Sensory Play with Quiet Bunny

Sensory play in the great outdoors

Exploration of colors, textures, smells, temperatures... Our book of the months is "Quiet Bunny's Many Colors" by Lisa McCue. Quiet Bunny - the ultimate guide to sensory play activities for bunnies... and toddlers. So this month we went to the Great Outdoors and tried to explore the big world with all the senses we had.

It's time for a Poppins Book Nook - a book club that goes live on the last Monday of each months. The exciting theme for this month is "Great Outdoors". You can find our previous books and activities here:
The Runaway Bunny
Little Blue Truck
The Little Speckled Hen

Quiet Bunny's Many Colors

How does it feel to have the warm sun on the nose? Or the tickly grass between the toes? We had to witness that, and much more, first hand. Quiet Bunny is such a great inspiration! This beautifully written book offer very busy bright illustrations that are quite explorations by themselves. We played "look and find" with this book - a lot! Every time Camilla looked at the page, she could find some new animal or bug, or object. All are so pretty!

Quiet Bunny stayed very adventures throughout the book making Camilla think and wonder, and giving us ideas for the sensory play.

He covered himself in sticky honey and dandelions because he wanted to be yellow. We had to play and paint with honey too!
He fell into the stream next to a green frog that tried to catch a fly with the long tongue(yes, we tried the tongue thing, LOL).
He ran blind through the grass because his eyes were covered with the lily pad. We had to discover that we need our eyes to see when we run through the grass.
He tumbled down the hill. How does it feel? We tried to pause and talk about it - work in progress!
Quiet Bunny turned blue with the help of blueberry juice - that is not new. It is also very messy! Even Camilla knows that ;) Our To Do list for July: visit a blueberry patch and read "Jamberry" by Bruce Degen.
The bunny leaped and frolicked under the rain. Camilla did too and loved it! How do June showers feel? - warm, wet, and fun! Camilla liked to get some rain drops in the cup.
Quiet Bunny covered himself in red clay. Oh, this is very messy. I'll try to stay brave and let Camilla have some wet clay this summer.
Quiet Bunny talked to a water reflection of the large owl. We observed the colors and surfaces of several ponds in the parks and in this book. Then Camilla had to mix colors to paint her own lake for her Dad's birthday. You can read about it here: Learning about Birds: Art and Dance

According to Lisa McCue, "We are all beautiful!"

Play and Paint with Honey

We set up our sensory exploration station outside. First, we had to gather the flowers. Camilla had to play with the flowers in water for quite some time.

She tasted honey and found it "yummy".

Then, she started painting bunny with her fingers and with the brush. The bunny is laminated - great for sticky honey, and we were able to wash bunnies after the play. The laminated picture stayed perfectly fine. Kids were happy to take their bunnies home for more play.

The sticky nature of the honey "paint" gives the painting experience the whole new perspective! The flowers stuck to the picture and dried fast. It was not that easy to wash them out in the pool. We had to scrub.

While the bunny was drying out, we added more fun to the "honey paint". The girls enjoyed painting the rest of the bunnies and the table with shaving cream and paints mixed in.

Finally, everybody got tired of painting everything they saw around. Washing time with colorful sponges brought in the new fun all by itself.

Great Outdoors

I hope you enjoy following a group of these wonderful bloggers - hosts of Poppins Book  Nook!

Enchanted Homeschooling Mom ~ 3 Dinosaurs ~ To the Moon and Back ~ Planet Smarty Pants ~ Farm Fresh Adventures ~ Growing in God's Grace ~ Chestnut Grove Academy ~ Learning and Growing the Piwi Way ~ The Usual Mayhem~ Preschool Powol Packets ~ Monsters Ed Homeschool Academy ~ Adventures in Mommydom ~ Teach Beside Me ~ Life with Moore Babies ~ Kathy's Cluttered Mind ~ Are We There Yet? ~ Our Crafts N Things ~ Hopkins Homeschool ~ ABC Creative Learning ~ Joy Focused Learning ~ P is for Preschooler ~ Laugh and Learn ~ A Mommy's Adventures ~ Inspiring 2 New Hampshire Children ~ World for Learning ~ Ever After in the Woods ~ Golden Grasses ~ Our Simple Kinda Life ~ A glimpse of our life ~ Journey to Excellence ~ Happy Little Homemaker ~ Little Homeschool Blessings ~ Simplicity Breeds Happiness ~ Raventhreads ~ Learning Fundamentals ~ Tots and Me ~ As We Walk Along The Road ~ Stir the Wonder ~ For This Season ~ Where Imagination Grows ~ Lextin Academy ~ The Canadian Homeschooler ~ School Time Snippets ~ Peakle Pie ~ Mom's Heart ~ A Moment in our World ~ Every Bed of Roses ~ Finchnwren ~ At Home Where Life Happens ~ Suncoast Momma ~ The Library Adventure ~ Embracing Destiny ~ Day by Day in our World ~ Our Homeschool Studio ~ A "Peace" of Mind ~ Thou Shall Not Whine ~ SAHM I am ~ eLeMeNo-P Kids ~ Simple Living Mama

