Ready

Set

ROBOT!

Sweet Robots

Clockwise: 1.)  Our Love-Bot (Mini Cereal Box + Tin Foil + Painted Clothes Pins)   2.)  Matchbox Robot Treats   3.) Emerson-Bot   4.) Robot Suit (Dollar Store Car Sun Reflector Thingy)   5. Garage Sale Robot

Magnetic Robot Puzzle

Clockwise: 1.) Robot Count!  (Change out dominoes for different math problems!)   2.) Robot Down   3.  Mason-Bot   4.  Chalk-Bot

And of course we had to bring out ROBBY the COUNTING ROBOT from 09.  {Here}

Have a wonderful day!

[Emerson eating lunch, like a fish, in the kiddie pool.]

Sixteen Ways to have fun with GOLDFISH (from left to right):

1.     Serve Goldfish Soup

2.     Try Goldfish Kiddie-Pool Math (fish for numbers then put them in order)

3.     Make Tuna Fish (or PB & J) Sandwiches in the Shape of a Fish

4.     Buy A Feeder Fish for Every Member of Your Family 

5.     Check Out Goldfish Books from the Library and Make Rock GOLDFISH Pets 

6.     Write and Illustrate a FIVE FACTS about GOLDFISH Mini Book

7.     Freehand Foam Goldfish for Math Time

8.     Make a Colorful Goldfish Crackers Collage

9.     Paint a Fish Bowl and Add Artistic Touches like Seaweed and Gravel

10.   Make a Unique Home for Your New Pet

11.   Have Toddlers Engage in a Fun Color Match with Goldfish Crackers

12.   Go Fishin

13.   Dunk Orange Swedish Fish into Blue Jello

14.   Do a Family Fish Day

15.   Eat in a Goldfish BOWL (AKA Kiddie Pool)

16.   Use Goldfish for Addition and Subtraction Practice

and all time favorite of the week– Make an OUTDOOR GOLDFISH BOWL—–

Enjoy these beautiful summer days friends… 

Need More THEME-TIME fun?  Check out:

A CHOCOLATE DAY by Princess and a Frog Blog!   They even had a chocolate BATH, chocolate pancakes and chocolate play dough– come on how cool is that???!!

The MOUSE PICNIC by Little Page Turners!  This left me with a huge SMILE.  Her theme this week is MICE with irrisitble projects and activities!

hello VEGETABLES!

Talk about a hard sell. :)

 [Painting With Veggies]

Asparagus: Paint Brush!  Corn on the Cob: Paint Roller!  Peppers and Brussels Sprouts: Stamp and Smear!

Photographs of veggies cards for “Go Fish” and ”Memory Match”

[Create a Veggie Plate]

—————————————————–Veggie Details————————————————————-

Fun & Games:Go Veg (Go Fish), Name that Veggie and The Vegetable Memory Game

Imaginative Play: Farmers Market & Seed Scientist

Book Love:The Vegetable We Eat (Gibbons), The Life and Times of Corn (Micucci), The Monster Who Ate my Peas (Schnitzlein), I Will Never Eat a Tomato (Child), Grow it and Cook it (DK Press) 

Art Time: Painting with Vegetables, Design Your Own Seed Packet and Plate Veggie Art  

Creative Learning: Seed Packet Spelling, Spelling Blocks & Vegetable Classification  

Just for fun: Peas and Carrots Cake & Peas & Carrots SMASH!

——————————————————————————————————————————————

 [Emerson by the Veggie Table]

[Seed Packet Spelling]

Kiddos can use seeds to spell the vegetable name.  Seeds are mini circle punches and packets are letter sized envelopes cut in half and mounted on cardstalk.   

Left to Right (above):1) Blaise Visits the Farmers Market 2) Word Block Spelling found via Make Learning Fun  3) Painting! 4) Corn Ready for Color  5) Emerson Taking a Picture of our ‘Peas & Carrots’ Before SMASH! 

 [Veggie Classification Game in an Altoid Tin]

 Now go eat some VEGGIES! Or at least play with them.

Ice Cream Garden

Guess the FLAVOR!  What’s your favorite?

Math Scoops

What’s the flavor of the day?  Ice cream container holds “scoops” of FUN!     

Here’s to some sticky — lickin’ days and nights!!!

Summer here we come! 

[Toliet Paper Roll Puppets]

[The Clown Pool]

 [The Clown Shop]

CLOWNING AROUND

Fun & Games: The Clown Pool, Clown Dress Up Box, Face Painting & Pie Smash

Book Love: Funny Bones: Comedy Games and Activities for Kids by Lisa Bany-Winters, Be a Clown: Techniques from a Real Clown by Ron Burgess and Heather Barberie, Big Top Recipes for Little People:  The Big Apple Circus Official Cookbook for Kids and Would-Be Clowns by Favorite Recipes Press

Art Time: Clown Faces, Toliet Paper Roll Puppets & Clown Face Paper Plates

Learning Fun: The Clown Shop (Math & Shapes), Clown Shape Up & Clown Color Discovery

 Pie Smash Tomorrow!

xoxoxoxoxo!

we went around town to leave happy little surprises for kids and adults alike!

The idea behind “card drops” is to leave something for a stranger—

 it could be a kind word, encouraging note or exact change to buy treat. 

“The smallest act of kindness

is worth more than the

greatest intention.”

—Oscar Wilde—

Every act of kindness counts.

Don’t have time for a card drop?  YOU could—

Buy a candy bar for a gas station attendant.  

