Theme: Spring, Book: Little Chick

Today we read Little Chick (illustrated by Liz Conrad), in which "Little Chick learns to wait patiently in this sparkly story that celebrates spring and friendship."

We then made paper plate Little Chicks, using a couple websites (ivillage.ca and cafemom.com)as our starting point, but the girls really did their own thing with what we have.

Eva's chick (at one point it had two eyes, two legs, one beak...)

Eryn's chick has multiple eyes - not a condition, just silly, is how Eryn explains it.

Ember's chick has plenty of color and creativity

Lilly's chick

Aniston's chick

Emily's chick

Theme: Spring / Easter, Book: Little Bunny

We read Little Bunny (illustrated by Liz Conrad) a book in which "Little Bunny shows kindness to others in this sparkly story that celebrates spring and friendship."

We then made our own Little Bunny based on the idea found at www.allkidsnetwork.com.

We changed it up, with Eva and Eryn selecting whatever color pipe cleaners and pompoms they wanted. They also used markers to color the white cottonballs - too white (clean?) for their tastes, apparently.

Theme: Spring, Monday: The Happy Day

We read The Happy Day by Ruth Krauss and Marc Simont, the culmination of which is the discovery of a single flower. Our follow up activity was making our own flower, an Easter lily. By coincidence we had friend Lilly over, too. We followed the steps outlined on artistshelpingchildren.org to make this handprint flower. It was a bit tricky for Eryn (she wouldn't attempt to trace or cut hers) and Eva, but Ember and her 7YO friend did fine.

Theme: Rainbows, Friday: Treasure Hunt

Two activities today, one building on the other. Eryn outlined the colors of the rainbow on a couple newspaper pages taped together. Eryn, Mom and Eva then filled in the colors a bit until we had what became our rainbow pattern.

The next step was to move to the playroom and treasure hunt. The goal was to make our rainbow 3D by building it up with toys in the matching color. Eryn enjoyed this challenge, though Eva didn't get into it.

No book today for this activity, but imagine us building the rainbows to the soundtrack of this music.

No, it was actually to the sound of Eva and Ellisyn sparring, in between Eryn's excited squeals, but we can imagine.

Theme: Rainbows, Wednesday: The Straight Rainbow

Since I haven't made it to the library recently, and I didn't find a rainbow book in our home library, I looked to see what I could find on Amazon's Kindle loan books free for Prime members. I came across The Straight Rainbow, the message of which is, "even though he's different he knows now, he has worth." The pics are really cute and simple.
Our follow up activity was making our family favorite chocolate chip cookies, but with a twist to make them different. Before adding the coconut into the rest of the cookie dough, we colored it the colors of the rainbow. Ember helped us figure out how to make orange, green and purple from the primary colors.

As a bonus learning opportunity, the girls all took a crack at cracking an egg - and were successful!

Here is our favorite cookie recipe, named Dad's Cookies because they were Tiana's BYU roommate's (Teresa Jones Norton) dad's fave cookies.
1 cup shortening
1 1/2 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
2 cups flour
2 cups oatmeal (oatmeal makes these "healthy" cookies in Alex's mind)
1 cup coconut
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup chocolate chips
Bake at 375 degrees 8-10 minutes.

Theme: Rainbows, Monday: Roy G. Biv

Today we didn't have a book on which to base our "lesson," but I used a song that the girls seem to like (judging by how many times Eva kept playing it later).

The weather was nice and sunny, which made the next activity possible. I filled a glass with water, gave Eryn a white piece of paper, and we "caught" a rainbow. I held the glass of water in front of a window with the sun shining through and then we placed the paper where the light refracted. The girls thought this was neat.

Our final activity was to practice writing the names of the colors in the rainbow. I used handwritingworksheets.com to create a page listing the rainbow colors (though violet was left off the printed result).

Theme: Calendar, Tuesday: Hannah and the Seven Dresses

We read Hannah and the Seven Dresses, and talked about why there are seven dresses. Also mentioned in the book is that Hannah's idea worked for "weeks and weeks," so we talked about how many days are in a week.

Our activity was to create an outline of our weekly schedule, listing our usual activities (play with friends, school, dance, church) by day. Eryn did a great job figuring out how to "read" the names of each day on the calendar, and then gluing the corresponding picture of each activity to the day.

Theme: Calendar, Monday: The Very Hungry Caterpillar

We did Mom School along with our reading and scripture study time, so Ember was able to participate (though Eva was asleep at this point).
Ember read The Very Hungry Caterpillar, which tells the story of what a caterpillar ate day by day over the course of a week.
Ember and Eryn then colored these worksheets that list the days of the week along with the food that the caterpillar ate.

As we colored we sang the Days of the Week song, which Ember learned from kindergarten, and Eryn had heard (but didn't completely remember) from preschool.

Once the girls finished coloring and writing on their worksheets, I cut them into strips by day to make a paper chain. Again we sang Days of the Week as we stapled the strips in the correct order. Then to make the point that the weeks starts again at Sunday after Saturday, we stapled the paper chain into a complete circle.

I think Ember was aesthetically displeased with this decision - it was too bunchy for her taste.
Oh well.

Theme: Dr. Seuss, Friday: The Cat in the Hat

It's Friday, with PBS Kids running "The Cat in the Hat-a-thon", and Ember and her friends have early-out school. So it's a party!
First the girls colored their own Cat in the Hat hat.

Ember made one for her new Barbie as well.

Next they were challenged with a matching game - this kept their attention, although Aniston sped through it.

Our final activity was to create a Cat in the Hat treat. The girls enjoyed building their hats as tall as possible before the frosting gave way. They didn't do so much eating of the end result, but I'm not going to complain about kids NOT eating candy.

It was fun!

Theme: Dr. Seuss, Thursday: Hop on Pop

Today we read "Hop on Pop." Both Eryn and Eva enjoyed the book and listened closely.
Our activity was going to be to create an obstacle, using the action words and some nouns from the book. But, since Eva is sicky, we decided to wait until Ember came home from school to do the activity. Of course procrastinating often leads to not doing..so we have an idea for this time next year.