Penguin and Pinecone by Salina Yoon: Using Your Senses {Read and Play}

We jumped in with Virtual Book Club for Kids and their weekly book selections this past week. Since S has only a year and a half until she starts Kindergarten, I figure it might be a good idea to start doing more to get her ready. It was so fun when we followed along while N was a preschooler... This week's theme is penguins, and the main book is Penguin and Pinecone by Salina Yoon. We love her Penguin series and S was super excited when this one came in at the library! (seriously, holds are awesome!)

There are so many directions you can take this book, one of the reasons we love the series! We went the science route and combined it with art!
**Check out my inspiration of the painting activity over at Inspirational Laboratories**

What you need:

• Penguin and Pinecone by Salina Yoon
• objects from around the house to practice using the senses (Sight, Sound, Touch, Smell, Taste)
• Rocks (we searched for ours outside. Yay, Desert Nature!)
• Black, white and orange paint
• paintbrush
• newspaper (I'm just glad I had the wipes available! oops!)
• wipes for quick and easy surface clean-up

We've read the book several times by this point. I opened this "lesson" by feeling, sniffing, and looking at the book.

When I get to the point where Penguin is using his senses to discover that pinecone is not a snowball and cold we pause and talk about what Penguin is doing in each of the images (using sight/eyes, taste/mouth/tongue, touch/hands/feel).

Discuss the senses and how we use them to observe and make sense of the world which surrounds us. Practice on objects from around the house and what senses we use for those particular objects. We used a koosh pool ball, a soft rattle, a foam number, and a lolipop!

Using sight, touch, (and maybe smell) search for the perfect rock on which to paint your own penguin. We talked about not always using all our senses (we don't want to lick rocks, Yuck!)

If you decide to wash off your rocks, give them time to dry. We just dry brushed off the dirt before starting.

While we painted we talked about P being for Penguin and Pinecone too! And I think these turned out great!

I ended our activity with a quick recap of our senses!

The possibilities are endless!

These little rock penguins were super fun! We did some role play after they dried. Paint some more and use them for counting, one-to-one correspondence practice, non-standard units of measure, Paint some pinecones and use them in combination with penguins for adding/subtracting, create a tic-tac-toe set

Indoor Fun With Kids: Create your own Bowling Pins (Read and Play)

Monsoon season has started here in the desert. That means lots, and lots, and lots of rain... I love it. It's great. But for the kids, being cooped up in the house all day, all afternoon, day after day... Well... At least we are getting rain. That does not happen all that often. What indoor activities do you do on rainy days?

We have been making good use of our local library and little man loves it. One book we picked up is Mitchell Goes Bowling by Hallie Durand (affiliate). How perfect? I used to work at the local bowling alley for the summer when I was pregnant with him. He hasn't even been to a bowling alley yet!

Amazon affiliate link

I decided (based on some bottle saving a year ago) to make some bowling pins using PediaSure Nutrition Chocolate Drink, 8 oz bottles (affiliate).

Here is our process... There are so many out there, but this is what we did. :)

Once you have drunk the contents (this part took a while as these drinks were a treat), remove the wrapper and wash thoroughly inside and outside. Then dry. I washed them in the dishwasher and let them air dry.

Once they are dry, paint them how you want to paint them. I love these little paints! I used Folk Art Multi Surface Paint, 2-Ounce (affiliate) in licorice, that was what little man picked. Since I was enlisting the assistance from him for the painting, it made sense to him to pick. He wanted to help and loves to paint. Plus this is more for him than anything else. Sure, the lines aren't perfect. Hope you don't mind. ;)

Once the paint is dry, you can add sand or some type of filler to weigh them down. Otherwise they topple over super easily. We decided not to weight them.

Then, set them up and roll a ball to them to knock them down! So much fun! You can mark the spots with tape, or on a cardboard alley. we just played however we set them up.

extension: difficulty at different distances.
pick several different types of balls and make predictions. Which one will knock the pins down easier? Which one will be harder to make it to the pins? etc. Explore and have fun! :)

The Turtle and the Monkey: Learning About Plants {Virtual Book Club for Kids}

*This post contains affiliate links. All views expressed are my own.*

This month's author for the Virtual Book Club for Kids is Paul Galdone. We have read so many of his books this last month it was so hard picking one! How can you not love a good fairy tale classic retold and illustrated wonderfully?

Our library had so many of his books (some of the ones I had on hold have not been available yet)!

We decided to use the book The Turtle and the Monkey (Paul Galdone Classics)

Nikolai seemed to really enjoy it and asks to read it every day. :) I am so glad that he loves to read.

Because of the banana tree that Turtle finds and plants, I decided to pick up a flower plant from the store to transplant. I wanted to build on the understanding of why Monkey's half of the banana tree did not grow. We discussed this during the reading, that a plants needs roots in order to live, but it is not a topic or concept that we have really gone over before.

Learning About Plants: An Intro to Plants and their Parts

What you need:

• a small plant such as a flower or herb
• a pot to replant
• soil
• coloring page or printable book for parts of plants

1. looking at the plant in it's container before you take it out, talk about what you see naming the parts of the plant (stem, leaves, flower). Have your child gently feel and smell the plant.

2. Before you take the plant out, make a hypothesis, encourage your child to discuss what he/she thinks is below the soil

3. Carefully remove the plant from the pot, point out the roots talking about the child's thoughts/hypothesis. Feel the roots, look at them. Use this time to talk about how the roots work.  We drank a glass of water to help understand what roots do.

