365 Days Outdoors: Shadow Dancing

Shadow fighting is a regular activity at our house. Bobo finds his shadow in the wall and practices kicking and punching. Today, he found a new way to play with his shadow by dancing. "Crazy dance, crazy dance!"

He also found a discarded blue eggshell from a hatched baby bird. "Ewww!"

Thanks for your Thoughts Thursdays: Dog's Colorful Day

Adventures in Reading has been exploring the theme of dogs for the past week. I suggested they check out Dog's Colorful Day by Emma Dodd, and they did! Kim came up with some wonderful activities to go along with the book, and asked to see the one I had suggested. Since I didn't already have a post about it, I'm making one, which has led to the first "Thanks for your Thoughts" Thursday post. I'll try to make a

post inspired or in response to a comment or email each Thursday, so keep them coming!

I made 15 Dogs, one for each child. I have lots of blue contact paper, so I back everything in blue and use the clear on the front. The pattern came from Children's Programming Monthly Volume 1 Number 12.

I handed out Dog and Fruit Loops in a sandwich bag to each child, promising they could eat after the story. You can use any colorful candy or cereal. Depending on what you find, you'll have a different number of dots. Skittles have five colors, while Fruit Loops (the off-brand kind) have six. The book goes all the way to 10. However, I was fine with having less dots, because I teach children under 3. Counting to five or six is a big accomplishment! Not eating until the end of the story is another big accomplishment. While I read the book, the children placed their dots on the dogs.

At the end of the story, Dog needs to get clean. We used mini-loofahs to wipe the cereal off. The loofahs were my favorite part! I used white tulle and a pipe cleaner to make them. The babies in my first class loved the texture.

You can also use this idea to re-tell the story. If you are teaching a preschooler, you can use washable markers to color dog and wipe him off with a paper towel. Candy is always a favorite in my house, though! Now, I'm going to eat those Skittles, they are too tempting... 

Check out more children's book activities on Come Together Kids.

What My Child Is Reading: Something old, Lots of new!

Little monkey has lost his mommy, but the butterfly helps him look. I sang the butterfly part to the tune of "Hush Little Baby." The monkey gives the butterfly clues to help find the mama, like she's "bigger than me." The animals the butterfly finds, like the elephant, made Bobo laugh. This is a great interactive book with a little science and a surprise ending. Published in 2008, it is also my "old" pick. Now, for the new!

A new Elmer book, and a superhero character too! Super El gets caught in a bush and tears his super suit. Elmer helps him get to Aunt Zelda to mend it without being seen by the other animals. How embarrassing! Bobo loves rainbow, so he adores Elmer. Our favorite part was finding Aunt Zelda. We first saw her with a group of elephants, but it was easy to pick her out of the crowd.

"Cave Boy had lots of things. Rocks. Sticks. A club. But no pet." The simple illustrations in this book are perfect for a toddler. I love the caveman speech and had lots of fun imitating it. Cave Boy has to find the right pet for his family, not too big and not too allergenic. At the end, he has some problem solving to do.

We love this non-fiction series with foldout pages. Bobo loved all the little ninjas, like him. The book goes over common karate terms, warm-ups and stances. Our favorite was the criss-cross applesauce block, which we used all weekend.

What is your child reading? I love hearing about books!

Tot Trays: Child-Led Trays

I found lots of great Crayola products in the clearance bins at Meijer, like this dry-erase center. It came with several sheets and clings. The sheets are o.k. Bobo really likes the make-your-own superhero sheet (no surprise there). The clings do not work, though. We always love using 2 Teaching Mommies printables.

Our tot trays this week were child-led, so there is no rhyme or reason, at least to me. Mixing colors is an activity we do at least a couple of times a week.

I coaxed him into making a rain cloud.

"Can I cut this?" I'll be honest, this one made me nervous. I kept reminding him to hold his scissors correctly. I figured if he held the scissors right, there would be less chance of injury. He can tell when he's making me nervous now, so after he was done he held up his hands and said, "See, still have fingers." Too funny!

Magnet people. I'm looking for more ways to incorporate the magnet/dry erase board. Any ideas? I'd love to make magnets out of things I have around the house.

We also made some buggy crafts, which I'll post about later. We're linking up with Tot School.

Book Review: Dinosaur VS. The Potty by Bob Shea

I don't necessarily review new books coming out, but I had to review a Dinosaur VS. book since The Potty just came out as a board book. Yay for durability! Yay for books that can go in the bathroom without fear of retribution from the librarian! Yay for Dinosaur!

"Dinosaur is a little red dinosaur who might remind you of a toddler you know," said Bob Shea, author of the Dinosaur books. In Dinosaur VS. The Potty, Dinosaur drinks lots of lemonade without using the potty. Dinosaur wins! Then, Dinosaur plays in the sprinklers without using the potty. Dinosaur wins! As we all know, Dinosaur can't defeat the potty forever. Read the book to find out what finally gets Dinosaur into the bathroom.

Shea's picture books have large illustrations with sparse, hilarious text. They are perfect to read with a large group of toddlers, after encouraging them to roar like a dinosaur of course. The board book version is wonderful for little hands to view "by myself." Best of all, Dinosaur faces some of the same situations as toddlers such as bedtime and the library.

As a delightful surprise while researching Bob Shea for this review, I discovered his fabulous sense of humor.

Here's a photo of a bear I fought this one time. I totally won. Yeah, I know, I'm pretty brave. --Bob Shea

365 Days Outdoors: Moon Sand

We are transitioning into our Outer Space theme and worked on our sensory bin outside today. We used flour and baby oil to make moon sand.

Bobo measured about 10 cups of flour and poured it in our box. Then, he helped me measure 1 cup of baby oil and poured it in. This was the point where he told me he wasn't touching it.

It smells good. You still don't want to touch it? "No."

I added some tools and that was acceptable.

But, it was more fun to pretend to be a kung fu master with the tools.

365 Days Outdoors: Tag

Tag, you're it!