I Know a Rhino-Tea Party

In the book I Know a Rhino the little girl has a tea party with a Rhino.  So our lesson from The Itty Bitty Bookworm was to have a tea party also.  I got the tea set from Target's dollar section.  I put a white pillow case on the kids picnic table.  I managed to get a hat on both of the kids! lol  Hannah's hat was given to her from her Mee-Maw and Caden's has was also given to him by Mee-Maw when he was 1 years old.  Both of the kids loved pouring the tea (water) on the table or in the cup.  They had a great time and looked sooooo cute playing.  (I really enjoyed the moment)!  

Letter Z

Z is for Zamboni, finishing up its work.  It shaves and cleans the ice, then covers it with water.  When the water freezes, it becomes new ice to skate on.

Finding the Z's in his picture.

Yesterday we completed the Letter Z.  We are continuing to use the book Alphabeep A Zipping, Zooming ABC.    

Colored Ice

Pouring water into the ice cube trays

Trying to squeeze....gently...the food coloring into the trays.

Very focused face! lol

We talked about what color each piece of ice was...if it was wet or dry...if it was hot or cold...liquid to a solid then solid to a liquid...and melting.

Of course Caden had to line them up! lol

I got this idea from The Ramblings of a Crazy Women.  They actually made boats out of their ice, which is such a cute idea.  When we were making the ice we were kind of rushed and I did not get to put the toothpicks in.  We will definitely have to try it next time because he really loved playing with the ice.  

I Know a Rhino-White Mud

Grating the soap...I took a quick picture...he wasn't interested in this part.

Pouring the grated soap in.

Pouring the water...he poured too.

Fun playing in the White Mud!

We are now reading I Know a Rhino.  Our first lesson from The Itty-Bitty Bookworm was to make White Mud.  At first Caden wasn't interested...not even interested in grating the soap.  He was more interested in pouring the water into the mixture.  Once we got to that part in the directions he was hooked.

Caden loved for me to build the white mud up into a pile and being the boy he is he wanted to knock it down.  At first he was kind of weirded out by the texture, but after I showed him all the things he could do with it, he enjoyed himself.  The recipe came from familyfun.go.com.  

        

Letter Y

Letter Y worksheet

Tea set

My sweet little girl!

Hannah trying to stick things in her mouth!

Caden's tea set

I thought this was a cute picture of the two!

Last week I found a tea party set at Target in the dollar section.  Lucky me because in our    Itty-Bitty Bookworm lesson our group activity is to have a Tea Party.  So today I just let Caden explore with the tea set.  He loved pouring the tea (water) into the cups.  He played for about 30 minutes.

Coloring obsession

Oh, it was so funny yesterday!!!!  Caden kept asking me to color and we only have two coloring books for some odd reason and he didn't want either of them.  So I found this workbook I got a few months ago called Preschool.  I was so impressed with Caden....I turned to a matching page.  On this page it had a list of pictures on both sides of the page.  For example, the directions were to identify each picture in both columns.  Discuss why a dashed line connects the doll with the doll house.  Ask your child to trace that dashed line, and then to draw a line from each of the other items on the left to the correct item on the right.

So we did that an wow can you believe he knew what he was talking about and and and he drew the line.  He did it all by himself I did not hold the marker...all by himself!!!!  I was so proud of him.  Oh and he continued to flip through the workbook and colored for 2 hours.  I am not kidding...you can even ask my husband.    

2 hours of hard work!lol:)

So focused!

Letter X

Every week we go to the library and Caden fills Hannah's stroller with about 10 books.  He found this great book called Alphabeep A Zipping, Zooming ABC by Debora Pearson.  It goes through the entire Alphabet and each letter begins with some type of truck or road sign.  It is perfect for boys.  

So I decided to go through each letter with him and create clip art so he can paste and color the letter of what ever truck or sign is for that letter.  Last week we talked about the letter X and I am currently working on the Letter Y. 

Barn

Yesterday I went to the resale shop by my house and found some little animals and dinosaurs.  I got about 15 of them for $9 (Great Buy, they usually cost about $2-$5 a piece).  At first Caden was upset he didn't get any cars but when we got home he totally loved them.  He started lining them up just like he does his cars.  lol:)

That same day we went to the library to get me some books.  Well, I found this book called Plans and Patterns for Preschool by Karen Franz.  So I looked in the book under the month of May just to see what ideas she had.  Well I saw this pattern for a barn and thought to myself...oh...I have a box (from diapers) that we can make into a cute little barn for his new animals.  Boy did he love it!!!!  Caden not only put his animals in it but thought it would be funny to get inside with his animals....why not!

