B-I-N-G-O

Lately, we have been playing BINGO mainly with numbers and letters. J and A really like playing and they feel like they are playing a game. Its really helping them recognize their letters without by only hearing them, instead of seeing the letter.

Noodle Sorting - Math

This is an easy sorting exercise. This time we used noodles, but I plan on using rocks, marbles, large beans etc. I want to do this more often because they struggled with it. I simply used some appetizer trays that I happen to have around and wrote smaller #'s onto paper.

Letter Tt Week

This is our Letter Tt tub. This was an easy letter week for them, easy as in, they learned the sound, words associated and recognition of the letter within a word quickly.

They even pointed out this cute plate that Julian made a few weeks ago and tried to "test" Thanks for the T sounds (tuh, tuh, thanks) and it didn't work. So I had to semi explain that Thanks does start with a T but it has an H after which makes a th sound. I love that they were so proactive in learning though.

We read a story about Time, which worked out great because I have been meaning to start talking to them about time telling. We will get more into that soon.

As with every Letter, we made the letter Tt and they had the option to use toilet paper and/or toothpicks. Julian had attempted to use toilet paper with his open ended art last week and didn't like it being stuck to his finger because of the glue, so he stuck to just toothpicks this time.

Aislinn used TP and toothpicks.

This next turkey project was the best craft I have done all year!!! First of all, a great learning tool and helped reinforce the letters they are already very familiar with and helped to remind them of the others that we haven't gotten to. Also, this craft last like 45 min. They were both very detailed and they took their time in accomplishing it. I loved it!!! I kept looking at the time and thinking wow, its been 20 min, then 30 min, then 40. LOL. I will duplicate this over and over with a rainbow, a slide, etc. Be on the look out for it.

They had to glue the corresponding letter to the correct space and then color their turkey.

Here is the template for anyone interested!

This site is a great resource.

I showed them some numbers to see how they would do with recognizing the letter Tt and they were champs, so we moved onto harder things :)

I quickly typed up a story about a Turtle named Tommy that lost his Tooth. There were soooooo many T's in the story, they had a blast highlighting the T's and finding them. I kept telling them it was like a scavenger hunt.

Open Ended Art - Black and White

Open ended art gives children free creativity, allowing the child to create art, how he/she sees it. I didn't invent open ended art, I simple saw the idea from Adventures of a Flake and Mommies Wise Little Bookworms.

The open ended art theme was balck and white.

This was a project that only Julian did.

In his words, he created a scary ghost. :)

Making Scarecrows...

First off, let me say a huge THANKS to the wonderful organizer of our playgroup, Brandy at Adventures of a Flake, for setting this playdate up. I had been looking forward to it for a while and we really loved our final product.

Aislinn stuffing the "head".

It was a little harder than it looks. I ended up doing the head stuffing. LOL

Julian drawing his "scary" face.

Onto the task of actually stuffing the scarecrow.

Julian dancing with his scarecrow.

Most of the kids snuck in some hay time play.

Look how cute, they are holding hands LOL

Monster Hands

We went to another PAL'shouse to make scary monster hands.

Healthy Recipe Playdate

We went to our PALS' house to exchange recipes of healthy food. I forgot to take a pic of the healthy food, but I got one of Julian eating a carrot.

Julian's 4th B-day

For Julian's 4th birthday, I threw him a small family birthday party.

Here Julian is waiting for his cake to be brought out so we can sing to him.

Mami (me) and Julian

Wow, I can't believe he is 4 yrs old!!

Aislinn's mom, Fiona, gave Julian a whole musical instrument set, including a snare drum. Thanks Fiona and A ;)

Dress up Time

I pulled out some costumes. Aislinn was a flower girl / princess and Julian looks like he was buzzlight year, but he said he was a prince.

They were dancing in this pic. It was really cute.

The Very Hungry Caterpillar

We read this childhood favorite and also watched an animated version of it on YouTube. The kids loved the animated version so much that they watch it over and over.

After we read and watched the book, we made our own very hungry caterpillar's for our very hungry cater-kids!! They had fun getting to their hands covered in frosting and using the pretzels for feet.

Surfing the Waves

I couldn't believe it when I saw Julian using my mini-ironing board to "surf ".

All I could do was grab my camera and take a picture of the craziness my son came up with.

He even "crashed" a wave. LOL, this boy keeps me young.

Ocean Week Continues....

Our trip to Florida Aquarium took place this summer.

It was in line with our Ocean Theme and we were following up with the ocean animals and life we had learned about previously.

They were using this magnifying glass to check out the tinest shrimp I had ever seen. They were called ghost shrimp, I think.

Then we went to the outdoor water play area and they had a blasty blast.

Claire looks kinda mad at me for putting her on the turtle, but I swear, she loved it!! LOL

DON'T Runnnn~!!! I must have said that a million times this summer.

All in all, it was a great trip. Aislinn and Julian even got to touch stingrays. They felt so weird. They loved it though.