Lasagna

J-jo's favorite food is spinach lasagna.  I just love to hear him say the word in his baby talk and wish he would say it when the video recorder is on!

The other day I let him help me make our lasagna.  

Whisking cottage cheese and egg.

 Laying the noodles.

Spooning in the spinach mixture.

There's no real recipe. I just made it up, but it tastes delicious.

I cook the lasagna noodles while I prepare the spinach mixture (cottage cheese, 2 eggs, full package of frozen spinach (thawed and cooked).  I start with a layer of tomato sauce, add a layer of noodles, a layer of spinach mix, a layer of tomato sauce, a layer of noodles, a layer of spinach, tomato sauce and one last layer of noodles and tomato sauce before the mozzarella cheese on top.

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Tot School

Here are some of J-jo's favorite tot school items.  

 Flipping lids.  He needs some help to do this.  This was originally for Bear, but J-jo likes it better.

 Clothespins on a small whiteboard.  The point of interest is getting them out of the little wooden box.

 Lacing card.

 A repeat of the clothespin color game I made Bear two years ago.  He can pinch the clothespins open himself but needs me to hold the canister and maybe twist it a little if he isn't well oriented.  His pincer grasp can't hold the pin open for very long so he has to act fast to slip it in place.

After you have clipped them all on the rim, you remove them, put the lid on and push them in the little hole.  Much easier work than pinching.  He says "ouch" each time he pinches a pin open and acts all dramatic and wants me to kiss his fingers.  :)  (It's not really hurting him as he is laughing as he says ouch.)

 

His most preferred activity however (unlike his sister who loved to sit and "work" with me at 18 months and already knew all her letter sounds and numbers) is kicking a ball, feeding and toileting baby dolls, and zooming and vrooming his toy cars and trains.

J-jo is teaching me a lot:
1. Don't compare your children.
2. Play is important and let him just play.  He has years and years to learn letters and numbers.

linked to Tot School .

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Yarn Painting

I keep trying to interest J-jo in artistic pursuits but he just isn't.  I wistfully remember all the cool projects Bear tried at almost 20 months.  I persuade myself to let it go.  He just isn't Bear.

Bear on the other hand, loved this messy art experience (which was entirely meant for J-jo).  

The results were quite pretty too (though not so much the green hands!). 

And although this isn't artist related, you could take a leap and tie it in to any abstract artist that uses a lot of lines in his or her art.  An obvious example would be Wassily Kandinsky.

Art Vocabulary: lines - mostly thin and curvy :)

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Housekeeping - a confession

I have a confession: I don't like being tied down to the Artists and Art weekly meme.  First of all, some weeks, we just want to dabble again in an artist we have already visited.  Other weeks, we just want to draw or paint other stuff.  I find myself trying to come up with a new weekly artist project without leaving ourselves time to digest the artist from the week before.  I will still post Artists and Art, you just won't see it on a weekly basis, and it will no longer be a meme.  Not many were linking up anyway.  I am too stressed these days about things I shouldn't be stressed about and I just want to take a step back from any commitment that isn't a necessary one.  I am sure many of you can understand this.  However, if you do have a post, no matter how old, that fits in with the Artists and Art, please feel free to leave a link to it in the comments when I do post an Artists and Art post.  That said, there will not be an Artists and Art post tomorrow.

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A Heart for Home

Today, I'm a guest writer over at A Heart For Home.  Go see some ways to use the alphabet box there.

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The Big Green Pocketbook

 Bear is really into acting out the books she reads. When we read Happy Birthday, Harvey Hare! she wrote her own invitations and prepared a birthday party just like in the book.

Tonight we read The Big Green Pocketbook.

When I called her for dinner, she didn't come.  "What are you doing?" I called.  "I'm the girl with the green pocketbook."  I turned to look and she was drawing a picture (as does the girl in the book near the end).  So I made her a big green pocketbook out of construction paper so she can play out the book tomorrow.

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Our new favorite books

We received some new books from Tiger Tales a few weeks ago and I have been too busy to mention them.  But here are a few of our new favorite books.

A Little Bit of Love by Cynthia Platt

 Bear loves to bake and eat cookies and cake so she always loves to read books about baking, cookies, and cakes. In this book, sweet little mice set out to make a special treat because the little mouse is tired of eating cheese day in and day out.  This book reminds me a bit of another favorite book Pancakes, Pancakes! by Eric Carle because the characters have to gather all the ingredients from the source.  It is great for children to see exactly from where our food comes - milk does not just appear in the grocery store, but is given to us by the cow.  I especially loved this line, "When you work that hard, you surely put some love into it," because I want to instill in my children a love for doing their best work, a work of love.  The illustrations are exquisite watercolors and who can resist a fuzzy mouse on the cover?  Bear and I love this book.  

