Bike Bell

Yesterday, my three year old opened a back to school gift which included a bike bell.  He LOVES riding his bike right now and yells, "DING DING" while he is on a bike ride, so I thought he could use a new bell!  He was very excited about it!

Today, we found the book Dora Rides to Bike Park on the bookshelf and he had such a great time ringing the bike bell while we were reading.  It is still pretty difficult for him to ride his bike AND ring the bell at the same time so this book is perfect!

In this book, Dora rides her bike to the park, but needs to pick up her friends on the way.  Of course, Swiper gets in her way on the way there, but my son had fun telling Swiper, "No swiping!"  When they get to the park they are just in time for a big bike race.

My kids have never been Dora or Diego fans, but we do have a few books that they have picked up along the way.  The bike bell definitely made this book appealing for my little guy!

How Do Dinosaurs Go to School?

Today was my three year old's first day at preschool alone!  He didn't cry when we left him there and  he looked right at home.  It was a very different experience when my oldest went to school!  I don't know if I like it more when they cry, or when they are excited about it!

He looked so proud of himself as he walked out the door at the end of school!  He was in a Spiderman shirt, Spiderman shoes, and wore his Spiderman backpack!

When my son got home I read the teacher's note about what the kids did in class today and I noticed they read How Do Dinosaurs Go to School? by Jane Yolen and Mark Teague.  I asked him about the book and he told me, "We have that book!"  He was exactly right, so before nap time we decided to read How Do Dinosaurs Go to School? one more time!

In How Do Dinosaurs Go to School? the reader watches as dinosaurs behave badly in school.  The reader is asked if dinosaurs yell in school, bully their classmates, and interrupt class.  For each question my son would scream "No!"  I am happy he didn't wake up my daughter during nap time!  Towards the end of the book, the pictures and words show how dinosaurs should act in school.  We have a few of these dinosaur books and enjoy them all.  One of our other favorites is How Do Dinosaurs Clean Their Rooms?  Check out our fun post about that book and on keeping rooms clean!

While we read we talked about how the dinosaurs were behaving and how important it is for him to behave in school too.  He has done a great job so far!  I hope we continue on this path!

Maisy's Schoolhouse

We have been busy reading lots of back to school books and books about preschool!  One of our favorites that has gotten a lot of love in the last few years is Maisy Goes to Preschool by Lucy Cousins!  My oldest son still enjoys reading this book, but earlier in the summer he finally sent it over to his brother's bookshelves thinking that he would enjoy it more!

Maisy Goes to Preschool is about a little mouse named Maisy and her first day at school.  The story line is simple and follows Maisy as she hangs up her coat, listens to a story, uses the bathroom, paints, eats a snack, and much more!  The illustrations are so bright that it is hard not to love these books!

Since my son started school today, we made our own little school house modeled after Maisy's school!

First, I cut out these shapes and some squares that spelled out school.

My son used the picture in the book to help him put the shapes in the right spot.  We discussed the rectangles, trapezoids, and one tiny circle for the doorknob!

When he was done gluing the schoolhouse together, he put the letters for the word school in the right order.  I would say the letter and he would find it, then glue it.  We are working on letter recognition right now and he did great with all of the letters.  He found L to be a little tricky.

After he glued the word on, he matched the letters again.  This time he used the scrabble pieces from our kids' scrabble game.  He loved doing this and tried it at least three times!

Here is his completed school house!  The perfect project for his first day of school!

First Day of Preschool

Today was a special day for my three year old!  He started preschool!  I was lucky enough to get to stay with him at school for the first day!  It was very special!

He was such a big boy exploring his new school!

We were able to play, go on a classroom scavenger hunt, listen to a story, and make a craft together!

The Kissing Hand by Audrey Penn was the story that my three year old's teacher read to all of us.  What a sweet story!  This story is about a little raccoon who is nervous about going to school.  His mom kisses his hand and tells him to place his hand on his cheek anytime he misses her so that he can get his mommy's kisses anytime!  The little raccoon loves this so much that he does the same for his mommy!

I am embarrassed to say that I have never read this story before, but it was just wonderful!  It made me want to cry listening to the story and watching my big boy sit so quietly on the circle time rug!

After reading the story, the moms were able to make a craft with their kids.  I didn't get a picture since we were so busy painting, but it was so cute and simple.  My son and I were given two hearts (one big, and one little).  He glued both hearts to the paper and then we got to paint.  First, I painted his hand and we stamped it on the little heart.  After he washed his hands, he got to paint my hand and stamp in on the big heart!

