The One with November Plans, Week 2

It's week 2 of November! Time to have more fun with brown, stars, counting, turkeys, and the letter H! Click here to download the calendar! Print it out! 

H Dot Art *

Directions: print file. Allow child to decorate the uppercase and lowercase H. (You can use circle stickers, dot stampers, play dough pieces, or pom poms) Read Dr. Seuss's ABC book, and discuss which letter is "Big H" and which one is "Little h" Hang paper on fridge for the week to reference. 

Printable file here!

Star Stamping
Directions: Cut a potato in half. Then carefully, as to not stab your fingers off, cut a star shape into a potato. (Hint: draw a star on the potato half first, then cut! Much easier!) Invite your child to stamp stars onto paper with some paint. I chose brown since it's the color of the month. My girls loved to sing "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" while they furiously thumped potatoes! 

Make Play Dough Turkeys:
Directions: Use brown (or any colored) play dough and assist your child into making a turkey torso. Don't worry, its basically just a blob shape. They can add googly eyes and a beak too! Allow them to poke feathers into the turkey. It's super fun! If you don't have feathers, you can always use other household objects to poke in (penne pasta, golf tees, spaghetti, dried leaves, etc) 

H Snack: Hungry Hippo Mouth
Directions: Decorate a paper plate with eyes and ears like a hippo. We will later attach a mouth. Fold a separate paper in half and cut a "D" shape in order to make a mouth. (see blue paper in pictures below!) Draw circles around the perimeter of the mouth. Allow children to place mini marshmallows onto the circles to look like hippo teeth! It's super cute! You can glue the teeth down if you want, or just let them eat the teeth afterwards. Discuss that H is for Hippo! A hungry hippo! 

 

Paint a Brown Bear
Directions: Paint your child's hand (except for the thumb!) brown. Make a handprint and add a cute brown head for the bear. Read "Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do you see?". It's a classic! 

Acorn Counting Game: 
Directions:  Get an empty egg carton and label each compartment with a number. (You can also use a muffin tin, but my kids thought this egg carton was cool!) I labelled mine with dot stickers since I had a clear egg carton. I previously had my kiddos gather some acorns outside for this activity. I provided a bowl of acorns and some scooping tools (spoons, tongs, etc). They loved scooping their acorns into the egg carton. We counted each container 1-12. 

*Note: 12 acorns will not fit into one small egg compartment! I played a game saying,  "Can you put an acorn into the 7 bucket?" "Can you put 2 acorns in the #2 bucket?" "Can you see how tall you can stack them into bucket #5?"*      This helps with number identification. The girls loved this and wanted to play it again and again. 

That's all folks! Have a great week! 

The One With November Plans

Hey there! I'm ready to go for November! 
I'll be the first to admit that October was a whirlwind for me, but I'm ready to get back to a partially normal schedule this month here goes!

The November Calendar is here!.
I forgot to print the October calendar for last month and put it on my fridge, and I think that was mistake #1 in my busy month. Having the calendar up in September was a good reminder and resource during the day. When my kids were going crazy (and therefore, I was going crazy) I could just look over at the fridge for an idea. I'm doing that again this month! 
_________________________________________
Here are the additional things you will need specifically for the month of October: 
(in order of which you will need them)
-coffee filter
-grapes
-clothespins
-brown play dough
-feathers 
-marshmallows
-Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do you see? Book
-acorns (real or fake, about 20)
-egg carton
-painters/masking tape
-brown paper bags
-gummy worms
-waffle ice cream cones (just the plain cones for cornucopias)
-real cranberries (should be tons out around Thanksgiving when we need these!)
_________________________________________

G Dot Art *

Directions: print file. Allow child to decorate the uppercase and lowercase G. (You can use circle stickers, dot stampers, play dough pieces, or pom poms) Read Dr. Seuss's ABC book, and discuss which letter is "Big G" and which one is "Little g" Hang paper on fridge for the week to reference. 

Star Coloring Page*

Directions: print file. Discuss and describe the shape of a star. Count the 5 points. Sing "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star".  Allow child to decorate the star (markers, crayons, dot stampers, paint, or gluing down little pieces of torn paper).  Older children can trace and discuss the letters in the word "star".  Hang paper on the fridge for the month to reference. Try to find stars throughout the day!

