Clouds

Theme: Clouds

Honey Pot is 2 years and 1 month old

Little M&M is 3 months old

Books

We kicked off this week’s fun theme by gathering a few cloud books. We own one, and the other two we borrowed from the local library. These were left out in the living room and we read them often throughout the week.

Clouds, by Marion Dane Bauer

Little Cloud, by Eric Carle

It Looked Like Spilt Milk, by Charles D. Shaw

Blowing Clouds Across The Sky

I provided Honey Pot with a few cotton ball clouds, and we practiced blowing through straws, making them drift across the blue paper sky. I found the idea at a site I recently discovered called Preschool Express.

Cloud Crafts

I found these craft ideas from Blissfully Domestic. The blogger there used them in conjunction with It Looked Like Spilt Milk, as we did!

First, we used a clothespin to paint with clouds…

It was a lot of fun to turn it into a finger-painting. She dipped her hand in, fearlessly!

Then, I let Honey Pot squirt some glue onto another blue page.

We stuck cotton balls over the glue to make a cloud.

Then I asked her what she thought it looked like. She said a sheep, but I think it looks more like a reindeer! What do you think?

Cloud Gazing

Later we spread out a blanket outside and did some cloud gazing.

We spotted a dinosaur head…

A squirrel…

And a few others. But you know the attention span of a two-year-old. Honey Pot did about five minutes of cloud gazing…followed by about twenty minutes of crawling around on the deck saying, “I’m an ant!” and chasing one around. What a goofy goober.

Sky Jello

I discovered these on Pinterest, originating from a blog called Anastasia’s Palace. What a neat idea! First my little helper did some mixing…

Then I added the whipped cream clouds. Cute!

Honey Pot tasted her sky and cloud Jello. “Mmm, nummy!”

Cloud Dough

We also did a sensory bin this week, with a concoction called Cloud Dough. It is eight cups of flour plus 1 cup of baby oil. I halved the recipe, and I’m glad I did! Honey Pot had a BLAST with this mixture, but it all wound up out of the bin by the end of the afternoon! It feels much like plain flour, but is moldable! I don’t have too many fun gadgets, but I provided her with some old measuring spoons, cups and a small sifter.

Honey Pot had fun digging her hands into it.

“I need a bowl!” she insisted. So I ran inside and got a bowl too.

She poured, scooped and squished to her delight.

Then I helped her mold some of the dough. “Birthday cake!” she shouted.

And you know it’s a successful sensory bin when she puts her feet in it!

Even Little M&M got to experience the fun!

And then Honey Pot helped clean up the mess. Err, she ran across the deck with the broom in her hand. Whatever works!

Walking Across The Clouds

This is a last minute activity I wanted to add to this week’s theme. We had been using these stacks of printer paper to help Little M&M reach the floor while sitting in his Jumperoo. When he was done with them I spotted them on the floor and knew we had to make a game of it! So I printed out a few images of cloud clip-art, and numbered them from one to five to put a little educational spin on it.

Then we took turns walking across the clouds!

I spread them out a little bit for a challenge.

Scattered clouds...get it?

And here she is saying and pointing to the numbers as she walks across them.

It was a great balancing game!

And throughout the remainder of the day, every time I walked by them I would walk over them, saying the numbers as I stepped on them. We went from one to five and from five to one. It actually turned into quite a good number review - I wasn't expecting that!