Valentine's Day Activities

My boys have been sick all weekend and are still feeling under the weather. We are getting bored so today I utilized Confessions of a Homeschooler's website. She had some fun printables for the letter V. It was themed towards Valentine's Day (of course!). The first one was a letter find where you had to circle all of the letter Vs.

The second activity we did was finding the pattern. You'll recognize most of these activities from the Christmas set she has on there that we did. Most of the letter practice follows the same activities with a few variations.

Tracing shapes, lines and the letter V.

This was a fun counting game. We used Valentine candies as counters.

The last activity we did was to "trace" the letter V to just get more practice with it. You take a push pin (if your child is old enough) and move them to a carpeted area. They push the pin through the letter "tracing" it. It's a great way to practice those fine motor skills and to reinforce the letter.

Happy Chinese New Year!

I was excited to finally get out today with the kids to help them run off some of their pent-up energy, but the wee one got sick yesterday. So here we are at home again today! Thankfully there are lots of holidays this week to make crafts easier. I explained a little (about as much as I knew) about the Chinese New Year to Roman and then we proceeded to make some crafts. The first one I took a black sheet of construction paper, penciled in some fireworks and had Roman trace the marks with glitter glue. You could do this with glue and glitter too, but for my boy I knew this would be way less messy. :)

To end the Chinese New Year celebration (which is sometime next week) they have a Lantern Festival. So we made a bunch of paper lanterns. This was great for cutting, taping, and using a stapler.

We gathered a bunch of brightly colored construction paper, folded it in half, cut slits, then taped it together and stapled on handles to hang them.

Here's all of our lanterns before we put on the handles.

We decided to hang them up using Christmas lights (using LED lights so they don't get hot and start a fire) across our kitchen window. I found it was easier to hang the Christmas lights, then staple the handles to the lanterns as I hung them. Maybe we'll even order Chinese for supper!

And according to the Chinese calendar this is the year of the Rabbit so when I was out last night I was forced to buy two of these for dessert today. Or maybe we already split one for mid-morning snack. :)

I hope you find some fun things to do today with your kids!

Happy Groundhog's Day!

We've been inside for a few days now and that has driven me back to planning lots of crafts and activities for the kids. I googled preschool activities for Groundhog's Day and here's what we've been up to this morning besides climbing through tunnels as shown above...

Groundhog's Day Maze

Groundhog's Day Pop-up Puppet - click on link for detailed instructions

This was a fun activity and we had all of the craft supplies to do it. I love crafts like that. :)

I have other ideas for today in case the boredom really starts to set in.

• Trace their "shadows" (head only) on black construction paper (remember doing this as a kid?). We actually tried this earlier and Roman was a bit too rambunctious to sit still long enough for me to get anywhere close to an accurate outline. We might try this when they are watching Blues Clues later today. :)
• Make a tent or go in a dark room armed with a flashlight and a few small objects your kids could easily recognize. Hold the objects in front of the light, but hidden so your kids can't see them. Have them guess the objects. I'm thinking kid scissors, small stuffed animals, maybe even animal stickers!

Have a Happy Groundhog's Day! Apparently Punxsutawney Phil didn't see his shadow this morning...so an early spring is in store! Here's to hoping! :)

Rediscover the joy

"If a child is to keep his inborn sense of wonder, he needs the companionship of at least one adult who can share it, rediscovering with him the joy, excitement and mystery of the world we live in."

-Rachel Carson

Hope this encourages you like it did me! I like to watch my husband for inspiration...he will sit with Roman during the evenings and draw mazes for him, he'll wrestle with the boys, and he genuinely seems to enjoy building forts. While I do some of these things with my kids...I can't say I really enjoy them very much of the time. Just a reminder that life as an adult can get too focused and mundane and sometimes we need to remember our "inborn sense of wonder."

p.s. the "Honk" shirt Titus is wearing was my husbands when he was little. So thankful my mother-in-law kept it! Apparently "honk" was my husband's first word.

Play-Doh

Play-Doh is so much fun for kids. And a great teaching tool, too. This morning I made shapes or cut out shapes and had Roman then replicate them. He had a good time doing it and then making things with the shapes when he was done.

A great way to work on those small motor skills as well!

Even little brother got in on the fun. Although he kept trying to eat the Play-Doh he had a good time patting it and trying to cut it.

Try some Play-Doh activities today!

Dry Erase Books

I had been putting off getting a dry erase book for Roman because I wasn't sure how much use we'd get out of it. We have a dry erase board that he enjoys, so I figured that was enough. For Christmas he received a dry erase letter book and he has loved it. He asks for it and will work on it for a long time (for a 3 year old). It's a great tool to get them to learn their letters. I would highly recommend it!

New Year's Eve Celebration

Happy New Year! We had a little family celebration last night with our two boys. We drank sparkling grape juice and watched some of the video we took over the past year. We also played a game of charades using things we've done over the past year. A friend of mine gave me that idea and it was so much fun! I had Roman act out the big bucket at Coco Key, riding his bike, fireworks at the 4th of July, eating a kolace at the Czech Festival, etc. He did a great job and daddy did a good job guessing. :)

A New Year's Eve party isn't complete in my book without party hats and horns!

For the finale I had bought a little package of poppers and firecrackers. The boys had a great time pulling the strings with daddy's help.

There was a big mess to clean up, but what fun they had!

We definitely will be doing all of these things again next year!