This week was all about weather! We made our own clouds, painted snow and even done some puddle jumping! Be sure to check out all the fun we had this week! Day 1It’s week 2 of mommy school and the fun is in full swing! Since this week is all about weather, I just couldn’t resist putting Emilee in this cute cloud dress I had made Paislee when she was a baby! How I wish I could find the time to breakout my sewing machine again! Anyways! We started with our calendar and weather board, and then recited the Pledge of Allegiance. I’m so proud that Paislee almost knows it all by heart, after just last week. This week we are starting a journal. I found a cute one that has a space up top for drawing a picture and lines on the bottom for journaling. Obviously, Paislee is not to the point where she can “journal”, but she loves drawing pictures, coloring and writing her name. I figured this would be a great way to practice and keep track of her progress as we go along. Plus, what a great keepsake! While Paislee was journaling, Emilee was playing with a cute rainbow pom pom activity I found here. This was also a good activity for Paislee, as she played with it before we got started with “school”. Emilee seemed to enjoy picking up the pom poms and sticking them all over the paper. It kept her interest for a few minutes and then she started decorating the floor with pom poms! Today’s sight word was “me". We used our fun worksheet to help us remember. I also printed several worksheets from this pack that we worked on today. Those included tracing, cutting, and coloring. I also had a fun weather sensory bin fixed up for Paislee to play with. It was the same plastic shoe container from last week, but filled with cotton balls instead. I also threw in “lightening”, made out of pipe cleaners and “rain” made out of blue rocks. She enjoyed pretending that rain was falling from the clouds. When Paislee was done with the bin, I let Emilee play with it. She had fun picking out the “rain” and throwing them in the floor. By about the 50th time of bending down to pick them up, I decided that we were done with that activity! I gave Emilee a plastic paint tray and cotton ball “clouds” to place in each spot. She enjoyed feeling the cotton balls, and this surprisingly kept her entertained longer than I expected. She then discovered that she could pull the cotton apart and make a big mess. This was her favorite part! We read Little Cloud by Eric Carle and then made our own little clouds with paint. For this activity, I let her use a cotton ball dipped in white paint to create her very own cloud. She loved doing this! Another idea is to glue cotton balls to the paper to make clouds. Either idea would be fun. Another fun activity we done was Play-doh mats. I found these awesome mats here. She was able to build a rainbow, make rain, lightening and the sun. Play-doh is always fun, but it’s really fun for younger kids to have some kind of template to build off of. She seemed to enjoy doing the mats a lot more than just playing with Play-doh. Of course, every kid is different, but the mats are still a cute idea. We wrapped up with an episode from The Magic School Bus called, “Kicks Up a Storm”. Overall I think today was fun. We still lacked an up and moving activity, but with several crafts planned today it wasn’t missed. I’m looking forward to lots more weather fun! Day 2Today was full of crafts and fun! We started with our normal routine of weather, Pledge of Allegiance and sight word practice. Today’s sight word was “you”. We continued with our new journal practice this morning and Paislee loved drawing flowers, trees and grass. The journal was a big winner! During this time, I gave Emilee a piece of paper and crayons. She enjoyed dumping the crayons out and putting them back in the container more than coloring. Whatever keeps her happy! I also took mini beanbags, I raided from a tossing game we have, and a plastic plate for her to play with. This entertained her for a few minutes. We went on to read Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs. I admittedly have never read this, despite its popularity. I mean it has its own movie and everything! It was a really cute book though. Next, we worked on a fun craft. I cut out the letter “R” and we decorated it with clouds and rain drops. For the clouds we used cotton balls and for the rain I cut out pieces of construction paper. I had everything set up on her tray, and all she had to do was glue and position everything where she wanted it. She liked this activity and was proud of the finished product. We then added in a little movement with a fun activity called puddle jumping. I used blue sheets of construction paper and cut them out in the shapes of puddles. I used all 4 sight words we’ve went over and wrote them on each piece. There were 2 of each, for a