Earth Hour

Having a little fun with some flashlight reading!

Tonight was Earth Hour and our boys were very excited to celebrate.  After getting in their pjs, they went around the house turning off all of the lights.  I lit some candles and gave both boys a flashlight.  We were sure to keep the kids away from the candles.

They were a little more energetic than they normally are at that time (my three year old only lasted about 10 minutes before going to bed), but it was a fun change for all of us.  My kindergartner said, "It's fun reading down here in the dark."  Sometimes that is all you need to hear to make the effort worth while!

Tonight the boys' books of choice were

Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure Official Strategy Guide

The Usborne Alphabet Picture Book

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone


and

10 for Dinner by Jo-Ellen Bogart

10 for Dinner is one of the books my son brought home for his fluency reading.  This is one of the more difficult books he has brought home, so he was frustrated the first few nights that we read it together.  Tonight he did a great job, and is much more confident reading it!  I love to watch his improvement through the week with each new book!

10 for Dinner tells the story of a girl named Margo who invites 10 guests to her birthday.  On each page the author tells you what each of the guests wore, ate, made, and what time they got to the party.  The tenth guest is the funniest guest and eats peanut butter sandwiches with olives and sauerkraut, makes a Loch Ness monster hat, and wears his Halloween costume.  This is a silly book that makes my son laugh. I hope that we created a fun memory of reading it in the dark and I can't help but wonder if he will tell his teachers that we read this book by candlelight "because we need to save electricity."

It doesn't have to be Earth Hour to read in the dark!  Grab some flashlights and try it tomorrow night to not only "save electricity" but to have a little fun too!

Scavenger Hunt and a Decorated Easter Egg

Our Decorated Easter Egg...After the Scavenger Hunt

Today we went on a scavenger hunt for things to decorate our giant Easter eggs!

To start the scavenger hunt I made each boy a list of "springy" things they could find in the house and use to decorate their giant egg.  Here is a picture of the list.  I had my kindergartner read the list, but my three year old of course just looked at the pictures and colors.

My kindergartner started the scavenger hunt, but didn't finish.  My three year old started the hunt and wanted to finish the egg too!  You never know what to expect!  Craft time seems to go much better when there is only one of them around.  I better watch out once summer is here!

My three year old and I searched for things from his list together.  We found purple glitter, bunny marshmallows, flower stickers, paint, and a few other odds and ends.  We took out some magazines and searched through them to find pictures of birds.  Somethings he wanted to add to the bucket just because...that was fine with me.

Here is our table of supplies and a bucket of things we found on our scavenger hunt.

My three year old was eager to start decorating the giant egg that I had cut out of poster board.  He started by painting the egg blue.

He added some of the stickers.

He of course had fun sprinkling glitter on the glue he added.

We put the bird pictures on last.  I cut them out for him since he was much more interested in gluing today.

Later in the day we read by the fire.  We each picked out a couple of books.  One of my choices was Kirby the Easter Dog by George White.  This is a colorful pop up book about a dog named Kirby who lives on a farm.  He hides all of the Easter eggs for all of the other animals on the farm.  While the farm animals look for eggs, you can too!  If you keep count of all of the eggs as you read, you can check your answer on the last page to see if you have found ALL of the eggs.  

As we read, and counted all of the eggs, we realized we were VERY short.  We read again and we were still missing one.  Much better than the first time, though!  My kindergartner remembered this book from the last few Easters, but this was my three year old's first time reading, and he loved the bull pushing the wheel barrow!

Easter Bunny Basket

Easter Bunny Basket

My kindergartner gets to make an Easter Bunny basket at school, and I can't help but feel like my three year old is missing out.  Since, I helped out in my son's class while they were working on their basket, I was inspired to make our own.  It turned out that my three year old wasn't interested, so now my kindergartner will have two bunny baskets!

  For this project we needed

a small cardboard box (I used an oatmeal box)

2 clothespins

white and pink paper for the bunny ears

glue

cotton balls

goggly eyes

foam or cardboard for the handle

Here is everything we needed.  I cut a side off of the oatmeal box and taped the edges.

My son started gluing one side and covered it with cotton balls.

