Winter Wonderland Sensory Bin

In Texas we don't really get white Christmas's, we occasionally get snow flurries maybe even enough to stick for an hour or so but never snow up to your ankles. The last time I remember snow like that in Texas I was six...so it's been a while ;)  Since I don't think we are planning a winter trip this year I brought winter to us in the form of a sensory bin.

It doesn't take a lot to make a sensory bin, or a lot of money. I got most of the things on sale before Thanksgiving, all under $2. The most expensive thing in there is the Toob- Arctic animals pack. Most of the items are from Hobby Lobby, Dollar Store or Michael's)

So what's in there...

1 bag fake snow

 mini presents for small trees

 pack of small and large trees for Christmas villages

 cinnamon sticks

fake candy canes (Dollar store)

 scrap booking die cut snowflakes

 mini snowmen and penguins

 Toob animals (Michael's)

B exploring the bin.

*If you use the snow; put a blanket/towel down under the bin for easy clean up,

 or you'll be finding snow pieces for weeks. ;)

Christmas count down

Still playing catch up here, but here is how we are counting down the days until Christmas.

Ours is simple: ribbons, mini clothespins, mini stockings and fun Christmas socks with numbers. Each morning he gets to see what's in that day's stocking. Some are trinkets, candy and others are little notes about the fun things we'll do that day; like building a Gingerbread house or going to look at Christmas lights. He is loving it.

I also wanted him to understand that Christmas isn't just about getting things. I want him to see the joy he gets from giving and helping others, as well as the joy they receive from that giving. He already loves to be a helper, so hopefully this will just build on that.

Our Giving Box...

Our little box from Hobby Lobby, painted and decorated with scrap booking stickers. Every day I change the number and the giving tag inside.

Some of our giving tags...

Help set the table

Give the dog a treat

Give a toy to charity

Help empty the dishwasher

Tell someone why you love them

How are you counting down Advent this year?

Giving Thanks

Okay, so I'm WAY behind & I'm playing catch up. Between the holidays beginning, illness, birthday parties, lesson plans and life in general; I've fallen behind in my blogging. So if you haven't already been able to tell I'm trying to get the last month in so I can post about our fun activities for December. So like I said in the Sick day post, our Thanksgiving unit got cut short but we did manage to squeeze in a few fun activities.

Here is our Thanksgiving 'tree'. I originally wanted to do a large one the wall with paper cutouts, but then decided it was too much work and we really didn't have the wall space. So I started to look around at what we had & came up with this. I didn't spend a dime on it, it was all stuff I had plus it was nice and small. The limbs are from our backyard, the dry black beans from our pantry and the twine and construction paper from the school shelves. Yea for re-purposing! It took B a few days to understand what this tree was really about, we got the whatever he was looking at or thinking about at that moment responses for a few but then the more meaningful ones came. We will definitely be recreating this one next year.

Since our unit was shortened due to illnesses, I had to re-think our plans. So each day we learned something new about Thanksgiving.

Day One...

The Mayflower: Large ship that carried the Pilgrims to America.

 The sail was larger but B decided he didn't want to cut along the lines. ;)

Day Two...

The Pilgrims - we read a few stories on them, looked at pictures and made a hat.

Day Three...

The Indians (Native Americans) - we reread books and looked at other pictures and made the feathered hat.

We even got to put together these fun shape Indians from 2Teaching Mommies.

Day Four...

Thanksgiving - Re read again and talked about the feast and how the Indians help the Pilgrims

 by showing them how to grow crops.

 We made some Indian corn too.

We also talked about the differences between the Pilgrims and Indians.

*also from 2TeachingMommies.

A fun Thanksgiving turkey snack.

Day Five...

Thanksgiving day...We made this shirt at the beginning of the week, B liked making something he got to wear. He got so many comments that day too about his 'turkey' shirt. He liked telling them it said 'happy' and 'day'. Yes, there is a bruise under his eye. The night before, he leaned on the edge of a toy box and it popped back up and hit him. Luckily no black eye.

Hope everyone had a Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday to my sweet little guy who turns 3!

I'm not sure where the time went, but it flew. This week as we've watched videos and looked at pictures of you as a baby and how much you've changed and become a wonderful, loving, smart, handsome, friendly little man; I'm amazed and so proud to be your Mommy! 

You truly are a blessing.

Sick days...

