C is for Camping, Caterpillars, and Cousins!

We had a combination lesson day yesterday.  The previous day we had our gymnastics class and then we met our cousins at the zoo.  After the zoo she crashed for a three hour nap, woke up to eat dinner, and went back to bed for the night.  What a great day!  So I guess Wednesday's post should have been C is for crazy.

Yesterday we managed to get a few things done in the morning while I was getting ready for our family to come over and play.  First we used a bingo marker to mark the circles on a letter C.  This went ok.  Gooba did a combination dot and draw on the paper.

Next we used dry erase markers to color this caterpillar.  I tried with the blue marker to show her to draw in the circles.  She gradually got a little better with her control on this one.  I enjoy how she will concentrate really hard for about 30 seconds and then just yell out DRAW! and scribble all over the paper.  She cracks me up!

Next we colored a similar sheet with the letter C and a picture of a caterpillar.  Gooba was done concentrating on her coloring at this point and just scribbled over the while paper.  But she enjoyed herself, which is all that matters!

Then we, for some reason, worked more on marker control and tried to draw a line from the campers to the tent.  She seemed to at least get the concept on this one this time.  She was actually able to demonstrate some sort of marker control this time.  Oh how I love to see her grow!

After the writing control practice to attempted to draw some letters.  I drew one to demonstrate and she drew a little scribble and started cheering "I did it!"  So I clapped and she was done after that.

I love this one!  I handed her the magnets and the magnet page, on the wrong side of the magnet board - which I am just now noticing as I'm typing, and I turned away to wipe off the previous worksheet.  When I looked back she had started putting all the magnets on the circles without me even telling her what we were doing!  She does do better when I don't give her directions!

Next was Gooba's best activity - size sorting.  As usual she was awesome at this activity.  No problems here, large to small or small to large.

Next we worked on some patterns.  I find that when she has a longer pattern to finish, there is no problem.  She has a little trouble with a short pattern.  Needless to say, she had no problems with these patterns today.

She loved the next activity, which she has refused to do in the past.  I gave her a pattern card and a bunch of little cards and let her just go crazy.  She was very interested in the flashlights!  She actually played this for quite some time and even relocated it to the ottoman for awhile.

After that it was time for some real fun!  We set up a mini water park/campground extravaganza in the front yard.  We had a slip and slide which the toddlers LOVED!

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We set up a tent for a little bit of shade and to go with our camping theme.  Gooba very much loved having the tent set up.  It became some sort of obstacle course where they would run into the tent, through the slip and slide, and then dive into the baby pool.  Now that's some crazy cousin fun!  We also had some oven baked smores a little later for a snack to complete our camping theme.  All in all another wonderful day.









Printables borrowed graciously from 1+1+1=1 and Confessions of a Homeschooler.

C is for Cupcake

We started today with another trip to Story Time at the local library.  I was so proud of Gooba today.  They start each Story Time out with the kids playing this little red drum and saying a little song that ends with them inserting their name.  Gooba, and the other kids, have been very reluctant to perform this activity during the first two Story Times.  Today Gooba played the drum while I said the song, and at the end of the song she said her name!  She also was a fantastic listener and even participated during the story!  For our craft today we made magic wands, an extra special treat for Gooba, wands are kind of her thing.  Another cute story, we have been calling our Story Time teacher Ms. Dot, only to find out today that her name is Ms. Di.  She told us "My name is actually Ms. Di, like Princess Di." Gooba's response "No, I'm the princess!"  Nice.

After Story Time we went to the park with our cousins - C for cousins!  After the park and lunch with Daddy we went home for a little bit.  Here's what we squeezed in during that little bit of time before going mini golfing and out for chicken and waffles!


First we read Camilla the Cupcake Fairy while we were going potty.  Then we read If You Give a Cat a Cupcake, a book we took out at the library.  I found a super cute song on Spell Out Loud that matches up with the book.  We sang the song and put the cute little cupcakes into the cute little cat can I made with the printables from Spell Out Loud.  We did this activity many times and counted the cupcakes. We also counted the cupcakes on the paper.





After we played with the cat and the cupcakes we painted a bottom and a top of a cupcake I cut out of construction paper.  We just painted it with washable paint and a brush.  When it was dry we glued the cupcake together and a put a cherry on the top.  We also added both letter C's onto our background paper.


So again today was kind of a lame learning day, but a super fun day with our family.  Tomorrow I expect more of the same since we are starting our day with gymnastics and then meeting our family at the zoo.  Yikes, having visitors makes me exhausted, and makes our house messy since we haven't been there!  I wouldn't have it any other way, family is so important and special to us we are loving every minute of having them here!

