Reading Confetti: February 2012

Wednesday, February 29, 2012

The Cat in the Hat Patterns

I've been wanting to do more work on patterns with my three year old since it's good for math and literacy development. After I saw Jackie's Practicing Patterns with The Cat in the Hat post at Ready. Set. Read! I was inspired to do some patterning with a Dr. Suess theme. (Go check out her post if you haven't seen it. She has lots of good information and a cute craft too!)
I drew a hat on construction paper and then cut out colored strips.

After we read The Cat in the Hat, we reproduced the red and white pattern.

Then we played around with the patterns. I started a pattern and then Drew finished it. I can't say this lasted very long or that Drew was very enthused about it, so I couldn't really tell what he was able to do and what he wasn't. He must have sensed I was trying to teach him something.

Lainey's major activity was trying to keep all the red pieces for herself.

If you're looking for more Dr. Suess activities, check out all the great links in the Dr. Suess Link Party!

Linking to Playing with Words 365

Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Jump! for Leap Day!

Happy leap day!!

Here's a great book to do some leaping to:

Jump! is a fun rhyming book with predictable text and lots of opportunities for movement. A bug is sleeping on a jug until it sees a frog and it JUMPS! Then the frog is sleeping in a bog until it sees a cat and it JUMPS! This continues as the animals that jump get progressively bigger.

You can tell that the author is also a musician. You can actually see him performing this song by clicking here: Scott Fischer Kids Art

You can find a great list of leaping activities at Nurture Store including our Foot Book Movement Activity, a fun way to celebrate leap day AND Dr. Suess week at the same time!

Monday, February 27, 2012

Fish Balloons

Fidgety Fish is so wiggly and fidgety that his mother sends him out to explore the ocean and burn off some of his energy. He meets all sorts of interesting sea creatures and does lots of fun things but he still doesn't feel tired. He comes to a new cave and decides to check it out. Unfortunately, the cave turns out to be a very large fish and Fidgety Fish has swum right into his belly. Now it's really time to wiggle and squirm! The large fish burps Fidgety Fish out and he flies all the way home to his mother, where he is so worn out he falls asleep immediately.

Fidgety Fish looks a little like a balloon so I decided we could make some balloon fish. We used small balloons, colored tissue paper, tape, scissors, and a magic marker.

I wrapped the tissue paper around the balloon and wrapped some tape around the end.

I squished to the ends to look like fins.

Then we drew faces on our fish.

Drew's is on the left and mine is on the right. Lainey was sleeping. :)

We tried to shoot them into the big fish's belly (a big empty bowl) but no pictures of that.

Since this is also Dr. Suess week, I think this would be a great craft to go with The Cat in the Hat. Who doesn't love that bossy little goldfish?

Linking to ABC and 123, Crayon Freckles, stART, Sun Scholars, Living Life Intentionally, Toys in the Dryer , Tatertots & Jello, Sharing Saturday, I Can Teach My Child

Sunday, February 26, 2012

Green Eggs & Ham Water Bead Activity & Suess Link Party

In honor of Dr. Suess week, we did a fun activity to go with Green Eggs and Ham.

I filled some plastic Easter eggs with colored water beads. My original intention was to fill them with water and put in one green water bead for the yolk but even the eggs that didn't have holes in them were pretty leaky. Also, I figured more water beads=more fun.

I filled a bunch of eggs and when the kids woke up from their naps I set them up on towels with some bowls.

I didn't tell them what was in there beforehand and they loved it! I had to fill them up over and over again. We added some water and played with the water beads some more when they were done cracking the eggs.

They were happy to just play, but you could make this into a game by giving them each a container of the same size and seeing who fills it first.

(It's very important to supervise children closely while they're playing with water beads. Children who still put things in their mouths should not play with water beads, even with supervision.)

Have a great Suess activity? Link it up and show it off! Your submission will appear on all these blogs!

Mom to 2 Posh Lil Divas
Ready. Set. Read!
Reading Confetti
Montessori Tidbits
Make, Do & Friend
Putti Prapancha
Kitchen Counter Chronicles
Living at the Whitehead's Zoo
Mama Mia's Heart2Heart
Living Montessori Now
Kindergarten for Teachers and Parents
Toddler Approved

Linking to Tuesday Tots, It's Playtime!

Friday, February 24, 2012

Kid's Co-op Link Party

Welcome to the second week of the Kid's Co-op link party! When you link up, your project will appear on all of the blogs that are co-hosting (you can find the list below). So link up a kid-friendly project or activity and find next week's projects.

Let's Lasso the Moon, Imprints from Tricia, Nurture Store, It's A Long Story, RainbowsWithinReach, Life & Love Expressed, Train Up A Child, Growing A Jeweled Rose, My Creative Family, Toddler Approved, Rainy Day Mum, No Time For Flash Cards, Dirt and Boogers, Mum of Twins a Toddler and a Teenager, B.Inspired Mama, The Mommies Made Me Do It, PlayDrMom, The Good Long Road, Ways2Play, Smiling like Sunshine, Scribble Doodle and Draw, Small Types

I'd love a link back so everybody can join in the fun. Also, if you have a few extra seconds (yeah, right!), I'd love for you to leave me a quick comment telling me you linked up. If not, no biggie of course. I'm going to do my best to visit all the links, but I really want to make sure I don't miss YOURS!

There were so many great ideas and activities last week! Here are two of the ideas I pinned:

Make, Do & Friend made these adorable 3 Little Pigs Puppets.

Growing Book by Book shared ideas for books beyond repair. I especially liked the magnet idea!

(If you'd like a featured button, you can find it here.)

Thursday, February 23, 2012

Yarn Llamas

I wish I could take credit for this idea, but my 3 year old brought it home from school. I wanted to share it because I thought it was so cute, and not just because Drew is obviously such a talented artist and borderline genius. (Did I take that too far?)

If you want to make your own, you can choose one of the llamas from here and print it onto cardstock. Cut it out, punch holes in it and loop some yarn through!

At school, the teacher paired this with Is Your Mama a Llama? about the little llama looking for his mama who is answered in rhymes and riddles by other baby animals describing their mamas. My little ones like to shout out the name of the animal before we turn the page.

This activity would work well with any of the Llama Llama books too!

Linking to Living Life Intentionally, JDaniel4's Mom, delicateCONSTRUCTION, Sharing Saturday, I Can Teach My Child , Sunday Showcase , Adventures in Mommy Land, Red Ted Art

Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Interrupting Chicken Finger Puppet

We have a couple of little chickens around here who like to interrupt, especially during bedtime stories when all the stops are pulled out to prolong the moment before lights out. I do have to admit that as a reading teacher, I encourage interruptions during stories. There's nothing better than realizing that there's some thinking and questioning going on while we're reading. It drives my husband nuts though (he's more of a just-get-through-the-story kind of guy), so Interrupting Chicken was a cute story for us.

It's about a little red chicken who interrupts every bedtime story her papa tries to read her. It's comical because she will burst into the middle of a story like Chicken Little and yell, "It's just an acorn! Don't worry about it!" Eventually the little red chicken tells her papa a story and puts him to sleep. As a parent, I suspect his falling asleep had more to do with sheer exhaustion than the actual bedtime story.