Germs Are Not for Sharing! by Elizabeth Verdick

Eryn chose today's book, Germs Are Not for Sharing! by Elizabeth Verdick. As we read the book we paused to rehearse sneezing on our sleeve and other helpful practices the book described.

In follow up we did a sort of germ transfer experiment, based on the idea described at twigglemagazine.com. Outside I had the girls pretend to cough or sneeze on their hands, then I sprayed their hands with cooking spray. Next came the germs in the form of glitter. I thought that Eryn and Eva would want to wipe their hands off right away, but instead they asked for more! I then sent them on their way to ride their bikes and play outside as usual. We watched as glitter was left on the surfaces they touched. After about twenty minutes the girls wanted to wash their hands, which was good practice in hand washing.

Freight Train by Donald Crews

Today our book was chosen by Eva, and it is one of my favorites in our family library: Freight Train by Donald Crews. I think I originally bought this book when Ember was our only child, and I chose it because of Alex working with freight trains. I love it for its simplicity in text and illustrations. As we read the book Eva focused on telling us the colors of each car (good practice!).

For our activity we built train cars from cardboard boxes, an idea I know I've seen before (one search result includes the idea written up in www.childfun.com). I don't know that Eva and Eryn were excited about making their own train car, but they were all over the acrylic paints that I busted out for this project, since we usually use only watercolors. This was an outdoors activity for sure. Hopefully no vegetation will die due to the over-glittering that occurred.

Elmo's ABC Book published by Dalmation Press

Yesterday our book was chosen by Eryn. In Elmo's ABC Book, "Elmo is trying to decide what Elmo's favorite letter is." It seems that everything he sees reminds him of why the letter that object begins with may be his favorite. It's not the best book for children just learning their abc's as it doesn't give a straightforward rendition of the abc's. But it did easily lend to a follow up activity.

I had previously seen on Pinterest a pin on doing an indoor scavenger hunt. This came to mind when I reviewed this book. Just as Elmo found objects that brought to mind what may be his favorite letter, we looked for objects to begin with each letter of the alphabet, in order. Initially I printed a handwriting practice page (from www.handwritingworksheets.com) for Eryn, Eva and Ellisyn, with the thought that I would use Ellisyn's to write the word for each letter/object, and later Eryn and maybe Eva could copy Ellisyn's paper to try writing on their own. I soon found myself writing the word on all three copies. But by letter K Eva lost interest, so I wrote on only Eryn's from then on. Eryn never was interested in writing on her own, but she did review the words for the objects that we found.

Book: One Duck Stuck

Ember chose our book, One Duck Stuck by Phyllis Root. It's a counting/animal/helpfulness/teamwork book - yep, all that.

I found several cute duck crafts, but Ember said she wanted to do an activity. So I brainstormed and came up with the idea to have the girls make stick puppets, and then we would find a mud puddle where we could create our own One Duck Stuck production. I envisioned us taking a pic for each page. So I found line drawings for each of the animals in the book, printed as many as there were for each animal, cut out the animals, and set the girls to work coloring the images and attaching them to sticks.

Well, the girls lost interest before all the animals were colored. Ember asked if we can finish it up and do the pics next Saturday. If I did it over I would print the animals so that instead of 3 separate moose, I would have a group of 3 moose, for example. Then I would print enough for every child to have a complete set. When recreating the story, we can take turns using different children's puppets.

Lesson learned.

Change In Plan

At this point I've decided I need to give up the concept of a theme and be more loosey-goosey. So I will likely let each girl select one book a week, then I will fill in with my own choices when I have time.

Book: Pinkalicious and the Pink Drink

Eryn wanted to do mom school today, and since I didn't have anything prepared I asked her to choose a book, then I would come up with the activity. She chose Pinkalicious and the Pink Drink by Victoria Kann. In this story Pinkalicious whips up some pink lemonade to sell to make money to buy bubble gum.

I twisted the activity into making pink lemonade cupcakes, a combination of the original Pinkalicious book and this story. I used the Pink Lemonade Cupcakes recipe from ericasweettooth.com. These did have a sour bite to them, which I like in the cake. But the frosting was, as Eryn put it, "confusing" as it was both really sweet but also sour. I guess my palate isn't so complex. The girls liked the cupcakes, but I think if I make them again I will use canned frosting instead.
Ember's finished cupcake

Ember

Eryn

Eva (noticed the double-fisted sprinkling)

Aniston

Emily

Theme: Ember's School Library Book - Hug

We used Ember's school library book as the basis of our Mom School today: Hug by Jez Alborough. Before I told Eryn and Eva what we were doing for Mom School, I told Eryn that she could read the book. She started to whine (what, Eryn?) that she can't read, so I told her that's okay, I'd have Eva read it instead. Eryn quickly retracted her statement.

This book is fun because it has one word (okay, really three) repeated on nearly every page, and the pictures are so fun. It follows the story of a monkey who observes other parent-child animals hugging, and who really wants a hug himself.

For the activity I was inspired by the the "follow up activity" listed on littlerunningteacher.com. I found pictures of parent-child animals that corresponded to those in the book, then cut the picture to separate the two animals. I also printed the names of each group of animals.

Eva was responsible to match up the parent-child picture puzzles; Eryn helped as needed. This resulted in some really great teamwork (happy dance). Then Eryn looked at the animal names and matched them up to the pictures. I was surprised how easily Eryn did this.