C is for Crab

So we finally made it to C week!  This week is going to be a hectic one!  Not only was C for crab yesterday, but C was also for... COUSINS!!  Gooba's cousins and my sister and brother-in-law are visiting from Connecticut!  Needless to say we have alot of activities planned this week, so we're going to try to squeeze in as much letter C as we can.  Yesterday we started out day with a trip to splash park!  Super fun for all the kids.  We also managed to fill in a few other activities before and after.  

 We managed to fit in some "heads and tooshies" matching cards with little crabs on them.  Gooba is really getting the knack of this game, no problems for her today!

After our crabby matching game we made this crab craft.  First, I cut out a letter C and some shapes.  Then Gooba glued them (with help) onto the blue paper and added her favorite googly eyes to make this cute letter C crab craft

The next craft we made is one of my favorites!  First I cut some yellow paper and glued it on the blue paper to look like sand.  Next I painted her hands, one at a time, with red paint and pressed them onto the paper with her thumbs pointed up.  After her handprints were dry I drew on the smile and Gooba glued on the googly eyes.

After the pool Gooba was ready for a snack so I made her this cute crab bagel with blueberries.  I got this idea from Meet the Dubiens.  Jill's is WAY cute than mine.  She also made her's a peanut butter bagel, but since ours was just a snack we used a mini bagel and I just put butter on it.  Still cute though!  Well, that's pretty much it for today, but still an awesome fun day!

Crab game cards borrowed graciously from Confessions of a Homeschooler

B is for Ballerinas

 Today was a wonderful summer day!  We started our day with an enormous breakfast, a quick trip to Walmart for some pool toys, and then a wonderful trip to the pool with Gogo and Pop.  After splashing and "swimming" around the pool we went to Daddy's restaurant for a visit and some lunch.  Then we got home and snuggled down for a little nap and some TV time in the big bed with Mommy.  Ahhhhh lazy summer days!

 Once we were done being lazy Gooba actually asked if we could play with some cards...awww yeah!  So since today was going to be ballerina day anyways which I was happy to postpone, we busted some stuff out and got a few things done!  First we started with pattern cards which she rocked yesterday and was still pretty awesome at it today.  These were a bit trickier, but still fun.

 Our next card game, which is now a classic favorite in our house, was size sorting.  For some reason, Gooba continues to LOVE sorting things by size.   These cards were a bit trickier as well today.  There were several sizes, but they were all very close in size to each other.  Nevertheless, she was able to sort them from largest to smallest and from smallest to largest with no problem.  We played this game a lot!

Our next card game was sorting the capitol and lowercase letters.  Yesterday I realized Gooba had trouble understanding the difference between B and bee, but had no trouble with B and butterfly.  She apparently has no trouble with B and ballerina bears either.  She was able to complete this activity with absolutely no problems.  In fact she completed it so fast that when she placed the last card she yelled "done!"  I didn't know we were racing!  Go Gooba!

Our next activity was a color matching card game.  Gooba thought this game would be much better if she used her magnifying glass and her binoculars.  As usual she was fantastic at her color matching.  It's so fun to see her rock out at the same activities time after time.  She is just so sweet and special!  I love when she adds her own little special touches to our activities, sometimes I'm not sure who is teaching who!

Next we did some coloring.  Gooba loves coloring, but is very much a scribbler.  She also loves to use the black and brown crayon or marker.  First we colored a B is for ballerina coloring page.

 Then we used the dry erase markers to try and color the letter B.  Don't get too excited from the photo, I colored the lowercase b to try and show her what to do!  She did a little better today attempting to stay on or near the letters.  She also changes which hand she uses quite often; she is definitely way better and controlled with her right hand, but uses her left hand a lot as well.

Next we tried doing some writing practice sheets.  This, as you can see, turned into scribblefest.  I tried helping her by holding her hand, but that did not go over well.  I tried getting my own marker to show her how to trace the lines, and she put the cap back on and took my marker away.  So I let her just have it and she colored all over the paper with lots of different colors.  The most important thing was that she was having a blast coloring.  She'll get it eventually.  Another opportunity for Mommy to watch her grow!

Gooba was really into the coloring today, so we took out the B tracing page.  She worked on this page a lot today.  For a short time she actually tried to color on top of the letters before she just went crazy with it.  She was clapping at one point and yelling "I'm writing a B!" So the intention was definitely there.  We have some cute ballerina crafts and a few left over things to do over the weekend, but all in all I think we got a lot of things done today considering we spent the entire morning shopping and at the pool.