Coffee Filter Turkeys

Directions: This activity combines water play, the color brown, and turkeys! Give the child a coffee filter and allow them to color all over it with a brown marker. (It must be a marker, not crayon.) Then, allow them to drop water all over it using medicine droppers/medicine syringes. Watch the colors run and travel through the coffee filter. Let filter dry.

Make a turkey body out of construction paper and attach it to the dried coffee filter. Fun! 

(I put my soaking wet coffee filter in the microwave for about 20 seconds and it dried! And didn't set on fire! Feel free to use other colored markers in order to make a wild colored turkey!)

G Snack-G for Grapes*

Directions: print grapes snack mat. Give your child a bowl full of grapes and allow them to place them individually on the bunch. (If younger children are having a hard time with the grapes rolling, then cut them in half.) To make this more challenging for older children, let them use tongs to place the grapes on the mat.

Brown Coloring Page*

Directions: print file.  Color the crayon brown (using crayon, marker, paint, etc) Older children can trace and discuss the letters in the word "brown". Hang paper on the fridge for future reference. Search for brown things throughout the day! :)

Sorting Leaves Printable*

Directions: print file. Cut along the dotted lines to cut apart the colored leaves on page 2. Mix up the leaf pieces. Invite the child to sort the colored leaves onto the corresponding color of leaf from page 1. For older children, you can hide the leaves around the house for them to find and race around to sort! :)

G Letter Recognition

Directions: print file. Invite children to find the letters Gg on the sheet. (use bingo stampers, crayons, stickers, etc).

Turkey Clothespin Counting:

Directions: I found an adorable tutorial and printable here to do your own counting turkeys! The printable is free! 

Click here for printable and directions.

All the printable files are here:

November Calendar

Gg Dot Art

Star Coloring Page

Grapes Snack Mat

Brown Coloring Page

Leaf Sorting Mat

G Letter Recognition

Love ya! 

The One With October Lesson Plans: Week Four

It's our final week in October!!! It has flown by so fast!

This week is review week, but I also added an activity per day in case you're looking for something fun to do! One of the themes for October was baking, so I have 2 kid-friendly baking activities (dump and stir!)

During review week, see if your child has mastered these subjects:

-Identifying the color orange

-Identifying the letters D, E, and F

-Identifying an oval

-Identifying the number 1 (and basic counting skills)

You can repeat any lessons that your child really liked, or go back and do any lessons you didn't do!

Note of honesty: Even I, Liz, don't do every single lesson on this blog. I just don't. I have every intention to, but life happens and things come up! If you do every lesson on here, kudos to you! Can you mentor me?
Here is our opportunity to play catch up.



This week's activities:

2 ingredient pumpkin muffins:
Directions: All you need is a can of pumpkin (15oz) and a box of spice cake mix! I've heard are only 80 calories and 1 Weight Watchers point or something, but don't quote me on that. Kids love to help stir and dump things in!

Stir together 1 box spice cake mix (just the powder in box, no other cake ingredients) and one can of pumpkin puree. That's it!
(Optional: I also added a 1tsp of pumpkin pie seasoning and about 3tbs of water. I know I only said 2 ingredients, but these kick it up a notch!) Fill cupcake wrappers until 3/4 full and bake at 350 for 20 minutes, or until set. Ta-da!



Orange Sensory Bin:
Directions: Dye some noodles orange** and add some orange items into a tray/tub for your kids to play with! Discuss the color orange. Add some items that don't belong (blue, purple, etc) and see if they can scoop and find all of the things that shouldn't be there! My kids love using spoons, measuring cups, dixie cups, and other kitchen items to stir and dump! *When using small items such as noodles, be sure to watch small children because of choking hazards.*

**To dye noodles: dump plain, uncooked noodles into a large gallon zipper bag. Add in a tablespoon or two of rubbing alcohol. (I've also heard that hand sanitizer works if you're in a bind, but I haven't tested that theory!) Add in a few squirts of orange (or red mixed with yellow) food coloring, zip up the bag, and shake! I would definitely have the dying be an adult-only activity since food coloring is not very forgiving. Continue shaking and add more food coloring/alcohol as needed. Once the noodles are at the desired color, lay a paper towel on a cookie sheet and spread out the noodles to dry. It dries much faster outside if you are able to do so. Enjoy!

