P, Q, R

It's been a while and a crazy, difficult couple of weeks.  Our temperatures have soared into the high 90's and we've been cooped up inside to keep from roasting my littles in the afternoons.  Thank goodness for some ready at hand fun from Mother Goose Time.

On Friday we had a long overdue class with our friend and learned about Polar Bears, Quail and Rattlesnakes as we did projects and played games.

The included Zoogo card game was a huge hit and I plan to play it with the girls tonight with Daddy.  It's basically played the same as Uno, except instead of numbers they use animals we have been learning about this month.  You could easily make your own version of it by printing a sheet of pictures of your own choice (farm animals, transportation, items of clothing, letters, numbers, shapes) on four different colors of paper.  This game is great for helping children work on problem solving skills as they decide whether to match by color or picture, as well as reinforcing vocabulary and/or early academic skills.  I had them put their cards face up on the table and at each turn, asked them if they had a card with the same color or animal as the card in play.  After a few times around, the older girls no longer needed reminders and Littlest would place the correct by herself with a verbal cue.

We talked about rattlesnakes and they practiced their best slithering and snake sounds before making the rattlesnake rattle project, which of course evolved into bracelets because all three of these little girls love jewelry.  String beads onto pipe cleaners is a great fine motor project, even better than using yarn or string for young kids, because the pipe cleaner is nice and firm so they only have to concentrate on getting the bead on and not holding it still.  You could work on patterning with the beads but I chose to let them do it their way.

I think the favorite activity of the day was painting their feet for the Polar Bear project.  We talked about what they would need to protect their feet out in the snow and ice and discussed how polar bear feet are special in that way.  These girls love getting painted and each very patiently waited for me to get to her, then giggled as the paintbrush tickled their toes.  I had to watch Littlest carefully after she was done because liked it so much, she wanted to do it herself.  Make sure you get that paint out of their reach or you may end up with an adorable little toddler toe path painted on your floor.  I loved their responses when I asked them what would happen if they met a polar bear; our friend said it would eat her, Miss M insisted it would protect her from the snowstorm with its warm fur and Littlest shouted "Boo!" indicating that it would either scare her or she would play games with it.  :)  These will be fun to look out in a few years when their feet have gotten so much bigger and I yearn for the little days.

For the Quail egg game, each girl made her own cozy nest and took turns carrying an egg from basket back to it, where she opened it and identified the letter tile inside.  Littlest told me the sounds they make, which I thought was super impressive.  The older girls also listed animals and people they could think of with names that started with that letter.  Miss M then tried to incubate her eggs by sitting on them.

That was all we had time for, although I plan to go back and do the rattlesnake skin shedding activity today or tomorrow, just for fun.