Printables graciously borrowed from 1+1+1=1 and Confessions of a Homeschooler.

B is for MORE Bugs!

 Today was another bugtastic day!  We got together again with Stay at Home Adventures, but this time at their house, and it was a hot one!  Today we got up to a super humid 97 degrees...Gooba was a little sweat ball by the time we got home.


Our first activity was digging in the dirt, always a winner with Gooba, and deciding if the creature we found was a bug or not a bug.  Mostly the girls enjoyed digging in the dirt, so we let Bro Bro sort the creatures and count how many we had of each.

 The next activity was super fun and a water activity, which definitely helped with the heat.  As bug exterminators we filled up little water guns and tried squirting each other.  If you got hit with the water you had to wiggle wiggle wiggle and fall to the ground like a bug.  We did not so much understand the wiggle, but we sure did enjoy squirting the car!  The car did not understand wiggling either.

When we had exterminated all of the bugs with our water guns, we filled the water with bottle top bugs.  The kids had to fish them out with their little strainers and place them in the hoop that matched the color.  The girls were fantastic at this activity!  They matched all of their colors perfectly and loved playing with the strainers.  In fact Gooba kept taking the "bugs" out of the hoops and putting them back in the water to fish more out.

Next, and very appropriate for our super hot day, was the frozen bugs.  Pretty Girl's Mommy had frozen three bugs into three blocks of ice.  The kids had to spray the blocks of ice with warm water and try to pick out the bugs.  I'm not sure what worked better, the 97 degree heat or the warm water.   Either way, the kids still had fun.

After freeing the frozen bugs we moved on to attacking bubble bugs with fly swatters.  Since I was the one blowing the bubbles, I didn't get a picture of this one... sorry!  Essentially we blew a bunch of bubbles and the kids ran around the yard whacking them with fly swatters.  A good time for all!

Craft Time!  All I have is a finished product picture of this one since it was pretty hands on, but they turned out great!  First we used Dot Painters to paint a paper plate.  This was a great time for the girls to practice their colors and their manners.  When they were done painting we cut their plates and attached the body that Pretty Girl's Mommy cut out the night before.  We taped the body to the wings and taped on pipe cleaners for antennae.  Then they chose and glued on their own googly eyes.



The next craft was another super cute one.  We turned red socks inside out and filled them with beans, tied the top and rolled the extra over the knot.  We added some black dots, and voila instant beanbag ladybugs!

We then took our ladybugs and placed them in a sheet to make a make shift parachute and just went crazy!!!!  Gooba was very good at this since we have now played parachute at both Story Time and Gymnastics.  And frankly, she's just great at going crazy in general, it's kind of her thing!

 

Finally we were on to our last craft of the day... notice how all the outside activities were at the beginning before the heat got too bad!  Gooba really liked this one, so again I only have a finished product picture.  We cut out a butterfly shape and placed it on contact paper.  Then we added a few pieces of ribbon, cut the extra contact paper and stuck them on the window!  Gooba is super proud of this one and showed it several times to Daddy.







When we got home we decided to work on a few of our butterfly activities.  The first one was one of her favorites, size sorting.  This time we had many Daddy, Mommy, and Baby cards.  We sorted them by size and then counted how many of each we had.

 The next one made me smile.  Earlier in the week really struggled with sorting the bee B's so I thought we would try to sort some butterfly B's.  She had absolutely no problem with this today.  In fact, even our bear we made yesterday helped a little bit.  She insisted I take bear's picture since he helped so much.  Then I realized that she was just mega confused by the whole B bee thing.  Probably shouldn't have started the week with those!

Next we tried something new, some pattern cards.  Gooba was freakishly awesome at finishing these patterns.  She continues to surprise me with what she knows.  She was also pretty excited about this activity if you couldn't already tell from the picture.

 After the 30 seconds that it took us to make patterns we moved onto "heads and tooshies" even though they were technically right and left wings.  Even Chance got in on the fun with this one.  Gooba continued to rock at this game.





Finally, as if we hadn't accomplished enough today, we ended the day with some magnets.  All in all we had another fabulous friend day and learned a lot in the process.  Tomorrow we hope to squeeze in some ballerinas and some pool time with Gogo and Pop as well!









Printables borrowed graciously from Confessions of a Homeschooler and Making Learning Fun