Pumpkin Rice-Krispie Treats

Directions: Recipe here! I want to give them all the credit! Click this link.

 This is all of the stuff you need!

 I shaped mine into a pumpkin and used a pretzel stick as a stump! Yum!

Pumpkin Guts Exploring
It's about as American as apple pie! Please make sure that you carve some pumpkins this month, and make sure to play with the guts! :)


Love you guys! I'm getting November plans ready soon! Have fun reviewing, baking, and exploring this week.

The One with the Shopping Cart Conundrums

I'm about to have a mini rant. I usually hate ranting, but some things just need to be said. So here goes...

I NEED these giant carts. I do. They are designed for people WITH MORE THAN ONE CHILD. If you have one kid in here, you're putting people like me in a pickle.

Can I get an amen?

Let me take you on the journey of having twins 

(or two little ones) in public. 

Phase 1: No Shopping Cart Conundrum

This was my first giant twin stroller. It was 58 inches long. Almost 5 feet. As tiny babies that couldn't sit up, shopping carts weren't even an option for me at all.

Soon I learned to rig a small basket with hooks onto the front of my giant stroller. Therefore, I could get a few things, but not a basket full of items. I had to do all my grocery shopping at night by myself, when my hubby was home and the kids were asleep. Or, I would push my 5 foot stroller and pull a giant basket behind me. Then I really felt like a Duggar.

Phase 2: The Double Leg Hole Conundrum

At this point, my girls could sit up on their own, but nobody could walk. If I wanted to buy a cart full of things, they had to share a leg hole, ghetto-style.  Can you see how happy they are? False.
 They thought it was so fun to not have a seatbelt (because one won't fit around them both!). They probably also thought it was super awesome to dive out of the cart every 5 seconds as I desperately tried to catch them get my things and leave. If I tried to have one kid buckled on top with one kid in the basket, everything in the basket would be utterly annihilated.

(Even Charlotte knew how to squash her poor babies into a cart!)

Phase 3: The Double Cart Hallelujah!

Then my Target got these special double carts. Both of my kids could be buckled in! No more death-trap on wheels! Plus, I could actually still have room for a cart full of groceries. The heavens rejoiced. Finally, I can shop during day and not be a nocturnal mole-person. I don't have to make a giant spectacle of myself with my bags and hooks and gear.  Once Target got these carts, and I immediately started doing all of my grocery shopping there.  Smart move, Target! I have seen a few of these carts at Walmart, and I know they have these at Costco and Sams. I would say that there are maybe 5-8 per store. 

So speaking for all moms of more than one young child...

IF YOU HAVE ONE KID IN A DOUBLE CART, 

I might just cry. I need it. 

In fact, I have loaded up all the babies and diapers and bottles and wipes and everything into the car, lugged them all into the store, and found that there were no carts for me. I had to turn around and go home. Or ask customer service to try to round one up. Or I've just cried right there in the entrance. 

When you have little kids like this, and life is so completely stressful, not having a cart could be the final straw that leaves you in tears and ruins your day. Sincerely. 

I can't tell you how many times I've seen people with their one large, elementary-aged, able-bodied child sitting in a double cart.  Or their one 12 year old cheerleader daughter watching a movie on an iPad lounging across a double cart. (I wish I'd had a taser that day.) 

The other day there were no more double carts and my kids were like this:

(It's like playing real-life Tetris, but instead of playing with L-shaped blocks, it's human beings.) 

I ran into a lady with the last double shopping cart, and guess how many kids were inside?!?!? ONE. 

One kid. She looked at me and chuckled nervously, "Ha, it looks like we should trade carts!" 

So I loudly, ridiculously fake laughed (like people on the movies do!) and kept walking. Otherwise I would have cried/slashed her tires/cried while slashing her tires. 

