Emma School

For one of Emma’s Personal Progress projects she held a mini preschool.  She patterned it after Mommy School, so we started referring to it as Emma School.  She invited two of Isaac and Grace’s friends, Phillip and Seoul, for a day of pirate fun.  Emma put in a lot of preparation and had some fun activities for the kids.  When they first arrived they got to dress up as pirates with the swords and eye patches that Emma made as well as bandanas. 

Then she led them into the kitchen where they decorated spyglasses. 

Emma read them one of our favorite pirate books How I Became a Pirate.  The rest of the activities followed after what the boy in the book did.

First they made sand castles out of Rice Krispy treats.

Then they found a treasure map that led them all around the back yard. 

The map started at the slide.  At the bottom they found their pirate ships and sailed to the other places on the map.

They walked the plank to the trampoline and jumped off the other side.  There they found a soccer ball that they had to kick a number of times.

Then they sailed in their ships and practiced talking like a pirate until they found the X and the treasure box.  The treasure box was filled with chocolate coins for each of them.  Emma helped them count their loot.

Then it was time for a snack, which had to be Pirate’s Booty of course!  They snacked while Emma did some worksheets with them.  Then she read them some more pirate books before it was time to leave. 

Emma did a great job with the kids.  She was patient and had fun with them.  I was proud of her.  As a follow-up to the day she made a card for each of the kids and delivered them with some pirate “cannonballs”. 

I was really glad that Emma chose to do a pirate theme.  It very nicely ended the last Mommy School theme of pirates that I had started back in May.  We never finished.  We read lots of pirate books all summer long because I kept renewing them thinking I would eventually get around to the activities I had planned.  We made pirate ships in May.  We also borrowed a Jake and the Neverland Pirates DVD from the library.  They loved it!

In June we made pirate heads and Jell-o pirate ships.

In July we worked on pirate worksheets and painted treasure boxes.

And then in September they attended Emma School!

Mommy School-Spring & Easter

Mommy school this round was all about spring and Easter.  We talked about and read lots of books on spring weather, planting seeds, new life and the Easter story.  We started off by planting grass seed together. 

Isaac and Grace were so excited to check their grass each morning.

They were happy with the results even if they were a little scraggly this year.

We also talked about the life cycle of a chicken.  I found this cute diagram and we got to work making our own.  They loved to recite the cycle and point it out on their art project.

And of course we had to have a special chick lunch!

Another day after reading a book about nests we made our own edible bird nests. 

I guess it would be more accurate to say Peeps nests!

We finally tried doing some marble painting to decorate giant eggs.  It was so fun and totally mess-free since we used covered aluminum pans.  idea here.  The eggs turned out beautiful.

The most favorite activity of all this time around was the egg hunt lunch.  An Easter egg hunt is always fun, but even more so when the contents make up your lunch!

Isaac and Grace were thrilled to eat out of the eggs.

Another day we talked about the triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem.  Isaac and Grace practiced their scissor skills by making their own palm leaves to wave while yelling Hosanna!

Some friends joined us while we made paper plate tombs like last year.  The boys quickly made theirs before running off to play more “mad guys”, while the girls took lots of time perfecting theirs.

After Easter was over, we did one more quick chick craft.  Isaac and Grace painted chick bodies with a shower puff, then added the details.  I love seeing those cute spring chicks on our wall!

Mommy School-Rainbows & St. Patrick’s Day

See my St. Patrick’s Day Pinterest board for the sources of these projects.

For Mommy School in the middle of March we talked all about rainbows and leprechauns.  We read several books that involved both subjects.  Our first project was to make paper plate leprechauns, complete with red, fringed beards.

I love how Isaac put his hat together.  I also love his crooked smile, it totally looks like one of the funny faces he actually makes.  And then I love that Grace put little cheek marks at the ends of her smile.

Another day we made some dancing leprechauns.  Isaac and Grace loved that they moved.

After reading The Leprechaun Who Lost His Rainbow by Sean Callahan we had to make rainbows.  The book helped Isaac and Grace to learn the order of the colors of the rainbow.  I made this homemade watercolor paint for our rainbow project.  I loved how bright the colors were initially, but they dried much duller and it also has a gritty texture.  It was fun to try something new though and Isaac and Grace have enjoyed using the paints for other projects as well.

