Kid's Calendar

I don't know about you, but the little guy always seems to be asking me when we're doing xyz activity coming up, or when is his birthday, or when is Christmas or Easter or whatever.

So, I finally took a minute and sat down with him and made a calendar.

You can download my master here.

I just write in little numbers in the top corner of each day to keep my head on straight. Then he and I sit down and together we draw little symbols on special days, and even regular-type days.

Types of days we put on his calendar:

• Birthdays/birthday parties (with the little guy's birthday coming up, we marked the day of his party, as well as the actual day of his birthday)
• Holidays
• Vacations/trips (not that we do this often)
• Preschool days (even though it's preschool here at home)
• Days we will have visitors (including when the cousins come over to play)
• Library days
• Days we visit Grandma's house

 We then put it up on the fridge. He has had a lot of fun telling anyone nearby how many days are left until... whatever. We have a small magnet that he uses to mark which day is today, we just move it along as we go.

E Week Activities

As promised, here are our E activities.









 

Elephant Parade

Wow. This is probably one of my favorite activities to date. And the kids enjoyed it so much, we did it several times. And, as can be expected: simple.

Step 1: Everyone gets in a line. You're in front. You're the leader.
Step 2: Push PLAY on the "elephant parade" music. THIS is my favorite.
Step 3: Forget you're an adult. Lead the little ones around the room using your arm as a trunk, dancing however you think elephants might dance. Or however you want to.

Bam! Elephant Parade!


Easter Egg Puzzle

My beautiful Momma actually created this one, so I must give credit where credit is due. Since we did this activity with the little guy, along with all of his little cousins. Since we had a variety of ages (range 2 to 8), my Momma personalized the puzzles - the older the child, the more pieces the puzzle was cut into, the more difficult the puzzle.

The puzzles were kept in envelopes with each child's name; they assembled their puzzles, then were given glue sticks (some with assistance for the very young) to glue the assembled puzzle to a piece of paper. We then gave them some foam stickers and let them go to town to decorate their assembled egg puzzles. (Though my little guy chose to decorate around his egg instead.)


E Hunt

The little ones of all ages had a blast with this one. Prior to them arriving, I printed out many Es, cut them out. I then selected a color for each of the children, and circled the Es in those colors. I then hid the Es around the room. I hid them appropriately according to ages. (The eight-year-old had the red Es, which were all hidden very inconspicuously around the room. The two-year-old had the orange Es, which were hidden very obviously around the room.) Once they found each E, they stuck them on the wall next to the big E I created. They had a blast. The end result looked like this:

 E-E-Elephant Eggs

 Alright, I'm stepping out of the norm here. I actually did something complicated. At least it was complicated as far as my standards go.

This one all started when my Momma went looking to purchase the Elefun game. She couldn't find it in the store that she was at, but she did find this game: Elefun Snackin Safari.

I don't know about you, but buying these kinds of games often has to be saved for birthdays and Christmas, because I don't want to/can't afford to buy toys on a whim.

And thus my (maybe a little ghetto) version of the game was born.

Materials?
This Print Out (or make your own)
Construction Paper 
Old (or new) Nylon Stockings - Washed (knee highs preferred, or cut off the legs for full stockings)
Masking  or Duct Tape
Some Type of Magnets
Paperclips
Some Type of Elastic String

What did I do? I'll keep this as simple as possible:

Print out the head.
Cut out the trunk nose.
Place a magnet in the bottom of the nylon, and tie a small knot to hold it in place.
String the nylon through the trunk and tape to the back side of the elephant.
Tape, glue, or otherwise attach the elephant to construction paper.
Cut out the eyes.
Hole punch the sides, string with enough elastic string that you can somehow attach it to your little one's face or forehead.
Cut out egg-shaped pieces of construction paper.
Tape magnets or paperclips to the back of each egg.
Scatter the eggs on the floor.
See how many eggs your little ones can gather using the nylon "trunk."
No hands allowed!

These are the button magnets from Walmart that I used.

Taped magnets or paperclips for each egg.

Close up of the finished "mask" part.

What was really great was watching all of us adults trying to pick up the eggs too. It was absolutely HILARIOUS. And a whole lot of fun.

Counting!

Yay for counting!

Here are a few of the fun counting pages we've been doing.





The first one is an exercise that lets the little ones count like objects, and then match them with the correct number. Nothing too spectacular. But, I will say that I had to print out my own copy to show the little guy how to do the first one. After that, he breezed through it. You can download this one here.

The next one can be downloaded here. It's really very simple (as if that was a surprise). You can use any small items you have on hand for this. We used jelly beans. Because I had some sitting around after Easter. The goal for this one is for the little ones to count out the jelly beans (or other items) and put the correct number on the correct square. The little guy impressed me - who knew he not only can count, but he can recognize his numbers!

E Week

Well, well, well. It's E week.

I don't have anything really exciting for it yet. The exciting stuff will have to come later in the week when I post our activities.




I will, however, post the E coloring page. It's here.

I didn't do the E words coloring sheet this time. Why? Because I wasn't happy with the E word options. So, apologies. I wasn't up for this one this time.

Children's Book Review: The Bubble Gum Kid

   
The Bubble Gum Kid

written by Stu Smith

illustrated by Julia Woolf
 published by Running Press Kids

This is the story of Billy Bob Glum who loves to chew gum. He comes up with a plan using his new bubble-blowing skills to teach Double Chin Dan, the bully, a lesson. Written in rhyming text.

The Little Guy's Impression
As per the usual, this was his favorite. He told me that it's his favorite this week because of "the funny parts."

Mom's Impression
While I'm not certain that I'd consider this one of my all-time favorites, or even near it. It was still a lot of fun to read. I'm not always a big fan of rhyming text because it often feels forced, but this one wasn't bad. I'd say there were only one or two parts that felt a little awkward, like they were thrown in just for the purpose of the rhyme. Otherwise a fun book with fun pictures. At least there's a good storyline. :)

D Week, Part II

Here we go with a few of our D week activities.

Just bear in mind: I'm not into complicated. And I'm into imaginative fun. And I'm into not having to buy much "stuff" to teach my little ones.




Ducks & Donuts

We had a special kick off to the D week activities... Daddy was off work that day. So he took us to feed the d-d-d-ducks. And afterwards, we got d-d-d-donuts!

Dance Party

This one was really a blast. I spent a few minutes finding some fun music online (via YouTube videos and Pandora), cranked it up by piping it through the television, and duh-duh-duh-danced our hearts out! Here's the Hokey Pokey! We even threw in the "duck" dance (which might really be called the "chicken dance," but the little guy doesn't need to know that).


Do-As-I'm-Doing

Need I say more? I will say this, though - we made it as adventurous as possible. We used the entire main level of the house (sort of follow-the-leader style), and we took turns being the leader.

Writing Paper

I know awhile back I mentioned getting a pad of writing paper to teach the little guy how to draw his letters. Well, it was buggin' that I couldn't copy the originals that I created on the tablets, because the lines didn't transfer to the copy. So, I did a little measurin' and created my very own page of writing lines. It is very close to the exact size of the pad of writing paper I purchased. 

To download my homemade writing paper, click here!