Turtles

I hosted story hour at the coffee shop today and we read three books about turtles.

Turtle Day by Douglas Florian is a simple, but fun book about turtle's day from sunup to sundown.

Turtle Splash, Countdown at the Pond by Cathryn Falwell features ten turtles on a peaceful day at the pond.  One by one they dive into the water.

Scoot by Cathryn Falwell features six silent turtles sitting still as stones while the pond life moves about around them.  Will the turtles ever move?

All three of these books are fun to read.  The Falwell books both have great information about turtles and pond life at the end of the books.


The children decorated their own turtle shells (paper plates) with markers, crayons, glitter glue, and stickers.

 Last year, C and R made these turtles:




They are a little too complicated to make during a coffee shop story hour, but they are fun to make at home.  For directions, click here.

To see more book projects, check out stArt at A Mommy's Adventures.

Teacher Appreciation Week

I am always singing the praises of C's teacher; she is wonderful.  Honestly, she is one of those teachers that is just SO incredible that I have no idea how another teacher will ever come close to impressing me the way she does.  It is obvious that she loves her work.

This week, we are trying to show our appreciation for all of her hard work.  I found  a 20 compartment craft organizer at WalMart and we filled it with some trinkets from Staples.

We added fancy paper clips, binder clips, magnets, erasers, pencil grips, stickers, a mini highlighter, and Hershey's Kisses and Hugs. 

I used permanent puffy paint to write a special note and draw a heart on the cover.  I am only showing you a portion of the cover to protect her privacy. 

C also made her a very special card that we will put inside the case.  He is very excited to give her this special gift. 

* I got the idea for this gift from Frills, Fluff and Trucks - a fantastic blog, go check it out! 

A Giveaway for You

Whether you are in the market for baby cribs, toys, or home decor, CSN stores have the best selection and I definitely recommend that you visit their stores for all of your online shopping needs.

Today, I am happy to announce that CSN stores.com has generously offered to give one of my readers a $30 gift certificate to use on their site.

My babies are not really babies anymore, but I would have loved to have a mobile like this in the nursery:

If you win this giveaway, that beautiful butterfly mobile could be yours!  You can use the gift certificate to purchase anything you want from CSN, but I could not resist encouraging you to consider that pretty mobile for your little one.

If you could use $30 (who couldn't?) then enter my giveaway NOW!  You don't have to have a blog to enter this giveaway!  To enter, leave me a comment.  For an additional entry, follow my blog and leave me a comment telling me that you follow me!  For two additional entries, link this giveaway to your FB page, Twitter account, or blog about it.  Don't forget to leave one comment for each entry.  Please remember to leave an email address so that I can contact you if you win!  The winner will be chosen by random.org and once notified will have 48 hours to respond or I will choose a new winner.

*The Gift Certificate can only be used by residents of the U.S. or Canada and the entire $30 must be used on the first purchase.  If the total cost of basket exceeds the $30, you are responsible for the difference.  The Gift Certificate cannot be used towards the cost of shipping; if an item does not ship free, shipping charges still apply.

Hurry up and enter!  I hope you win!  This giveaway ends Friday, May 7, 2010 at 9:00 AM.

The Things a String Can Be

I recently won the book, The Things A String Can Be by Julie Goulis, in a giveaway hosted by Tara at Raising Itty Bitty Bookworms.  The book is about a boy who goes out to play and finds a piece of string in a puddle.  He imagines all of the things a string can be and then makes his own string creation.  The story is fun and there are great ideas for creating with string at the end of the book.

After reading the book, C and R used some cereal and their string to make necklaces.

I should say that C made a necklace;

R did string hers but it never actually became a necklace because she could not resist eating the cereal.

They also had fun creating string art.  R made balloons.  One balloon is made entirely out of string, the others are cereal balloons with string attached.

 C drew himself climbing up a rope (the string) to escape from dinosaurs.  It's hard to see the string, but it's there.  The cereal pieces he glued to the bottom of the page are rocks. 

 I had never heard of this book before the giveaway, but we are certainly happy that we won!

Fifty States Project - Kentucky Books

We are currently studying the state of Kentucky for our Fifty States Project.  These are the books we are reading:

A Horse Named Funny Cide by The Funny Cide Team  - An inspirational story of an unlikely champion.

The Last Black King of the Kentucky Derby by Crystal Hubbard - The story of one of history's finest horsemen and the last African American ever to win the Kentucky Derby.

B is for Bluegrass, A Kentucky Alphabet by Mary Ann McCabe Riehle - A journey through the alphabet that includes history, geography, and famous folk of Kentucky.  I really love this series of state alphabet books.  If you are planning to do a states study, I strongly recommend the series.  The nice thing about these books is that you can read the quick fact for each letter to young children and read the expanded text to older children.  I wish we owned the series because they are such nice books.  We have been lucky enough to find them at the library.

We may add more books to this list if we get any recommendations from readers or happen across a book that is set in Kentucky.  Recommendations are always appreciated!

To learn more about our Fifty States Project, click here.

Derby Day Photo Highlights

Fancy Hats

Fancy Drinks -- Nonalcoholic Mint Juleps

T hiding behind his Mint Julep

We know nothing about horse racing, but we had a lot of fun in the spirit of the Kentucky Derby!

Derby Horses

It's Derby Day!  C and R groomed their horses and they are ready to race.  Here they are:

R named her horse Alex Elizabeth

C named his horse Funny Face

To make the horses, I traced a horse onto cardboard and cut it out.  I then let C and R decorate their horses and gave them yarn to glue on for the mane and tail, and C wanted yarn on the back of his horse too.  I taped a popsicle stick to the back of R's horse so that she could hold it like a puppet but C wanted to hold his by the hooves so he doesn't have a stick.  

For more ideas to have fun at home in the spirit of the Kentucky Derby, click here.