So please, please, for the love, if you have one child, please don't use a double cart.

_______________________________

There is always an except to this rule. 

Once I was giving someone the stink eye because they took the last double cart and they had one, large kid inside. After a few moments of watching them, I realized that this child surely had Autism. I immediately felt guilty for judging that mom. I realized that the double carts were a great option for her and her child. She let him roam a little bit, and then she asked him to come back and sit at the cart. I was actually really proud of her for being so resourceful and finding a solution to that fit her family's shopping needs. I'm sure it was freeing for her to be able to shop without worrying about him as much. I was glad that she took my cart. :)

________________________________

So all in all, if you have just one able-bodied kid, please leave the double carts for those of us who need them most. I know they are super cool and giant, and sometimes they even have cool steering wheels to lure you in, but it could really make someone's day much easier if you'd leave them be. If you're guilty of taking a double cart with one kid, don't feel terrible! It just something to be aware of from now on. :)

Thoughts? Have you ever been in a pickle like this at the store? 

The One With October Lesson Plans, Week 3

Hi! Here's week 3! 

F Dot Art *

Directions: print file. Allow child to decorate the uppercase and lowercase F. (You can use circle stickers, dot stampers, play dough pieces, or pom poms) Read Dr. Seuss's ABC book, and discuss which letter is "Big F" and which one is "Little f" Hang paper on fridge for the week to reference. 

Oval Corn Painting

Directions: On a piece of manilla paper, draw a large, long oval. Using a q-tip as a brush, ask your child to paint yellow corn kernels on the oval. Add some green leaves with construction paper and voila! An amazing piece of corn!

Pumpkin Science: Float or Sink Pumpkins

Directions: Use a bathtub with a large pumpkin (or bowl, rubbermaid tub, etc with a small pumpkin) and investigate to see if it floats or sinks. Ask your child to make their prediction. Spoiler alert: even huge pumpkins float!  You can even let them get into the tub and splash around! My kids love random baths during the day. (If you're a toddler, somehow the bathtub transforms into an awesome pool when you're in your swimsuit!) 
Other pumpkin exploring ideas:
-Put a big pumpkin on the bathroom scale and guess the weight! 
-Do pumpkins roll? 
-How does a pumpkin sound when you drum on it? 
-Give them a sponge and let them scrub the pumpkins! (For real, kids like this stuff.)
 Have fun splashing and scooping and playing with pumpkins of all sizes! 

F is for Fish-Goldfish Sorting*

Directions: print file. Lay out the goldfish sorting mat. See if your child can identify the colors of the circles. Allow them to sort their goldfish snack on the mat. Emphasize orange (the color of the month!) and the letter F for Fish (letter of the week!) You can also count and compare the goldfish groups. "How many orange fish are there? Which color has the most? Which color has the least?" 

Candy Corn Footprint
Directions: cute alert! Paint your kiddo's feet like a candy corn! (Heel portion white, mid-foot orange, toes yellow) It's just plain cute and grandparents will love it. 

D, E, F Sorting Mat*
Directions: print file. Cut apart the letter pieces on page 2. Mix up the pieces, and allow your child to sort the pieces (D, E, F) onto the sorting mat (page 1). 

Leaf Raking Game
Directions: gather real or fake fall leaves. Use masking or painter's tape to section-off a small area on your kitchen floor. Allow your children to "rake" or sweep the leaves into the designated area! :) They will love it! Have fun discussing fall and how leaves fall off of frees. 

Even my baby had fun! She had no idea what she was doing...but she was entertained! 

F Letter Recognition*
Directions: print file. Allow children to find the letters Ff on the sheet. (use bingo stampers, crayons, stickers, etc).

Candy Corn Counting Mats*

Directions: print file. Gather real candy corn and ask your child to place the correct amount of candy on the counting mat. On page 2, you can learn about simple patterns. "Patterns repeat themselves. This pattern is up,down, up, down" etc

Here are the files for the week. Love ya!
F Dot Art

F is for Fish-Goldfish Sorting

F Letter Recognition
D, E, F Letter Sort

Candy Corn Counting

The One With October Lesson Plans Week 2

Hi! Week 2 of October here! E week!

