Bear Wants More

One of Hunter’s favorite books is Bear Snores On by Karma Wilson.  We had a lot of fun reading it almost every day and doing bear activities during the winter. Since spring is here, I thought it would be fun to do some activities to go along with the book Bear Wants More by Karma Wilson.

Hailey usually wants to join us for our activities, so if she is all done with her work I let her have some fun with us too.  She read Bear Wants More to Hunter many times.

We got out our cave we made during the winter that had the hibernating bear in it and Hunter woke him up for spring time.

Since new grass grows in the spring, Hunter played in some grass seed.

The bear ate some grass in the story, so Hunter planted some grass.

Hunter cut some grass and practiced his cutting skills.

Hunter ate fish and berries, just like the bear.  He was roaring in this picture since he was getting ready to eat like a bear.

At the end of Bear Wants More the animals decorated for a spring party.  Hailey and Hunter made some daisies to decorate for our own party.  We used cupcake liners and they painted the middle of them yellow.

Hunter helped me to make a honey cake for our party.

We hung up some more daisy decorations.

The completed daisies that Hailey and Hunter made, and Hailey all ready to eat her yummy piece of honey cake.

Hunter ready to eat his honey cake.

This book was so much fun!  We had a great time together doing these activities.

Caps for Sale

We have been having so much fun picking a book each week and doing activities based on that book. Our latest book was Caps for Sale by Esphyr Slobodkina.  We read the same book everyday, which is just what Hunter loves to do.  Then, I plan art projects and various activities based on the story we read.  Sometimes Hunter cooperates and wants to do the activities and other times he says he just wants to play.  Here are some of the things we did:

Hailey read the book to Hunter and they both really enjoyed the story.  We also found it on YouTube and Hunter liked watching it there when Hailey and I were not available to read it to him.

Hunter tried to balance a book on his head, the way the man in the story balanced the caps on his head.  It was definitely harder than he thought it was going to be.

I went into Hunter’s room and came out with all of his hats on my head, holding a fake mustache, and saying, “Caps for sale!  50 cents a cap!”  Hailey and Hunter thought it was pretty funny, so they both had to try it too.

Hailey selling some caps.

Hunter selling some caps.

In the story the monkeys take the caps away from the man.  Monkeys eat bananas, so I wanted to come up with a banana snack to go along with the story.  I saw the idea to make chocolate covered bananas at Delightful Learning.  We didn’t follow her directions but they still turned out nice and yummy!

I also saw this idea at Delightful Learning.  Hunter painted a tree brown,

then we glued it onto some paper, and he made monkeys using his fingerprints.

Hunter insisted that the tree needed the man and his caps- so we added those too.

We made this lapbook about monkeys last year in Tot School, so I pulled it back out and we had fun looking at all of the monkey activities he did.

Caps for Sale is cute book and we enjoyed reading it and doing all these fun activities!

There are Monsters Everywhere

Hunter loves books about monsters, so we did a fun little unit all about monsters.

We love Mercer Mayer books- so we read “There are Monsters Everywhere,” “There’s a Nightmare in my Closet,” and “There’s Something in my Attic.”

Here are some of the activities we did:

Hailey wanted to make this project with us- first you make some drops of paint on cardstock.

Then fold it in half and press down (wearing your monster pajamas, of course).

Open it up and add some eyes

These are the fun monsters Hailey and Hunter made.

Hunter had a monster snack- he knew right away it was supposed to be Mike from Monsters Inc.

When we read “There are Monsters Everywhere” the little boy in the story learns karate so he can scare the monsters off.  So, Hunter practiced his karate moves.

Hailey tried out her karate moves too.

Hunter wearing some monster feet and pretending to be a monster.

We made a little monster snack.  Hailey and Hunter put a piece of baking chocolate onto a pretzel.

Then we baked them for a few minutes, until the chocolate started to melt.  When we took them out we added a candy eye, then put them in the refrigerator until the chocolate hardened.

They aren’t very scary looking monsters, but they were yummy.

Hunter practiced his cutting to make spots for a monster craft.

The finished monster.

We had so much fun with our monster theme!!  Hunter asked to read the books everyday- they are his favorite books!

Five Little Penguins Slipping on the Ice

We had a lot of fun reading Five Little Penguins Slipping on the Ice by Steve Metzger and doing some great activities to go along with the story.

I put out some water and added some blue ice cubes and some penguins.  Hunter loved this and played with it for a very long time!

I froze some water on a pan so that the penguins could go ice skating.  Hunter didn’t care for this activity too much at first, but once he got into it he really enjoyed it.  He even requested to play with it again later.

We propped up the ice and tested to see which toys would slide down the ice.  We tried things other than the penguins, but I didn’t get a picture of that.

I made a penguin out of an oatmeal box and provided some fish.

Hunter tried to throw the fish into the penguin’s belly.

I made some shape penguins and laminated them.

As I called out a shape, Hunter had to find it and stand on the correct shape.

Then I added numbers to the penguins

We counted out the appropriate number of fish and put them on the penguin with that number on it.

It was another week of fun here at Our Crafts N Things!