Mamarazzi Monday: Happy Independence Day!

Ann Marie, over at Household 6 Diva, hosts the Mamarazzi Monday.  This week she wanted to know what the 4th of July means to us.

We celebrate our freedom by going to a nearby town 

for fun and fireworks:

Here's the fun:

Here's us waiting for the fireworks:

Here's the girls watching the prelude to the fireworks

(otherwise known as people setting off their own fireworks

before the real attraction starts)

Standing for the National Anthem

And here are the

FIREWORKS!!

This is how the girls sat for most of the show

(Hands over ears)

Even Hannah enjoyed the show:

And then we went home.

I can't keep from sharing a few extra pictures.

Hannah (at 2 1/2 months old) standing:

The following was so sweet.  Amelia received the folding chair for her birthday.  She was in the chair saying it was "her spot."  She allowed Tabitha to get into the other side, telling her, "your spot."

 Then they got up and traded spots, Amelia once again telling 

Tabitha "your spot."

Amelia nursing her doll:

Time for

Close Up/Whole Picture

Close Up

Whole Picture

Close Up

Whole Picture

Independence Day!

I hadn't thought about doing crafts for July 4th until I saw some posts as I was hopping around yesterday.  Rebecca over at Growing Up Our Style had quite a few patriotic activities that I plan to keep in mind for next year.  I just didn't have the money to go out and buy anything right now and we really didn't have anything red, white or blue besides construction paper.  I decided the blown paint fireworks looked doable and we made a red, white and blue collage.
For the red, white and blue collage I just found some star outlines online and printed them out in various sizes on red, white and blue paper, along with some fireworks.  The girls glued them to black paper.

Unfortunately, the blown paint fireworks didn't work out quite right for us.  I tried different consistencies but just couldn't get it to work as well as Rebecca's did.  Here are pictures of the girls trying to blow the paint:

Then they decided to swirl the paint around with their straw:

Here are the finished products:

(Tabitha kept going and we decided it represents the finale 

at a fireworks display)

To see what others are doing with their toddlers and preschoolers, head on over to 1+1+1=1 and Homeschool Creations.

X Lessons

We had a couple of days of lessons this week.  I was struggling with coming up with ideas for the letter X.  So at the beginning of the week we didn't do much.  I let the girls use the new used easel chalkboard (another great find from the thrift shop for just $2.00)  They really enjoy "chalking" on it, in fact they spent a good 20-30 minutes the first day.  And it is something they have gone back to each day.

They wanted some time with their workbooks (Tabitha was calling it her lapbook for a while).  

Tabitha is doing pretty good with this workbook.  She started out by tracing lines and curves.  Then finding upper and lower case letters.  Then tracing letters and writing some on her own.  Then she found the number pages and circled groups of 8.  Then she turned to the mazes and completed 3 of them with no help from me. Oh, and this was all her idea and I didn't tell her what to do at all.

I got my X ideas from two sources this week.  One is our Sesame Street X Letter Book "Grover Looks for X" by Sarah Albee.  In this board book Grover has a map where X marks the spot.  One activity I have wanted to do for a while is make a map of our house.  I figured this would be a great time to do it.  I used the afore mentioned chalkboard.

(In this picture the girls were pretending to climb the stairs)

After I got the diagram of the downstairs of our home on the chalkboard the girls and I took the X's that Steven made earlier in the day

and placed them in different rooms in the house.  After placing each one we went back to the chalkboard to mark our X.  

I plan on hiding the X's around the downstairs one day to see if they can then use the map to find them.  But I figured our "place and mark" activity would show the girls the concept of the map so they could make the connection between X on map to X somewhere in house.

One of our art activities was inspired by a page in the Sesame Street book.  One of the words that starts with X in the book is x-ray and we see Cookie Monster at the doctor's office viewing an x-ray of himself with the letter x inside his tummy.  We made X-ray crafts of the girls' hands. I traced their hands on black paper and then on white paper.

I had Tabitha trace her hands on the black paper with white chalk, while I drew bones on the white paper tracings and cut them out.  For Amelia's project I had her older sister trace the hand and I just cut out the outline of the white hand instead of each individual bone.

I put the glue on Tabitha's black hand one finger at a time and had her put the bones on as I handed them to her.  Amelia just had to glue white hand to black hand.

We had an X lunch.  I spread peanut butter onto a slice of bread in the shape of an X.  Then I gave the girls a cup of raisins so they could put them on the X.  I cut a slice of cheese into an X.  I gave the girls six carrots, six blueberries and six cheese curls that Steven and I formed into X's.

As I was planning the lunch on the paper I went to write out the word six.  This is what I wrote:

Embarrassing, but I had to share it.

Last night Krystal wanted to make cookies.  As she likes to bake by herself and not have the girls underfoot, I requested that she allow the girls to help her decorate the cookies with sugar crystal X's.

Today I asked Krystal to look on the letter of the week website to see if she could find some ideas for today. Not only did she find some activities, she proceeded to get them ready for us.  At the letter X page Krystal found the idea to decorate a letter X.  She cut the X's out, gathered macaroni and beads, and helped the girls by putting the glue on the X's so they could put the beads and macaroni on.

She then spent some time cutting out a Tic-Tac-Toe game, which the girls and I played before nap time.

I also made a simple magnetic matching alphabet game.  But I plan on sharing that in a separate post.

So that was our week.  Head on over to Homeschool Creations and 1+1+1=1 to see what others are doing with their preschoolers and toddlers.

I am also linking this post up to the Ultimate Alphabet Craft Collection hosted by Cathy at the Attached Mama.  Head on over to find crafts or share your own for any and every letter of the alphabet.

Also linking up to Smart Summer Challenge

Summer 2011