Fun Day Sunday!

If you've been reading these weekly Fun Day Sunday posts, you're acquainted with the basic concept: read a fun book you with your child, sneak in some comprehension questions and do an activity (preferably, an EDIBLE activity!) Well, today we will still be doing all of that PLUS adding in an important science concept: color mixing.

I have an overwhelmingly favorite book to teach this concept:

And that's not just because white mice with little pink feet are just so darn cute. It's what these mice do with their little feet:

They MIX COLORS!

The book illustrates how each mouse mixes orange, green or purple.

However, if you can't find that particular book, this one is a close second:

What's not to like about Leo Leonni?

At school, I start off with some "magic": Using water tinted red, yellow or blue (food coloring + water in 3 clear glasses), I pour two of the colors into each of three empty glasses to make orange, green and purple. If you do this at home before reading the book, expect cheering or applause or both!

After you read the book and ask some comprehension questions("Oh my, what do you think will happen NEXT??") or sequencing questions ("Hmmm, can you help me remember what happened FIRST in the book? And then what?"), then it's time for the fun and YUMMY activity.

Ahead of time, you will have prepared small boxes of three colors of Jello: red, yellow and blue. Just make the Jello the usual way and any flavor will do, as long as the picture on the box looks either red, yellow or blue. Enlist your child to help you prepare the Jello and you will build interest in the book!

Help your child to spoon some red and yellow (more yellow than red) into a ziploc bag, zip it and let him/her "smoosh" those two colors around to make orange! Do the same with yellow + blue = green and red + blue = purple.If the purple is hard to see, try holding the baggie up toward a light.

As your child is mixing the Jello colors, you can refer back to the book...Of course, the best part is when your child gets to open the bag and eat the Jello right out of it with a spoon!

Hope your child enjoys this book and activity! Thanks for stopping by!

No, Click HERE Instead, LOL!

OH NO! It has come to my attention (THANKS, NANCY!) that the link to my page on Teaching Tiny Tots is not working!! Yikes!!! Never mind, just click this picture:

Whew! That's better!! And I must say that this blogging stuff has, at the very least, given me a clue about HTML!!

More later, if time...off to SEW!!!!

Vote for Me!

Well, actually, there is no voting involved, I don't think. But...drumroll...

I've been published!

Click HERE to see what I'm talking about!!

Our school librarian made this snack for my students this year. It's the same one I wrote up for our first Fun Day Sunday. Anyway, I pared down that post and submitted it to Teaching Tiny Tots and YAYYYYY, she loved it! If you have a minute, check it out and maaaybe leave a nice comment at the bottom of that page. Yay!

Speaking of comments, thanks to everyone who has emailed or commented about Zoey's Family Tree! I would love to respond to everyone, but if you are set as "no reply", I have no way to get in touch with you. Just know that your comments make my day!

Now, I have to confess to being even more worn out tonight than I was last night. Hmmm, I wonder if going to bed very late and then having this cat

decide I needed to get up very early this morning has something to do with it. Isn't he cute? His name is Foster. That was him on the fourth shelf in our pantry. He's not only athletic, he's extremely helpful as well. But anyway, I digress. I managed to drag the cat out of the sewing machine long enough to whip up this little dress for the daughter of a friend at school. Once again, the color is off and even the magic of Picnik couldn't fix it this time. The bottom band and ties are actually hot pink and I used one of my new embroidery fonts to do the "A". Can't wait to see little "A" wearing it! We'll be taking some photos so I can put them in my Etsy shop as an example of this style of dress.

Hope you like the dress! Don't forget to check out my page on Teaching Tiny Tots if you have time and thanks for stopping by!

Fun Day Sunday!

YAY! It's time to start gathering our materials for another fun weekend learning activity for you and your little one to do together!

This week, we'll be reading an old favorite:

I just can't say enough good things about P.D. Eastman's book Are You My Mother? ! The story of the frantic lost baby bird who is returned to his nest by the big "SNORT" just in time to meet his mom never fails to draw the little ones in. Heck, that story draws ME in! It's a classic and it should be readily available at your public library.

However, in case it's checked out, here's P.D.'s backup plan:

The illustrations may be dated, but both of these stories are just excellent! If you can't find locate one of these classics, choose any fiction (or nonfiction!) bird-themed book that seems interesting.

Step One is always the same: find a comfy place to snuggle up with your little one on your lap, so he/she can see both the pictures and the words as you read. Read the book, stopping at key places and asking your easy comprehension question, "Oooooh, what do you think is going to happen NEXT?!" You probably remember that this simple question encourages your child to make predictions, which is an important comprehension strategy. Step One always ends with you and your child discussing the book...what's your child's favorite part AND WHY, or how would the story have been different if the main character had been a different animal (don't be afraid to introduce story vocabulary, such as 'character') or how could the story have ended differently...or even take turns with your little one, retelling the events in the story in order.