total of eight puddles. I then taped them to the floor and watched the fun begin. I called out the sight words at random and Paislee had to jump from puddle to puddle. She loved this! Emilee enjoyed standing on them and trying to figure out what we were doing. I even took a turn, and Paislee called them out to me! This was a great activity. When we finally settled back down, we were ready to work some more. Next, Paislee done a few worksheets I had found in our workbooks. The last activity was another fun craft. She got to decorate a paper plate umbrella. To set this up, all I done was cut a paper plate in half and attach a pipe cleaner for the “handle”. The rest was all fun and painting for Paislee. While Paislee was painting away, Emilee was playing with these neat foam letters. I picked these up for her to use on the window with water, but today we just played with them at the table. Paislee and Emilee also love to use these in the bathtub, which are what they are marketed for. Either way, they held her attention for quite a while! Overall, it was another great day! I accidently set up the umbrella craft today, when I actually had it planned for tomorrow… Oops! We were just heavy on the crafts today! I think things are going really well and I can already see the progress in Paislee’s writing and cutting skills. It makes this mommy’s heart smile! Day 3With each passing day, this school thing is becoming second nature. I love that the girls get so excited as I put the tablecloth on and start getting our school stuff ready. Today we continued with our weekly theme of weather. We started as usual with our calendar board and the Pledge of Allegiance. Paislee also decorated a page in her journal. I decided we would skip a sight word worksheet today. While we were doing our normal morning stuff, Emilee had fun putting cotton balls into an empty wipes container. This was a last minute idea I threw together, but she loved it! When she got tired of the cotton balls, we added the blue rocks from the sensory bin. This kept her attention for a large part of the time. She also figured out how to open the flap, which she thought was amazing! I’m going to be regretting this later when she’s pulling the baby wipes out of her container! I only had a few worksheets for Paislee to do today. She worked on a dot to dot from our workbook and a fun cut and paste worksheet I found here. She also drew pictures of different types of weather on a worksheet from this pack. Today’s book was Oh Say Can You Say What’s the Weather Today? I ordered this book in preparation of weather week and thought it would be nice to add to our collection. I’m glad that I did, because it was very cute and educational. We are big Cat in the Hat fans around here! We played with the sensory bin again today, but this time we had a different goal. I used a cloud and raindrop game I had originally made for Paislee when she was younger. I placed the clouds and raindrops into the bin with cotton balls (clouds), blue rocks (rain) and pipe cleaners (lightening). She had to pick out the clouds and the correct number of raindrops that went along with each cloud. This could be altered by adding larger numbers or even matching uppercase letters (clouds) with lowercase letters (raindrops). I already had this made, so I used it instead. We went on to do some fun painting with water. For Emilee, I put a piece of construction paper on her tray and gave her a brush and water to paint with. She loved this and thought that the best part was dipping her brush in the water. I also let her use a cotton ball to change things up. For Paislee, we used a sheet out of her Sesame Street paint with water book I had picked up from Dollar Tree. She loved doing this and thought it was magical how the colors just appeared! The last activity was a weather I-spy worksheet I snagged from here. As I mentioned last week, I simply put the paper into a sheet protector and gave her a dry erase marker to circle and count each item. We wrapped it all up with an episode from The Magic School Bus called, “Wet All Over”. This episode focused on the water cycle. If you haven’t picked up The Magic School Bus yet, I highly recommend you do. Paislee loves watching it, plus they are super educational. I went ahead and ordered the complete series, that way I will have an episode for just about every topic we cover. Day 4Today we started talking about seasons and the different types of weather that come with each. We focused on spring and summer today. We started no different than any other morning. We used our calendar board and recited the Pledge of Allegiance. We have a large flag hanging off our porch, so I just opened the door and we used that flag. Paislee drew another pretty picture in her journal, and wrote her name. Emilee had fun with crayons during our usual morning