4. replant the plant

5. color the book/coloring page talking about what was seen and noticed about the plant. we used this booklet here and he just likes to keep re-reading and pointing to the parts of the plants. :)

The cool thing about this is that you have the plant to continue watering and revisiting later. :)

Thanks for stopping by! Please, check out these other sites contributing to the Book Club. If you have anything you want to share too, feel free to contribute!

There are a few rules for this blog hop that we ask you to follow, so make sure to read them: 

1. Link up only posts inspired by Paul Galdone that share children's book inspired crafts, activities, recipes, etc. Any other posts will be deleted.
2. Visit other blog posts on the linky and comment on or share the ones you love!

see you next time,

If You Give a Cat a Cupcake - Sprinkle Counting Activity {Virtual Book Club For Kids}

We had such a hard time with this one this month.
1. my printer is not working with color
2. my original plan was a puzzle (under partial request from little man)
3. little man was not interested if it did not involve a puzzle... Finally got him to color!

The book we picked was If You Give a Cat a Cupcake. *affiliate link*

But now, we have it! It's a counting game using sprinkles, a cupcake printout coloring page and dice of some kind. We used punched cardstock in the shape of flowers but you can use sprinkles and then eat the sprinkles when you are done! ;)

Cupcake Sprinkle Game

• Color the page

• roll the dice and count out the number of sprinkles/punches and place on cupcake like sprinkles. We started with 6 on the cupcake and worked on taking away and adding to.
• eat sprinkles, or, glue down the final amount of punches.
  
  

Thanks for stopping by! Please, check out these other sites contributing to the Book Club. If you have anything you want to share too, feel free to contribute!

There are a few rules for this blog hop that we ask you to follow, so make sure to read them: 

1. Link up only posts inspired by Laura Numeroff that share children's book inspired crafts, activities, recipes, etc. Any other posts will be deleted.
2. Visit other blog posts on the linky and comment on or share the ones you love!

see you next time,

Happy New Year, Welcome 2014!

Wow! Cannot believe that it is 2014! Just, Wow!

Hope that you, readers, had a fantastic holiday! Ours was way crazy as usual! I was busy sewing up some homemade gifts up until last minute. Is there any other way?

Here are some of the things that I made...

Pajama Eater pattern by Sew Fearless... The middle one is a sock monkey!

Cloth Monster Bookmarks - 3 total

It was a busy time, though enjoyed with family. :)

I do look forward to this new year though! So far I plan on continuing with the Virtual Book Club for Kids! I still think Nikolai enjoys the books and activities. Just reading together is fun!

I am preparing a post for this fun sew along hosted by RaeAnna of Sewing Mama RaeAnna and Veronica of SewVery. You can look for the post on the 16th of January! :) Eeek, I am so excited! :)

All the lovelies are going to have some wonderful projects for you, so don't forget to check them out too on the week of the 13th-17th! :)

Sew Like My Mom

Get Your Crap Together
Kid Approved
Shaffer Sisters
Welcome to the Mouse House
Paisley Roots
House of Estrela
Ali Cat & Co.
Climbing the Willow
Handmade Martini
RanaMamaDesign 

Also, I have started the planning for what I am going to sew up for the Kids Clothes Week the last week in January! Ambitious? I think so, but then you have to start somewhere right? It's mostly 6-9 month stuff for Samara. You know, because I don't like to do laundry and try to push it to at least once a week. Oh, and a couple more pants for Nikolai.

At least planning means I might be more likely to accomplish some of it. At least, that is, if I can get to the store and pick up some more thread (I just cannot bring myself to use variegated thread, or my thread already set aside for quilting, on clothes)...

What's funny, is that aside from a few things, most of these patterns are Peek-a-Boo Pattern Shop patterns! (affiliate link)

I also have a pattern test to show off once the pattern is released! Also from Peek-a-Boo Pattern Shop. (affiliate link)

I am very excited about this upcoming month and I am sure hoping that the rest of the year comes in pretty similarly.

Hogwash - Pudding Sensory Activity {Virtual Book Club for Kids}

*this post contains affiliate links. all views expressed are my own*

Welcome to my contribution to November's Author, Karma Wilson, for the Virtual Book Club for Kids! The only book we have managed to get from the library this month is Hogwash. All the others are *still* on hold! Perhaps I should double check my library account and make sure I am not missing something (which is likely to be the case)...

Hogwash! (Wilson, Karma)

I got this book and immediately thought it was pretty funny. Nikolai on the other hand was a little preoccupied with some dinosaur books that we had picked up at the same time. Now, mind you, I have renewed this book a total of 3 times because Nikolai doesn't want to return in just yet! Our 4th time is this week, so I guess I better send it back and allow the next child in line to enjoy it's humor of dirty pigs and mud baths! 

Speaking of dirty pigs and mud baths, I thought it might be fun to emulate the mud bath only with something edible. And, of course, a little more contained...

Why not some sensory play with pudding? LOL... It took forever for him to actually agree to play with his toys and pudding! This kid doesn't like getting messy!

You just need:
 a bin
some pudding
toys. I wanted to get some farm toys, but couldn't find any in stock. I would have been better to order online. Ah, well... Safari animals would have to do!

Recreating playing in the mud was fun!

Afterwards, we did get a hogwash! "hogwash now, mommy?" when he was done. :)

Thanks for stopping by! Please, check out these other sites contributing to the Book Club. If you have anything you want to share too, feel free to contribute!

There are a few rules for this blog hop that we ask you to follow, so make sure to read them: 

1. Link up only posts inspired by Karma Wilson that share children's book inspired crafts, activities, recipes, etc. Any other posts will be deleted.
2. Visit other blog posts on the linky and comment on or share the ones you love!

see you next time,