Goodnight Moon!

Well, we ventured on to a new book this past week and a half… Goodnight Moon! We finished up this morning, and because we are mid-week, I will likely just re-use some of the activities with Jace the next few days! It was a really fun unit and Jace really enjoys the book! I'm not sure what we will move on to for next week, so I will have to do some looking around.

Here was our Goodnight Moon unit! So many different things to do!

Here was our "Cow jumped over the moon" yogurt breakfast.

 We did a sensory bin with many of the objects mentioned in the book. 

 He wanted to sit inside the bin… and make a mess.

 We made a clock and practiced counting to 12!

 This was our cow cracker snack.

 We practiced sorting different sized "moons" into different sized containers… this didn't go so well. He just wanted to play with everything.

 We also practiced matching pairs of socks. This didn't last long, but he seemed to understand the concept.

 This was our full moon waffle breakfast with pomegranate seed stars.

 We made a moon with a mixture of flour and paint and used a bottle cap to make craters in the moon.

 Jace would hand me the different items once I read about them in the book. We did this a few times! He liked this.

 This was our star grilled cheese lunch one day.

 We ate a "bowl full of mush" breakfast! 

 We read through "Hey Diddle Diddle" and watched the book in cartoon form for "Goldilocks and the 3 Bears" and we watched a song for "3 little kittens who lost their mittens" (Even though the book only has 2 little kittens!)

 We practiced having our bears sit on "chairs" and we counted them.

 We also worked on finishing the patterns with the bears. He did 2 of the rows and then lost interest.

 We played with red balloons in the bath and counted those as well. 

 We practiced matching different colored and sized mittens to their right mitten. He did well with matching the right color, but not always with the right size. I don't think he quite understands different sizes yet, so I will try to work on this more and only pick 2 sizes to start with instead of 3. 

 We worked on different location words like "On" and "Off" and "On Top" and "Under". The cow is ON the moon, and now the cow is OFF the moon, etc. He understood "on" and "off" a lot more than the others.

 We colored a picture of the room in the book! Jace was excited to point to the different things he recognized from the book! (He also wanted to wear his glasses as he colored).

 We did another activity where we covered the items  with sugar and he used a paintbrush to find them. First of all, what a mess. He didn't like to use the paintbrush, but liked to use his fingers most of the time to look at the pictures. Honestly, he was most excited about touching the sugar than anything else. 

That was our week (and a half!) We had a lot of fun. 

Halloween

Halloween was such a fun day! It started with breakfast at IHOP. They were giving out free scary face pancakes to kids 12 and under, so Jenn and I decided to take the boys! I am so glad we did. We waited a lot longer than I expected, but the boys were troopers and loved the pancakes!

The boys love to hold hands now, and will do it without us asking them to. It is so sweet. 

That night we had my in-laws and Abbi over to come Trick-or-treating with us and to eat some pizza. We dressed Jace up like Dwight from The Office. I had sent a picture to Matt that I had seen on Pinterest of a toddler dressed as Dwight just because I thought it was funny. Well Matt decided that had to be Jace's costume this year. It ended up turning out well. For those who watched The Office, we had great comments and they thought it was hilarious. For those who hadn't seen The Office, I think they just thought that he was a guy from the office named Dwight. Jace loved the glasses and actually kept them on all night! It was a lot of fun!

 He didn't want to hold Matt's or my hand all night. He wanted his Gigi and Papa.

 Our only family picture… and he cried because he was holding our hands. Perfect. 

 At the end of the night we stopped by Jenn's house to see the boys. Kade was asleep already, but Blake and Jace played for a few minutes. :)

It was such a fun night! 

Orange Fish

We have finished our Brown Bear Brown Bear unit!!! YAY!!!! We ended with "Orange Fish", and because it fell the week of Halloween, I incorporated some orange pumpkins into our lesson just to keep it festive. :) This unit really helped me get ideas on what do with Jace, but also helped me remember to keep things realistic, and my expectations low. I am looking forward to doing different weekly units in the weeks to come! With Thanksgiving and Christmas coming up in the next couple months, I may take a couple weeks off here and there and just do some Thanksgiving and Christmas crafts! There are just so many fun crafts to do and I may use those weeks to review our colors. Matt and I found that when we ask him to point to a certain color he can do it, but if we ask him "What color is this?" he always responds "red" (except for when things are purple. weird. He knows that one). He has no issues identifying the animals, but he does still like to call them by the sounds that they make. It wasn't until half way through this unit that he really started repeating words, so each week seemed to get better and better to test his comprehension, etc. Tot school should only get easier from here. :) He has developed a love for letters and numbers during this unit, so I will likely try to incorporate those things in and out of other units.

Here was Orange Fish week!

Here was our "Fish" Breakfast. He liked the orange chocolate chip "bubbles" best and as soon as all 5 were gone, I heard "More! More!  More!" from the kitchen. :)

 Here was our bin of orange items.

 Hugs for the pumpkin bear!

 We ate snack in an orange bowl.

 We colored with orange crayons and used orange stickers.

 We read a couple books about orange pumpkins.

 We went on a mini scavenger hunt looking for small orange pumpkins to put in his pumpkin bucket.

 We used an Orange Dot Marker to color his fish. He STILL always trys to eat the dot markers. Perfect.

 We played with orange play-doh.

 I drew 10 orange fish and numbered them on an orange piece of paper and he helped me count them.

 He even wanted to take his fish paper on our walk.

 Jace helped me make chocolate chip cookies with ORANGE chocolate chips. 

 We reviewed all of our colors with this puzzle. 

That was our week! Next week we will be moving on to a unit with the book "Goodnight Moon!" I'm so excited! :)