E is for Egg!

Countinuing with our "E" theme, we talked about eggs. We read "The Noisy Egg" by Judith Nicholis. This adorable book has one of Isaac's favorie features--touch and feel pages! The book contained several different textures. Isaac especially enjoyed the fuzzy duck!

We read and colored a mini book called "Where is the egg?" (from 1+1+1=1's "Raising Rock Stars" Letter E Unit).

We spent some time playing with the Egg Carton Busy Bag and then we went outside to have an egg hunt. I scattered the eggs in the grass and thought Isaac would enjoy picking them up, but...

All he wanted to do was bang on the shed door with a stick! :)

Busy Bag Idea: Egg Carton

I recently discovered a wonderful activity for little ones--busy bags (thanks to Unsolicited Advice)! A busy bag is a gallon-sized ziptop bag that contains an (often hand-made) activity that provides a child independent practice with some kind of skill. The busy bag can be pulled out when mom needs a few minutes--like when finishing up dinner prep!

I have made several busy bags and I hope to highlight them here soon. One of the first I put together is an egg carton activity.

• Supplies: Half an egg carton, markers, and six differently-colored plastic eggs
• Use the markers to color each section of the egg carton one of the colors of your plastic eggs
• Allow your child to have fun removing and replacing the eggs from the carton, and matching up the colors if he is able (he'll grow into this part of the activity over time)
• Place the egg carton and eggs in a ziptop bag for easy storage 

Skills your child will practice:

• One-to-one correspondence
• Color matching
• Grasping/Fine Motor Movement

Isaac (19 months) enjoys playing with the egg carton for 5-10 minutes, but he usually ends up throwing the eggs!

E is for Elephant (Muffins!)

Isaac loves to help in the kitchen. It seems like every time I go into the kitchen, he runs to his step-stool and signs "please!" Already, he's able to pour ingredients, stir, and rinse dishes. Hopefully his motivation to help will continue as he grows!

Elephant Muffin Ingredients
-3/4 cup peanut butter
-1 cup milk
-1/4 cup melted butter
-2 well beaten eggs
-2 1/4 cups flour
-1/3 cup brown sugar
-1 tablespoon baking powder
-pinch of salt


1. Using a mixer, blend together the peanut butter, milk, melted butter, and eggs.

2. Slowly mix in the flour, brown sugar, baking powder, and salt.

3. Scoop into lined or greased muffin tins.

Please excuse the somewhat crinkled muffin cups. Isaac helped to put them in the muffin pan--great for hand/eye coordination and one to one correspondence, not so great for neat and tidy muffin cups!

4. Bake at 400 degrees for about 15 minutes.

Enjoy!

I think I'll add some choclate chips next time because I love peanut butter and chocolate together. 

ABC Fun: The Journey Begins!

I love doing little projects with Isaac that are lots of fun--and that sneak in learning too! I really believe in exposing children to a text-rich environment at an early age, and Isaac and I have had a lot of fun exploring the alphabet together.

I decided to start blogging so that I would have a record of our activities together. I also would like a little accountability in keeping up with doing these activities with him. In the busyness of the day, it is easy to overlook. And finally, I would like to be a resource of ideas for others!

As we complete activities, I post them on Isaac's door. He loves looking at them and pointing to the things that he has done. Below are some photos of our activities for letters A-D. Look for more detailed posts starting with the letter E!

Letter A

Letter B

Letter C

Letter D

E is for Elephant!

We read the book, "Stand Back," Said the Elephant, "I'm Going to Sneeze!" by Patricia Thomas. This fun rhyming book is about the animals trying to talk the elephant out of sneezing because they don't want the terrible things that happened last time he sneezed to happen again (the zebras don't want their stripes to fall off again)!

After reading the book, we recited one of the rhymes we learned at Babygarten at the library, "Hey Elephant." Here's how the rhyme goes:

One Elephant went out to play

Out on a spider's web one day

He had such enormous fun

That he called for another elephant to come:

HEY ELEPHANT! (cup your hands to your mouth and say it loudly!)

Stomp, stomp, stomp (stomp your little one's feet or have them stomp along with you)

Two elephants went out to play...
Three elephants went out to play...

Then we went on an elephant hunt in Isaac's room, reciting our poem the entire time! All three of our elephants are from Melissa and Doug toys, the matching set is from a Noah's Ark set and the third elephant is from the safari chunky puzzle. 

I hid the elephants around the room and Isaac had to find them!

Once he found them, we gathered them on a spider's web that I found from a quick google images search.

We played over and over and over again!