My little guy did such a great job today.  I can't wait to see him learn and make friends this year in preschool.  I am just so proud of him!

The Night Before Preschool

Things are definitely changing in this house!  My six year old is on his third week of first grade, my 10 month old is crawling and pulling herself up on everything, and tomorrow my three year old will be going to preschool.  I will not lie...these last few weeks have been VERY hard on me.  Well, that sounds selfish, they have been hard on everyone.  My six year old is tired and crabby from the long days at school, my three year old misses his brother, and my baby girl, well she is so happy all of the time I will just assume that she isn't affected by it!

With all of the changes in the house we have done our best to make sure everyone in the house is comfortable, well rested, and feeling important!

Tonight, we wanted to make our little preschooler feel special, so we took him out for dinner all by himself to the restaurant of his choice.  He chose the train restaurant.   While we waited for our table he was happy to ride the horse.

Two happy guys!

Dinner at the train restaurant is not complete without a cupcake and train whistle!

 After dinner, he wanted to visit the train park!  We had a great night, and although he missed his brother at first, I think he enjoyed getting the attention of both mom and dad without all of the interruptions!

Before naps and bedtime today, we read The Night Before Preschool by Natasha Wing.  This book tells the story of a little boy who is nervous about preschool.  At first, he misses his mom and doesn't want to play with the other kids.  He even forgets his teddy bear, but after another student lets him have one of her stuffed animals, he starts to feel better about school!  The story is told in the same pattern as The Night Before Christmas and is a book that I think we will be reading a lot of this week!

Fun Run and Concert

This morning we woke up early for a family fun run and concert.  We had a great time!  A day filled with running, music, and books is one of the best!

My three year old was star struck watching our favorite singer, Ralph from Ralph's World, perform!

We had front row seats!

I think I love Ralph's concerts as much as the boys.

After the concert the boys ran in a kids' dash and my husband and I ran in a 5k.

The boys slid down some slides, found as many free samples of food as they could, and got a little wet from the rain!

The rain couldn't ruin our morning though, we completed our fun with a trip to McDonald's!

Tonight, after our fun run, my six year old and I chose to read two books by Ralph Covert.  We had a great time singing and reading together.

  

Ralph's World Rocks is by Ralph Covert and illustrated by Charise Mericle Harper.  This book has 12 songs.  Each page spread has song lyrics and fun and silly illustrations.  My son loves searching for Ralph in each of the pictures.  It includes many of our favorite songs by Ralph like "Happy Lemons," "Freddy Bear the Teddy Bear," and "Surfin' in My Imagination."  

If you haven't heard Ralph's music you really have to check it out at Ralph's World!  We often have Ralph's World playing while we are working on crafts at the kitchen table.  The kids love it and so do the adults!  

Cactus!

We were so excited to have some friends visit us from Arizona this weekend!  We spent Friday getting ready for their visit and since we wanted to make them feel right at home we decided to go to the plant nursery and pick out some cacti!

My three year old loved running through the trees and bushes looking for little hiding spots.

He also loved the cat that followed us around as we shopped!

He was so excited to see all of the succulents and quickly found the smallest plant.  He decided it should be his!

When we got home his brother checked them out and helped us plant.  They very carefully touched all three of the plants, and we discussed how cactus needles help protect the plants! Funny enough, my three year old loved the succulent without needles!

Here is the mini "desert" that we made for our friends.  I wonder if we will be able to keep them alive.  They don't need much water, of course, so there may be hope!

For some reason, my three year old grabbed There was a Coyote Who Swallowed a Flea off of our shelf early last week and we have been reading it every night!  Perfect timing for our visit from our Arizona friends!

There Was a Coyote Who Swallowed a Flea by Jennifer Ward has been a frequently read book in this house since we brought it home from a trip to Arizona!  My three year old loves to sing along with me to the "Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly," but instead we get to sing about a goofy coyote who eats some very crazy desert items.  He starts with a flea, then a lizard, a snake, even a cactus!  For some reason my three year old loves the bull in the book, and we both love the end when the coyote swallows the moon!  

Many of the pages in this book give the reader hints as to what the coyote is going to swallow next, so it is perfect for using picture clues and making predictions!  This is a fun book with bright and colorful illustrations that will make you laugh every time you read it!

