One of the things I absolutely love doing with kids come springtime is growing plants from seed. That being said, I’m most likely the worst gardener on the planet. Like really, really bad. Cactuses, succulents, and other kill-proof plants? Give them to me for a week or two and I can almost guarantee that they’ll be dead. It’s terrible.
Okay, so this is quite possibly the simplest activity ever, but it was thoroughly enjoyed and I was blown away with what Miss G did with it. Earlier today, as Grae was cleaning up from quiet play time, I quickly popped outside to the yard to see what sort of spring nature items I could find. I knew I was definitely going to be borrowing a blossom or two off of the beautiful tree we currently have out front, and I managed to find all sorts of other pretty things too.
I know that it’s sort of hard to believe {even for me!}, but this past weekend I went out for a good 5 hours all by myself {the perks to having a NICU babe – he’ll happily take a bottle!} So what did I do with my time? Well truthfully, I got groceries and did a little bit of shopping, but since I went across the border, it meant Trader Joe’s and Target, which is super exciting in this mom’s books. ☺
It’s no secret that Miss G and I adore books. We’ve got shelves and shelves of them and I have absolutely no guilt about adding a few favourites here and there. I add them to Easter baskets, they’re part of our Christmas Eve tradition, and they’re a staple birthday gift in our house… You just can’t have too many, in my opinion.
After our rhyming pairs matching game, Miss G asked to play another homemade game this afternoon. With dinnertime nearing and a baby boy who needed one of his mama’s arms, it needed to be something super quick and easy to pull together, and that’s how this very simple coin sorting tray came about. Admittedly, it’s more of an activity than a game, but Miss G didn’t mind in the least. It meant that she got to play with money, which she’s been super interested in lately. That being said, since she’s spent the majority of her life living in the Middle East, Canadian currency is not something she knows much about just yet, so this was perfect for her.
One thing I’ve been trying my best to do since Sam’s come home is making a little time each day for Grae and I to do something fun together. Just the two of us, with her having my full attention. It’s not always easy as baby brother tends to be the type of baby who doesn’t love being put down, but so far we’ve been making it work. By request of Miss G, we’ve done mini manicures, we’ve cooked up some yummy treats, we’ve taken our babies for a walk outside {okay, so that one involved Mr. Sam, but by her choice}, and we’ve done some art.
Without a doubt, one of my most used resources in my Kindergarten and Grade One classes was the stack of coloured plastic plates filled with salt that I kept in my teacher’s cupboard. They were the simplest thing ever – literally plastic plates in a bright colour {aqua and gold always seemed to be the favourites} filled with a very thin layer of salt I’d bought at the dollar store. Despite their simplicity, we used them constantly… When practicing letter and number formation, when learning to draw shapes, when learning about different types of lines used in art, and when doing literacy and math centres… The list could go on.
Numbers are currently HUGE in our house. Writing numbers, counting, skip counting, subtraction, dividing things into equal groups, addition… You name it, Grae loves it. {And of course I love that she loves it. ☺}
LEGO. Miss G’s been into it in a big way for sometime now, so when some blogging friends made mention of an entire week dedicated to LEGO-inspired fun, I jumped aboard as quickly as I could.
Oh, how I love Preschool Book Club weeks! Grae and I always have a great time reading our book and exploring it further through playful activities, and this week was no different.
Woohoo! Today is the first day of our new round of Preschool Book Club, and Miss G and I are so excited! We’ve got soooo many fun books and activities planned for the coming weeks, as do our friends from Buggy and Buddy, Sugar Aunts, Frogs Snails and Puppy Dog Tails, and Homegrown Friends.
With Miss G being under the weather this week, we’ve spent quite a bit more time at home than usual. This has allowed us loads of time to dress-up, read in our new fairy tale fort, play round upon round {upon round upon round} of UNO, and do all sorts of fun creative projects and activities – one of which was creating this fun magnetic rainbow name busy box.
While I usually tutor four afternoons / evenings a week, I took this week off and it’s been lovely. More than anything, it’s allowed Grae and I some quality time at home in the afternoons, which has been really nice. As a result, we’ve been doing all sorts of fun little spur of the moment activities and projects, which is exactly what this broken hearts number matching activity is.
After seeing what a hit our recent play dough subtraction smash activity was, I immediately starting thinking of other fun, hands-on activities I could provide Miss G with to foster her love of exploring numbers {and subtraction in particular}. I’m fairly certain the play dough activity was so well-liked because of the smashing aspect, so I wanted something just as unique and fun. Simply taking manipulatives away from a pile was not going to cut it. {Well, not for me at least.} I racked my brain for interesting ways to take things away, until I thought of eating! G loves all sorts of healthy foods and is pretty much constantly hungry currently {hello, growth spurt!}, so snack subtraction of some sort was a perfect fit.