routine. She colored, dumped, replaced and started the cycle all over again! Paislee worked on several worksheets from our workbooks. For spring, I found a dot to dot, tracing sheet and a rainbow color match worksheet. After she finished her worksheets, we read Finding Spring, which we checked out from our local library. Following through with our spring theme, we made our own rainbow. For this activity I had strips of different color construction paper already cut out. I also used half of a paper plate (this could be the other half from day 2) and cotton balls. She had to glue the cotton balls and strips of paper to the paper plate to create a cloud and rainbow. It turned out really cute. I pulled out the wipes container again today for Emilee. This kept her busy for a few minutes. She was still super excited she could open the container all by herself! When Paislee finished the rainbow craft, it was time to move on to summer. I had a few worksheets for her to do that I pulled out of our workbooks. These included a cut and paste, look and find and dot to dot. I’m so glad I picked up these workbooks! The last activity I came up with for Emilee involved water. I simply took her tray and put a little water on it. She thought it was amazing! She had fun dipping her fingers in it and rubbing the water everywhere. She always enjoys dumping her water cup out on her highchair tray, so I knew this would be a winner. We finished things up by watching Curious George Swings into Spring. This has always been a favorite! With only one day left in weather week, tomorrow we will be focusing on fall and winter. I’m so ready for fall, as it’s my favorite season! I hope I don’t start getting fall fever! Day 5Although today is the last day of weather week, it didn’t bring down our excitement. Both of the girls eagerly helped me to set up the table. It makes me very happy to know that they enjoy mommy school so much! We focused on fall and winter weather today. After our calendar board, the Pledge of Allegiance and journaling, we recapped our sight words. For this activity I stuck cutout shapes on the door with each word in lowercase and uppercase. Paislee got to use a flyswatter to hit each word as I called them out. She done a great job and had fun too! For Emilee, I laid out white paper on the table from a roll I had picked up from Target. She loved coloring on this and it surprisingly kept her attention for quite a while. If I had known that, I would have already pulled this little gem out! Focusing on fall first, Paislee worked on 2 dot to dots I pulled from our workbook. She then practiced her scissor skills with a cute seasonal cut and paste worksheet I found here. She had to place each picture in the correct season it belonged to. We wrapped up fall with a book I checkout from our local library called, My Leaf Book. We didn’t spend very long on fall because soon it will be fall, and we will have lots to do then. Once Emilee got tired of coloring, she enjoyed looking through the books we were reading today. Transitioning into winter, Paislee had a few pages from our workbooks including another dot to dot, letter tracing and number tracing. She was so excited that she could write the number 19 so well! She even said, “I’m a smarty pants.” So proud of this little girl! We couldn’t finish winter without another book. This time we read Samson in the Snow. Our last activity was painting snow. I had originally decided to use cotton balls for the snow, but at the last minute buzzed up some ice in my Ninja. I wanted her to have the experience of actual snow, especially since we rarely ever get any! I then watered down some paint for her to use. She enjoyed painting the snow and mixing the colors together. Emilee’s snow experience consisted of frozen marshmallows in a zip bag. We always have these on hand in our freezer as a “boo boo pack”. The marshmallows get cold, but stay soft. They are super ideal for small children with their occasional bumped head or skinned knee. This only entertained her for a few minutes because she already knew what it was. Oh well, I tried. Another week has officially come to an end. Now we get to look forward to next week! Overall, I feel like this week was successful. I love focusing on themes more than specific letters, numbers and such. It’s fun and exciting to have a variety of activities that help kids to explore different aspects of learning. Some things may not seem very educational, but for a 3 year old and one year things like hand eye coordination, following directions and imagination are a big deal. Hope you can use some of the exciting stuff we done this week to create your own weather fun!
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AuthorI'm a stay at home mommy just doing the best that I can to teach, nourish and love my babies. ArchivesCategories |