O Stuff

This week I did a specific library catalog search again. I searched octopus, ostrich, and otter. Cowboy and Octopus by Jon Scieszka was probably our favorite. Okay, it was my favorite. I kept trying to get Talmage to pick it at night.

Activities

Octopus Windsock



Piece of paper. Talmage chose blue. I glued two together so that it would be long enough for eight legs each a ribbon width long. I trimmed the paper width-wise and then let Talmage color it. We glued on googly eyes and then attached 8 ribbons for the legs. I tied yarn at the top so we could hang it.

At the end Talmage was very clear on the fact that octopi have eight legs.

Ostrich

We printed off this coloring page. I thought it looked a little cleaner when we cut it out and glued it on colored paper.



Orange Painting




I mixed three shades of orange. Then we painted.

Treasure Hunt. octopus, omelet, otter, ostrich. The treasure was Oh Henry bar (nobody makes treats with short vowel sounds).

N Stuff

The Napping House by Don and Audrey Wood worked well.

Activities

Nose Stuff. When we did this, Talmage let us know that this was his Sunbeam lesson in church last week. We talked about noses and what noses do. Then we talked about different smells. We gathered various smells from around the house (vinegar, cinnamon, rose petals, soap, dirt, lemon zest) and then we blindfolded ourselves and guessed which smell was which. When daddy got home we tested him. He got 4 out of 6.

Numbers. Talmage knows how to count to ten, but beyond that, he takes random stabs at numbers, and thirteen and eleven come up several times. Gail (award-winning mathematics instructor that she is) suggested we learn how to count beyond twenty and even up to one hundred so that he can catch the pattern.



I made numbers in "families"; 1-9 in white, 10-19 in green, 20-29 in blue, etc. Then we counted to ten and lined the subsequent numbers up in rows underneath. That way he could see the patterns numbers make.

I don't know that I'm explaining this well; hopefully the picture will make sense. We got through the 30s and that was about all his toddler brain was ready for.

Nest. We printed off this coloring page. Then we cut out the eggs, put them in the nest, and glued the whole thing on green paper so it looked like it was in a tree. Then we talked about what nests are and how birds make them soft with sticks and feathers. Talmage then wanted to add sticks and feathers to his nest.

I thought it was a nice touch.



Treasure hunt. nail clippers, napkin, neck, necklace, nest, noodles. The treasure was nerds.

M Stuff

This week was FABULOUS. The creativity was flowing rivers. RIVERS.

My favorite childhood book, Mother, Mother, I Want Another by Maria Polushkin Robbins, was a perfect M book.

Activities

Mosaic.





Our neighbor, Ida, who is wonderful in all things toddler, gave us a big bag of small colored squares. Talmage and I used them to make mosaics. Then we looked at images from the Mausoleum of Galla Placida in Ravenna:



Talmage looked for a while and then said "I'm all done, Mom."

Mailboxes.



Woah. I didn't forsee the wild success of this project. We took three boxes, wrapped them in different colors and then decorated the outside. You know, old school elementary Valentine's boxes. Then we put one in mommy and daddy's room, one in Talmage's room and one in Asher's room. Now periodically throughout the week, I write mail to various people. Not frequently enough for Talmage, who checks his mailbox for new mail roughly fifty-seven times a day.

Map Hunt. Talmage loves looking at maps at the zoo, so for this hunt I made four maps of the floorplan of my house (something tells me that isn't something I should post on the internet). Then we found the star that marked where we were and the star where we wanted to go to find the next map, and followed the map. Talmage was shockingly good at it. The last map guided us to a treat.

Masks. We didn't actually do this, but when I do this with Asher, we should decorate masks.

Treasure hunt. milk, microwave, mirror, macaroni, mom, and mailbox. Treat was M&Ms.

L Stuff

Great week for books! This is because we discovered Little Pea and Little Hoot by Amy Krouse Rosenthal. New favorites. I think I might frame some of Jen Corace's illustrations from Little Hoot to hang in Talmage's room.



Looking For a Moose by Phyllis Root was also a winner. Plenty of Ls with long-leggy moose.

Activities

Cyanotype Leaf Prints



My very favorite activity yet. Cyanotype prints are a basic photograph printing process that uses a photo-sensitive solution on paper that when exposed to light turns blue. Any area that is covered when exposed stays white.

We talked a little bit about leaves--that they are green, that most things growing outside have them, and that that's how a plant eats--and then gathered leaves in our yard. Inside we compared the shape and size of the leaves. Then we made prints from the leaves.

The Internet explained to me that it wasn't hard to make my own paper. What was even easier, though, was ordering some inexpensive paper from this website.

Since I'm painting my room blue to callously cover up Stockton's masterpiece, I think I might display some of these prints.

Lion Puppet.



Okay, Tyler pointed out that my creativity is waning when I make an animal puppet weekly. But I did add my own flair to the instructions for this lion.

I printed off a face from this template (in white, blue, and orange) and arms from this template (in orange) and glued them to a brown paper bag.

Rather than use this template for a mane, we cut strips of paper from red, yellow, and orange paper and curled them by rolling them around a pencil. we then attached them around the face part.

Voila! I thought they kind of looked like The Cowardly Lion after he gets gussied up in the Emerald City.