 Poppins Book Nook Giveaway!

Every month the Poppins Book Nook group will be offering readers

a chance to win a brand new storybook

that ties in with our theme for the month.

This month one lucky entrant will win
 

a copy of the classic storybook Amelia Bedelia Goes Camping as no one brings that certain flair and fun to the great outdoors like Amelia Bedelia. The winner will also win an Uncle Milton Nat Geo Starry Night Lantern so whether you live in the countryside or in the city your child can experience some of the great outdoors while reading your storybook.

 

 

Follow Poppins Book Nook on Pinterest
Clip art by: Melon Headz

Learning about Birds. Art and Dance: Swan Lake.

Learning about Birds: Art and Dance

We've been busy: painting, drawing, discussing birds, observing birds in the parks and the Zoo, dancing - pretending to be birds. This is a very beautiful and exciting theme for preschoolers!

This post is the last for exploring the wonderful Russian culture hands-on with the World Cup for Kids project. There were 32 countries participating in the World Cup. After many exciting games, only 16 countries made it to the next stage.

Congratulations, Team USA, and thanks for the great games!

Tuesday, June 17 Russia - Korea Republic
The post can be found here: Cupcake Castle: Play-doh and scissors skills
Sunday, June 22 Russia - Belgium
The post can be found here: Treasure chest and precious stones from fairytales
Thursday, June 26 Russia - Algeria
Do you want to read more about Russia? Birch - Russian Soul

Swans in Russian Culture

"Swan Lake" is probably the most famous, with its wonderful music composed by P.I. Tchaikovsky and beautiful ballet dancers dressed as swans. The ballet was first staged in 1877 in Bolshoi Theater, Moscow. An interesting fact: the premier was heavily criticized for poor production and Tchaikovsky's music that was found too noisy.

The magical story of Swan Lake is about eternal love. Odette, The Queen of the swans, was transformed into a swan by the evil sorcerer. Prince Siegfried is into partying and sports, busy celebrating his 21st birthday, and finally goes hunting with friends. There by the lake, he falls in love with Odette by the first sight. Only he and his love can save Odette from the evil spell. Prince fails his task. The only option they have left to be together is to die. Siegfried and Odette jump into the lake and reunite for all eternity.

This romantic and tragic ending was changed many times and many versions of the ending to the story exist. So we can also use our imagination to have an ending to our liking. Was the evil sorcerer killed? Did Siegfried die in a fight? Did they both die in the fight? Did Odette jump into the lake alone? Were they both transferred into swans and flew away? What is your favorite ending?

Swans are revered deep in Russian culture. They believed to accompany the Sun God, Ra. They have wonderful virtues of purity, fidelity, nobility, and magic powers. A beautiful girl, a white swan of Russian legends, could do all wise and magic things to help her loved one. According to Russian beliefs, if a person had killed a swan, he and all his family were destined to an unhappy ending.

Exploring and creating

We went to the zoo to learn more about birds. Camilla's favorites are flamingo, penguins, and swans. We found this gorgeous Mommy swan sitting on the nest!

I invited her to dance with the "Swan Lake". She was very creative with a free dance. Then I told her that dancers pretend they are birds with their arms as wings. This simple idea was very new for her and really helped her to understand the purpose of wings for birds - funny!

I also pointed out the colors of the ponds and lakes in the pictures in the books and in parks we visited. When the time came to paint our own lake, we chose the colors of lighter and darker blue, green, purple, and white. Camilla enjoyed painting, mixing, and dabbing white spots on top for reflections. It did take a lot of her to create her lake.

