Celebrating Dr. Seuss

As a teacher, Read Across America Day was something that was always celebrated in my school and classroom.  For those of you who don't know, this is March 2 (or the closest day to it if it's a weekend) and is Dr. Suess's birthday.  Since I am no longer teaching, I decided to incorporate the world of Dr. Seuss at home with Derek.  Since March 2 fell on a Saturday this year, we did activities every day for the week leading up to it.  Many of which I found on Pinterest!

We kicked off the week by watching The Lorax and reading the book.  The next day, we made Truffula trees.  We used Model Magic, pipe cleaners, pom pom balls, and a hot glue gun.  Derek got to pick whatever colors he wanted.

The next day we read Green Eggs and Ham and made a snack.  We used pretzel sticks, white chocolate chips, and green M&M's.

The third activity we did was The Foot Book.  We read the book, then traced everyone's feet.  They were labeled "L" and "R" and Derek had to decide which feet belonged to which person.  Then he glued them into a book and we measured them all with Unifix cubes.  I wrote the numbers in pencil and he traced them in marker.  He is not really interested in writing but he is starting to at least trace it if I write it first.

One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish is the next book and project we did.  I made a fish bowl out of paper and he used finger paint to make fish in the bowl with hand prints.  Glitter glue was used to make the fish sparkle and to make bubbles.  Googly eyes were added to the fish as well.

Throughout the week we read many different Dr. Seuss books and on Saturday, we watched The Cat In the Hat movie.

Kitchen Turned Art Studio

We have two dining room tables in our house.  One has three leaves and can be made VERY small.  When we got our larger table, we used the second table in the foyer to put things like mail and the phone on.  At holidays, we would open it up with the leaves and use it for a buffet table. I wanted a new cabinet to hold toys and games for the kids instead of using the table there.  For my birthday last year I got a really nice cabinet for that spot.  Now what to do with the other table?  We stored it in the basement.  Three months later, Thanksgiving rolled around.  Where were we going to put the food?  Well, when it was completely opened up, it fit in the kitchen by the big window. So the buffet would just be in there.  I decided I would keep it up, full sized, through the holidays to accommodate all of the gatherings we were having.

During this time, I had my nieces over for the day (they are 3 and 4).  So with the three kids (Brooke went somewhere with Daddy), I planned cooking and craft projects and made the table into a square in the kitchen.  This way I would only have one room to clean up.  They did their projects there and ate lunch.  I decided I really liked having it in the kitchen.  So it stayed.  Now I use it all the time.  If I have things to do in the kitchen, cooking or cleaning, Derek and Brooke sit in there and eat or Derek might do a project.  My kitchen has always been the art studio in the house.

Last week, Derek started asking to do projects so I keep a box of "stuff", pom poms, paper, scissors, glue, stickers, crayons, in the kitchen for him to create.  We made doily snowmen and then he found a box that he said looks like windows.  We glued them in the windows and decorated the outside with snowflakes and glitter.  Idea for the snowmen came from here. 

Today I set up the booster seat at the table in there.  This way Brooke can sit up at the table too and I don't have to move the highchair all over the place.  We did a painting project.  I put two squirts of paint in a Ziploc bag and taped it shut.  Brooke's was taped to the table too.  The idea was they would mix the two colors to create a new color.  Fun!

Next, we made play doh.  The other day we left the play doh out and it dried up.  There wasn't that much left anyway so it wasn't a big deal. I was waiting for it to be done so I could make some.  This was the last of the store bought stuff he received as a gift a while ago.  The recipe for the homemade play doh can be found here.  Today we made red and green play doh.  Brooke played with it too.

While they were doing this, I was able to empty the dishwasher, reload it, and reorganize the pantry, which was long overdue. 

Then, before dinner, they had a snack. Derek had carrots and Brooke had peas.  My before dinner snack rule is fruit/veggie only.  Derek was finished so he decided to play a spelling game.

A "Pin"teresting November-Part 3-Fun!

For the third installment of my "Pin"teresting November blogs, I will focus on the fun projects and activities I did with/for Derek.

He is really into Angry Birds so I saw an idea to make a huge Angry Birds game out of boxes.  Unfortunately the link from Pinterest has gone bad so I cannot link it but these are the pictures of what we made.  Since it's cold outside, we made it in the foyer of the house.  Derek has some Angry Bird stuffed animals so we used those in the game.  If I were to do it outside I would most likely use rubber playground balls.

Another thing he loves to do is play with play doh and cars so I combined the two!  There is a recipe to make play doh that looks like dirt.  It's made with coffee so he calls it coffee play doh.  I was unable to get it to be the same color as that in the picture.  But he enjoyed it anyway.

Mud-Like Play Doh

Finally, I made a card for a 2 year old who was having tubes put in his ears and his adenoids removed.  I saw this card and I thought it was really cute for a kid's get well card!  It is so simple too.  Band-aids and googly eyes!

Get Well Soon Card