Ladybugs. I was so excited to see ladybugs for sale at the garden center in my local grocery store, and I had big plans to release them in my garden at this point and examine real live ladybugs. But the store was out. Don't worry, the kind lady assured me, they'll be in next week. I'm not sure she understood me when I whined, "But next week is M week."

So instead, we made these guys:



We found rocks outside and painted them red. When the red paint dried (with the aid of a blow dryer) we painted a black head and black spots. Talmage felt it important they have googly eyes. We affixed the eyes with super glue that was kicking around our house from when we superglued Talmage's head together.

Treasure Hunt. library books, lemon, lamp, lawnmower, leaf, laundry. The treasure was lifesavers.

K Stuff

Want to throw a curve ball at your toddler? Teach him that K makes the same sound as C.

Since the last several letters have been less common letters, I've adopted the approach of searching the library catalog for specific words when looking for books. For K books, I searched kiss, kangaroo, koala, and kitten and came up with several great books.

Activities

Kite



No big project here. Cut a paper into a diamond shape, attached yarn for a string, let Talmage decorate it. Done and done.

Three Little Kittens.

I thought this was a fantastic project. Talmage found it a bit less fantastic. It was a little long and took us two days.

First, I printed three copies of this template and this template on white paper. I let Talmage color those as he wished and assembled and then laminated the kittens. Then I printed this template on three colors of paper, two copies of each color (for a total of six copies). I cut the paws out of three separate colors and laminated those and then "dirtied" the other three paws and laminated those.

I put sandpaper on the back of the kittens and velcro on the kittens paws with the other side of velcro on the colored paws, or mittens. We then acted out the poem "Three Little Kittens."

Insert video here.

Kangaroo Puppet



We got the template for the head and joey here and the arms and pouch here. I took the website's suggestion and folded in the flaps of the bag to make the head more triangular.

The joey in the pouch was particularly fun.

Treasure hunt. kangaroo, kite, key, kid, kitten. The treat was KitKat bar.

J Stuff

The best book we found was One, Two, Three, Jump! by Penelope Lively.

Activities

Jellyfish.



I got the idea for this from several different sites (google jellyfish craft) and kind of made up my own. I took a styrofoam cup and poked two holes on the top. I strung yarn so I could hang the fish. Talmage then affixed tissue paper squares of various colors to the cups and we then hung strips of tissue paper to the mouth of the cup. I also included strips of plastic (from a Ziploc bag) so it would have some sheen, but I think those just disappeared.

Jack O'Lantern.



Do you know how hard it is to find pumpkins in May? Very hard.

Talmage's friend Benji came over and we decided to make paper Jack O' Lanterns. They both embraced a Picasso like approach to faces. After we did the pumpkins, we moved on to bats, ghosts, spiders, and sea monsters. The boys hung up the pictures as decorations and got in costume. Talmage was a dinosaur. Benji was a king. We had prettytend Halloween.

Unfortunately, I again failed to figure out Tyler's camera.

Jet.



The above picture is missing a tail fin because this picture was taken several days and several crashes after we made it. We printed off the template from this website, cut out the pattern, and traced it on a styrofoam tray, the kind meat comes on (well cleaned). After cutting the pieces out of styrofoam, we simply put the pieces together and painted it. Note that tempera paint doesn't work; acrylic will do the trick.

Treasure hunt. jacket, jack o'lantern, jelly, jar, jellyfish, jewelry, juice. The treasure was Junior Mints.

I Stuff

We checked out Hank Finds Inspiration by Craig Frazier for H Stuff last week. Because we hadn't been to the library yet, it served double duty. It was an okay H book but a phenomenal I book!

Other great I books? I Wanna Iguana by Karen Kaufman Orloff, Why Mosquitos Buzz in People's Ears by Verna Aardman, Imogene's Antlers by David Small, and Isabelle and the Angel by Thierry Magnier. What a great week for books!

Activities

What's that? A wedding cake? A volcano? A teepee? A tower? A beehive? A tholos tomb? No, it's an Igloo.



Compare the above picture with the one on the Family Fun website:



Then read Family Fun's instructions here and let me know what I lost in translation.

Iguana.



Here are the instructions. Our craft store didn't have all the necessary Woodsies, so we simplified and improvised. Talmage thought plain old green was a little boring, so he added several purple iguana tattoos.

Insects. (I cheated and did butterflies).



I originally saw this idea on TV for coffee filter butterflies, but I did the activity before I could go to the store and buy coffee filters, so I improvised. I think they turned out pretty cute.

We talked about what insects are and identified ants, mosquitos, bugs, and butterflies as insects. (I'm pretty sure a bug in his head is a fly.) Then we took a sheet of paper and painted it with watercolors. I dripped water on mine and sprinkled it with salt. We then accordion folded the paper and fastened a pipe cleaner around the middle. After we fanned out the "wings." We made a paper plate mobile out of the butterflies and hung it up in Tal's room.

Instrument.



Pretty simple. I saw this at the craft store when I was buying things for the iguana. It cost about two dollars. We painted it.

Treasure hunt. inside, igloo, iguana, infant, itchy. The treasure was Mike and Ike's. I know, it doesn't start with a short I sound; I'll take suggestions for alternatives.