It took us 3 days to make this simple picture below. It was made as Daddy's birthday present. He liked it a lot - the hand prints and the meaning, I guess. Camilla painted the lake first and we let it dry. On the second day, she used Do-a-Dots for grass and flowers around the lake. Then we made the hand prints with white tempera paint and extended the swans' heads by finger painting. I used markers for beaks and eyes.

This swan is a hand print with tempera paint on the black construction paper. Camilla used sidewalk chalk to finish the scene.

I very much hope you enjoy following our hands-on discoveries of the countries and cultures with these wonderful blogs!

All Done Monkey * Kid World Citizen * Discovering the World Through My Son's Eyes * Laugh and Learn * LadyDeeLG * Head of the Heard * Marie's Pastiche * Mama Tortuga * Chasing The Donkey * La Cite Des Vents * Homeschool Ways * Melibelle In Tokyo * 30 Minute Crafts * My Twintopia * The Piri-piri Lexicon * MarocMama * Growing Up Gabel * Las Vegas Moms Blog * My Daylights

 You can follow us here:

Multicultural Kid Blogs - World Cup for Kids
Pinterest: World Cup for Kids 

German Engineering. Playmobil.

I searched "Playmobil vs. Lego" and the first thing I noticed, "Lego vs. Playmobil is like Apple vs. Microsoft". This post is a part of "World Cup for Kids" and we are continuing exploring the German culture hands-on.

 

German Scientists

The discoveries made by German Scientists shaped the world as we know it. 104 Germans were awarded the Nobel Prize with the majority of them being scientists.

I thought I'd mention a co-awardee of 2013 Nobel Prize Thomas C. Sudhof, M.D., a German biochemist from Gottingen.

How does our brain work? The major current break-through discoveries are in neuroscience because people learn more and more about the ways to look inside the head and see how it actually works. When we think and learn, our brain cells "talk" to each other by sending special chemicals - proteins - neurotransmitters - from cell to cell - processing and storing information in our head along the way. Neuroscientists studied how a second cell receives these chemicals and as a result we can learn and remember. Dr. Sudhof concentrated his research on how a first cell sends the chemicals to the second cell. The results of his research has allowed understanding of Alzheimer's, Schizophrenia, and a type of Autism inherited by children.

Off topic. Dr. Sudhof was able to research the inherited autism. More research is needed to find the causes of autism because the autism rates are rising in the USA! For example, this article found here: Pregnant women should pay attention to link between pesticides, autism. According to CDC, 1 in 68 children is diagnosed with ASD (1 in 45 in New Jersey). The author of the article points to the environmental toxins in overpopulated areas as a possible cause of ASD.

German Engineering

German Engineering meant innovation and reliability - for centuries! What does it mean today? Auto industry: BMW, Mercedes, Audi, and Porsche. Over 25% of the value of the cars are in the electronics and software. Siemens: energy and health care (hearing aids, anyone?). Bosch: power tools. Krupp: small appliances (espresso machine, anyone?). BASF: chemicals used in nylon, resins, finishing compounds, and fibers. German economy is the third largest in the world!

Playmobil

Playmobil celebrates its 40th anniversary this year! It was created by Hans Beck in 1974. You can build any small world imaginable with Playmobil: great for open play, pretend play, creativity, and developing engineering skills.

Fun fact from Playmobil, "Every second the world population increases by 2.6 people, but in the same amount of time, 3.2 Playmobil figures are born."

Exploring engineering with a preschooler

Playmobil toys are rated for 4-10 year olds. The sets include either small parts or tiny parts which make it difficult to keep these sets together.

For Camilla, Playmobil toys are hours of playing and a great intro into the world of constructing and engineering! The parts are realistic-looking objects used to create a functioning farm, or a pool, or a playground. She was able to get it together with my assistance. After that, she loves to take things apart, and mix and match to create her own worlds. This puts her in charge of building and new sensory experiences. The result is a total mess and work in progress lasting forever, but well worth it!

Just awesome for fine motor skills, creativity, problem solving, and language development!

In honor of Playmobil's 40th birthday, special value sets - limited 40th Anniversary edition are available on Amazon. They include special bonus sets in each of these 4 sets.
There are only limited quantities available. They are almost sold out!

 Knight`s Tournament

Compact Set + Cannon Wagon: Prepare for the joust by practicing with the training dummy. The weapon stand contains all sorts of medieval gear to help the knight protect the kingdom. When it's time for the competition, gallop into the arena on the royal stallion and greet the fans. After the tournament, protect the kingdom from foreign enemies with the bonus Cannon Wagon. Transport the functioning cannon using the horse-drawn wagon and keep enemies at bay. Compact set includes two figures, horse, training dummy, battle axes, armor, shield, and other accessories. Bonus set includes one figure, horse, functioning cannon, and more.

