Week of March 17, 2014: Weather Week

We had a wonderful week learning about the weather and enjoying lots of outside time.

 Katie practiced number recognition and counting by counting raindrops.

 

 

 We made a raining cloud...we filled a jar with water then added shaving cream (our cloud) on top.  Katie mixed up some green water and used her dropper to fill the "cloud" with "rain".  When the "cloud" was fully saturated it started "raining" into the jar.

 

 This activity quickly turned into almost two hours of shaving cream fun.  Katie made clouds by mixing glue and shaving cream and then she just played with shaving cream on her picnic table.

 The girls have enjoyed watching all the birds and the squirrels that visit our feeders.  We've also had lots of outside time since the weather has been so nice.

We visited the nature center by the zoo with Naomi, Boaz and Selah.  The kids loved being able to touch and explore all the different exhibits.  There was a whole tray full of animal bones, feathers, nests, shells, fungi, rocks and more.  The kids got to use magnifying glasses to check out all these objects in more detail.

 Audrey was able to watch the big kids and got to touch a few of the items like the deer antlers.

 There was a craft table set up in the back with a few different activities.  Katie colored a paper sack for a few minutes but, was much more interested in going outside to explore.

 Boaz and Katie had such a great time together.  They held hands a lot on the trail and shared all of their nature finds.  I put together a quick nature hunt for the kids before we headed out.  They each had a bag and their nature hunt page so they could keep all their findings.

Inside the kids played on a tree sculpture that had a tunnel and windows. 

When we got home from the nature center the girls explored all their findings.  Katie wanted to get out the brown playdoh...she made prints of most of her sticks and leaves in the playdoh.

We had ordered math manipulatives quite a while ago but they were on back order.  We finally got them this week and Katie and Audrey have both enjoyed playing with all the fun toys inside.  Katie's favorite is the balance and bears.  She quickly discovered how to make the balance even by placing the same amount of bears on each side.

Katie is starting soccer soon!  She is going to be playing with her friend, Evan on a noncompetitive team for 3 and 4-year-olds at the YMCA.  She is so excited to play although she keeps calling it her baseball game.  We got her a pink ball and she got to pick out some new tennis shoes (of course she chose pink).

 Daddy, Katie and Audrey practiced kicking the ball around in the backyard.

Week of March 3 and March 10: Crazy Oklahoma weather



We've had a busy two weeks with outside activities, Dr. Seuss week and Rainbow week!

 

The girls and I have had lots of fun feeding and watching the birds.  We've been able to attract goldfinches, house finches, 3 different types of sparrows, cardinals, starlings, robins, woodpeckers, chickadees, jays and even a squirrel!

 The girls love watching the birds in the snow.  Katie is intrigued by their tiny footprints and always wants to pour the bird seed as close to the back door as she can so the birds will come right up to the window to eat.

We had Dr. Seuss week and read The Lorax.

 Then Katie painted truffula trees from the book.

 We also planted seeds for the garden.  Katie helped pour the water,

 watched the dirt pods expand and

 fluffed up the dirt so she could add some seeds.

We've also been working on some handwriting skills since Katie has shown a great interest in writing letters lately.  We're using a program called Handwriting without Tears that incorporates lots of hands on activities.  One of the activities is building capital letters with big lines, little lines, big curves and little curves.  Katie took the pieces and immediately started building letters.  She made the letter P and L right away.

We read The Foot Book for tot school.  The kids painted with their feet,

 searched for the letters of their name on feet cutouts

 and ate a yummy Cat in the Hat snack.

Katie and Audrey played some more with the Handwriting without Tears shapes.

 Katie made the letter L again.

 We read 1 Fish, 2 Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish.  Katie used goldfish to practice her counting and number recognition.

We had just the right kind of snow to build a snowman.

 We're getting prepared for gardening!  Katie loves putting on my rubber boots and pretending to garden.

 Rich got me a bird feeding station for my birthday.  Katie helped put it together.

Here's Katie's completed artwork for Dr. Seuss week.

 

 Katie and Daddy made me a delicious strawberry birthday cake.  Gotta love Katie's morning hair!

 Papa and Tina came over to enjoy some birthday cake, too!

We finally had some perfect weather and we took full advantage of it by playing outside and working in the garden.  Audrey loves swinging!

 Katie practiced her scissor skills and made a rainbow!  Audrey loves watching big sister and trying to copy everything she does.

 

Katie also made a cloud and rainbow.

Grandma came over for a visit and we all had fun baking banana blueberry bread and strawberry blueberry bread. 

 Katie helped cut up some strawberries and mash bananas.