Wednesday, December 19, 2012

The Hat, by Jan Brett

Theme: The Hat, by Jan Brett
Honey Pot is 2 years and 7 months old

We are again participating in the Virtual Book Club! This month’s featured author is Jan Brett. I really enjoyed the books we found of hers at the library this week. Honey Pot did too! So many wintry scenes and Christmas stories. I love how she also puts a new spin on classic tales such as The Three Bears. Her version, The Three Snow Bears, was Honey Pot's favorite of the selection we brought home. She requested it often throughout the week, and we even caught her Elf on the Shelf reading it one morning with our giant bear stuffed animal!

I decided to choose The Hat, though, because it had a new and exciting character! And I immediately thought of a few activities to accompany the book. Take a peek at them below!

Clothespin Practice

The story opens with a young girl hanging her clothes on a line, when one of the stockings blows away!


I decided to give Honey Pot some clothespin practice as well. I didn’t have any rope handy so I created my own line by connecting a few chenille stems together. I attached them between two chairs at her level, and provided five clothespins. Then I gathered five small items of clothing and asked Honey Pot to hang them up. She really enjoyed this, and it was quite a challenge!





Play Doh Hedgehog

In the story, a little hedgehog pokes his nose into the stocking and it gets stuck on his spikes. When the other animals ask about it, he tells them that it’s a hat to save himself from embarrassment. We don’t often come across hedgehogs in our books and crafts, so I wanted Honey Pot to create one. First I grabbed our homemade playdoh (the fragrant one we made during our Pumpkins and Jack-O-Lanterns theme) and molded it into a hedgehog shape. Well, use your imagination on that part! Then Honey Pot helped me break up some spaghetti noodles. I grabbed two googly eyes and a pink brad for her to create the eyes and nose.


Then I asked her to push the noodles onto the hedgehog’s back. She loved doing this!



She kept asking for more! And even Little M&M was curious about our activity.






It came out awesome!


Stocking Craft

Since “the hat” is a stocking…and it is Christmastime after all…I wanted Honey Pot to do a stocking craft as well. First she got some cutting practice, as we cut up little pieces of red and green scrap paper. After she had cut a few, she also decided to rip them with her hands.


I printed a stocking template from the Internet onto cardstock, and had Honey Pot squirt glue all over it.


Then she placed the red and green pieces all over it. She asked me to do it with her, so I helped a little bit. Little M&M is always so curious about our big kid crafts!



When the stocking was full, Honey Pot added glue to the top as well.


And she pushed a few cotton balls onto it!


Merry Christmas!



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Visit the Virtual Book Club's Facebook Page!


 Virtual Book Club for Kids 


We are linking our activities up to the Virtual Book Club!
Check out what some of our blogging friends did with this month's theme:



Sunday, December 9, 2012

Christmas Trees

Theme: Christmas Trees
Honey Pot is 2 years and 7 months old

Felt Board

I was so excited to make Honey Pot another set for her felt board! I created the tree in pieces so that she could assemble it as well as decorate it with ornaments and presents. And of course it became a nice review of simple shapes like circle, square, triangle and star...as well as an introduction to the trapezoid!



She enjoyed this a lot, and did it a few times throughout the week!




We even snuck in some counting practice!



Books

We took a trip to the library this week for some Christmas books that mention trees. Out of the six, Honey Pot’s very favorites are:

The Night Tree, by Eve Bunting (Highly, highly recommend this!!)
Clifford’s First Christmas, by Norman Bridwell

And we also bought a classic called Mr.Willowby’s Christmas Tree by Robert E. Barry. What wonderful Christmas stories! They really get you in the spirit of the season.

Name Christmas Tree

This craft was inspired by the blogs Miss Kindergarten as well as No Time For Flashcards. I combined the name recognition with some fun q-tip painting. First I provided Honey Pot with the pieces of her name tree and some glue. (Sorry for the poor Photoshopping, as I removed her real name!)


And she assembled her tree, including the trunk and the star.


Then we took out the white paint, and I demonstrated how she could make snow around and on her tree. She loved this!


After she had her fill though, she decided to use her finger to make more snow (note the top left, lol). Lastly, she added some snow along the bottom.


It's hanging on our fridge right now. Love it!


O Christmas Tree Song

Honey Pot has a wonderful Mickey Mouse Clubhouse songbook with an attached piano. I decided to include some singing in this week’s theme, because Honey Pot loves singing along to Christmas music! I sang it a few times, and Honey Pot soon was able to join in a bit. The book lights up the notes for you to play it by yourself, and Honey Pot was even able to follow the red light and play the song. She did about a stanza before losing interest. So we moved on!



  

Do-A-Dot Tree

Lastly, I also provided Honey Pot with this do-a-dot worksheet from DLTK. I deleted my pictures by accident while uploading (Doh!) so I can’t show you her finished product. It isn’t hard to imagine though, as Honey Pot only used the blue dot marker to make her “ornaments,” lol. So there you have it!





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Friday, November 23, 2012

Thanksgiving

Theme: Thanksgiving
Honey Pot is 2 years and 6 months old

Magnetic Pom Poms

We haven’t done this fun activity in so long. I found the free printable from DLTK. Honey Pot had so much fun with this! She placed the turkey’s feathers so meticulously into the circles. And when she had finished, she took them all off and did it again!




Then we made a pattern too!


Alphabet Turkey

This activity also comes from DLTK. Honey Pot can use some alphabet practice, so I thought this would be a fun for her. First she glued the turkey together.



Then I wrote the letters of the alphabet into each space so that it could be a matching activity. She enjoyed matching and gluing the letters for a little while. We came back to it often throughout the week until it was finished!





Thanksgiving Bingo

DLTK also has these customizable Bingo generators! You can choose your theme, your size, even the letters on top. So I created a small Thanksgiving Bingo game and we played this at our first ever Family Game Night!


Honey Pot is still quite young for real board games, but this was a nice introduction. First I punched out some circles from scrap paper (in Thanksgiving colors) to use as markers.


We had Honey Pot choose each picture from a bowl, and then asked if it matched any of the pictures on her card.


She did pretty well with this. She was winning all by herself, but starting to lose interest toward the end. So we cheated a bit and rigged it so her final picture was drawn next. She was so excited to fill her last space!



Fist bump with Daddy to celebrate her victory!


Scented Turkey Hand-Print

I found this idea at Preschool Daze. What a nice twist on the usual hand-print craft. This one is scented with Pumpkin Pie Spice! First I mixed together some brown and orange paint to get a good turkey color, and then I had Honey Pot sprinkle on some spice.



We painted her hand, and made one nice print. Then I allowed her to paint her hand and do several other prints for fun. It smelled lovely! She even dug both hands in and smeared it around like a sensory bin.




I cut out the first hand-print, but noticed that the paint smell was pretty overpowering. So I sprinkled a really lot of pumpkin pie spice on top of it. Finally, it was just right. I then added a couple features with markers. Here is the final product!


Thankful Tree

There are so many thankful trees out there. I wanted a simple one to print out, and I found such a cute one from a blog called Love The Day. Throughout our Thanksgiving theme week, I talked to Honey Pot about what it means to be thankful and offered some examples. I asked her probably daily if she could think of anything for which she is thankful. Here is the list she had by the end of the week:

-        Cookie Monster and Elmo
-        Grams and Pops
-        My toys
-        My room
-        My house
-        My family
-        My nose
-        My mouth

Some pretty unique choices! Instead of making another glue craft of this I simply attached a piece of con-tact paper, sticky side out, to her felt board. And she placed the leaves on the tree by herself.




I love how this came out!




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