Step Two is always something active, like an art activity or a cooking activity. In this case, it's a cooking activity. This week, we are making
Bird's Nest Cookies!
You may be familiar with them...some people call them 'Haystacks'. They are usually made with a combination of chocolate and butterscotch chips, which is a great recipe, but pretty sweet. For my (somewhat healthier) version, you will need:

1 tablespoon of creamy peanut butter, 1 tablespoon of chocolate chips, approximately 1/3 cup chow mein noodles and a few jellybeans (which were somehow left out of the picture.) I used speckled jellybeans that kind of look like eggs.

Zap the peanut butter and chocolate chips in a bowl in the microwave to melt the chips. Zap one minute at a time and stir, because the chips tend to hold their shape and if you're waiting for them to look melted, they will taste burnt. When the mixture is combined, stir in the chow mein noodles and drop onto wax paper on top of a cookie sheet. Use a spoon to make a little depression and press a couple of jellybeans into it. Put the cookie sheet with the cookies into the refrigerator till they cool and harden up.

This recipe made the three cookies pictured below; of course, you can double (or triple or quadruple, LOL) the recipe. If peanuts present an allergy issue or if peanut butter is just not going to work for you, you can make these cookies using the traditional recipe of equal parts butterscotch chips and chocolate chips. Or you can even just use all chocolate chips.

Allow your child to do as much of the cooking as he/she can...help him or her with the measuring, stirring, etc, but definitely let him/her push in those jellybeans. Be aware that whether you use my recipe or the traditional one, these cookies MELT RAPIDLY WHEN CLUTCHED IN HOT LITTLE HANDS. This is definitely a snack to be enjoyed at a table with plenty of napkins/wet paper towels/wipes at the ready!

Here are the 'recipe' cards I made. Be kind about the picture on card #2. As usual, email me if you'd like a pdf of the cards.

I hope you and your child enjoy your UNPLUGGED fun bird-y activity! Check back each week for our Fun Day Sunday activity!

Fun Day Sunday!

So this week's fun learning activity to do with your child over the upcoming weekend is...LADYBUGS! First you'll read a book together and then you'll "cook" and enjoy a snack together. Your child will have a blast and you will have sneaked in a lot of learning in the process!

First, locate the book: any children's book about ladybugs will do. Our local public library lists 21 ladybug books in the juvenile section, both fiction and nonfiction. A favorite fiction ladybug book of mine, which should be readily available at your local library, is Eric Carle's The Grouchy Ladybug. Other great fiction books include The Very Lazy Ladybug by Isobel Finn and Ladybug Girl by Jacky Davis (Ladybug Girl actually stars in an entire series off books now.) There's also a really good nonfiction ladybug book by Melvin and Gilda Berger that's called Grub to Ladybug. Check out your local library to see what they have!

For the snack, you will need the following ingredients:

round crackers (such as Ritz), strawberry cream cheese (or strawberry frosting if cream cheese is not going to work for you), red licorice laces (or licorice bites cut into strips...black licorice is more accurate, if your child likes the taste) and raisins (or chocolate chips).

Assemble the ingredients, then grab the book, get comfy with your child on the couch or snuggle up in a chair together and READ. Ask this question every so often (this works better in fiction than nonfiction books), "What do you think will happen NEXT?!" Asking that simple comprehension question will help your child learn to make predictions as he/she reads - and that's a very valuable reading skill. Once the book is finished you and your child can take turns making up different endings or talking about how the story would change if it were about a different insect, or a spider or even an animal.

Next, the snack!! Here are some pics of how the snack is assembled. Remember to allow your child to do everything he/she is able. Who cares if the cream cheese is not spread evenly and the legs all wind up on the same side. Symmetry is a developmental concept that your child will understand better as he/she gets older.

The crackers...

the cream cheese...

the licorice laces...

The finished ladybug!

If your child will not eat the raisins or chocolate chips, have him/her count them out and put them on anyway. Same with the legs. Any items he/she won't eat can be picked off. For that matter, if he/she doesn't want to eat the finished product at all, so be it! Maybe someone in your house (if all else fails, the DOG) will enjoy the snack. The important part is that you have spent some quality time with your child, UNPLUGGED from electronics, communicating and most of all, having fun together. This snack activity covers a whole host of educational concepts...following oral directions and counting objects, to name two. Here is a pic of some recipe cards I created. If you would like a full-sized copy, email me and I'll send you a pdf to print and cut out for use with the snack activity. Enjoy!