Pony Pasture

Compact Set + Pony Wagon (my favorite): Look after the ponies as they graze in the pasture, filled with trees, a small pond, flowers, hay, and more. After tending to the ponies, take an afternoon ride through the country in the bonus Pony Wagon with functioning wheels. Compact set also includes two figures, grooming tool, birds, butterfly, and other accessories. Bonus set also includes one figure, pony with harness, vegetables, basket, and more.

Fire Rescue

Operation Compact Set + Quad: featuring a functioning water hose. With the help of the bonus Quad, kids can respond to emergencies even faster. Just pull back the car and release to send it zooming to the rescue! Compact set includes three figures, working fire hose, fire hydrant, house, tree, flowers, and more. Bonus set includes one figure, pull-back quad car, rescue cable, and additional accessories.

Princess Island

Compact Set + Romantic Gondola (just great for building a fairy garden with all the fun little things. I love 2 pretty swans that can carry their babies): The princess takes a leisurely stroll on her private island, adorned with a beautiful rose arch and majestic swans. Enjoy a boat ride with the prince in the Romantic Gondola bonus set, which floats and can pull up along the Princess Island at the private dock. Compact set includes two figures, two swans and chicks, bird bath, doves, roses, and more. Bonus gift includes two figures, floating gondola, harp and other accessories.

I included affiliated links for your convenience. If you buy any of the products through these links, Laugh and Learn receives a small portion of the price with no difference in price for you. Thank you so much for your support of this blog!

The beautiful pictures of the fairy gardens can be found here: Fairy Gardens

I very much hope you will enjoy following our hands-on discoveries of the countries and cultures with these wonderful blogs!

All Done Monkey * Kid World Citizen * Discovering the World Through My Son's Eyes * Laugh and Learn * LadyDeeLG * Head of the Heard * Marie's Pastiche * Mama Tortuga * Chasing The Donkey * La Cite Des Vents * Homeschool Ways * Melibelle In Tokyo * 30 Minute Crafts * My Twintopia * The Piri-piri Lexicon * MarocMama * Growing Up Gabel * Las Vegas Moms Blog * My Daylights

This post is a part of the World Cup for Kids project.
You can read more about it here: World Cup for Kids
Monday, June 16 Germany - Portugal
The post can be found here: Invitation to explore and build: the Brandenburg Gate
Saturday, June 21 Germany - Ghana
The post can be found here: Bremen Town Musicians
Thursday, June 26 Germany - USA
The post can be found here: German Engineering. Playmobil.
Monday, June 30 Germany - Algeria
The post can be found here: Playing with Bubbles
Friday, July 4 Germany - France
The post can be found here: Dance, Sing, and Create with Gummy Bears
Tuesday, July 8 Germany - Brazil
The post can be found here: Pirates' hats. Stortebeker - a mighty German pirate.
Sunday, July 13 Germany - Argentina
The post can be found here: Party Time! Mud Bowl - Fruit Punch.
You can follow us here:
Multicultural Kid Blogs - World Cup for Kids
Pinterest: World Cup for Kids 

Bremen Town Musicians

Today I want to invite you to the famous German town of Bremen. The best introduction is the City of Bremen Website. Places to see, things to do...

Historical downtown Bremen will offer you the one of a kind City Hall 

and a medieval Schnoor Quarter;  

St. Peter's Cathedral and Schutting, an unforgettable chamber of commerce;

the statue of Roland and medieval merchants' houses,

and so much more! 

But our point of interest is the famous story written by Brothers Grimm. A donkey, a dog, a cat, and a rooster never actually made it to Bremen. Regardless, Bremen proudly displays the  statue of the four courageous musicians and friends.

There are different versions of the story available. We've read "The Bremen Town Musicians", a retelling of the Grimm's fairy tale by Eric Blair, illustrated by Bill Dickson. Camilla loved the story. So I had to read it only a million of times.

This little girl was intrigued by the fighting with the robbers. She is working on figuring out that there are some not so nice characters in the stories... Of course, only in the stories because everybody is perfectly nice in real life.