Hold a door.

Drop a dollar in the toy isle (on purpose!).

Leave change in a soda machine. 

 Ready. Set. GO spread the kindness friends!!!!!!!

xoxoxoxoxo

Fun & Games

The Happy Hunt:  For the inside version I used circle punches and mini yellow stickers to hide smiley faces throughout the house.  For the outside hunt the kiddos searched for the smiley faces (yellow paper plates) at the park and while we were out cruising around town.   Object of this game is to count your blessings.  Every time you find a smile you find something in your day that made you happy.   

Happy Face Math: Addition with a twist— adding smiley faces using dotty “bingo” markers.  

Smiley Face Pop: What’s in the balloon?  A note to hop, jump or skip perhaps?

Happy Match: The classic preschool favorite using recycled CDs and clothes pins.  How fast can you match letters or numbers on the smiley face?

Feelings Game: Feeling happy is great… but it’s okay to feel shocked, shy and mad too. We decorated an old ‘laughing cow’ cheese container to hold faces and feeling cards. 

The Happy Board: Gratefulness = Happiness!  So much to be thankful for and to be happy about!!  God, Ice-cream trucks, baseball, family… This was our visual celebration of all the things that make us HAPPY!

Happy Grass: Funnel + Sugar + a Touch of Food Coloring = Happy Grass  I was a wee bit worried that the grass might not like the sugar, but apparently grass likes sugar as much as we do!

I could do happy faces all year long.  Yellow smiling faces really do make me smile.  

So next time you are feeling a little blue… just put a little smile on…  anywhere, everywhere… 

Part II {mission kindess} coming SOON!   

Have a nice day.

We saw Charlotte’s Web on stage.  Here’s the sweet version of Wilbur, Charlotte and Templeton–

PIG STYLE DESSERT— served in a trough!  Brownie mix + H2O + mini finger foods = messy little piglets.   

Paper Pancakes! [ If You Give a Pig a Pancakeby Laura Numeroff ]  For kicks you can fill an old syrup bottle with glue and tempera paint… my kids loved drizzling the glue syrup onto their creations.  NOTE: Syrup dries dark so only add a touch of brown!  

 [ Pig Pizza ]

Pig Puff Puppet [ Pink Wiggly Pig, What Do You Wish For?by Marianned Richmond ] 

Here is our version of the classic Three Little Pigs TOUCH,  FEEL and PLAY board.

This was supposed to be a pig face sandwich… ummmm … ya,  not-so-much!

Pigging OUT on Art, Books and Treats—

This Piggy WORD Bank is made from a recycled soda bottle via HERE.  Feed this pig by learning a P WORD (see the mini word pigs above).    

I may dish out one last tiny dose pig fun by serving ”pigs feet” for an afternoon snack. The REAL kind—just to see the look on their faces!!! hehehehhe…  Don’t worry– I won’t take a picture!  :)  

ENJOY your day! 

Everywhere a PEEP PEEP!

The trick to using peeps in your art projects is to GLAZE them before you start creating!   

Peep Necklace:

Big hit of the week– painting with PEEPS.  We started by using glazed peeps to make bunny stamps… then it turned into free for all paint fest.  I trimmed artwork and used recycled peep boxes for frames. For kicks you could add ribbon to hang the frames.
The Mini Peep Show. Peeps pop in and out of box!  

Why Hello Sugar Lips! 

The Peep Number Game.  Kiddos fill a candy box of peeps by matching or sequencing.

Peep Paint:  2 Tbs Salt + 1 Tbs Powered Tempera Paint  For the peep puppets we sprinkled salt paint on thin layer of glue and let dry for 24 hrs.

Peep Glaze: 1 cup H2O + 1/3 cup white school glue Pour mixture into spray bottle and then mist onto peeps, dry overnight…

Peep Fun: Power to the Peeps  I absolutely loved this contest last year from the Washington Post… launch the gallery to see all the creative entries. My favs were the Peep Sushi and Pepperoni and Peeps-a (Pizza).

Cupcakes Anyone??

We’ve had a week of cupcake CRAZINESS! 

From our cupcake party (each kiddo had a lunch tray with a little cupcake magic):

How many ways can you say cupcake?

Jello Cupcakes

Clay Cupcakes

Felt Cupcakes

Traditional Cupcakes

Necklace Cupcakes

Mason Jar Cupcakes

Meatloaf Cupcakes

Favorite activity of the week was our cupcake hop (old fashioned cake walks with a twist).  Kiddos  kids jump from (large paper) cupcake to cupcake until the music stops, mom draws a cherry with a number, match the cherry to number of sprinkles on your cupcake and you win the round.  

You must be on cupcake overload by now?!

Ya, me too. 

And I’m not even done yet! 

Mission: Kindness is a new tradition I’m weaving into our theme of the week.   

Kindness Verse: 1 Corinthians 13:4 (NIV)

 ⁴Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 

Our act of kindness was to send twelve of our far-a-way friends and family a litle happy in the mail.  We set up cupcake factory and made cupcakes in a jar:

 I wasn’t joking about meatloaf cupcakes!  The ”frosting” was mashed potatoes {turquoise even}!  I’m not sure why but I was the only one who ate them?! 

Joy’s Hope  has wonderful step-by-step directions for the Mason jar cupcakes.  Her blog is a wealth of beauty, creativity and inspiration—  you’ll love it!  I can’t leave her comments because I don’t have a google account so if you visit, tell her THANKS for me!  

See ya later, Cupcake!