A Book A Craft A Movie: Where The Wild Things Are

The heat is unbearable here seriously by 9am it's in the 90's. Our daily temperatures are in the triple digits and let's not even get into the air quality reports. So this summer has been spent inside more then usual. So sometimes a mom needs to get inventive.

We had a lot of fun reading the book (they still aren’t real thrilled with the book. But I said if they wanted to see the movie they had to read to the book). We watched the movie a few times before returning it to the library and then painted a Wild Thing!

A Book:

A Craft: painted wild thing

A Movie:  they love this movie and think it is so sad

Owls {letter art and books}

What does a 11 and 6 year old do when it's 110 degrees outside and you just got down some of your old teaching books, why play school of course! My girls love to play school and so this was one of the activities they did since we had the owl books and the art supplies. They have loved all my old Prek books and have made the playroom into a awesome classroom. They disappear in there for hours and play school. It's so much fun listening to them!


O is for Owls
 

they used natural feathers from Discount School Supply, these feathers are great we love the colors and you get so many for under 5 bucks! My girls made many Oo owls from lower case owls to upper case owls. They had a lot of fun going through one of my old alphabet art books and making Alphabet Art Animals! :)

3 great owl books they used to teach their students:

The little white owl by Tracey Corderoy illustrated by Jane Chapman

A little white owl earns the friendship of the more colorful owls he has discovered by entertaining them with beautiful stories.

Wow! said the owl  by Tim Hopgood

 

Here’s the story of a curious little owl determined to see what the world looks like during the day. And what does she discover? A wow-worthy symphony of colors—from red butterflies to orange flowers, from white clouds to green leaves.This boisterous and bright book is the perfect read-aloud to savor with curious little owls everywhere who are exploring the world of colors for the first time.

Little owl illustrated by Piers Harper

Little Owl wants to fly all by himself. First, he practices with his mommy up to the treetops, through an open meadow, and over a fast-moving river. 

I have to say this playing school has been great for my 6 year old she is keeping her kindergarten skills fresh and has become a wonderful confident reader. My 11 year old is having fun teaching also and even teaches older students using some of the textbooks she got to bring home this summer. The school was no longer using some textbooks and allowed the kids to bring them home for keeps. She thought that was so cool! I think I might have some teachers in the making, if the animal researcher careers don't pan out.

Animal Families Learning Table

My girls love reading about, studying and playing with animals. Animals are there major go to toy (well they have been wanting an American Girl doll each but more on that later). They play with and have many animal toys.

I don't mind spending a little extra for good quality animal toys since they are played with so much. Plus you can use them for so much learning time also: they make great manipulatives, great for art (think still life drawing), great for animal studies, the list could go on....

I made a neat Animal Families table: added our great animal toys and some library books and they had so much fun!

the animal toys are mostly Schleich  with a few others thrown in.

V is for Verde {Green}

this is a great activity that teaches so much:

• letter recognition
• color mixing
• spanish word for green

Ask them what makes green/verde: then place blue and green paint in a cup. Or you can make it a surprise and let them discover what makes green/verde. This is what I use to do when my girls were little and they loved it! Plus it helped them remember what made what color since it was a surprise, the lesson stayed with them more.



Have them paint a piece of paper and set it aside to dry, after it is dry cut out the letter Vv



Now that they know what makes green make a background of blue and yellow construction paper to show the colors that make green/verde.


sorry about the pic being cut off, my camera was all
wacky that day.


Don't forget to label it:

• Vv is for Verdi "Green"
• Yellow + Blue = Verde "Green"

Bento Inspired Lunches for the Kids

My little ones are picky, (and have some sensory issues,) and we've gotten into a dreadful food rut.

I've been inspired by pictures on Pinterest and elsewhere on the web to venture into Bento inspired lunches for the kids. I say "Bento inspired" because in truth our versions have very little in common with traditional Japanese food.

Basically, we're talking about cute little themed, portable lunches. (My kids are small, and sometimes do better with several mini meals through out the day. Some days I make several smaller mini meals, and dole them out throughout the day.) I put some or all of the components together the night before, (while I'm making my husband's lunch,) and when lunch time rolls around, (usually right after we finish homeschooling for the day,) we break out the lunchboxes. The kids love to see what the theme is for the day, and are eating their food with much less grumbling. I find that we're also a lot more likely to have impromptu picnics when the food is already ready.

I picked up some small cookie cutters and silicone muffin cups at Hobby Lobby, some teeny, mini silicone muffin cups at World Market, and a small selection of actual Bento supplies from Bento & Co to get us started.

Bento supplies: picks and sandwich cutters.

The kids are obsessed with Lunchables, which I won't buy, so most of their lunches revolve around some combination of cheese, bread, crackers, and sometimes meat. My son loves apples, and we're slowly adding to the list of fruits and veggies that they'll tolerate, so hopefully in the future they'll welcome a little more variety. In the meantime, here are a few our recent efforts.

Fish themed lunch.

Fish themed lunch (for 4 year old,) included whole wheat bread fish, cheddar cheese fish, and Goldfish crackers.

Bunny themed lunch.

Bunny themed lunch, (for 4 year old,) included Nutella on whole wheat sandwiches, cheddar cheese bunnies, and bunny snack mix.

Bunny themed lunch, (for 7 year old,) included cheddar on whole wheat bunny sandwiches, bunny snack mix, apple slices, and raisins.

Bone themed lunch.

Bone themed lunch, (for 7 year old,) included a juice box, cheddar cheese bones, whole wheat bread bones, turkey, bone shaped cookies, and apple slices.

Rotating Art: Paint

my girls love to create masterpieces and going to art museums!!! They could create all day long and sometimes on a rainy day they do. We have lots of art supplies and 2 art cabinets that are filled to the brim.

I like to keep the art exciting by rotating the art supplies that are out and available. Every Monday during the summer I set out art supplies for new inspiration for the week.

Rotating Art can be a certain art medium: paint, watercolor, oil pastels. A type of activity: play dough, collage, ceramics. Or even a holiday or themed art: Oceans, 4th of July, Rainforest.

By rotating art you are not only making art fun, new and exciting but sometimes this is just what the reluctant artist needs to get those creative juices flowing.

A favorite and great first Rotating Art is Paint!

These photos show 2 different kinds of paint:  Activity Paint and Bio Color. These 2 different types of paint  inspired so many different types of art through out that  week, check out the masterpieces:

Circle Prints: my youngest got a few cups out and made prints

Butterfly Blotto Prints

Still life (kinda, my oldest used a picture from a book to recreate the painting)

They created many more paintings and some we kept and some we gave away and some we put up for fathers/papa's day!

Hello, it's Nice to "Meet" You

Hi! We're Shannon, (from Growing Roots) and Lisa, (from Cheerios Underfoot.) We share a similar philosophy about parenting, namely that you have to grab the minutes and seconds when you can, and make the most of them. Today's minutes and seconds become memories that last forever.

We like to learn things, grow things, make things, and do things with our kiddos, and we'll be sharing some of our successes, (and probably failures too,) here, in hopes that they might inspire someone else to have some fun and make some memories with the kids.

Thanks for joining us.