Maybe that's why "Animals in the night forest" was the craft of her preference for the story. She got black sheet of construction paper and glue. She wanted to help with cutting out the animals' shapes. I gave her the scrapes left after I cut out the first animal. So we kind of did it together.

For the sky and stars: she used a colored glue stick to draw "the sky at night" and then shook some colored sand over the glue. For the grass, I helped her to draw with the glitter pen. We also talked about how we can see cat's eyes shine at night. Camilla wanted to add shiny eyes to all the animals.

The important things she started to learn with this simple craft: how to place the bigger elements on the picture first, where is the sky and the ground on the picture.

I very much hope you will enjoy following our hands-on discoveries of the countries and cultures with these wonderful blogs!

All Done Monkey * Kid World Citizen * Discovering the World Through My Son's Eyes * Laugh and Learn * LadyDeeLG * Head of the Heard * Marie's Pastiche * Mama Tortuga * Chasing The Donkey * La Cite Des Vents * Homeschool Ways * Melibelle In Tokyo * 30 Minute Crafts * My Twintopia * The Piri-piri Lexicon * MarocMama * Growing Up Gabel * Las Vegas Moms Blog * My Daylights

This post is a part of the World Cup for Kids project.
You can read more about it here: World Cup for Kids
Monday, June 16 Germany - Portugal
The post can be found here: Invitation to explore and build: the Brandenburg Gate
Saturday, June 21 Germany - Ghana
The post can be found here: Bremen Town Musicians
Thursday, June 26 Germany - USA
The post can be found here: German Engineering. Playmobil.
Monday, June 30 Germany - Algeria
The post can be found here: Playing with Bubbles
Friday, July 4 Germany - France
The post can be found here: Dance, Sing, and Create with Gummy Bears
Tuesday, July 8 Germany - Brazil
The post can be found here: Pirates' hats. Stortebeker - a mighty German pirate.
Sunday, July 13 Germany - Argentina
The post can be found here: Party Time! Mud Bowl - Fruit Punch.
You can follow us here:
Multicultural Kid Blogs - World Cup for Kids
Pinterest: World Cup for Kids 

Treasure Chest and Precious Stones from the Fairytales

Easy art for toddlers and preschool. Treasure chest: tempera paint over school glue with a toothpick, glitter glue. Magic flower (stack and count DIY toy): dot stickers, self-adhesive jewels, construction paper.

We are busy exploring the wonderful Russian culture hands-on. More posts are coming!
Tuesday, June 17 Russia - Korea Republic
Link to the post: Cupcake Castle: Play-doh and Scissors Skills
Sunday, June 22 Russia - Belgium
Thursday, June 26 Russia - Algeria
You can read more about it here: World Cup for Kids

This post is a part of cultural hands-on activities for the World Cup for Kids project. Every day a team plays a game in the World Cup, there will be a blog post on kids activities related to some aspect of the culture of the country of the day. World Cup 2014 started on June 12 in Brazil. The participating countries: Algeria, Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Brazil, Cameroon, Chili, Columbia, Costa Rica, Cote d'Ivoire, Croatia, Ecuador, England, France, Germany, Ghana, Greece, Honduras, Iran, Italy, Japan, Korea Republic, Mexico, Netherlands, Nigeria, Portugal, Russia, Spain, Switzerland, Uruguay, USA.

Make sure to follow World Cup for Kids on Our Main page and Pinterest.

Malachite Casket: Tales from the Urals

Some geography of Russia: Ural Mountain, or The Urals extend about 1600 miles from North to South through Russia dividing the country into European and Asian parts. The actual boundary is the eastern side of The Urals. The mountains are unusually high for their old age (250-300 million years old).

Precious and semi-precious stones (emerald, amethyst, malachite, diamond, and many others), as well as gas, oil, coal, and gold, are the reason The Urals are called a Russian treasure box. Faberge made his eggs using the beautiful minerals from Ural Mountains.

"A Russian man can't live without a rainbow," said Pavel Bazhov who studied legends and wisdom of the people of The Urals and later wrote a book of fairy tales. I found it in English in Amazon (surprisingly) - Malachite Casket . In his intriguing and rather dark stories, Bazhov described the hard working miners and their families, the beautiful nature of the mountains, the joy of creative arts and crafts of the local masters. The tales are among the favorite in the reading lists of Russian kids for many years.

The treasure chest

We decorated our own treasure chest as a Father's Day gift. The idea was to try to imitate Malachite, a beautiful green mineral from the Urals.

