Counting in the Garden and Butterflies

 

 

We are currently in the process of moving so we have not had a normal routine at all. We did recently read the book Counting in the Garden. If you have never read this book you should! The illustrations are beautiful and it is a look-and-find counting book. As we read the book Little Bit worked on pointing and counting.
 
We then created the butterfly that you see below with small bits of scrapbook paper. Little Bit was able to practice cutting and using a glue bottle. I love how the butterfly turned out!
 

 

 

With the move I have not been able to do more with the book but I have a few ideas to use with this book.

• Use insect and animals figures or pictures and count out how many are found on each page.
• Create a garden with flowers and plants cut from construction paper and hide the different insects and animals in the picture.
• Create each of the animals and insects.
• Visit a local garden (or your own garden) and look for the animals that were in the book.

 
This is a list of gardening activities and crafts from other blogs.

• No Time For Flash Cards has a list of 23 crafts and activities that focus on the garden.
• Happy Hawkins has cute ideas for felt gardening play sets.
• No Time For Flash Cards has another great idea for practicing patterns and counting.
• Fantastic Fun & Learning as a fun the gardening sensory bin.

 
 

Ocean Animal Play

 

A few weeks ago we went to the beach and ended up on a section of beach that had tons of shells of all sizes. The teacher/mommy in me was so excited and spent most of the morning filling sand buckets with shells. It was worth it because we now have a wonderful collection of shells that Little Bit can play with.

 

Our next theme will be water, ocean, rivers, ice, rain, etc. I ordered a pack of ocean animals to go with the theme and have been excited to pull them out.  Even though I had not planned to use them yet I decided to setup a ocean play area. To setup I filled the water table with water and added a few shells. Then placed all the ocean animals on Little Bits new buggy board.

 

 

 

We spent some time talking about different animals and if they lived in the water only or lived on land too. Our set of animals had three of each animal and Little Bit decided that all the animals should be with their family. All the animals were put into groups (sharks, fish, whales, etc) by the time we finished. Little Bit used several bowls and cups along with the water table as homes for the animals.

 

 

 

 

There are lots of fun stories about ocean animals, these are a few of the ones that we like.

 

1. The Snail and the Whale by Julia Donaldson, Axel Scheffler

2. A House for Hermit Crab by Eric Carle

3. How Deep is the Sea? by Anna Milbourne

4. Don't Eat the Teacher! by Nick Ward

5. Commotion in the Ocean by Giles Andreae, David Wojtowycz

6. Tickly Octopus by Ruth Galloway

 

 

 

 

 

Birthday Books

This week Little Bit turned 3! It has been a busy, busy week celebrating. To help celebrate Little Bits birthday I checked several books out of the library about birthdays. Three of the books were Little Bits favorite and we read them over and over. Below are the books that we loved reading over the past week.

1) Big Birthday by Kate Hosford

 

Big birthday is a fun story about a girl that is tired of ordinary parties and decides to have her party on the moon. A party on the moon sounds like fun until it is time to light the candles. The story has a great rhyming pattern and cute story.

 

 

2) When You Take a Pig to a Party by Kristina Thermaenius

 

 

This is a fun crazy story about a pig going to a party. There is a cause and effect theme and lots of messes. When we read this book Little Bit would always say "That is silly!"

 

 

3) Best Birthday Party Ever by Jennifer LaRue Huget

 

 



 

Imagine the best party our have ever been to and it will come nothing close to the party this little girl is planning. As she counts down to her big day the party grows bigger and bigger. You will need to read this one to see if all her dreams come true. 

Rainbow Activities

 

After talking and reading about Noah's Ark we created rainbows in a few different ways. Little Bit enjoyed the stories and talking about how God made the rainbow just for Noah.

Fruit Loops Rainbow

We used Fruit Loops to make our own rainbow. Little Bit ate one Fruit Loop for each one she glued down. :) I found this fun activity on the blog Enchanted Mommy.
 

 

 

Tissue Paper Rainbow

 

 

Mama Papa Buba has a fun sticky rainbow activity. You use contact paper to create a rainbow by added colorful tissue paper. Little Bit liked how sticky the paper was and adding the tissue paper.

 

 

 



Letter 'A' Activities

Over the past few weeks we have been talking about the letter A. Below is some of the activities we have enjoyed.

1. Letter hunt. Using magnetic letters Little Bit found all the letter As. She sorted through all the letters and pulled out the letter A. We talked about V and how it looks like the letter A. This was a quick and easy game.

