Grouping Family Members {Five Creatures}

Today's book of the day was Five Creatures by Emily Jenkins.  It's a fun book about a family with five creatures (a girl, her parents, and two cats) and all the different ways they can be put into groups.  For our activity, the girls drew pictures of our family (eight creatures total) and we came up with different ways of classifying ourselves...

Dr. Deuss Activities for Little Kids

In celebration of the birthday of Dr. Seuss on March 2nd, I thought I'd put together a little roundup of the activities we've done over the past year related to books by Dr. Seuss...

Painting Whales {The Snail and the Whale}

Today's "Book of the Day" was The Snail and the Whale by Julia Donaldson.  I love the rhythm of Donaldson's books and they are always a joy to read.  I especially like the illustrations in this one (by Axel Scheffler) because the kids get a chance to identify all sorts of different animals and habitats.  For our little activity we watched a video of a beached whale rescue and used watercolor paints to color whales..

Silly Creature Drawing Prompt {There's a Wocket in My Pocket}

March is National Reading Month and we're going to celebrate by trying to do a book-related activity every day.  It may be as simple as a little craft or acting out the story, but I'll also try to add some themed units into the mix as well.  We got an early start today by doing a little drawing prompt based on the book There's a Wocket in my Pocket by Dr. Seuss..

Tot School - 17 Months

H is 17 months old.  I have to gush about the photo above - aren't those sweet little hands just the cutest?  The learning spurt is still in full swing and we've been doing many different activities to stimulate all the senses and practice fine motor skills...

Journey Through Colorado History {Booking Across the USA}

I am very excited to be part of the Booking Across the USA project hosted by Growing Book by Book.  Today I am joining over 50 other bloggers in sharing a children's book and activity for my state.  The Rocky Mountains always come to mind when people think of Colorado, but I wanted to cover a different aspect of the state.  I was happy to find a new picture book called Dreaming of Colorado: A Children's Bedtime Story, written by Grant Collier and illustrated by Stephanie Lowman.  The book takes its characters through a magical canoe ride backwards in time through Colorado's history.  So the girls hopped into their own magic canoe (laundry basket) and we set off on our own historical adventure...

Sensory Play for Kids

All play is pretty much "sensory play" as kids use all their senses to explore their world.  However, I just love creating novel experiences for the little ones to engage in.  It's a joy sitting back and watching the exploration process and the immense pleasure my kids get from simple experiences that adults take for granted like putting their hands in something gooey or smelling something new.  Here is a collection of my favorite Sensory Play Experiences over the past year...