If you're looking for the October calendar, it's here!
(Keep scrolling ahead a few posts to see the supply list for the month.)

E Dot Art *

Directions: print file. Allow child to decorate the uppercase and lowercase E. (You can use circle stickers, dot stampers, play dough pieces, or pom poms) Read Dr. Seuss's ABC book, and discuss which letter is "Big E" and which one is "Little e" Hang paper on fridge for the week to reference. 

Oval Felt Pumpkins

Directions: cut a sheet of orange felt into the shape of a pumpkin. Cut out small varying shapes out of the black pieces. (oval, square, triangle, circle, heart, crescents, rectangles, etc). Allow children to decorate (no glue) the pumpkin with the different black felt shapes as eyes, noses, etc. Since felt sticks to felt, the child can un-decorate and redecorate as much as they want! 

Note: If you're feeling very ambitious, you can get a large piece of orange felt by the yard from a fabric store (such as Joann's) to make a HUGE pumpkin! 

This is a giant yard of felt! A smaller version is simple too! One orange sheet of felt is about 25 cents!

Pumpkin Stamping
Directions: Cut a mini pumpkin in half. Discover the seeds inside and discuss the parts of the pumpkin (seeds, stem, etc). Squirt some orange (or red mixed with yellow!) paint onto a paper plate.  Invite your child to use the pumpkin half as a stamp on a separate piece of paper. 
***Note: please reserve some seeds (at least 10) for another activity on Friday. Set the seeds aside and allow them to dry.***

Ee Elephant Snack*---Teaching prepositions

Directions: print file. Lay out snack mat. Find all the elephants in your animal crackers. Discuss that elephant starts with the letter E. Ask your child to place the elephant in different locations in relationship to the circus tent. 

Example: "Let's play a listening game. Can you put the elephant next to the tent? Can you put the elephant on top of the tent? How silly! Can you put the elephant under the tent? Wow!"

Other phrases to teach and ask the child to demonstrate:
above, below, beneath, inside of, outside of, in front of, etc. Try not to use gestures in order to see if the child can locate where the animal is supposed to go independently.  If they are struggling, point where the elephant goes in order to teach the vocabulary term.  (This may seem like a super basic skill, but it is taught in kindergarten!)

(Ack! My bag of animal crackers didn't have any elephants! Let's just pretend those are elephants, ok?)

Orange Coloring Page*

Directions: print file.  Color the crayon orange (using crayon, marker, paint, etc) Older children can trace and discuss the letters in the word "orange". Hang paper on the fridge for future reference. Search for orange things throughout the day! :)

Sorting Mat*
Directions: print file. Cut along the dotted lines to cut apart the colored elephants on page 2. Mix up the elephant pieces. Invite the child to sort the colored elephants onto the corresponding color of elephant from page 1. Discuss the colors and that elephant begins with the letter E. For older children, you can hide the elephants around the house for them to find and race around to sort! :)

Leaf Rubbings:
Directions: Find leaves outside (or use fake leaves from a craft store!). Allow the child to feel the texture of the leaves and explore them.  Then, place the leaves under a piece of paper and rub over the paper with a crayon. Ta-da! Talk about and describe different shapes and colors of leaves. Discuss that leaves fall from trees and that the season is fall. (Here in Texas, we still have green leaves! But I can pretend it's fall, right?)

Ee Letter Recognition*

Directions: print file. Allow children to find the letters Ee on the sheet. (use bingo stampers, crayons, stickers, etc).

Pumpkin Seed Counting*
Directions: print file. Use the reserved pumpkin seeds (from Tuesday's lesson) for today's activity. If they want, the child can color the pumpkins. Glue down the corresponding amount of seeds onto each pumpkin. "This says 'two seeds'. Let's count out two seeds and glue them down onto the pumpkin." 

All links are here!
Ee Dot Art
E is for Elephant: Teaching Positional Words

Pumpkin Seed Counting
E Sorting Mat
E letter recognition
Orange Coloring Page