Read to Me Challenge--What My Children are Reading

2011Read to Me picture book challenge count is: 35 books!!

We have been learning about hibernation and winter these past few weeks and one of our favorite books about this was Old Bear. While he hibernates, Old Bear, dreams of when he was a cub enjoying the seasons throughout the year. This was a favorite.

We also read a few more books about our solar system. The favorite being The Magic School Bus Lost in the Solar System.

Luke's favorite book was Katy and the Big Snow. It went with him to "quiet time" and to bed at night with him. This copy is from the library, but I need to get our own copy because it will eventually need to be returned.

Books about the moon were also in this weeks rotation: Papa, Please get the Moon For Me;
Long Night Moon;
Snow Moon

We enjoyed some fun farmyard books and the wooden cutout artwork in the book Ride 'Em Cowboy really caught the kids attention.
The book What Do You do With a Tail Like This? kept us guessing as to what animal was pictured in the beautiful paper collage pictures.

Reading Theme Challenge-On Top of Spaghetti

This weeks Reading Theme Challenge book is On Top of Spaghetti by Paul Brett Johnson.

When I first read this book to the kids, I was surprised to realize that they didn't know about this song, but I am now happy to report, that after about 100 readings(and singings) they all now know it by heart.

Of course, we had to have alotta meatballs this week.
Kimmy and Luke were joined in the feast by 8 brothers and sisters, 2 parents and 1 friend.

80 meatballs were NOT enough.

The day after the meatball and spaghetti feast, were had plenty of leftover cooked spaghetti to craft with.

We mixed tempra paint with Elmer's glue and then mixed in some spaghetti until it was totally covered with paint. I had the kids mix the colors and spaghetti on the shiny side of freezer paper.

Next, each child had their own piece of freezer paper to make their pasta creation on.

Above is the first spaghetti that Kimmy touched. She picked it up after about a solid minute of yelling, "I can't touch it! I can't touch it! I can't touch it!" She finally touched it and then I couldn't stop her, although she was always very careful!

Kimmy had a chance to mix our next color.

The idea was to make a spaghetti "abstract art" sculpture. It was also fun to put the spaghetti down on the paper and then lift it up making wonderful "snake trails."

I am not sure what Gracie is thinking about here, but I couldn't resist adding this picture.

Luke mixed the green.

They had great time doing this unusual art.

This is the extent of the messiness of this activity. Not to bad, considering some of the other messes we have gotten into around here in the past.

Our finished masterpieces!

Mark's is a wonderful spiral, the others all seem to be free expression art. I was hoping that these would dry and we would be able to peel them off the paper and hang them up--but after 2 days of drying, and various artists repositioning their artwork, they are still squishy. One of the big kids suggested blow drying them, but we haven't tried that yet.

We had a lot of fun with this week's Reading Theme Challenge and we will never eat spaghetti again without remembering the fun we had. We will always remember Kim and Luke reminding everyone that "we don't eat glue and paint spaghetti!" A warning that I gave them before we started. We are also sure to never have a spaghetti and meatball dinner again without singing On Top of Spaghetti, because that is just the everyday silly things that this family does.

If You Give a Pig a Pancake-Reading Challenge

"If you give a pig a pancake she will want some syrup to go with it...."

You can't find books that are enjoyed any more than these books by Laura Numeroff.

We have had a lot of fun concentrating on this one wonderful book for the past few days. We colored, did mazes, listened to a great tape, made new felt pancakes and, of course, ate pancakes.

Our little copy of If You Give a Pig a Pancake is from our library system and includes a audiotape called The Piggy Polka. This tape contains a reading of the book and some songs. These songs are so cute. I could not find it on Amazon or I would have provided a link here, but it you can find it, it is priceless.

I found coloring pages here and here is a link to a maze.

I couldn't resist adding this blurry picture of Luke. He was soooo proud of his picture.
Of course, we couldn't enjoy this book without enjoying pancakes. We eat pancakes around here for breakfast, lunch and dinner, ( generally not on the same day) but we don't usually enjoy then with such fancy presentation.
Here is a "piggy" pancake.
Kimmy can get pretty tired waiting for the letter "p" to cook.
Some flowers and hearts.

They are as yummy as they look!

We learned that "p" is for pig, pancake style.

Of course, I added pancakes to the kids felt food this week. (I also added some Poptarts) You can never have too many felt breakfast foods.

Make sure you visit the Teachingtiny Tot's blog for more great pancake ideas.

Reading Theme Challenge-I Ain't Gonna Paint No More!

I Ain't Gonna Paint No More is a book that we were not familiar with, but what a treat it was. It instantly became a classic in our house.

From School Library Journal: PreSchool-Grade 2–"When Mama catches her son "paintin' pictures on the floor/and the ceiling/and the walls/and the curtains/and the door," she sticks him in the tub and declares, "Ya ain't a-gonna paint no more!" Fresh from his bath, the child rescues his hidden supplies and says, "So I take some red/and I paint my…/HEAD!" Subsequent rhymes move from neck down to feet as he adds gobs of color to different areas. Since the last word of each verse comes on the following page, readers get the satisfaction of completing the anticipated rhyme and seeing each newly painted body part with each page turn."

What else was there to do but break open the face (or body) paint and have some fun after reading the book, (over and over and over again).
Mommy painted little people.

Becky painted little people.Even Matthew, hearing the fun, painted little people.

"Don't get paint on the book, Grace. It is from the library."
Kimberly's beginning.

What a face.

Amy then decided to paint little people.

Mark felt that he was too old for such nonsense, but then decided it did look like fun.

This is what Matt did to Kimberly. She wanted the abc's on her belly, he obliged her.

That's a red outy button.

Lookin' tough, Mark.

Ok, I guess it is too much to resist even if you are almost 15 years old.

That's kind of scary, Amy, but pefect for Valentine's Day.

As in the book, when the fun was over it was time for a bath. I bought bathtub fingerpaint just for this occasion.

Looks like some more yucky fun.

The fun day ended, but those kids never did want to get out of the tub.

Reading Theme Challenge-A Very Special Valentine

Well, I ended up with a different "special Valentine" book than what Teachingtinytots was using for this weeks Reading theme challenge, but this book proved to be the perfect book for our Valentine day preparations.

Our Valentine craft was centered around A Very Special Valentine, by Geoffery Hayes.

We used:

red cardstock

pink and purple paper

a heart paper punch

peel and stick laminate

a picture of Kim and Luke

I cut two hearts out of the red cardstock and then cut another smaller heart out of the first heart. You can see it above, it is like a frame now. We needed two of these.
The kids then punched a bunch of purple, pink and white hearts out of paper.

I cut a piece of the peel and stick laminate big enough to fit out heart on. I placed the heart frame on the sticky side of the laminate first, I then centered the picture of the kids in the center of the "frame" opening" After these two steps, Kim and Luke stuck the punched out hearts onto the sticky laminate, covering the back of our frame. I then glued the second red heart "frame" onto the back of our first heart and cutouts. We placed another sheet of laminate on the back and cut out the whole thing.

Then we were all done.

Kim and Luke are all set to give their Daddy their special Valentine.