E is for Everything

 Ok, we actually did a ton this week, but I've been slacking a little with my blogging.  My apologies in advance for this extensive post!

Our first activity was glueing blue and green pom poms to match the water and the land on this Earth map.  It involved pom poms so it was a hit with little Gooba.  Understanding that we live on a planet was a little bit of a complex idea for Gooba, but she was willing to go with for the sake of crafts.

We also did a little Earth coloring page and an Earth lacing card, but frankly her attention span for both of these things was too short to warrant a photo!

Then we used this cute Little Einstein's magnet page.  She adores the Little Einsteins so this was a nice addition to E week.

Then jumping back to D week a little bit we had some nice visitors in our yard.  A mommy and two fawns played in our yard.  They ran up and down our hill about four different times.   Unfortunately Gooba was taking her nap during their visit.  Extra sad for Gooba since before she went down for her nap she asked if we could see more deer.  We had seen a deer crossing the road on our way home that day.  Maybe next time.

 Continuing with our Earth theme I tore up blue and green pieces on tissue paper and Gooba stuck them all over a round shaped piece of contact paper.  She was a big fan of this project.  After she was done adding the tissue paper we added a slightly larger second sheet of contact paper and made a nice window decoration.

This next activity was an idea I got off Pinterest. Then we drew all over a coffee filter with washable blue and green markers.  When she was done scribbling we sprayed it several times with the water bottle and the marker got all smeary.  Gooba liked this a whole bunch.  Later we glued it onto the black paper, but apparently it wasn't quite dry enough and the glue bled through the paper.  Still looks cool though.

After craft time it was time to bake some Earth muffins.  I got this idea from No Time for Flashcards but I used my own blueberry muffin recipe.  We also used neon green food coloring and I think the color came pretty good.  It's a little more green in person than in the picture.  Either way they are delicious!

Later in the week we met up with Pretty Girl and her mom from Stay at Home Adventures at their house.  First we did some coloring sheets.  Gooba was really into one of the sheets and not so much into the other.  She's so finicky about when and what she feels like coloring.  Such a little nut!

Then we rocked out to some Hokey Pokey Elmo. He was a big hit with the girls today.  Poor Elmo got his workout today!  Elmo even got to dance in their playhouse!  Notice Gooba putting her foot in... or is that out?  Either way too cute!

 Then we did some painting.  We painted Elmo heads and noses.  Once they were dry we assembled the faces together.  Both girls were great at figuring out which part of the face goes where.

 After craft time it was time for Pretty Girl's Mommy to pick up Bro Bro, so we got a little crazy.  We played hide and seek, we had races to see who could scoot across the floor on their butt the fastest, we wrestled and tickled, we snuggled and we giggled.  Super fun girls being girls!

Once we got home Gooba was ready for her nap, so I had a chance to finish this cute pillowcase dress I made for her.  When I first tried it on her she cried and said it was "too poofy."  She LOVED it once it was washed and "much less poofy."  She tried to sleep in it, but mean old mommy said no.  I'm psyched she likes it though.  I think it's adorable on her and it only cost me $7 to make!  I love me some Pinterest.  The website with the tutorial to make this dress is excellent and I highly recommend it!  The Mother Huddle has some really cute ideas on her site.

Finally, during this week of "everything" I took yet another idea from Pinterest and painted some Dollar Tree frames and added some ribbon embellishments, a little hard to see in the photo, and hung them up in Gooba's room.  Now we have a place to display her artwork in her  room.  They came super cute and she really likes them.  Awww, already starting to look like such a big girl!






All in all this has been another crazy week.  I was happy to get back to a little bit of sewing and crafting this week.  Sometimes when we put on our "Mommy hats" we forget that there's still room on our heads for our "Self Hats."  Personally I neglect myself way too much and give everything to my little girl.  My new personal goal, since Gooba is getting a little older, is to take a little more time putting on my "me hat" and my "wife hat" and start attempting to regain a little bit of myself back.  I owe it to my little Gooba to take good care of her Mommy :)  After all, I'm the only Mommy she has!


