Ten black dots!

Right now we are working with the book Ten Black Dots!  So we put our own spin on it for some added fun!

Popsicle sticks that you can mix up and have them put back in order.

Puzzles!  Kids love puzzles!

Make a book!  I assembled the lady bug but D put the appropriate amount of dots on each lady bug. 

Safety! Police Officers

Today at story time a police officer came and talked to kids about stranger danger. Then the kids got to go see his car, try on the hat and just absorb the who scene. It was awesome!  (I will admit D preferred the fire fighters yesterday but that will be another post when we have time to do supplementals.  Mainly because they gave her a hat and she loves to play dress up.)

After we got home I set to work. We made puppets to try out. A police officer, a little girl like D, a man and a woman. Then we played different scenarios. A man had a little girl at home he wanted D to come meet and the woman had flowers for D if she came with her. We practiced letting D run to the police officer. After we were done she continued playing. 

Where's Spot?

We are enrolled in HIPPY now and having a blast!  We are also in the process of selling our house to move. (Hence no updates!). We are finishing up the book Where's Spot? So I thought I would give some ideas on supplementals to go with the book!  We made Blue Bell so D could feed her bones!  Great for counting, subtracting and fine motor skills. 

Make as many bones as you want for your child.

This one took a bit of time to get sizing right. But I just copied pictures that matched the book, resized them, cut them out and put them on card stock to make them more durable.  Next I made different sized spots.

She determined if spot was too big to fit behind the item. She also used the spots to put in order from big to little. Or we talked about which one was bigger/smaller. 

A trip to the Artic

Mimi got Daphne a tube for Artic play. Last night we played with them in the tub but that wasn't enough. So...we froze some food containers of ice and made little iceburgs. If you notice the snow, I have a snow cone maker that I made "snow".

Things that can be free

Daphne had very sensitive skin as a baby. The only diapers we could use were huggies because of this I collected the codes for enjoy the ride to get free things. We have been able to get a few things we never would have been able to afford. So far we got a travel potty seat, a melissa and Doug wooden train and tool set plus a few other things including clothes. I can honestly say this program saved my bottom one birthday to give her more than we could afford!

Sun catcher style two

Play At Home Mom has a lot of neat ideas that we love in this house. She is actually what inspired me to start a blog of everything Daphne and I do!  This is the link to her sun catchers like what I have done. http://www.playathomemomllc.com/2011/10/window-art.html   This activity came straight from her site.  I strongly recommend you visit it.  She has some amazing ideas.  For this activity we got picture frames from the $ tree, some of the stones from walmart for 97 cents a bag.  (three bags...white/clear, green and blue), some clear elmer's glue and some hot glue.  Take the back off of the picture frame and where you would place the picture, put hot glue around the edge of the glass and frame to seal it from the glue leaking through.  Then flip it over, pour the elmer's glue on the top of the frame and spread it evenly.  Place the stones (or whatever you want to use) and let dry.  They are kinda heavy to be careful how you hang them!  We are going to set ours in the window seal of the kitchen.  PAHM hangs hers up in different ways depending on the weight.

Nature Walk

Daphne and I went on a nature walk today. She collected anything in nature she wanted to look at under the magnifying glass. I will have to say her stash was rocky and colorful. I don't have a picture of the "snowman" she made out of rocks but I will try to get it later for you. We were busy today!

Update: the snowman is now pictured!

Who will sink the boat?

Daphne wanted to make a sail boat today so I got some craft foam, hot glue, foam stickers and a hard plastic straw. I used the straw and some foam to make the mast and sail but it didn't work so I carefully cut it off. She had so much fun decorating the sail I felt bad removing it...but sometimes you have to let something go. Next she wanted to get out some little people to ride in the boat. I decided to make it into a science project! How many will fit in the boat before it sinks? I could only find 6 of the 7 dwarfs (I wonder where she hid the last one...hmmm) so we used a prince. The verdict? The 6 dwarfs floated but the prince...sunk the boat. We learned about weight, weight distribution, and surface tension. Plus we had a blast!

Back yard beach

It's way too cold for a trip to the "local lake" that is almost two hours away so today while it was above 50 we took the opportunity to get out our sand box. For safety reasons we opted to not get a big box to leave out. Instead we got a shallow storage tub that goes under the bed and put part of a 50 pound bag of sand in it. Daphne loves it! Her cars go on trips, she builds castles, she can even grow fake flowers in them. So many things a girl can do in the sand! On a side note I'm contemplating getting a cheap hard plastic kiddy pool to put under the swing set slide to make a water slide. Has anyone tried this before? If you have let me know how it went!

