Spring Flowers

Books

We borrowed these six books from the library this week to help us psych up for spring and flowers! Little M&M asked me to read Huck Runs Amuck and Fran's Flower every day, multiple times a day. They made us laugh, and were super cute. Another I must mention is My Garden, because we love Kevin Henkes!

Quiet Bin

With the busy holidays and winter season, we allowed our quiet bin routine to slow down. But recently both kids have been asking for them; they just love the activities! So I threw just one bin together for our flower theme, and we used it when we had time.

First up was a Flower Number Line. I used my flower cutouts and taped them to toothpicks for the kids to practice number order with floral styrofoam. For Honey Pot, we also extended this into addition practice.

Also in the bin I included this invitation to use stamps and ink pads. The kids love using stamps from my paper scrapbooking supplies. They had fun with these.

And finally, Little M&M helped me to make a new batch of playdoh, and we used it alongside two flower cutters, a plastic flower pot and our playdoh tools and accessories.

The two kids had a lot of fun making and decorating cutouts.

Two kiddos hard at work!

Color-Changing Flowers - Science Experiment

I had been wanting to try this experiment out for a while. One day I finally brought home a bunch of white carnations from the grocery store, and asked the kids to help me dye water with food coloring.

We placed a couple carnations in each glass, and watched them gradually change color. The blue was the first to begin to change, within just a couple hours!

Over the next few days, we started to see some other colors as well.

Over the course of a week or so, we trimmed the stems down, and changed how many flowers shared a glass, to try to get optimal color changes. It was so fun to watch!

Fruit Loop Craft

Little M&M has been asking to do a craft with Fruit Loops. He really enjoyed making rainbows for St. Patrick's Day last year, and has wanted to use them again ever since! I decided the kids and I should make some flowers with them.

Honey Pot and I added other elements to our pictures, such as the sun and butterflies. They all turned out very cute!

To look back at our G is for Garden week, click here!

Christmas + Quiet Bins

Books

Here are the books we borrowed from the library for a couple of weeks. We read them all many, many times but the kids' favorites here were Mooseltoe and A Pussycat's Christmas. The latter was a favorite last year too, so I was happy to be able to find it for them again. 

Quiet Bins

For holidays I like to keep both bins in theme. And, since it's a busy time of year, we kept these activities in here for a total of two weeks instead of one. Keep scrolling to see what was inside.

We have had so much success in the past with Dollar Tree foam and assorted loose parts. Remember the robots and pumpkins? So when I saw this game from Fun-A-Day I knew we had to have our own variation with the foam "trees" too! I included colored toothpicks, beads and jingle bells. I loved how they played with these. They were totally filled up! And one night Little M&M even filled his with toothpicks, then placed matching beads on each!

I included these tracing pages in plastic sheets with a dry erase marker.

This fun ornament file folder game, for pattern matching.

Blank paper, a Christmas stencil and coloring pencils.

A Christmas-colored pom pom transfer activity.

Assorted red and green paper strips and ribbons for cutting practice.

An uppercase/lowercase file folder game. 

A new batch of homemade playdough, scented with peppermint, with our tools and Christmas cookie cutters.

Tree Craft

One morning while Honey Pot was at school, I set up this paper strip tree craft for Little M&M. First he glued the green strips down in order from longest to shortest. When it was all finished, he used glue dots to adhere sequin "ornaments."

It came out super cute!

Christmas Slime

Every year at Christmastime we like to make up a batch of slime! It started two years ago during our Grinch theme, at which time we used green glitter glue. Then last year we made a peppermint-scented batch with red glitter glue. Unfortunately I couldn't find green or red this year, so the kids made purple slime instead. No matter! It's still fun and screams of Christmastime to us! First the kids helped empty out the glue bottles.

Then Honey Pot stirred it up with 1 1/2 cups of warm water.

In a separate bowl, Little M&M stirred 3/4 teaspoons of Borax with 1 1/3 cups of warm water.

Then we mixed the contents of both bowls together and dumped out the excess water to create our wonderful Christmas slime! It was stretchy...

Sticky...

And so much fun! The kids love hiding googly eyes inside and then looking for them again.

And making handprints.

Stretching it and pulling it... 

They love the challenge of forming bubbles inside it too so they could pop them! After a while, they asked if they could bring over some characters. I approved of some pups and the play went on like this for a long time!

Later as I was helping Little M&M in the next room, I came back to see Honey Pot had written me a message. How sweet is she!

Shower Painting

Another fun activity we did during these two weeks is shower painting! I had a ton of Dollar Tree shaving cream hanging around with my craft supplies. So I filled three cups and tinted two of them with red and green. Then I provided the kids with the cups and two paintbrushes in the shower. It's really so simple; I wasn't sure what to expect.

But they had so. much. fun!

Here is Honey Pot through the glass...

And a glimpse of Little M&M, who chose to use a paintbrush in one hand, while finger-painting with the other...

The laughter during this activity was tremendous. And ongoing. It was seriously the longest shower ever. I will definitely be offering this activity again, between themes. They had such a great time!