Earth printables borrowed graciously from Itsy Bitsy Learners

E is for Elephant

 Ok so we are back to a Monday again and we got a little bit back on schedule for the first time since letter B week.  This week is letter E week and we decided to start with one of Gooba's  favorite animals, the elephant.  The first thing we did was an old favorite activity of Gooba's, moving tiny erasers with tongs from different sized containers.  At one point we did count some of the erasers, though right now Gooba can only count up to six.  This has been great fine motor practice for her and she just adores picking things up with the tongs!

 Next we sorted cards with capitol and lowercase letters on them. First we tried to do this on the table, but Gooba insisted that magnets be involved with this activity, so we went for it!  Today, despite some lack of interest for mommy's rules, she did a pretty good job sorting the cards.

Since we already had the magnets out, we moved onto some magnet pages.  I had two different ones, but after this one and the previous activity involving magnets, she started to lose interest.  After playing with the magnets and announcing that she was not listening, I know..., I told her she would not be able to help make elephant cookies if she didn't play by mommy's rules.  The picture to the left is what happened 15 seconds after I made that statement.  Toddlers are such stinkers!

 Next, I followed through with my promise and we made elephant cookies.  We used Pillsbury sugar cookie dough and added some extra flour.  I found the best way was to roll the dough almost back into it's original log form and cut of two circles for each elephant.  The first circle I flattened out to make the head.  The second circle I flattened out and cut into thirds.  The outside two thirds became the ears and the middle became the trunk.  Then I just smooshed them all together.  Very important next step!  I put the whole cookie sheet in the refrigerator for about 10 minutes.  Then I baked them at 350 for 10-12 minutes.  The second batch was much colder and did not spread out nearly as much as the first batch.  Then I just used icing and sugar wafers to make the details on the face.  These were a big hit, Gooba LOVES helping me in the kitchen.  She also loves eating!

A little bit later we worked on some cutting.  One of our kindergarten teachers at my school told me the number one thing kids can't do is cut, since all parents are terrified to give their kids scissors.  This time she did better than last time.  She let me help her with that first cut across the top and then I let her go for it.  This is definitely a skill that needs some attention.  This is also a skill that requires her to have help from mommy, something she is not a fan of.  So I have found that perhaps teaching to cut involves fine motor, listening, patience, and calm.  Of course, all things every toddler possesses!

 Speaking of fine motor, looks how far our line drawing has come!  It's actually touching the line this week.  Boy, she has come a long way with this one in just a few short weeks!

Time for my favorite part... CRAFT TIME! This first one is actually one I worked out in my own little brain, as opposed to all my other ideas being stolen for around the web.  The head and trunk are her footprint and the ears are her hands.  Then she stuck on the eyes where I put the glue and I added the little trunk lines with marker when it was dry.  So cute!  I love how this one turned out.

Then since she loves having her hands and feet painted we painted her hands again to make these two cute little elephants.  She added the eyes where I put the glue and I added the markers when it was dry.  The original idea I saw for this was a mommy and baby elephant, but Gooba was extremely offended that I would paint my hand instead of hers, so we did two babies instead.





We did a few more things I did not take pictures of.  From 1+1+1=1 we used some of the Animal ABC's pages on the computer.  Since we are just now drawing lines, drawing shapes is out of the question.  So instead I pulled up the page on the computer and I called out the shapes and she pointed to them.  We did the same for the colors page.  We also used the vocabulary builder from the same set of worksheets and we talked about and answered questions about the picture of the elephants.  Mostly we talked about the baby elephant.  Somewhere at some point we also kind of did a lacing card, but she was a little to excitable to really pay any attention to that this morning, maybe we'll take it out again this afternoon.  I also hope to take out our plastic elephants and our elephant puppet and have some creative play when she awakes from her nap.  All in all, though we had some spurts on defiance and an absolute refusal to use the potty today even though we've been dry for almost a week, I still feel like we got a lot done and had a lot of fun too!




Printables graciously borrowed from 1+1+1=1, Confessions of a Homeschooler, and Making Learning Fun.