Snow/Snowman

Theme: Snow/Snowman

Honey Pot is 2 years and 8 months

Little M&M is 10 months

Books

There are so many fun wintry books available, even at our little library. Our very favorite from this week was Hello, Snow! by Hope Vestergaard—great flowing rhymes, and super cute, childlike text. We also really enjoyed Snow by Uri Shulevitz for its beautiful illustrations and simplistic wording—the characters had names such as “boy with dog” and “man with beard.” And an unexpected favorite this week was called Stranger in the Woods by Carl R. Sams II and Jean Stoick. All pictures are actual photographs, and we are shown various woodland creatures as they pluck up the courage to meet this stranger in their territory: a snowman. So, so very cute.

Coffee Filter Snowflakes

I had seen a few versions of this craft on Pinterest, but I knew I wanted to do the one with a spray bottle. Honey Pot loves to squirt hers, and hasn’t been able to play much with it since the weather turned cold. Here is what we did:

First Honey Pot and I used markers to decorate a few folded coffee filters. (The markers must be washable!)

Then I placed them in a bucket and let her drench them with her spray bottle. The colors began to bleed through.

I unfolded them and let them dry on a towel. This actually didn’t take as long as I expected – just a couple hours!

And I cut out some snowflake shapes.

We hung these on our back door, and they look just beautiful when the sun shines through. Hard to photograph though!

Chubby Little Snowman Poem

Honey Pot really enjoys songs with finger-plays, so I decided to introduce her to a classic poem that had motions as well. This one is a classic!

A chubby little snowman
Had a carrot nose
Along came a rabbit
And what do you suppose?
That hungry little bunny,
Looking for his lunch,
Ate the snowman's carrot nose...
Nibble, nibble, CRUNCH!

She is too young to recite it on her own, but as I recited it she spoke with me and did the motions. She had a lot of fun with this!

Tape Resist Snowflake Finger-painting

Hooray for Little M&M’s very first official craft! I prepared a special homemade paint for him, in the very likely case that he’d want to taste it. The recipe I used came from a blog called Stay At Home Educator. It served its purpose well, but the colors are certainly not as vibrant as Honey Pot’s paints!

To begin, I stuck masking tape on two pieces of paper, one for each of the kids. Then I set each of them up with their respective paints and let them have at it. I supplied a paintbrush for each, but they decided it was meant to be a finger-painting instead. Fine by me!

Here are the final results!

Later I outlined them in black marker to help them stand out, and we put them on display in our dining room. Beautiful!

Snowflake Number Recognition and Counting

I found these adorable printables from Making Learning Fun. I only printed through number six for now. They are meant to be used with a wagon wheel pasta; however, I happen to have a superfluous amount of snowflake confetti that worked perfectly for this. Honey Pot did very well with the counting – she was flawless actually! But we could definitely use the practice in number recognition. Great activity!

Snowman Snack

I found via Pinterest a cute banana snack from a blog called All Free Kids Crafts. I threw mine together in a hurry, so it isn't nearly as cute. But Honey Pot got a kick out of her breakfast, and ate it all up!

Snow Sensory – Ice Cream Shoppe

It’s super cold outside. And honestly, we would spend more time bundling up to go outside than we would actually spend out there. So we brought the snow inside instead! First I let Little M&M explore the texture of snow for his very first time. I sat him in his high chair and scooped some snow up for him to play with. He loved it. And he tasted it of course.

I set Honey Pot up with a whole bin full of snow, some ice cream bowls, an ice cream scoop and some play spoons. First we ordered some ice cream from one another and pretended to eat it.

Then I decided to add some food coloring to some of the snow. Suddenly we had strawberry ice cream and blueberry ice cream and much more! She loved the colors!

Building A Snowman

And finally, Honey Pot built her very first snowman with her Daddy! Love these! 

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Waddles, by David McPhail

Theme: Waddles, by David McPhail

Honey Pot is 2 years and 8 months old

This month’s featured author in the Virtual Book Club is David McPhail. We borrowed a few of his books from the library. What wonderful illustrations, and such cute characters. It was a toss-up between Waddles and My Little Brother. I would really like to have chosen the latter, but I couldn’t think of any activities that would involve both kids while showing her why her brother is so great. So alas, we chose Waddles!

Waddles is a cute story about a raccoon and his life throughout the four seasons of the year. He eats a lot because he is always so very hungry. A friendship forms between him and a duck family, and soon our raccoon finds himself feeling full and happy. Take a look at the activities we did to accompany this book!

Four Seasons Fluffy Stuff

I have wanted to talk to Honey Pot about the four seasons. This book provided that opportunity, as we saw Waddles in each of them. A blog called Isn’t That Sweet discovered a fun new craft material for just such a craft as this. You begin with pieces of scrap paper and a cheese grater…

Shred it up, and you get FLUFFY STUFF!

I’m always looking for new materials to use with Honey Pot. And I always have tons of scrap paper to use up. First I created four sets of fluffy stuff, and created a page with four bare trees on it. My freehand skills are lacking, so I pulled up some clip art on the Internet and literally used my computer screen as a light table to trace it. (Computer has been on the fritz, or else I would have used Photoshop for this!)

I asked Honey Pot to squirt a little bit of glue onto the top of the first tree, and then she added the fluffy stuff. We discussed each season and what happens to the trees and the weather during each. She really enjoyed this craft!

And take a peek at the final result!

Life Cycle of a Duck

Waddles’ best friend is a duck! We see her children’s lives throughout the different stages. So I printed some flashcards that I found on Sparkle Box. I placed them in random order and, referencing the book, I asked Honey Pot which picture comes first.

She needed a little bit of help with this! But in conjunction with the story, we were able to figure out the complete set.

Duck’s Nest Sensory Bin - Alphabet Hunt

It’s been almost a year since we began our Tot School. We started off doing one letter each week; and had we continued, we’d have been through the alphabet twice already! I am a little ashamed to say I’ve been slacking in our alphabet activities, as we’ve only gotten through the letter J as of yet. I decided a review was in order, and hopefully soon we will continue on through the rest of the letters!

In the book, Waddles offers to sit on his duck friend’s nest while she takes a swim. I thought a nest would be an interesting sensory bin, as well as a fun place for an alphabet hunt!

I had some basket shred in my supplies, which I had purchased for one dollar, from a craft that never came to fruition. What luck that it was brown and looked much like a nest! I spread it out through a bin, and hid the letters A through J (from my scrapbooking supplies, also in brown) inside.

Then I created a simple template on which Honey Pot could glue them, and set it up on her craft table.

I was a little hesitant, as it wasn't one of our usual messy, strange sensory bin concoctions. But she actually really enjoyed digging through here! She loved finding each letter. If she knew it, she would say it. “I found the A!” or, “Here’s a H!” If she didn't, we placed it above her template, and sang through the alphabet song, pointing at each letter as we sang it. This method worked great!

She used her glue stick once she matched up the letter to the template, and stuck it on.

Honey Pot really loved rummaging through the paper shreds!

And we always returned to the alphabet song should she need help identifying the letter. Honey Pot put a couple of the letters upside down. But they are symmetrical letters, so I didn't argue!

Honey Pot was so excited when she completed her hunt and letter matching, that she immediately picked up the paper and ran out the room yelling, “I’m going to show Daddy!”

She told him she knew all these letters and proved it by singing the song as he pointed to each one. She was so proud. We celebrated with some hot cocoa!

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