Blueberries For Sal

We finished one more BFIAR book before Baby Boy came! Hooray! We will be taking a little break from Tot School to get accustomed to being a family of 4. I would say that this was probably one of Ember's least favorite books so far. She loved the activities, but she just didn't seem as excited about the book as usual. But the whole unit still turned out really well! Here is a glimpse of what we did! 

Read the book every day

Watched a YouTube reading of the book

Glued "blueberries" onto a bush

We made "Dancing Blueberries" by placing dried blueberries in carbonated soda and the carbonation bubbles made the blueberries float to the top and then sink back down. Pretty cool to watch!

We made some Blueberry scones with a lemon glaze! Delicious!

Worked on directional words with a little paper bear and some printed pictures (I forgot to take a picture of this!)

Continued to work on letter recognition by placing a "blueberry" on the correct letter

Sensory bin with shaving cream, a bear, and blueberries (blue beads)

Used finger to make blueberries in a little basket

Worked on a bear puzzle

Searched for "blueberries" in the house. Then Ember hid them for me to find! 

Fun unit overall!! Now for baby brother time!!

Jesse Bear, What Will You Wear?

"Jesse Bear, What Will You Wear?" was a fun tot school book! Ember really seemed to enjoy it! Here is a glance at what we did! 

We read the book every day

We read some similar themed books

We practiced following the lines while drawing

 (She got the up and down pattern but tried to do it for all of them...haha!)

We colored pieces of laundry and continued to work on some of the letters that are harder for her

We hung the laundry on a clothes line

We ate a "healthy lunch" like Jesse Bear did 

We glued Jesse Bear's healthy lunch to his plate for him

We worked on the four seasons and what to wear for each one with this little felt bear and some clothes I made for him.

We practiced patterns

We worked on seasons some more by creating a picture of Jesse Bear in each season!

Our sensory bin for this unit was supposed to be playing in a sand box before I realized that playgrounds don't have sand any more these days (just rubber or wood chips) and the only sand I could think of... I would have had to jump a fence about 9 months pregnant ... so we skipped that! :) 

My plan is to get in one more unit before Baby Boy arrives!!

UPDATE:

Here are some pictures of what happened to our little seeds that we planted back in "The Carrot Seed" unit in the clear cup greenhouses. They grew very well!

Caps for Sale

Well, this book took us a little longer than anticipated to get through. I blame the gorgeous weather and us just wanting to enjoy the outdoors! :) Whatever the reason, we finished and it was fun! This book really is a good one! Fun to read! 

Read "Caps for Sale" every day

Watched the animated story telling on YouTube

Read some complimentary books from the library

We had some alphabet letter upper and lower case matching letter cards with monkeys on them that we used multiple times to keep working on letter recognition (not her favorite) ... I just didn't take a picture of them

We made a mustache on a stick like the peddler in the book. Ember was a little frightened by this... so I used it :) 

We "stacked our caps" like in the book using a kabob stick in a play dough base. Then ate it of course!

I laminated pictures of items from the book and cut them up to create smaller puzzles for Ember to work on (forgot a picture of this too)

We stacked the caps on the monkeys head in the same order the caps were stacked on the peddler's head in the book.,

We played "Monkey See Monkey Do" (no picture since I was busy playing!!) She really enjoyed this game!

Ember practiced her counting skills by counting out the number of coins written on the back of each hat she wanted to buy from the tree.She did surprisingly well with this! 

We made Chocolate Dipped Bananas for a special treat. YUM! YUM!

The fun times continue with Tot School! I am planning to get in a few more books before Baby Brother makes his appearance!! 

The Carrot Seed

Since Spring is in the air, I thought it would be the perfect time to do our BFIAR unit on The Carrot Seed (with a small break in the middle for some Easter fun). It was a really fun unit and I was happy with how most of the activities turned out! 

We read the book every day

We watched the animated version of the story on YouTube

We read some other supplemental books about gardening and planting

We made our own little greenhouses and planted carrot seeds and sunflower seeds (because they grow quickly!)

We practiced cutting with our scissors

We did carrot stamping art

We watered carrot tops to make the stems keep growing

(This one did not work :( but it could have to do with the fact that the carrots were nearly dead by the time I got around to starting this activity. Oh well! Maybe next time!)

We made carrot cake cupcakes and enjoyed them multiple nights for dessert!

We did a seed sensory bin (pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, popcorn kernels, etc) with shovels and little plant pots!

(I was AMAZED! Both girls played with this activity for 45 minutes straight!!)

We made a carrot, orange, banana smoothie that was really yummy!!

We practiced tracing/following the line... still a challenge!

We made our own carrot garden that Ember could plant and pull carrots up out of

And we colored and talked about these pictures and retold a shorter version of the book. Ember was super impressive with this and told me almost word for word what the book said for each picture! She just wasn't very interested in actually coloring it so I helped some... 

Here are our carrots and sunflower seeds by the end of the unit in their little greenhouses!

Great unit! And we also got Ember a little watering pail from the dollar store and now she helps daddy water the plants every weekend! We are developing her green thumb! :)