Aliens in Underpants Save the World

 When my son grabbed the book Aliens in Underpants Save the World for his baby sister's summer reading prize, I couldn't help but laugh!  Of course, he would want to read a book about underpants!  What three year old wouldn't?

Aliens in Underpants Save the World by Claire Freedman and Ben Cort is a hilarious rhyming story!  In the story a huge meteorite is heading straight for the planet.   The aliens are determined to save planet Earth because their underpants supply comes from here.  To save the world they make a giant pair of... what else...underpants and the meteor bounces right off the underpants and back into space.  The colors in this book are bright and the pictures are amusing.  My three year old just loves it!

Since winning this as a prize from the library, we have read this book MANY times and I have tried to think of some activities that would be fun to go along with the book.  I love this idea on Taming the Goblin's blog for decorating underpants that was created by Make, Do, and Friend for The Educator's Spin On It Love Books Exchange!  This could be perfect for children who are new to using the potty!

I took this idea and decided to make paper underpants instead of real underpants, although my three year old would have LOVED to decorate REAL underpants!

One afternoon when we had a little time to spare I brought out the underpants with some markers, stickers, glitter, and glue.

We had so much fun.  I drew underpants of my own, but then found these great printables to go along with the book! 

He is always happy when I bring the glitter out!

Here are some of our designs.  Be sure to look for us on the next Project Runway lol!

I also thought it would be fun to incorporate the clothesline from the book into some learning, so I wrote each letter of my son's name on a pair of construction paper underpants.  I hung up a clothesline, handed him some clothespins and had him hang his name up in the correct order.

Here is an example.

This was perfect practice for fine motor skills.  He also is learning to recognize his name, which is one of the first things they will work on in preschool this year!

Here he is reading his name.  He was so proud of himself for hanging up all of the letters in the correct order that he couldn't stop smiling!  His comment afterwards, "Mommy this is a fun game.  Let's do it again!"

This clothesline would also work great for putting numbers in the correct order!

Later on in the day, he decided to hang our "underpants artwork" up on the line!

Please come and check out our Facebook Page so you can follow along with more of our book related activities!

Check here for our current giveaway of the book A Good Day by Kevin Henkes!

Cool Dog, School Dog

After nap time on Tuesday, my three year old was pretty crabby!  I asked him to do all sorts of things and he said no to all of them.  I finally sat on the floor and started reading out loud even though he said he didn't want to read.  Sure enough, a minute later he crawled in my lap and read a bunch of books out of our Back to School Book Basket.  His favorite choice that day was Cool Dog, School Dog by Deborah Heiligman!

Cool Dog, School Dog is the story of a little dog that is so lonely after his owner goes to school that he follows him to school and finds himself in lots of trouble.  By the end of the story, the students in the classroom are reading to the dog and the teacher has learned to enjoy having him in their class.  This book is a short story told in fun rhymes and is great for kids that are just learning about rhyming words!

After reading this book once, my son wanted to read to a dog.  Our dog isn't that keen on being close to the kids, so I told my son to get his puppy blanket and we could read the story to him.  He had so much fun reading the book two more times!

Reading to a stuffed animal is a great way to get even the littlest kids to practice "reading!"

Bike Riding

Today we were lucky to have a friend stop by!  Most of the times that we see her, she is riding her bike.  Today her bike riding made quite an impression on my three year old.  When it was time for his friend to leave my three year old was determined to go for a bike ride of his own.   We fit in two walks before bedtime so that he could get some bike riding into his day!  He is learning that a little practice can make big improvements!  I am sure we will be taking another walk tomorrow morning!

Before going to bed we read one of his old favorites, Caillou: Training Wheels by Sarah Margaret Johanson.  Caillou is a favorite TV show in this house, so it is no surprise that my three year old loves reading books about his favorite four year old!

In Caillou: Training Wheels, Caillou's older friend, Sarah, can ride her bike without training wheels.  After a bike ride with Sarah, he is ready to take his training wheels off.  He soon learns that it is very difficult to ride without training wheels and decides to wait a little bit longer before he takes them off again.

I usually don't enjoy books based on TV shows, but this book is great because it helps my three year old understand that there are somethings that his older brother is able to do that he is going to have to wait to do.  It also reminds us that there are things my three year old can do that my six year old can't.  They are brothers, but they are learning to have their own identity and are enjoying every second of it!