We used white school glue as a base. I added drops of green, blue, white, black tempera paints and gave Camilla a tooth pick to mix them. She loved this activity!

When she finally got bored with mixing we added spots of glitter glue on top of the mix. So she got excited again to mix that in. Adding glitter glue would never stop. I had to take the tubes away from her because the beautiful concoction started oozing from all the sides of the boxes. It took forever to dry, but the result is almost as good as the famous masterpieces (almost!).

Magic flower (stack and count DIY toy)

I cut out flowers from construction paper with different amount of petals (1-5), folded the petals up and bend them outward with the pencil. The number of petals is written in the center of each flower.

Camilla put sticker dots onto each petal (one-to-one correspondence), counted the petals, and arrange the parts into one flower according to the number in the center.

We reviewed these activities later with the sticker jewels. She didn't even noticed she was learning her numbers and counting.

The activity is great for fine motor skills and creative play!

And here is our "Precious Flower", all done!

I very much hope you are enjoying following our hands-on discoveries of the countries and cultures with these wonderful blogs!

All Done Monkey * Kid World Citizen * Discovering the World Through My Son's Eyes * Laugh and Learn * LadyDeeLG * Head of the Heard * Marie's Pastiche * Mama Tortuga * Chasing The Donkey * La Cite Des Vents * Homeschool Ways * Melibelle In Tokyo * 30 Minute Crafts * My Twintopia * The Piri-piri Lexicon * MarocMama * Growing Up Gabel * Las Vegas Moms Blog * My Daylights

 You can follow us here:

Multicultural Kid Blogs - World Cup for Kids
Pinterest: World Cup for Kids 

Cupcake Castle: Play Dough and Scissors Skills

Playing with colors, play-doh, and scissors - the ultimate combination of creativity and developing fine motor skills for preschoolers. I set up our play-doh play station and we were off to explore our new colorful play mat.

We are busy exploring the wonderful Russian culture hands-on. More posts are coming!
Tuesday, June 17 Russia - Korea Republic
Sunday, June 22 Russia - Belgium
Thursday, June 26 Russia - Algeria

You can read more about it here: World Cup for Kids

This post is a part of cultural hands-on activities for the World Cup for Kids project. Every day a team plays a game in the World Cup, there will be a blog post on kids activities related to some aspect of the culture of the country of the day. World Cup 2014 started on June 12 in Brazil. The participating countries: Algeria, Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Brazil, Cameroon, Chili, Columbia, Costa Rica, Cote d'Ivoire, Croatia, Ecuador, England, France, Germany, Ghana, Greece, Honduras, Iran, Italy, Japan, Korea Republic, Mexico, Netherlands, Nigeria, Portugal, Russia, Spain, Switzerland, Uruguay, USA.

Saint Basil's Cathedral

Saint Basil's Cathedral, Moscow, Russia, was build in 1561 on orders from Ivan the Terrible.

And he that sat was to look upon like a jasper and a sardine stone: and there was a rainbow round about the throne, in sight like unto an emerald.
And round about the throne were four and twenty seats: and upon the seats I saw four and twenty elders sitting, clothed in white raiment; and they had on their heads crowns of gold.
- Revelation, 4:3 - 4:4 (KJV)

The structure and colors of the building follow closely this biblical reference.

Hence, the rainbow of colors!

Exploring and Creating

I offered a picture of the Cathedral to Camilla and started saying how this building is called a cathedral. She said, "Castle. It's a castle!" I tried to correct her, but when this girl makes up her mind - so be it.

We moved on to explore the colors. She said, "Oh, wow, cupcakes! A cupcake castle." This statement canceled out all the activities I had planned for her. We went her route instead. It is all about a "Cupcake Castle" now.

We took her toy cupcake set; and she started by building domes on the picture trying to match the colors.

This activity kept her busy for quite some time. She took the cupcakes off and rearrange them several times.

Scissors and play-doh

We are working on scissors skills. In the picture below, she still has a problem holding the scissors straight. The easiest engaging activity for beginning cutting is to make a "snake" from play-doh and cut it in pieces.

I laminated the picture and helped her to make the rainbow of small play-doh balls. She used the balls to decorate her cupcake castle - great for creativity and fine motor skills! The castle got very popular. Camilla gave it as a graduation present for a 18 y.o. girl - huge success! And I kind of miss it...

I very much hope you will enjoy following our hands-on discoveries of the countries and cultures with these wonderful blogs!