Lava Lamp Fun!!!

We made a lava lamp today. I used one of our big plastic test tubes and mixed one part water some food coloring and 3 parts oil. Then broke up generic Alka Seltzer tablets and let her drop them in. We watched this for a few minutes adding one piece when the first one fizzled out. Then she wanted to put multiple pieces in at once. Will this make more bubbles or less bubbles? She said less. So we tried. Well, it made more!

***No more updating everything from my IPhone.  I was informed it autocorrected to say antacid tablets instead of Alka Seltzer (made it one word by accident and IPhone didn't understand it.  Antacid won't do anything.  Sorry about that).***

Another frog pond!

I couldn't help myself.  Last night, while Daphne was spending the night with her Mimi, I got a little creative!

The grass is decorative plastic grass I bought awhile back.  I used Daphne's cookie sheet and 5 made a base of hot glue then stuck the grass in the glue.  Make the base a little bit bigger than what you actually need for the grass to keep it upright.  The lily and lily pads were made out of the foam sheets.  The eggs were little blue circles of foam and hot glue poured over it.  The tadpole and tadpole with legs were made out of the foam sheets and hot glue as well.  The frog is a little plastic toy she picked out at chuck e cheese the other day...lol.  The water is colored with the fizz tablets to color bath water.  She had a blast!!!

A Trip to the Pond

Today we made a trip to the pond. We counted 5 frogs on an old log. Then we played hide and seek with them in the green water. Those little frogs are hard to find and catch.

Play school Mommy!

Trying to put something together quickly for Daphne to play school I came up with this binder.  It covers numbers 1-10 (with different fruits for her to count).  I put them in page protectors so she could use them over and over.  I have her count or count with her and talk about the different fruit and the number.  She can trace the number with her finger or a dry erase marker...or put stickers on it like she did today.  You can do this with letters too which I'm working on.  I can't wait to show you the letters.  Give me a week and I should have the letters up as it will take some time to get the pictures copied and pasted and everything put together.  (Plus, I ran out of page protectors...lol.)

Building with craft sticks

We all have those moments with toddlers when we are out to eat and dinner is taking longer to make than your child has patience for.  The crayons have long been tossed because they are tired of coloring.  What can you do?  Well, I made a simple, open ended game, with craft sticks.  Velcro dots on each side and end.  (If you use the traditional velcro use sticky at one end, soft on the other...reverse on the other side so the end with the stick dot has soft on the back side and the end with the soft dot has sticky on the back side.  HOWEVER, I strongly recommend the newer velcro that is sticky for both sides...I just couldn't find it at our local Walmart or Home Depot and Micheal's is too far off to get the other kind.)  They can build all they want, un-velcro, and start over.  Daphne LOVES playing with these.  They fit neatly in a quart sized zip lock bag and aren't very noisy...unless you count the squeals of excitement when she makes a sail boat and tells you all about it...then asks you to provide the wind...lol.  (or whatever else she creates and is proud of) 

Puzzle time!

Vh

Tomato soup better than Cambell's!

Today we are making tomato soup!  I found a simple recipe online and decided to use it and tweak it.  I've made tomato soup once before (Gordon Ramsey recipe) and swore I would never do it again with how hard it was and how long it took.  (think roasting tomatoes, onions, garlic, etc then cooking it, then about 20 other steps to it)  It was really good, but the effort wasn't worth it.  But the other day I ran across something so much more simpler and decided to use the basics of it and make my own.  It's half way done and all I can think is how yummy it smells and how delicious it tastes.  Daphne wanted to help so after I cut up everything I let her help pour and stir.  She was so proud of herself!

2 1/2 pounds of tomatoes

1 small onion

1 1/2 Tbsp butter (optional)

4-5 garlic cloves

sea salt

pepper

basil

parsley

Chop up the onions, garlic and tomatoes in small pieces.  Heat medium sauce pan on high and put butter in.  Once melted add onions, garlic and tomatoes.  They will start to release liquids and make it kinda soupy.  See picture above.  Add the seasonings to taste.  Let it boil for a few minutes (stirring continuously).  Then reduce to a simmer.  Keep stirring until the heat has decreased enough to not burn.  After 1 1/2-2 hours of simmering, stick it in the blender.  If you don't want the texture from the tomato skins, seeds, and such, then just strain the soup through a fine mesh strainer.  Problem solved!  Make some home made bread during this time if you want (or use french bread from the store) and it is yummy!  I haven't even finished the simmering part and I'm sticking some home made pretzel bread cubes into it and eating it.  Thinking next time I need to make a double or triple batch to can.