Monster Mania!

We enjoyed our last theme day so much that we decided to have another one. This time the theme was monsters and we had a blast.

C and R love these monster books:

The Monster at the End of This Book by Jon Stone
Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak
Go Away, Big Green Monster by Ed Emberley

C is YELLING his best monster yell!

R is showing me her scary monster face complete with claws!

Dancing like monsters was fun too! Two of our favorite monster songs are The Monster Mash by Boris Pickett (click on that link and watch the animated sing-along; it's super cute!) and The Monster Boogie by Laurie Berkner.

C and R created their own monsters:

R's monster

C's monster

Finally, this Melissa & Doug make your own monster puppet kit
was just sitting in a closet for the longest time. I don't know what I was waiting for; it was a big hit. C and R created different monsters for the better part of the afternoon.The body of the monster puppet is a plain purple sock just waiting to be decorated with all of these very cool monster parts. All of the parts have velcro and are easily attached to and detached from the body.We are looking forward to our next theme day. What should it be? So far, we have had a dragon day and a monster day so I think it is time for something girly! What do you think?

Hiking the Hills of MA

This past weekend, we took C hiking. It was a great workout and a fun adventure, but it was hot!



This hike was challenging for me. We hiked over a lot of rocky terrain and I had to use my hands a lot. It's a little embarrassing that my almost five year old son is better at hiking than I am. I do enjoy it though.

Our puppy loves hiking. She can sense when we are getting ready to go out for a hike and it is funny to see how excited she gets. She especially loves running through streams. We have worked very hard to train her, and she is able to hike off leash the entire time.

We saw a lot of mushrooms on this hike.

Do you think C enjoys hiking?


After the hike, we completed the first page of his REI Adventure Journal.
We had a great day!

The Importance of Open-ended Play

Open-ended play is so important for the development of our children. Read this article to find out why we need to take a step back and let our children create, explore, and discover without any guidance.

How do you encourage open-ended play with your children?

Caterpillars!

Our caterpillar larvae arrived! We are looking forward to observing the metamorphosis of our caterpillars.

C and R have enjoyed listening to the following books about caterpillars and butterflies:
From Caterpillar to Butterfly by Deborah Heiligman
Monarch and Milkweed by Helen Frost and Leonid Gore
Butterfly Butterfly by Petr Horacek
The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle
Fancy Nancy Bonjour Butterfly by Jane O'Connor

Tot school

R is 40 months old

Picking blueberries was a fun activity this week. R loved eating them too! You can read this post if you want to know more about our blueberry picking and the related activities we did.

I had forgotten we had these Tangrams. R used to get very frustrated trying to get them just right, but now she enjoys them.

This is our puppy. She is a Bernese Mountain Dog and R loves to help take care of her.

I tried to teach R how to properly hold a miniature golf club, but she preferred her own technique.

R mixed different sidewalk chalk colors in our driveway puddles. She was very pleased with the results. We had many different colored puddles and then it rained and the colors spread across the driveway. It looked so pretty and I didn't get a picture. We'll have to do this again. I love that it was R's idea!

R's favorite books of the week:
Blueberries for Sal
Jamberry
Fancy Nancy
Fancy Nancy and the Posh Puppy
Llama Llama Mad at Mama
Visit 1+1+1=1 to read more about Tot School!

Celebrate Maine!

The governor of Maine recently declared the month of August to be Maine Lobster Month. If you are interested in celebrating the great state of Maine, click here to see the adorable egg carton lobsters we made and learn how to make one of your own!

Open ended art - yellow collage

We have been working on the letter "Y" and lucky for us, the open ended art project this week is yellow collage! Perfect.

I first told C and R that we were going to make collages in a color that starts with the letter "Y". I then sent them to the arts and crafts drawers (without telling them what the color was) and let them find what they needed.

I was pretty confident that they knew the color was yellow because we had recently made yellow yarn Ys. Once they were satisfied with the materials, they glued their yellow items onto white card stock.

Here are the final products:

C made this collage

R made this collageTo see the other open ended art projects, visit Teaching My Little Bookworm.