Book


This week we are learning about polar bears. Our first activity was to make a polar bear book. Bekah has been really into coloring, so she loved making this. I found the pages for our book here.

I love how the book gives facts about polar bears. When Nathan came home last night Bekah read the book with him and told him about how polar bears live in the Arctic. Does't it feel great when your kids really get it?!

Bekah colored the pages and then asked for glitter. So, I broke out the glitter glue and she went nuts covering all her pages with glitter. She spent the longest time with this....it was great.

Here are some pages from her polar bear book.

Monday, January 11, 2010

Penguin ideas

Bekah and I had so much fun with penguin week. We finished up and are now getting into a week of polar bear projects. I'll start posting our polar bear adventures tomorrow, but wanted to finish up on the penguin posts I didn't get to. Here are some simple, yet fun ideas to do for a penguin lesson:

*Roll and Color Penguin - This is a fun little game. Bekah would roll the dice and add up the dots. She would then color in the number that was rolled.


*Make a penguin book. I actually got this idea from Mailbox Magazine. However, all you would need would be some cute penguin coloring pages, have your child color them (and add glitter, if you're brave!), then staple them together to make a book.


*Tracing penguins.

Muffin Tin Monday

Happy Muffin Tin Monday. Today's theme was Back to school/learning. Bekah had her muffin tin for breakfast since breakfast is brain food.

I was so excited to use these new funny feet muffin cups. I picked these up at AC Moore this past week. I've admired them on other blogs and couldn't wait for Bekah to see them.



She was so excited for her muffin tin breakfast. She had:
Scrambled Eggs, ketchup, strawberries and blueberries, and teddy bear toast. Yummm!

You can find out what others are having at Muffin Tin Mom.

Saturday, January 9, 2010

Macaroni Penguin


To continue our week on penguins we made a macaroni penguin mask. I'd been trying to get Bekah to make this mask all week, but she DID NOT want to trace her hand for the penguins feathers. Finally, what I did was trace a hand print she had made in church to use for his feathers. It was a perfect compromise and we had a blast putting this together.
The idea came from Making Learning Fun. They had a ton of great penguin ideas!

We used the pattern to trace onto white, black, and orange construction paper.

We used her hand print to make the orange feathers and glued that on the top of the penguin mask.


Then, I added two Popsicle sticks for Bekah to hold onto and we pretended to be macaroni penguins.


We also had fun singing the song that goes with this:

(Sung to the tune of Are You Sleeping)
Macaroni, Macaroni,
Penguin, Penguin,
You have orange feathers, You have orange feathers,
On your head, On your head.