Wednesday, May 22, 2013

Froggy Number Matching and Word Search

A blue poster and a lily pad/frog set from The Dollar Tree turned into a fun frog lily pad number matching game:



Before I could even start taking pictures, Monkey J was already on number 5!  ;)




He really enjoyed this game and later on in the week I would mix it up by putting the numbers in random order:



Next up: letter scramble to spell "frog":


I had the word "frog" spelled out all over the house for frog week, so it didn't take long for him to pick out the right letters:



And spell "FROG" right away!

Frog Fishing!


Later on in the week we did another simpler sensory bin:


And try our hand at some froggy-fishing!


Monkey A preferred using some cute froggy snack containers I bought from The Dollar Tree:



Since the day was nice, we decided to move it outside:


I didn't get any pictures of Monkey J frog fishing because I was enjoying him laughing as he was SO excited to do it! I did get pictures of him exploring all things froggy!

Monday, May 20, 2013

Frog Week Sensory Bin

It is SO cute to see how excited Monkey J gets on Monday mornings now because he knows to expect a new sensory bin and he can't wait to see it!  We started off today with our frog sensory:



And the kids setup at the counter was froggy-themed:



Monkey J also enjoyed some lily pad math:



Monkey J enjoyed lining up the froggies:



Friday, May 17, 2013

Last Day of Dinosaur!


We wrapped up our last day of dinosaur week with some fun dinosaur scratch art paper:


Using a stylus, you scratch off the top of the picture to reveal a colored picture beneath it:



The final result was pretty stunning!


We had a really fun dinosaur week, with our sticker poster:


And reading our dinosaur books:




What has been really neat in these last couple of weeks is that Monkey J's reading of words has really taken off to a new level!  He can recognize a bunch of words now, including ocean, dinosaur, and extinct!  Great job little reader!

Thursday, May 16, 2013

Dinosaur Scene and Bones

I had picked up some dinosaur wall stickers from The Dollar Tree last weekend and I took the dinosaur background from our Animal Planet's Big Tub of Dinosaurs for Monkey J to create a dinosaur scene:


He was so excited when he discovered that he could put the dinosaurs on any way he wanted to:





Sitting back to admire his work:


Monkey J would actually put the herbivores next to the plants :)  Such a smart little monkey!


It was then outside to enjoy the weather and dig for more bones:


I had planned on using these dinosaur bones on Tuesday for our paleontologist dig, but they didn't arrive in time, so we used them today:


They were super cool!



Monkey A also joined in on the fun:



I am sure we will be playing with these long after dinosaur week is done!

Wednesday, May 15, 2013

Dinosaur Fossils!


We had a fun time incorporating playdough into our dinosaur theme today:


We started with making dinosaur figures in playdough:


And then we started to make our fossil dough:


Some instant coffee, flour, and salt...to be more precise, here's the recipe we used:

1 cup used coffee grounds

1/2 cup cold coffee.

1 cup flour

1/2 cup salt



Mix it together:


Roll it out and flatten it:


We then pressed in our dinosaurs:





And then put them in the oven for 30 minutes at about 215.  While we waited, we played with "dinosaur bones" (popsicle sticks):



In no time our fossils were ready!


Monkey J showed them off:



He loved them!



And we had fun matching the dinosaur to its fossil:





Monkey A woke up from her nap and did a little painting with dinosaur bones:


The fossils were really neat; they had a great sensorial feel to them and they smelled so yummy, just like coffee!  :)

Tuesday, May 14, 2013

Digging for Dinos!


Monkey J woke up from his nap with a huge surprise in the backyard:


His very own paleontologist dig site, complete with a trowel, a shovel, and some paintbrushes!


He was SO excited!




What was really cute is that he didn't really think there were dinosaurs in it:


Until he saw something...





And lifted out a dinosaur!







So much fun!  We learned all about paleontologists and trowels:



We certainly dug this activity ;)