The Cat in the Hat

Source

Source

"'I know it is wet and the sun is not sunny.  But we can have lots of good fun that is funny!'"

Cat in the Hat paper craft 

"'These things will not bite you.  They want to have fun.'  Then, out of the box came Thing Two and Thing One!"

Thing One and Thing Two craft...I found this cute idea HERE.

"'And this mess is so big and so deep and so tall, we can not pick it up. There is no way at all!"

Cat in the Hat Messes...Painting Thing One and Thing Two made J want to paint his own pictures.  I don't understand why he wants to mix all of the colors and make giant blobs, but in his mind they are all different!  He told me stories about his paintings!  K got to join in with some finger paints.  She tried to pick up the little blobs at first but she finally got it everywhere!  She laughed and even put a little in her mouth.  It is non-toxic paint but she cried because it tasted so bad!  These are her first paintings. 

"A ring in the tub! And, oh boy! What a thing! A big long pink cat ring! It looked like pink ink!"

Cat in the Hat Bath...Painting with a one year old makes a mess, so I put her in the tub.  J wanted to take a bath too and I decided to try making bath paint.  I had the supplies to make THIS bath paint recipe.  I just gave them one color at a time because K dumped it out.  J would get tired of one color and give her the rest before I gave him the next one.  This was a hit!  The bath water was disgusting when they were done and they both smelled like Barbasol but they had a blast!  I found another recipe for bath paint HERE that would be better (tear-free and better smelling) but I didn't have bubble bath. 

"And they jumped at the snow with long rakes and red bats. They put it in pails and they made high pink hills! Pink snow men! Pink snow balls! And little pink pills!"

Pink Snow Snack

1 large box strawberry Jell-O

1 1/2 cups boiling water

1 cup water with ice added to make 2 cups

1/2 tub Cool Whip

Dissolve Jell-O in boiling water.  Add ice water and Cool Whip.  Stir until completely mixed and most of ice is melted (all of my ice melted).  Remove any remaining ice and chill for 30 minutes for soft set. 

A Week of Seuss!

When I was teaching first grade, spring was my favorite.  I liked to teach semi-thematically (if that's a word) and all of the fun themes were in the spring.  Not that I don't love fall, Halloween, Thansgiving, and Christmas but after so many holidays it was always fun to jump head first into spring starting with Dr. Seuss.
I covered my walls in characters from his books and we read one book a day for about 7 days.  Each day included some activity to go along with the book.  We always ended the unit with Green Eggs and Ham and our snack for that day was, of course, green eggs and ham.  Now that I am a SAHM, I get to share my love of Dr. Seuss with my children. 

Source

We began today with Hop on Pop.  This book is perfect for younger children because it has fewer words, lots of repetition, and they can help read along.  I copied picture cards from Words Their Way: Word Sorts for Letter Name Alphabetic Spellers.  J isn't a speller yet but the picture cards from the word family sorts worked great for rhyming practice.  I cut out the pictures and labeled them.  I chose one from each word family to create a header and then let him sort the rest of the cards with words that rhyme with them.  I had to help a little by saying some of the words out loud so he could hear the rhymes but he did pretty good after the first few. 

I also found this initial letter/picture matching game to use today.  I cut out the pictures and he had to match them with the letter with their beginning sound.  It was the first time we have really talked about vowel sounds so it was a great way to introduce some of those letter sounds. 

When I was teaching, our big activity was making lists of rhyming words.  I had about ten words written on butcher paper and the kids helped me fill the paper with words that rhymed.  It was always neat to see what they came up with.


"Today you are you, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is Youer than You."  ~Dr. Seuss

Valentine Party

Yesterday, we had a little Valentine party for a few of J's friends.

We ate lunch, played, and passed out valentines.  Well, the moms passed out the valentines which works out pretty good with four year olds who can't read!  I think the kids had a good time.  I know J did!  He loves having his friends come to play. 

I found these cute paper bags and set them out with jars of candy for the kids to fill and take home.

The big table for babies and moms.

I used the chair envelopes Mom made as place markers for the kids.  The plates I monogrammed  looked great on the tables.

The big kids sat at the little table. 

Brownies

Strawberry, vanilla, and chocolate dipped marshmallows

I made layered strawberry jello in these cute little cups and used paper baking cups to hold goldfish.

Grapes and strawberries in mixing bowls from Target.

Because we had play dough in the play room, I removed the rugs and Mom thought of taping a butcher paper rug to the floor.  I put markers in the play room (washable, of course) and they got to draw on the floor!

Sorting Valentine erasers (They didn't sort but used the muffin tin with the play dough.)

Foam door hangers with foam letter stickers ( No one made one of these.)

Glitter foam sheets and foam heart stickers (I thought they could make valentines for their moms but that didn't happen!)

Heart beads and red pipe cleaners for bracelet making (A couple of the kids did make bracelets.  I was excited about that!)

The most fun activity was the play dough.  I made strawberry play dough and chocolate play dough.  The chocolate ended up being to sticky but we found some PlayDoh for them and they went to town making things.  I used a basic play dough recipe from a friend.  I found how to make the scented play dough here and here. 

Toys for the babies in the living room

They had fun drawing on the floor.  I ripped one piece when I was vacuuming up the play dough bits. 

I found the little plastic cups used for the jello at CupKate's Event Design.  The red striped paper bags, tiny pink spoons, and plastic milk bottles came from Shop Sweet Lulu.  I bought the valentine plates (used by the mommies) at Pottery Barn Kids.  I have last year's and this year's designs.  Everything else I bought for the party I found at Target or Walmart or I already had it.

Handmade gifts

I found some great ideas for gifts this year and decided to try some of them.  J has a couple of little girls to give gifts to so I made peg dolls for them.  I saw the idea here and they were so much fun to make!  I am working on a boy set for J but I haven't finished them yet. 
I hope E and I will like them! (The print out for the back ground, wishing well, wagon, and label can be found here.)

I think these are my favorites!

Belle, Ariel, Tiana, Aurora

Jasmine, Snow White, Cinderella, Rapunzel

I also made K's little friends gifts.  It is so hard to find things for 1 year olds and I know that they aren't exactly ready for matching but I thought these were cute!  I made this cupcake matching game for K and her friend E. (Mom attached the tops to the bottoms but I did the rest!)  The cupcakes are soft and will be fun to play with until they can match the colors.  I found the idea here.

Little L is getting a Cars match up.  I saw the idea here and it was really easy to make.  He will have more fun pushing the cars around but why not make it educational!