When my three year old lost interest, my kindergartner wanted to finish it.

Of course, my kindergartner's participation made my three year old interested again, so I had to find another box.  I actually like the size and shape of the juice box better , but he never wanted to finish.  I refuse to force him.  This is only supposed to be fun, so maybe he will make it another time.

While my kindergartner continued gluing cotton balls I made bunny ears and attached them to clothespins.

This was not in the plan, but we decided to line the inside of the box with scrapbook paper.  it actually made it look much more finished!

My son added the ears, eyes, and nose.  I added the handle with staples.

He filled his basket with store bought Easter grass.  

Here is our finished project.  He wanted to go searching for eggs afterwards.  I am thinking we will have to have our own little egg hunt in the backyard before Easter since I am not a fan of the
BIG egg hunts!

In preparation for our Easter Bunny Basket, we read The Story of the Easter Bunny last night.  Every time we read a bunny book my son has to get carrots to eat.  I love that he wants a healthy snack, but boy does it slow down our reading!

In The Story of the Easter Bunny by Katherine Tegen and illustrated by Sally Anne Lambert, there is an old couple in town that works hard to decorate Easter eggs, make Easter baskets, and make chocolate eggs.  While they work, their pet bunny watches.  On Easter morning they deliver the baskets to all of the children in town.  Each year the bunny starts to help the couple do more and more, until they are too old to do it anymore.  The Easter Bunny takes over and decides to move into a tree where no one will find him getting ready for Easter.

I definitely don't have any information on the Easter Bunny, so I thought this was a nice little story that gave us some "background" information about him!  My three year old loved looking for the little bunny on each page, and was anxious to decorate Easter eggs like the bunny and get an Easter Basket delivered to his door!

The illustrations in this book are very appealing.  You will want to jump right into the quaint little village that the bunny lives in, and afterward you might want to go for a walk searching for the tree in which the Easter Bunny prepares for Easter!

A Trip to the Farm

Today everyone was feeling a little better and before spring break passed us up, I knew we needed to get out.  We headed to a 1800s farm near our home that we had never visited before.  The friendly animals definitely made this trip worth while!

My son was surprised by how cold the water was!

We loved the chicken that jumped the fence!

This chicken was smart enough to get back in after my son followed her around.

The horse came over to say hello.

He was one of our favorites!

The piglets were funny, too.

There were some really BIG pigs there!

When we got home the boys went their separate ways, but I wanted to find my favorite baby book about farm animals.  I looked in almost every place I keep books and I finally found it in the basement!  You can tell it was one of our favorites because one of the pages is ripped off, but Baby Girl enjoyed it.

Noisy Farm by DK Publishing is a baby's lift the flap board book that includes farm animals such as a pig, goat, and cow.  When you lift the flap it has the words for what sound that animal makes.  Simple? Yes.  Perfect for babies?  Double yes!  I remember reading this so many times with the boys.  Now it is perfect to read with the baby AND my three year old even wanted to read it a couple of times before bed.

While we were eating dinner, my kindergartner loved telling my husband all about the trip to the farm.  I decided it would be a good day to have him try a journal entry.  We try this every so often, but I would be lying if I told you I have him write it as much as I should!

Here he is starting to write.

 I had him at the table with three pictures from our day, paper, a pencil, and some peace and quiet.  My husband had the other two kiddos in the bath tub.  My kindergartner sat at the table for 20 minutes and wrote.  Then he drew a detailed picture of himself petting the horse.  I had him read me his writing and he was so proud of it!  I might have to try this again in a week or two.  I don't want to push it or set my expectations too high lol.  I think summer will be a great time to try to make journal writing more routine!

I put his writing on the front of this green paper, and our photos on the back.  Then I put this in a page protector and added it to his journal binder that we made last year.  When he got out of the shower he was very excited to look through his old entries and read his new one.

Marshmallow Bunny Color Sort

Marshmallow Bunny Color Sort

Today, we are feeling a little under the weather and being VERY lazy.  My three year old seemed a little bored, so I got out one of his favorite "dessert" snacks and decided to let him play with them!