Roly-Poly Egg by Kali Stileman

This is one of J-jo's favorites.  He loves the bright colors.  The roly-poly egg falls off the branch and goes on an adventure, meeting a slew of animals - giraffe, zebra, crocodile, elephant, monkey - all of J-jo's favorites.  The best part is the lift the flap at the end, which reveals the chick inside.  And I enjoy how the ending mirrors the beginning. 

One Little Blueberry by Tammi Salzano

Another bright and colorful book, with the illustrations done in watercolor, One Little Blueberry is a cute little counting book with a surprise ending.  I like when counting books actually tell a story.  I have enjoyed reading this over and over to J-jo.  Bear likes it as well because she loves stories told in rhyme.   It's a good book to add if you are doing an insect theme as many insects are featured in it (though it wouldn't be a book to learn about these insects, but to look at insects from an artistic perspective).

My Mom Has X-ray Vision by Angela McAllister

If you were to buy just one book in this list, this would be my recommendation. All kids can relate to the feeling that their mom can see through walls.  It is a book loved by both my children.  Surprisingly, J-jo will sit through it even though it is long for his age.  He is always pulling it off the shelf and bringing it to me to read to him.  There is something about the cat illustration that really grabs his attention and he looks for the cat on every page.  Bear likes it because "it is funny! The mommy always knows what he is doing when he is being naughty." I like seeing the illustrations and how they explain just how the mom can know what her son is doing even though he is in a different room.  If you don't look at the side illustration, you really do think she has x-ray vision!

Disclaimer: Tiger Tales provided these books; however, the opinions of the books are my own honest opinions.  I truly am enjoying reading these books over and over to my children.  I would enjoy them even if they had come from the library or been bought with my own money.


Linked to Mouse Grows, Mouse Learns for What My Child Is Reading.

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Early Graphing at Totally Tots

Early Graphing @Totally Tots.

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Artists and Art - Robert Bateman

When I saw this post at Chocolate Muffin Tree, I knew it was a project I wanted to do with Bear, but I wondered how I could make it tie in to Artists and Art. 

I remembered seeing a Robert Bateman book on someone's coffee table a LONG time ago and, after a quick Google search, discovered he painted quite a few birds.

Robert Bateman is a Canadian naturalist and artist who was born in Toronto, but now lives on the West coast. Although he was a high school art and geography teacher, he spent a lot of time painting.  He now has six books of his paintings.  His wildlife paintings are just beautiful.

(image from http://www.robertbateman.ca/art/environmental/environmental1.html)

I made some three part cards of Robert Bateman's bird paintings, which Bear matched up and observed while I washed up the breakfast things.

Art Vocabulary:

realistic

environmental

I've mostly shown Bear impressionistic and abstract artists, so this was very different for her.  We talked about how his paintings are so realistic they look like photographs.  I asked her to think of the theme in all the three part cards.  She told me they were all birds.  I told her we were going to paint birds today, but ours wouldn't be so realistic:)

I pulled out three books that fit the theme.

Robins: Songbirds of Spring

How to Paint the Portrait of a Bird

and Flip, Flap, Fly!: A Book for Babies Everywhere (mostly for J-jo)

Another book that fits well that we read last year and loved is Birds by Kevin Henkes.

Then the making of art began.

More art vocabulary:
print

Chocolate Muffin Tree does a great job explaining how to do this project.  I wanted the birds to be bigger, so I modified the method a bit.

 Above - J-jo's branches.
Below - Bear adding a bird with a potato half.

We used the sides of flat sponges dipped in brown paint for the tree branches.
We got a potato and cut it in half.  Dipped in paint it made the perfect body for a bird.
We used a water bottle lid for the head of the bird.  For the tail, we used the edge of a piece of cardboard, twisting a bit to fan out the tail.

(I helped J-jo with the birds.)
We added a nest, too.  That is the best part, of course.  We went outside in search of pine straw and found tons.

The finished products:

We'll have to go back when they are dry and add eyes.

