Quiet Book

For Christmas this year I am making some quiet books for my twin nephews and also one for JD. I found all of my ideas from Pinterest and will post links for the blogs they came from when I get a chance. I think they turned out awesome if I do say so myself. :) Here are my completed pages. I'm still working on the covers. I did a couple different variations of the tent and the barn (with the colors). Not sure which ones like best.

The apples are attached with snaps and can be put in the basket. The caterpillar segments are also attached with snaps and can go inside the cocoon.

Those are finger puppets in the barn. Totally my favorite page. :)

Faux Stained Glass

I had this idea while coloring with the kids the other day. I took a color by # picture from a coloring book we have and taped a piece of velum over it. I had the kids color the picture then when they were done, I did the black outline of the picture. I plan to do a colored frame from construction paper and hang them back up. (sorry, no more tacky looking tape. :-D) I actually want to do a bigger version of this for my kitchen window. I hate that people can see right in when they come to the door and I currently have Christmas tissue paper covering the windows. (classy, I know, but we don't believe in blinds, as the children tend to completely destroy them...and they were falling on our heads when we first moved in because they hadn't been installed correctly. Good times.)

Movin' On Up!

I will have a kindergartner starting this fall. I am going to continue to home school him, so this should be a fun challenge doing two different levels. I will still be posting mostly preschool activities with a few kindergarten activities thrown in here and there. I'm planning to purchase kindergarten curriculum, so it won't be as exciting as the stuff I put together for my 3 year old. I am planning lots of fun stuff for both kiddos though, so stay tuned.

Chocolate Bird Nests

We made these as part of our Easter activities, but they make a fun activity for spring in general. They are very easy to make and the kids had fun helping put them together.

Here's how to make them.

•1 cup chocolate chips ( 6 oz. pkg.)
•1/2 cup creamy peanut butter
•2 cups chow mein noodles
•Jelly beans (or any other egg shaped candy. We used malted robins eggs.)

Put chocolate chips and peanut butter in a microwave save bowl and heat until melted. For best results heat for about 30 seconds at a time stirring in between. (should take about 2 minutes.) Once melted add chow mein noodles and mix until completely coated. Plop by the spoonful onto wax paper lined cookie sheets. Form into the shape of a nest and add "eggs". Put in fridge for an hour to set.

Enjoy!!

(I've also seen recipes that leave out the peanut butter and a couple that used pretzels or coconut. The possibilities are endless. :-D)

Ll is for Ladybug

Lots and lots of Ladybugs. Again, I got most of these ideas from Make Learning Fun. All of these activities are made from felt and are soooo easy to make. You can find all the templates from the website. This helps with counting and recognizing numbers. J has counting down, but we are still working on number recognition.

There's also a rhyme that goes with this activity.

(Tune: The Muffin Man)

Ladybug has 1 black spot, 1 black spot, 1 black spot. Ladybug has 1 black spot, Pretty ladybug. continue counting up with each verse.

This next activity was mostly for Lulu. We are really focusing on colors with her. She is doing a lot better. This is a game. Have the kids close their eyes (or turn around, since my kids like to peek) and hide the small lady bug under one of the frying pans. Then sing, or say the rhyme,

Ladybug, Ladybug. Fly away home. Your house is on fire, your children all gone. All except one and that’s little Ann and she crept under the frying pan.

They then have to guess which one the ladybug is under by calling out the color they think it's under. My kid LOVED this game. I did make the pans about half the size of the template though, and they were still plenty big enough for the smaller lady bug to fit under. It saved me a lot of felt. :)

The third activity is a practice in subtraction. I ended up using the same template for the baby ladybug in the previous game (again, to save felt), and just left of the wiggly eyes.

Here's the rhymes for this one.

Five Little Ladybugs Five little ladybugs by the door, one flew away and now there are only four. Four little ladybugs climbing the tree, one flew away and now there are only three. Three little ladybugs crawling near the shoe, one flew away and now there are two. Two little ladybugs having lots of fun, one flew away and now there is only one. One little ladybug all alone, he/she spread her wing and he/she flew home.

Ten Little Ladybugs Tune: Five Little Ducks Ten little ladybugs flying all around, they flew very high then they landed on the ground. The last ladybug said have a nice day, then he spread his wings and flew away….

Continue…

One little ladybug flying all around, it flew very high then it landed on the ground. The last ladybug said have a nice day, then he/she spread his/her wings and flew away….

And finally for our arts and crafts activity, we painted ladybug rocks. First coat red. When it's dry, paint on the head and spots. I was going to do eyes, but decided it was good enough. :)

K is for Kite

This week we are on the letter K. I have been putting this one off for a while because I wanted to do some kite activities and it's been too cold to actually fly a kite outside. I finally decided that I needed to move on with the alphabet before the kids forgot what we've learned. (Okay, they probably wouldn't, since I review all the letters with them during circle time, but still.) Since it's been raining for a few days and will continue to rain for the rest of the week (and possibly snow) I found some cute kite activities to do indoors. I found them at http://www.makinglearningfun.com/activ.html , which is quickly becoming one of my favorite website for preschool activities.





This is a cute circle time activity. This will be perfect for L, who needs to learn her colors. She knows a few, but most she doesn't know. I didn't glue craft sticks to the back. I think they are sturdy enough after I laminated them. Since there are only 2 kids I will give them each a colored kite and read the poem, calling out one of the colors. Whoever has the color will stand up and fly their kite around. We will repeat this one enough times to get a few colors in. For instructions and links for the printable go here.
For our Think and Do activity, I decided to take this activity and put a little spin on it since I didn't have any mini clothespins, but I have PLENTY of felt. Plus, I just thought it would be fun to make it into a flannel board activity. I used the printout kite as a template and cute out 10 kites. Then cut out several felt bows. I don't really have a flannel board, but I have plenty of fleece blankets which work fabulously. :)

I found the instructions for this cute, and very simple little kite on familyfun.com

The kids are very excited about this kite. As soon as there is a break in the rain (possibly tomorrow afternoon) we will take it out and give it a try.

There are a few more cute activities I will try out for our day two of the letter k/kite week and I will try to remember to post pictures of them as well. :)