Kate and Boo

More Snowman Fun

Reagan is home sick today (she had a bad headache all day yesterday, but seems better today), and I made the girls a snowman parts lunch.

Before school, Ellie and Collin decorated styrofoam cups to look like snowmen.

Kate and Reagan used them for snowman bowling.

We used "snowballs" that were given to us for Christmas by Auntie Cyn and Uncle George, but rolled up socks or pieces of white paper would work too.

Here are two bowling videos that I love:

It's snowing out right now, so who knows, maybe we will get to build a real snowman!

Snowman Fun

There is no snow on the ground right now, but we are making our own snowman fun.

I printed the five little snowmen from The Activity Mom site and taped them to craft sticks.  Kate and I watched the Five Little Snowmen video and kind of sang along.

I saw an idea for a melted snowmen bath on Pinterest.  I thought it was cute, but I knew Kate would not get in the tub with the shaving cream snowmen (she doesn't even like bubbles in her bath), so I put them in our sensory tub instead.

 I added a drop of blue food coloring to the water before adding the melted snowmen.

I told Kate she could use her hands, but she chose a spoon instead.  I knew she would.

She was very excited about adding a drop of red food coloring to the water.

She liked that the water then turned purple.

 Then she wanted to add more and more food coloring.

It took a while for the food coloring to blend with the shaving cream, so we had a pretty swirly tub of color for a bit.  Kate loved it.

Yesterday, all of the kids enjoyed snowman doughnuts.

I still have plans for snowman bowling and snowy paint.  Hopefully, those happen soon!

Children's Museum Visit

Kate and I have been visiting the Children's Museum once a month, and she has so much fun there.  I enjoy watching her explore and play.  Here are a few highlights from today's visit:

Kate played in the water room for the longest amount of time.  She enjoys pouring, filling, and dumping water.  She was very wet, and so was the floor in this room - they could use a mop in there!

This is kinetic sand.  It's very moldable.  Kate liked rolling it out and cutting it.

There were wadded up pieces of white paper to serve as snowballs to be thrown into the holes on this snowman.  Kate decided it was easier to just walk up to the snowman and put the snowballs in the holes.

I used to have stacking cubes like this for the other three kids, but we don't have any now, and Kate has never played with them before.  She had fun stacking them and knocking them down.

Here is a short video of her stacking the cubes and knocking them down:

I thought this penguin was really cute.  It's just a shoebox decorated to look like a penguin.  They had construction paper fish to put in the penguin's mouth.  Kate worked VERY hard at trying to pick up the fish with the tongs and feed the penguin.  After a few tries, she picked the fish up with her fingers and fed him that way instead.

She thought Elmo was hungry too, and filled his mouth with fish.

Kate was very excited to see a table set up with supplies for making bird feeders.  She recognized the idea as the one we did at home recently (except we used peanut butter).  She was happy to make one to bring home.

It's hanging outside, waiting for visitors!

I love that every visit to the museum is a different experience.

No Front Teeth

Reagan actually lost her second front tooth on January fifth.  I'm a little late posting a picture!  Someday she will have two front teeth again!  It's going to take some time to get used to that since she has been missing one of her front teeth since the age of three!  There is already a tooth growing in to replace the tooth she lost on the fifth, but there is NO sign at all of a tooth to replace the pulled tooth.

Letter I and Fun Play

Kate finished up her letter I activities this morning.  She loves Elephant and Piggie books; Reagan does too, and often reads them to Kate.

I showed Kate how to use an ink pad to stamp the letter I.  She liked this, and she is now napping with quite a bit of blue ink on her hands, arms, stomach, and face.  I washed off what I could, but that ink isn't as washable as it claims to be.

It is a dreary, rainy day, so we spent the whole morning playing.

Since Kate enjoyed cookie cutter stamping, I thought she might like these little stamps with the small ink pad that Reagan uses, but Kate prefers the cookie cutters and the large ink pads.

Kate asked for her bears, and she sorted them in the correct bowls.

This magnetic ballerina was dressed and undressed over and over again.

Kate also played tea party, sandwich shop, and veterinarian today.  She loves to play with her toys.  Collin and Kate have this in common.  Tyler and Reagan hardly ever (Reagan still doesn't) played with toys.

We are also having a snowman theme this week, but I'm saving that for another post.  Unfortunately, we don't have any real snow, just rain!

I is for Ice Cream

Our current theme is I is for Ice Cream.  The ice cream scoops and cones are popular around here. We have had them since Collin was Kate's age.  Inside each scoop is the corresponding color word. They are from Learning Resources.  We are missing two of the scoops - red and brown, but the set has held up really well.

Kate loved scooping snow into her play ice cream cones.  I refilled the snow bowl three times.  This was a great way for her to play in the snow without getting cold.  She scooped, dumped, and scooped again for a long time.

 Kate received this PlayDoh ice cream set for Christmas.

 Her favorite part of the set is definitely the whipped cream.

Collin and Reagan joined her later in the day.  Everyone enjoyed making ice cream treats.

They had some real ice cream too, but I didn't get any good pictures of that!

 She colored and glued together her own ice cream cone.

Here she is "reading" Curious George Goes to an Ice Cream Shop.  She is very good at retelling stories right now, and also very good at making up her own stories to go along with books she is not familiar with yet.

We had this ice cream cone chalk that Kate thought was kind of neat.

I made her ice cream for breakfast.  

Kate also enjoyed stringing alphabet beads this week.  Her attention span allowed us to string A-K; she did all of the stringing, I just handed her the letters.

The letter stringing set is made by Alex Toys.  It's cute, and Kate seems to enjoy it.  The stringing is great fine motor work.