When the rainbows were dry we added some tissue paper streamers and cotton ball clouds.  The windsocks look great hanging in our window.

We also tried out a rainbow science experiment with shaving cream and food coloring.  Our first attempt didn’t work very well, it took a long time for the rainbow to rain out of the clouds. 

The second attempt was much better.  We loved watching the colors fall.

Another day Isaac and Grace woke up from their nap to find a trail of shamrocks leading to Lucky Leprechaun Dust.  When we added milk to the jars and shook them up really good we got pistachio pudding.  It was a fun little green treat!  Isaac was excited to be eating something pistachio since his favorite movie quote is “whatever you do, don’t eat the pistachio ice cream…”  Emma was lucky enough to get one too.  Too bad she doesn’t like pistachio pudding so I may have had to help her out!

We ended this Mommy School theme with rainbow waffles (for dinner of course!).  The kids thought these were so cool!  I think they turned out pretty cute!

Finally, all this talk of rainbows has made Grace excited to draw her own.  The order of colors might be a little backwards, but she did a good job!

Mommy School-Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss!

See my Dr. Seuss Pinterest board for sources for some of these activities and more!

We spent the whole week of Dr. Seuss’ birthday reading his books and doing activities around them.   It was much easier for me to spread the reading of several Dr. Seuss books over a week, instead of all on one day like we did last year.  Most of those books are really long!  We started the week by reading There’s A Wocket in My Pocket.  We played the “what’s the missing object” game.  I put out a bunch of small objects.  One of the kids went out of the room while the other chose one to hide in their pocket.  The one who went out of the room had to come back and guess which object was hidden in the pocket.  Isaac and Grace LOVED this game.  The funny thing was that they couldn’t wait until the other guessed the object, they usually had to show it before!  We’ll definitely be playing games like this again.

The next day we read One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish.  We made our own handprint fish.

Isaac and Grace also graphed some colored goldfish crackers. 

Later in the week we pretended we were Yinks who like to drink Pink Ink (yinks make an appearance in One Fish, Two Fish…).  Isaac and Grace thought this was so funny!

The next day we read Bartholomew and the Oobleck.  Of course we had to make some oobleck.  This was a huge hit!  They were a little tentative at first, but quickly dug right in and made a huge mess.  It was fun and kept all of us, me included, occupied for quite awhile!

Later that day we read Green Eggs and Ham and made some easy green eggs out of white chocolate and green M&M’s.  We finished them just in time for Emma to eat them with us when she got home from school.

The next day we devoted to The Cat in the Hat. We made the cutest project out of paper plates and we ate some red and white striped hat snacks.

Isaac and Grace also made their own striped hats to wear.

The next day was Dr. Seuss’ birthday.  We continued with The Cat in the Hat theme by having a red and white stack of pancakes for breakfast.

We also read Horton Hears a Who.  We made Horton the elephant out of toilet paper rolls.  He was even holding a pink clover with a speck of dust on it.  When we first made the clover Isaac and Grace were cracking me up by putting it up to their ears and listening for a Who.  Isaac also decorated the Horton in the book with the pieces to his project.  So funny!  I tried to feed them a pink clover snack.  I was hoping the pink cottage cheese with the white chocolate chip on top would trick them into thinking cottage cheese was good.  I was mistaken.  They each took a little bite and quickly declared it yucky.  Oh well, I tried and they sure looked cute!

For lunch that day we had a special Cat in the Hat spread.

That afternoon we went to the local Dr. Seuss birthday celebration.  Isaac and Grace talk about going to it last year whenever we pass the store where it is held.  They were so excited to go again this year.  Unfortunately we had to leave early before they let the kids pick a book to take home.  They were definitely disappointed but were happy to take home a few other goodies.  I stuffed them into their Thing 1 and Thing 2 shirts again this year.  Good thing 3/4 length sleeves are in right now!  Pretty sure this is the last year for those.

Later that night they watched the Horton Hears a Who movie with Emma while Lee and I went to the temple.  The perfect way to end our Dr. Seuss week!