 I quickly cut out colored paper to match the bunnies, so he would have a starting point for his color sort.  I put them in a veggie tray and we were ready.  We sat down and he knew exactly what to do. 

He named every color each time he put a bunny in the correct space.  We don't do this sort of thing very often, so he had a blast!  When he was done sorting he wanted to do it again.  

He sorted the bunnies about 5 times, and one time he noticed there weren't as many green bunnies as the others, so he went to find the bag of marshmallows and added more green bunnies.

When he was done with sorting, I asked him if he wanted to count them.  His reply was, "No."  So, I skipped counting them.  Next, I asked if he wanted to feed the bunnies.  He said yes this time, so I handed him a" garden" with a number and the same number of carrots drawn on it.  He wanted to draw on it first.

This is what one of our gardens looked like. 

He counted the carrots, and then counted the same amount of bunnies to add to that garden.    When we were done he enjoyed eating some of the bunnies too!

Right before his nap we read lots of bunny books, but today I have to share our favorite bunny book to read together.  We love That's Not My Bunny by Fiona Watt and illustrated by Rachel Wells.

We have at least 10 of these "That's not my..." Usborne touchy-feely books.  They are always the kids favorites when they are little.  They are great book to read to both my three year old and baby girl at the same time.  My three year old likes to rub my daughter's hand over the bunny's tail, paws, and ears.

In this touchy feely Usborne book, there are many bunnies, but not of them is "my bunny" until the very end when it reads, "That's my bunny his ears are so soft!"

Had to share this picture of Baby Girl enjoying That's Not My Bunny!

Little Robin Redbreast

My three year old's robin craft

After a trip to the library searching for Easter, spring, and robin books, I brought home Little Robin Redbreast: A Mother Goose Rhyme illustrated by Shari Halpern.  My son adored this book the second we started reading it and I did too!

This book illustrates the Mother Goose Rhyme with such sweet illustrations.  The pictures are not cluttered, and allowed my three year old to really focus on the rhyme, and the "plot"!  This is a great book to take a picture walk with before reading!

Since spring is here, I thought it would be a great time to make a cute robin craft out of paper plates!  My son was super excited when he woke up and saw the table all ready to make his craft this morning.

For this craft you will need...
4 paper plates
Googly Eyes
Brown Paint
Paint Brushes
Red and Orange Construction Paper (I chose to use craft foam)
Pipe Cleaners
Glue
Stapler

First I gathered up all of the materials.  I cut out the center of one plate for the robin's head, traced it on red foam for the belly, and cut out a beak for the bird.

My three year old started by painting the robin's head.

Next, he painted the body.

He added eyes and a beak to the head.

He added the red belly!

My job was to paint both wings and make the legs.  I used a pipe cleaner folded in two and added a little piece  to each end for the "feet".

We glued the head on and I stapled the wings and legs.  

We hung up our robin to remind us that spring is here.  We need the reminder since it is a bit chilly here today!  Hopefully, it will warm up a little today so we can go for a walk and look for some real robins!

Make Your Own Word Search

Each week my son comes home with a book from school that he is supposed to read every night.  This book is to help with his fluency, so we make sure we read it a few times each night.  The books are usually pretty short and have a lot of sight words in them.  This week he came home with A Mosquito Buzzed by Kana Riley and illustrated by Daniel Moreton.  This book had a lot of repetition, but used different characters on each page.  First, the mosquito buzzes in Baby Bear's ear, then Mama Bear's and finally Papa Bear's ear.  My son loves the end when Papa Bear ends up breaking the window and even more mosquitos fly in the house!

He can read the words really well when he reads them within the story, but I wanted to see how many of them he would recognize on his own.  I decided to make a word search with 8 of the words that I picked from the book.  The A to Z Teach Word Search maker is my favorite because you are able to decide how big you want the word search to be and if you want words to go diagonally, up and down, or just across.   This word search took me three minutes to make and print out.  It is an easy reading activity that you can do with virtually any book you choose.  Well, I guess I should say, as long as the book has words!

Here he is working on his word search. 

Here is the word search I made him.

I am thinking next time I might have to make him a crossword puzzle instead, since he likes those better than word searches!