2. Bread in the shape of letter A. We shaped bread dough into the letter A. Little Bit loved rolling the bread. We worked on making each sides of the letter were the same size. I used a French Bread recipe that was quick and easy.

3. Letter A tub.

I collect anything that I could find that started with the letter A, this was actually harder than I thought it would be. Our bin had: apron, alligator, apple, Mr Potato Head's arm, and airplane.

4. Letter A cut out.

We used strips of construction paper to make the letter A and then glued noodles to it. Little Bit liked gluing the noodles down and was excited to display her letter A on the wall.

5. Cheez-It letter hunt.

Scrabble Cheez-Its make letter hunting easy, fun and tasty.

Red, White & Blue Shaving Cream

We today played with shaving cream, paint and glitter. I originally saw this idea on the blog No Time For Flash Cards through Pinterest. As you may have noticed from my other post I use a lot of ideas from so many fabulous bloggers. The internet is a wonderful way to share and learn about new ways to play.

I used shaving cream, red and blue paint and glitter. As I was setting up I found spice containers to use for the glitter, which let me control how much glitter was used and let Little Bit glitter al by herself. After adding the shaving cream to the container I added drops of paint then created a firework pattern with a stick. Little Bit became very curious and couldn't wait to dive in.

Little Bit spent a few minutes trying to figure out what it was and what to do with it. She was a bit hesitant but quickly was painting herself with shaving cream, mixing the paint and adding glitter. She kept saying it was sticky and was like play-dough. Next time we will do this outside so that she can sling her arms and clap. Little Bit was laughing hilariously when she clapped her hands and a big glob flew to the ground. This was a fun and messy activity.

4th of July Fun

We have been having lots of 4th of July fun his week, yes I know it is only Tuesday. We decorated the house and have been reading our 4th of July books. Little Bit is very excited to see all our family and the fireworks. Check out what we have done so far to celebrate.


Pom-pom Fireworks

We used pom-poms to create fireworks with paint. This was a quick and easy art project. I found the idea on the blog Sense of Wonder. We used small and large pom-poms the smooth ones and ones that are spikey. Little Bit dipped the pom-poms in paint and then touched them to the paper. We love finding new ways to paint.


4th of July Wands

 

 We are making fun wands for the girls in our family. They are simple to make and look so cute! We used: wooden dowels, screw eyes, and various ribbon. I was able to get all the supplies at Wal-Mart in the craft section. I was able to screw the screw eye into the dowel by hand. Little Bit then practiced her scissor skills and cut the ribbon. Next, she threaded the ribbon through the screw eye. When it was time to tie the ribbon I looped it and Little Bit pulled it tight. That is it, so easy. This fabulous idea came from the blog Buggy and Buddy.

 
4th of July Sensory Bin

Materials in our sensory bin:

• blue, red and white pom-poms
• red, white and blue necklets
• red, white and blue popsicle sticks
• blue star ice trays
• red, white and blue lays (cut apart)
• American flags
• red, white and blue glitter stars

Cookie Cutter Stars

This is another fun way to paint. Little Bit loved this, as you can see in the picture. We used three different size star cookie cutters and blue and red paint. Little Bit liked that she could stamp inside the big stars with a little stars. She also explained to me that when you put red and blue together it makes purple. This idea originally came from the blog No Time For Flash Cards.

Counting with Stars

Gift of Curiosity has a free 4th of July packet you can download with lots of fun activities inside. Little Bit loved counting the stars and finding the number they matched. Check out the packet, there are many different activities: puzzles, counting, letters, patterns, cutting, tracing, etc.

 

Noah's Ark Activities

 

 

 Noah's Ark

 

Little Bit and I have been reading, playing and learning about Noah's Ark for the past few weeks. This fit into out animal theme summer perfectly. I created a background and cut the ark out of white paper. Little Bit loved cutting strips of brown paper into small pieces of "wood" to glue to the ark. We covered the ark with the strips of "wood" and put the ark on the background.  

 

We added foam animals to complete our ark. Little Bit found two of each animal and put them next to each other around the ark. This is our finished ark.

3D Noah's Ark

I found a printout that makes a 3D ark when folded. It was printed on cardstock so that it would hold up. Little Bit colored it, then we cut and glued it together. The 3D ark can be found at Sunday School Kids.

Noah's Ark Book

We used the books below as we talked about Noah's Ark. There are many other great books available but these books were the ones that our library had and best fit our needs.