Sunday, March 7, 2021

Preschool: Dr. Seuss

National Read Across America Day is on March 2 every year, to celebrate Dr. Seuss' birthday! This was always a fun theme for Honey Pot and Little M&M. Sweet E did a few activities this year too, but we focused just on The Cat in the Hat, one of her favorite Seuss books!

Thing 1 and Thing 2 Blow Painting

I took an image of Thing 1 and Thing 2 from the internet, and erased their hair in Photoshop Elements. Then I watered down some blue paint, dropped a bit above each head, and showed Sweet E how to blow through the straw.

This was a fun way to paint, and looks super cute when it's done!

Visual Discrimination - Hat Matching

I've had this matching game since 2013! The free printable comes from Joyfully Weary, and I've used it with all three kids!

Gluing Rhymes

This free printable comes from TotSchooling. Rhymes were such a hard concept for Sweet E, but it has finally clicked for her! She often brings it up in conversation now, pointing out rhymes that she knows.

Scissor Practice

I just used some Cat in the Hat stickers, and drew tracing lines leading up to them.

Sweet E loved this, and asked for more when she finished!

Upper/Lowercase Matching

This free printable also comes from TotSchooling. Instead of printing out all the letters though, Sweet E used a paper punch to make red and white circles from scrap paper, and I wrote the letters on. We left this out on her table throughout the day, and she came back to it to match up the letters throughout the day. Doing 26 at once is a bit project!

Board Games

We happen to have two Cat in the Hat games in our game closet, and they are two of her favorite games ever! Highly, highly recommend these for 3-4 year olds! We pulled these out often to play this week!

Sunday, February 17, 2013

The Cat in the Hat, by Dr. Seuss

Theme: The Cat in the Hat, by Dr. Seuss

Honey Pot is 2 years and 9 months old

This month the Virtual Book Club is featuring Dr. Seuss! We decided to choose one of our current favorites—a classic—The Cat in the Hat. We had so much fun this week with it! Take a peek at what we did!

Cat Hat

We needed a quick cat hat for our first activity. So I drew the shape, and asked Honey Pot to color in the red stripes. I asked her to try to stay in the lines. And I think she did an excellent job, as this isn’t something we do too often!

And here is the page we are going to copy:

Cat in the Hat Picture Pose

I saw this very unique idea on Adventures at home with Mum, a blog I stumbled upon via Google. I just loved it! First we looked at the pose we were to imitate, and I asked Honey Pot which things we needed to gather.

Then she set them out on a blanket.

We improvised a little bit with some things. There's just a cake plate instead of a cake, and there's an umbrella pole instead of a rake, for example. But here is the final picture!

This wasn't easy to do with a 2 1/2 year old...especially with a clingy 11 month old messing up the blanket all the time. But I think it came out pretty awesome! So much fun!

Thing 1 Magnet Page

This printable comes from Making Learning Fun. Honey Pot loves playing with our homemade pom pom magnets.

Hat Matching

Joyfully Weary provides the free printable for this game. It seemed like it would be a little overwhelming for Honey Pot at her current age, so I only used 12 of the 20 images. Then I pasted them onto a bright blue paper.

Honey Pot picked up an image, and looked at it closely.

Then she searched hard for where it belonged!

She was very proud of herself when she found each match.

Here she is counting the stripes on the hat, so she knows what to look for.

I did it!

Rhyming Game

I gathered a few toys, with names that rhyme, and set them out on the table. Then I picked the first one, and asked her which of the remaining objects rhymes. She needed a bit of help getting started with this, but overall I was pretty impressed.

Book + Hook!

What rhymes with bread? Bed!

Cat + Hat.

Fish + Dish.

Car + Star.

House + Mouse.

Chair + Pear.

She had fun with this, even though it was a challenge. Great rhyming practice!

Thing 1 Thing 2 Blow Painting

We have wanted to try blow painting. And I thought Thing 1 and Thing 2 would be just perfect for our first effort! First I found a picture of them via Google, and erased the blue hair in Photoshop Elements.

Then I put a dab of watered down blue paint onto just the tips of their heads, and provided Honey Pot with a straw. I showed her how to start, by blowing Thing 1’s hair. Then she began to create Thing 2’s hair.

Here is our first effort!

Then we added more paint because it was so much fun. Wacky hairdo’s! Loved this craft!

Cat Hat Smoothie

I found the idea and recipe for this on Crazy for Crust. I’m not the best at layering things likes this. (Remember the cloud theme? Huge challenge for me!) But here it is! I also discovered a cat hat in my closet while cleaning this week, and gave it to Honey Pot. No idea where this even came from!