Hannah is a great teacher.

I said to Andrew in the car the other day that Hannah is a born teacher, meaning that I can already see an innate desire in her to teach.  For months she has been trying to teach Ethan to clap, sing, and even walk (he has finally learned that one).  Hannah heard us talking and she said loudly ``Hannah no teacher, Hannah is Hannah``.   Despite her assertions you can see it the way she interacts with Ethan and it makes Andrew and I laugh.

I caught this on the camera:

She is teaching Ethan to count, what you can`t see in the video is that she is trying to teach Ethan to count Josephs brothers in her baby bible.  Unfortunately, the page turned on her but she kept going anyway.

Wordless Wednesday

Animal Matching and Spoon Practice

This afternoon Hannah wanted to play a game.  This usually means she wants to do some fun activity, so we matched animals and practiced with spoons.

Animal matching:  Pretty simple activity, I place pictures of farm animals on the table and handed Hannah pictures of the same animals one at a time for her to match.  Next time, I will only place some of the animal cards rather than all of them because she was finished after about 6 animals.  If you want to make your own cards, I found these ones at Montessori for Everyone here.

Looking for the cow.

Found it.

Spoon Practice:  Equally simple, I placed a dish of bouncy balls beside the paint tray and she spooned the balls in to the divots.  I found both of these items at the dollar store.

Easy does it.

Fingers are easier.

All done.

Fort Fun

Sometimes my kids have the greatest fun with very little.  Hannah is really into hiding right now, Ethan is really into destroying things.  While folding laundry I rigged up this little fort in order to occupy them long enough to fold everything. It worked until Ethan tried to climb on top of the fort.

Hannah trying to hide again.

Ethan found the flashlight I gave Hannah.  He waved it around like sword.

Hannah decided to make a bed in the basket.

She prepared her basket bed.  In a methodical manner she gets everything ready.  This takes awhile.

All done, complete with a teddy bear.  Ethan tries to scale the sheet.

Letter D Activities

In addition to the summer fun that we have had the last two weeks, Hannah and I have also enjoyed some fun Letter D activities.  I really enjoy coming up with the letter activities.  Some of the time the ideas are mine and some times they are the ideas I glean off of other super creative and talented Mommies.  Have a look at the fun we had:

Hannah discovering a dinosaur in our D box.

Counting Ds

Coloring and stamping Ds  (Worksheet from Tot School Printables)

Magnet fun. (from Tot School Printables) 

Duck Puzzle.  I put the three piece puzzle on a magnet sheet. (from Tot School Printables) 

The ducky playdough

Paper Duck Craft

Daisy Sugar Cookies

 I made Hannah a dinosaur sandwich and some dinosaur shaped cheese for lunch.  Her first comment to me was "where are the eyes?".  I think I should do this more often, because she ate really well that day.

Dinosaur lunch

Yeah onto "E".

It feels like summer!

This week Hannah finally got her certificate of completion for Mother Goose Class. She was so proud.  I was so proud.  Hannah has been going to Mother Goose every week since the fall.  She loved it.  In her words "La la Class" is where mom and Hannah go on Monday mornings to sing together and with other parents and kids.  We learned a lot of nursery rhymes, lap rhymes, story songs and action songs.  I thought I knew a lot of songs having taught preschool and kindergarten classes but now I know so much more.  I love listening to the songs we have learned.  Now I just can't wait until Ethan is old enough to go himself.

Hannah holding her certificate!

This week we also went to the spray park.  Unfortunately, when we got there it wasn't yet on even though it felt plenty hot.  It needs to be 20C for the water to kick on and sure enough after about 15 of playing on the regular playground the water kicked on.

Always watching others.

Heading to the puddles.

Splashing.

Ethan had enough and wanted a break.

Getting sprayed.

Hands up if your having fun.

Decorating cookies

Hannah's helping me cleanup.

Hannah and I decorated sugar cookies (we omitted the almond extract because I'm not a fan) this morning.  After mixing all the ingredients in the mixer, I had to stop to calm Ethan down because he was shrieking from the noise.  He absolutely hates loud noises; at the wedding we went to 2 weeks ago he shrieked everytime people clapped.  While the cookie dough chilled in the fridge.  Hannah and I made colored sugar to decorate the cookies.  It was so simple.

blue, purple, and green colored sugar

Colored Sugar
1/2 cup of sugar for each color (I wanted to make extra)
food coloring
zip baggies

Put come food coloring in your baggie.  I have gel colors so I used a tooth pick and put some of the color inside but I think a few drops of liquid kind would be the same.  Add the sugar, close the bag and mix until the color is even (just a few minutes).  Note:  If you get some food coloring on your counter, lemon juice and baking soda works well.

I thought I had done it all wrong but keep mixing.

Hannah mixing up the purple.

Ethan trying to see what we were doing.

Next, we cut out the cookies.  I wanted to use my dinosaur cookie cutters for the letter D, but the dough kept getting stuck and ripping.  So we made Daisy cookies.

Hannah helped me decorate with color sugar on the uncooked cookies.  It works just like glitter because its so fine.  First we sprinkled, then we used a spaghetti spoon and the spatula as a sugar stencil.  The spoon had holes in it and the spatula had large lined grooves.  Note:  keeping the layer of sugar as thin as possible worked better because the sugar melted into the cookie much nicer.

sprinkling 

Our finished flowers

Spatula on the right, spaghetti spoon on the left.

Our matching aprons

Wordless Wednesday

These are some of the outtakes from Andrew's Father's Day present, they crack me up.