This week we were going to start our Thanksgiving unit, however this was quickly thrown out the window when B became sick. Generally I'd give him at least a few low keyed activities to do, but this illness was not like anything he's had before. He was actually begging to sleep and to be cuddled. So I knew there was really something wrong. Since we still had another week before Thanksgiving & not only his illness but Daddy as well; I surrendered and became a pajama wearing, sleepy head with them. While my mind raced with all the things I needed to be doing, I decided that all those things could wait because sometimes you just need to 'be' and cuddle a little more.

Poor little guy spend almost a week on the sofa.



Big Machines

This week has been a busy week, so we were a little lacks on activities. Instead we were prepping for B's birthday, which this year is all about construction. He's slightly obsessed with anything construction, he will point out and name every vehicle while we're driving. So in the theme of construction, I found a Big Machines Unit online at 1plus1plus1equals1

We got to color bulldozers.

 Counting Big Machines

We even got to read about how much we liked each of the big machines.

He loves locks & keys, so I though this was appropriate with the machine theme, since they always lock them up at night.

Finding the right fit.

I had planned to let B take his construction trucks out to the dirt or sand box this day, but it FINALLY rained.
 So the next best thing, playdoh. While this wasn't as fun as dirt, he loved scooping it up in his excavator and putting it in the dump truck.

And then there was making tracks in it, since they all had different wheels.

B is very into games right now, but not generally matching. He seems to give me this 'please mom, I am SO past this' every time I give him a matching project. However these two were different, I'm sure because they were all about trucks and vehicles. The found the Tonka stickers above at the dollar store & knew right away they'd be a hit.

These stickers came from a playgroup buddy (thanks N).  I hate for good stickers to be a one time only thing, and these were awesome, not only were there two of each character, they were puffy! So I decided we need to get more than one use out of these cool guys. B was excited when I suggested we make a game out of them. He had a blast making this matching game & then playing it. He loves that it's Bob the Builder too!

We were also lucky a few weeks before this unit and his birthday we got to visit a REAL construction site, thanks to an old friend (thanks K). Here are a few shots from that day; he had a BLAST! For days afterwards he talked about all these big machines.

 Can you tell how happy he is?

And then there was the dirt! You can see it on his hands, but what's harder to see is it's actually all over his face too.

Oh to be a mother of a little boy ;)

Our Five Senses

This week was a short one for us, so we decided to work on something that didn't require much prep time and that was an easy unit to cover just the basics. So I came up with the 5 Senses, since we are entering the holiday season we'll be on sensory overload soon.

Above is our repurposed learning trays, into sensory trays.
 Each tray had a picture of a sense and an activity to expaned on it.

Here's our sight tray...

we used a magnifying glass to look closly at the detail on objects we found on an afternoon walk.

Exploring with our eyes.

One of our touch activities. I placed all these objects in the empty tissue box and B would try to figure out what he felt in the box. We talked about objects being hard, soft, bumpy, squishy etc.

Another one of our touch activities: I filled sandwich baggies with different objects, such as sand, salt rocks, shampoo, & jelly. You can't really go wrong with it, it's all about describing textures. I have heard of putting small objects inside the others (glitter, small toys, sea shells etc.) sort of like a hide & seek. *Make sure you tape the top of the baggies, so little ones don't try to open them and make a hugh mess.

This is our funny felt man for five senses. We have differnt noses, eyes, ears, & mouth so B was able to come up with some funny faces. You could also use Mr. Potato Head for the same kind of activity, if you have multiple facial pieces.

Here is one of our review of the 5 Senses activities. Each page has a sense on it & we looked through magazines and papers to find objects that we either touch, taste, hear, smell or see. This was meant to be a cutting activity as well, but B kept cutting through the pictures he wanted and was becoming frustrated...it had already been a rough day, so sometimes we compramise. Instead he'd find the pictures and Mommy would cut them out.

Here are some of the other sensory activities we did but didn't get a picture of...

Smell: Sniff bottles, we used old spice contaniners and dropped a cotton ball with different smells in each (vanilla, lemon, orange, garlic etc.). We made popcorn (covers many senses).

Hearing: We listened to music and then played different instruments. We also read a short story & then I asked questions to see if B was listening. (what kind of food did the boy cook? popcorn, ice cream or apples)

Taste: We sampled different kinds of foods and talked about how they tasted; were they salty/sweet/bitter/sour.

 There were a lot more activities I wanted to cover with this unit, but since our week was short we'll just have to review the 5 Senses again some time.

Of course, we used multiple senses on many things all the time, so we made it a game of "what senses do we use for ___ ?" This game was so fun Daddy even got in on it.

Here are a few of our books about the senses. We even looked at abstract art books, which B really seemed to enjoy...wonder where he gets that from. ;)