All Done Monkey * Kid World Citizen * Discovering the World Through My Son's Eyes * Laugh and Learn * LadyDeeLG * Head of the Heard * Marie's Pastiche * Mama Tortuga * Chasing The Donkey * La Cite Des Vents * Homeschool Ways * Melibelle In Tokyo * 30 Minute Crafts * My Twintopia * The Piri-piri Lexicon * MarocMama * Growing Up Gabel * Las Vegas Moms Blog * My Daylights

 You can follow us here:
Multicultural Kid Blogs - World Cup for Kids
Pinterest: World Cup for Kids 

Invitation to Exlplore and Build: Small World with Toddlers

Architecture for Toddlers?

We used Mega Bloks and Boards. I cannot believe how much Camilla is able to do now! She explored the structure of the building, volunteered to count the columns, matched the colors, arranged the figures, listened to some historical facts, and then got creative with the extended play - coming to these activities again and again through the day.

We are busy exploring the wonderful German culture hands-on. More posts are coming!
Monday, June 16 Germany - Portugal
Saturday, June 21 Germany - Ghana
Thursday, June 26 Germany - USA
You can read more about it here: World Cup for Kids

This post is a part of cultural hands-on activities for the World Cup for Kids project. Every day a team plays a game in the World Cup, there will be a blog post on kids activities related to some aspect of the culture of the country of the day. World Cup 2014 started on June 12 in Brazil. The participating countries: Algeria, Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Brazil, Cameroon, Chili, Columbia, Costa Rica, Cote d'Ivoire, Croatia, Ecuador, England, France, Germany, Ghana, Greece, Honduras, Iran, Italy, Japan, Korea Republic, Mexico, Netherlands, Nigeria, Portugal, Russia, Spain, Switzerland, Uruguay, USA.

Make sure to follow World Cup for Kids on Our Main page and Pinterest.

The Brandenburg Gate

The Brandenburg Gate, Berlin, Germany is a site of many important events in the history of Germany, Europe, and the World. Victoria, the goddess of victory, is on top of this main German landmark. Can the walls see and remember? It was built in 1791; and in 1806 witnessed Napoleon passing through its passageways.

In the picture below, the Brandenburg Gate looks very modern. Sometimes it's hard to believe that it greeted Hitler to power and used by Nazis as their symbol. Later, it stood overlooking the ruins of the World War II.

On June 12, 1987, Ronald Reagan gave a speech at the Gate encouraging Gorbachev to tear down the Berlin Wall, "if you seek peace... if you seek liberalization:... open this Gate!..." This was the whole 24 years after another famous speech at the Brandenburg Gate.

"Ich bin ein Berliner" (I am a Berliner), said John Kennedy to boost the moral of the people of Germany.

 "If anybody asks if President Kennedy's words ring true today, let them come to Berlin, for here they will find the people who emerged from the ruins of war to reap the blessings of peace; from the pain of division to the joy of reunification." President Obama at the Brandenburg Gate, June, 2013

Source: U2's Berlin Wall

Exploring and Creating

This is a view of our refrigerator nowadays.
Top: My son's craft - his prediction of who will win the World Cup.
Bottom: Since he thinks that Germany will play the final game, here we have the Brandenburg Gate at night. I chose this picture because the colors of the light helped Camilla to see different elements of the structure.

We started small: two columns and a long board. Camilla immediately discovered that there is not enough support. We moved on: making more columns, counting them, matching colors.

After she played with her new structure for a couple of days, I offered her to analyze the picture again. Is there anything else that makes this Gate so special? We noticed the horses and learned the new word "Goddess". Camilla assembled the horses by herself. I wrote more about our horses here: How to make a horse from a TP roll

We looked at the picture again and discovered several more layers on top of the Gate. Then we discussed what we need to build that. After the discussion I gave her 2 more boards. Of course we reviewed "short" and "long" with them. I helped her to support the boards and arranged the horses for the picture below.

The best open ended toy for toddlers!

I found these boards at Michael's. This is the best open-ended toy Camilla ever had. She got very creative with them and discovered many new uses of the boards. They are safe, light weight, and sturdy enough to survive some rough playing (They cannot support her weight. So I had to warn her not to step on them when they are off the floor).

I very much hope you will enjoy following our hands-on discoveries of the countries and cultures with these wonderful blogs!

