One thing that makes me smile...

My kids are not terribly good eaters, nor do they sleep well, like most kids they are loud and messy.  One thing they do well is make me smile.  After looking through the pictures I have taken over the last month I noticed how many pictures I have of them playing well together.  They play very well together.  In fact, there playing right now as I type this in the next room.  Have a look and see if you too will smile.

Are you smiling?

I is for Iguanas and Iceberg Play dough

These are the last of our I activities, and probably Hannah's favorite too.  She worked through them very quickly and I was surprised that we had finished it all in a relatively short period of time.  First, we played with some iceberg play dough.

We used some white play dough, fake ice,
and our arctic animals that we used in our ice balls.

Beached whale.

It was very cold for a poor lonely polar bear.

Hannah decided we needed some water for the whales to swim in
and finally the polar bear found a friend in the walrus.

Iguana craft (Totally Tots).
We added a dewlap (chin flap) and some spines to our iguana.

The glue master.

Hannah held up the scrap of paper and said she needed to glue on the eye brow.

Kisses from the baby iguana.

Letter matching.  

Letter disks from A-H, and the 2 small letters for each letter from A-H.

Looking for the letter.  When she talks about E and F she counts how many legs it has to see if it matches.  

That's right G and C are not the same.

This is good activity to practice letter recognition.  It was also very good review for Hannah.  She enjoyed the challenge.  

What letter activities do your kids like to do?

I is for igloos and more insects.

Hannah, Ethan, and I attempted to make an igloo out of our box blocks.  When I first showed Hannah the igloo in her letter box she immediately turned it upside and pretended it was a cup.    While we do live in Canada (chuckle) there are no life size igloos for me to show Hannah.  I thought maybe this activity would show Hannah that you go inside an igloo.  We had fun but the igloo only stood briefly.

Ethan was a bit of a slacker.

This is the picture of our finished igloo.  Where are the children?  Well, the arm not holding the camera is holding them back so I can snap the picture before they attempt to destroy it.

Hannah in our second igloo.

Afterwards, we took advantage of the weather (a break in the rain) and whet searching for insects.  I planted plastic insects all over the place and  gave each child a magnifying glass.  Hannah also got a pair of plastic tweezers to "pick up" the specimens with and place in her bug box.

Her first find.

He loved the magnifying glass and the bugs.

Covered so they can't get out.

Using the tweezers was a bit of a challenge.

Any more mama?

There's one!

I see it too!

I'll get him next time.

Linked to: The Imagination Tree

Wordless Wednesday

I is for insects

This is leftover from the end of last week but because of a busy weekend and not feeling well I haven't had a chance to post it.  We did a few a activities about insects.

Growing insects.

Hannah dropped in 4 capsules that grow into insect sponges.
 She watched but it was a very slow process.

This was hours later.

Finally in the morning, they were all done.

Here is Hannah drying her insects and telling me there names.  The was an ant, a butterfly, a caterpillar,  and a  grasshopper.

Later on after nap time, Hannah and I painted insect rocks to keep outside.  Earlier I glued the paper cutout of the insect on the rock and sealed it.

Already.

Hannah painted them very quickly.

The paint was quite thick, so next time I would thin it down with some water so that it was more translucent.  Where the paint was applied quite thickly it was difficult to see the lines underneath.

Next, Hannah and I sponge painted with our insects.  The butterfly turned out really well.  The others not so much.

Two of our rocks, the dragonfly and butterfly.  I sealed them again and now they are outside ready for playing.

Lastly,  Hannah's picture.  She drew a picture of Auntie Jen and wrote all about it underneath.   

I is for ice cream

Hannah and I had some fun the other day with her activities.  We started after her nap and she continued until dinner.  I couldn't believe how focused she was working through different activities.  Including the two new activities below, she also played with play dough, matched farm animals to pictures, used the dot markers, and did some transferring work.  Here are the new activities we did for the letter I:

The idea behind this activity was pattern making.  I would make a pattern using the  ice cream scoops, then Hannah needed to make a matching ice cream cone.

Cut out and ready to go.

. 

This is her "huh what do you want me to do?" face.

She liked choosing colors to make ice cream cones.

She pushed it all aside and asked for the glue stick.
I guess shes not quite ready for patterns.

Gluing down her ice cream cone.

We added come cotton ball whipped cream.

Finished with a pom pom cherry on top.

Color matching with the letter I.  Hannah need to place each wooden circle on the appropriately colored dot.

Her favorite thing to do is to hold her hand over the matching spot and say  "nope not it", just to see what I'll say even though she knows its right.