This post also linked to stART

and to Read.Explore.Learn

and to Kids Get Crafty

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We Play - Mud Pies

I love the mud pie kitchens here and here and here.  We are going to create a little natural playground for Bear and J-jo with a big rock and some stumps in the near future, (where the tree/ bush is behind the chair) but in the meanwhile, I am making do with what I have to create them their very own mud pie kitchen. 

Or sand pies as the case may be.

 The big plastic bowl on the chair is the "kitchen sink". A board across the sand box acts as a counter/table.  I will be going to the thrift store to see if I can round up some cheap wooden spoons and metal bowls and we will put away the sand toys for our beach trip. 

The tree/bush in the background has been adopted by Bear as her "house" and she spends a lot of time pretending in there. We have plans to find some stumps for her to use as table and chair in there.

Come over and play at the Childhood 101 We Play link up

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Ladybug, Ladybug, Fly Away Home

Bear has had ladybugs on the mind lately. I had decided to focus on insects this Spring, as we did birds and flowers last year.  However, we've also done butterflies frequently (how can you not; they are so pretty), so I wanted another insect as our feature insect.  Bear chose ladybugs.

First, I set up an insect sensory basket.  The idea came from Prekinders.  Green Easter grass, plastic insects, tweezers (our thick plastic ones went AWOL so I included the chopsticks instead) to catch the bugs, a bug box, and a magnifying glass to observe them.  I also included a few flowers (after I had taken the photo) in the Easter grass (think weeds in the lawn!).

Then I set out a tray with the life cycle (from One Hook Wonder) and nomenclature cards (from Montessori Print Shop).

The nomenclature PDF comes with an unlabeled page so the child can do a booklet that she colors nad labels on her own, but the life cycle cards didn't include that, so I made my own by cutting apart this worksheet (although I think I like the drawings on this one better) and gluing each drawing on a separate little page.

In keeping with my other Poor Man's Puzzles, I made a Parts of the Ladybug out of felt for Bear.

 I probably would have made her a paper version like I did for the bird and frog, but I was inspired by

Discovery Days and Montessori Moments who just posted her daughter's ladybug learning activities a few days ago. 

One of Bear's favorite rhymes since she was 18 months is

Little Red Bug

Little red bug, oh so cute,
Here's a black spot for your suit.
Now you go and have some fun
With your spot, your very first one.

Little red bug, oh so cute,
Here's a black spot for your suit.
It's so nice to own a few,
So enjoy these lovely two.

Little red bug, oh so cute,
Here's a black spot for your suit.
We are very pleased to see
How nice you look with all three.

Little red bug, oh so cute,
Here's a black spot for your suit.
You might feel that you need more,
So we proudly give you four.

Little red bug, oh so cute,
Here's a black spot for your suit.
Heaven, heaven, sakes alive,
Look at you, you're wearing five!

 by Susan M. Paprocki

We have a paper ladybug we act this out with.

I've also set up a poetry basket.  We haven't done one in a while.  After browsing through a bunch of ladybug songs and poems, I ended up using the same one as did Discovery Days due to its simplicity.

And here's a cute song that ties in that will review body parts for J-jo.  Danielle's place has a very thorough ladybug theme if you need anymore ideas.

Linked to Science Sundays.

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The Nickel Book

Bear has been coming home from school with something called "The Penny Book." It's this great little book in which she needs to choose the penny stamp and stamp the correct number of times on each page (1 cent, 2 cents, etc to 10 cents).

I don't know if they have a nickel book at school, but I thought it would be terrific to help her learn to count by fives faster. So I made her one.  You can get it here.  Cut along the black lines, put the pages in order and then staple (Bear does all of that).  Student stamps the correct number times with the nickel stamp.  Below is just a snapshot of the first page.  The real document is better:)

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Beep, Beep, Vroom, Vroom

 A book J-jo has been requesting frequently these days is Beep Beep, Vroom Vroom!

It's all about a little girl who likes her brothers cars too much and keeps taking them off his shelf.  Her brother likes to line them up just so in a pattern (red, blue, yellow, red, blue, yellow), but every time she lines them up again, the pattern changes (red, red, blue, blue, yellow, yellow, for example) until the very last time when she lines them up just right, just in time, as her brother walks into his room.

Bear could relate to the little boy as J-jo often likes to play with her things.  J-jo could relate to playing with cars and loved the repetitious "beep, beep, vroom, vroom."

We painted with cars as our go-along project.

And also played with patterns with our own cars.

 also linked toWhat My Child is Reading Read.Explore.Learn

Kids Get Crafty

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