All Done Monkey * Kid World Citizen * Discovering the World Through My Son's Eyes * Laugh and Learn * LadyDeeLG * Head of the Heard * Marie's Pastiche * Mama Tortuga * Chasing The Donkey * La Cite Des Vents * Homeschool Ways * Melibelle In Tokyo * 30 Minute Crafts * My Twintopia * The Piri-piri Lexicon * MarocMama * Growing Up Gabel * Las Vegas Moms Blog * My Daylights

This post is a part of the World Cup for Kids project.
You can read more about it here: World Cup for Kids
Monday, June 16 Germany - Portugal
The post can be found here: Invitation to explore and build: the Brandenburg Gate
Saturday, June 21 Germany - Ghana
The post can be found here: Bremen Town Musicians
Thursday, June 26 Germany - USA
The post can be found here: German Engineering. Playmobil.
Monday, June 30 Germany - Algeria
The post can be found here: Playing with Bubbles
Friday, July 4 Germany - France
The post can be found here: Dance, Sing, and Create with Gummy Bears
Tuesday, July 8 Germany - Brazil
The post can be found here: Pirates' hats. Stortebeker - a mighty German pirate.
Sunday, July 13 Germany - Argentina
The post can be found here: Party Time! Mud Bowl - Fruit Punch.
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Outdoor fun: K is for keys

Sensory play with flowers and boxes locked with keys, flower sensory bin, making all natural perfume, fine motor and problem solving skills with keys, fun activity for phonemic awareness and listening skills, letter K = summer fun outside.

 

Locks and keys for toddlers

The kids tried locks and keys a couple of months ago. This simple activity is very challenging for little fingers. They were not interested. This time they were to unlock the boxes with surprises inside. To lock a box, I made holes with the needle and threaded pieces of chenille stems to make loops.

 

Camilla had several boxes a day with different contents for several days. Some surprises to unlock - she was looking forward to have her green boxes every day. On the picture below: some examples of things she discovered in the boxes: mini dinosaurs from the discount store (they roared for some time after getting out of the box), oversized buttons (we sorted them by color or shape), bracelets to try on and see how the colors look together, new fish for splashing in her toy pool, baby jar caps (she counted and named the animals, then placed them in her Zoo), numbers 1-5 (she still needs a lot of assistance to put them in order at 31 months old).

Phonemic awareness and listening skills for toddlers

Before unlocking each box, we shook it to hear the sound and tried to guess what could be inside. I put jingle bells in one of the first boxes. That was the easiest sound for her to guess. Another easy box for guessing the sound was filled with several M&Ms, and her favorite too.

We talked about that it is a sound, that we can hear sounds with the ears, and sounds are all different. I think it's one more great activity for beginning phonemic awareness and just awesome for practicing to pay attention and listening skills.

Nature boxes and sensory play for toddlers

We went to the park with many roses. Camilla discovered fresh moist rose petals under the roses and got fascinated by them!

The best nature sensory box ever!

That inspired her to explore flowers around our neighborhood. I used this opportunity to dress her up and have a photo session. That turned out to be lots of fun for both of us... and Daddy loved to join us with his camera.

We gathered some flowers and extended our play at home. This is a quick and easy sensory bin. I let Camilla add any supplies and characters to the flower bin she wanted, and enjoyed playing along with the pretty bin.

 

Our very own - all natural perfume

Camilla got the petals into the pan and helped me wash them. I added boiling water and let her - very carefully - stir the petals. I kept it in the lowest heat on the stove for 20 min and let it stand coved through the night.

Next morning we filtered it using a coffee filter and transferred it to the pretty spray bottle. It smells amazing when sprayed on the skin.

Attention: even a tiny drop leaves a stain! We spayed hands/ bare feet/ doll's dress/ anything else. Camilla went through a couple of little spray bottles a day. She loves this sensory experience!

K is for keys for toddlers

We continue with out Tot School Printables and a letter of the week through the summer. These activities printed for free from 1+1+1=1 are super easy and exciting by now! Kids expect a new package every week.

Introduction to the letter K. We make sure to hear the sound /k/ in the beginning of the words before seeing the letter!

Find the keys on letter K. This week our friends Koala, Kangaroo, and King visited and helped with finding the keys. Camilla doesn't need a lot to trigger pretend playing nowadays. This little twist has completely changed our usual activity.

Match the keys to the shadow. It is so easy now. Was it that difficult just a month ago?

I hope you are enjoying your summer!