Superstition Farm

We took a little trip to Superstition Farm and we loved it. June just happens to be National Dairy Month, so they have a few 5 dollar days at this farm. They have a petting zoo with goats, a horse, a donkey, chickens and a cow. They do a hayride to tour the farm. We got to see a calf being born also. They also sell cheese, butter and milk that they make and they sell eggs from chickens and ducks on their farm.

Experience Books

Here are two little books Andrew and I did together. The first one is about an experience we had at the zoo recently. He was sitting at the table eating a piece of cheese and a duck came and took it right out of his hands. Unfortunately, I did not have any pictures of this experience, but it still worked. On this one, I had to give him sentence starters on some of the pages and he finished the sentences. Then he drew on the pages. (The pictures are out of order.)

The second one is about the tractors he was watching one day a couple of weeks ago. I was so glad I thought to bring the camera and take pictures of the process. I had him help me tape the pictures to some paper we had, I wrote down what he said, verbatim, and we put it in a report cover. I didn't have to help him with any of the sentences on this book, like I did the duck story. I just asked him what happened on each of the pictures and wrote down what he said. (These pictures are in order.)

Now they're going on our book shelf and he can pull them out and read them any time he wants to.

This is one of the best ways to help toddlers and preschoolers 1) Learn language, 2) Learn that print has meaning, and 3) It helps connect literature and their world around them.

color and texture

Andrew started experimenting with texture and color yesterday. I gave him an old picture frame to paint up. He used paint and sand and had fun seeing how it created a different texture when he scraped it and mixed it together.

The finished product:

He gets to put a picture of his choice in it.

Zebra Habitat revisited...

We revisited the zebra habitat.

We made some terrain out of clay and painted it brown.

We gathered twigs, rocks, grass and leaves and added it to the shoe box.

This is what we did last time. We got a little more high tech this time...

http://toddlerandpreschoolfun.blogspot.com/2010/01/zebra-habitat.html

We discovered sand art

Now we have a bird feeder, too...

Fire Truck painting

We needed something to paint besides paper. This was on clearance at Michael's. Andrew worked on it for almost an hour and a half one afternoon.

Solar Ovens

The other day our friends Katie and Jolene came over and we made solar ovens. So easy and simple. Cut an oatmeal container in half. Cover it with aluminum foil, shiny side up, put the hot dog in it. Leave it sitting in the sun until the hot dog is cooked. We didn't leave it for very long because attention spans were short. We heated them the rest of the way in the microwave. Then we cut the hot dogs up in small pieces and threw them into some homemade mac and cheese.

This is where I got the idea:

http://tlc.howstuffworks.com/family/sun-activities2.htm