Fun Outside

I brought the baby pool out for the first time this year.  Last year Caden would only go in the pool if me or Aaron would get in with him.  This year he got in no problem, but wanted to put everything we owned inside the pool!  lol  

Hannah got in but was a little timid.  She probably would have been ok if I went in with her. Overall both kids had a great time!

Tumble Bumble-Shape Collage

He really enjoyed the shape collage.  

The lesson for the shape collage said to put the shapes on contact paper.  I have tried that before and Caden loves glueing much more.  

I wrote the name of the shapes on top of the shapes.  He enjoyed that too because after I wrote the name of the shape he wanted to do the same.  

I told him to try and draw the shape...that is what all the drawing is around the shapes.

Caden was getting a little frustrated with cutting the play dough so I brought out the real scissors and this time we cut paper.  He liked the paper but enjoyed cutting the yarn better.

Tumble Bumble-Animal Prints

Caden really enjoyed cutting yesterday so I brought it out again.  This time we cut play dough.  It seemed to be a little more difficult for Caden to cute play dough 

rather than paper with the real scissors.

We read our Tumble Bumble book and matched our little piggy with the book.

Then we made animal prints in our play dough.  

The idea was in our lesson from The Itty Bitty Bookworm.

Today we used our Tot Trays again!  He really enjoys having the activity 

brought out to him on the trays.  I have tried a rug before but he likes the trays better.  

Caden hitting a volleyball

Caden bumping a volleyball

Tot Trays

Today we tried setting up some Tot trays we got from this awesome website 1+1+1=1.  I found some great buys at the Homeschool Store in our area that we used for our activities on the trays.  I looked in the used section and found some great games.  So we tried them this morning, and I presented them on some trays I bought from Oriental Trading (same idea from 1+1+1=1).   

Caden had a very short attention span this morning so we went through 4 trays in a matter of 10 minutes.  

1st tray- Upper Case and Lower Case letter matching.  I used X, Y, Z because those are the letters we are talking about right now.  

2nd tray- Matching textures and colors.  I got this at Wal-mart for Christmas last year.

3rd tray- Matching things that go together.  I didn't take a picture of this but it is just like the puzzle we used at tray 2.  

4th tray- Cutting yarn.  This was Caden's first time to cut, and boy did he love it.  I had to hold the piece of yard so he could figure out a way to hold the scissors as best he could, but he was so proud of himself every time he cut a piece.  Then we glued the yarn on a yellow piece of paper and discussed the letter Y.  

Singing at Mother's Day Out

It was so cute to watch Caden sing at his Mother's Day Out Sing Along.  Well he really didn't sing...the teacher's and Mom's sang! :)  It is so funny because Caden just sat there on his teacher's lap and didn't move a muscle.   He was defiantly not interested in singing.  Even thought he didn't sing or do any of the hand motions it was still so cute to see him with all of his little classmates.

Volleyball for exercise this week

So far exercising has been going pretty good this week.  Tuesday I got to play sand volleyball and had such a great time.  Plus Caden and my husband came out to watch me!

Me and my partner won our first two games and then the next two games we lost.  Main reason we lost was because I am totally out of shape.  I got pretty frustrated because I was so out of shape.  Defiantly got me a little pumped up to get my butt in gear.  

Wednesday I took the kids on a run.  Ya, with the double stroller...it was pretty tough.  Needless to say I only ran for about 10 minutes and walked the rest of the way.  Plus the mosquitoes were pretty bad.  Me and the kids got bit a couple of times.  So next time I am going to try and use bounce...someone says that keeps the mosquitoes away.  

Yesterday I mowed the lawn...that is a good workout especially when the lawn is pretty high.  We skipped a week and boy do you pay for it.  So this week I hope to get in 4 days of workout since I have gotten 3 days in and it is not Sunday yet!      

Grocery Game

Coupon Saving:  20.55

Bonus Coupon Savings:  4.00

Kroger plus Savings:  29.71

Total Savings:  54.26