Animal Theme

Well, September is over, time for a new theme! October's theme is music, I'll post more about that soon.

Here is the breakdown for September:

Activities

1. Feed the ducks (***)
2. Act like an animal game (***) For this game, I just call out the name of an animal, and they act it out. 
3. Chalk paw prints
4. Petting zoo (***)
5. Ocean in a bottle (**) Get and empty two liter bottle, put colored water in (ours was blue) then a few small fish toys, then fill the rest with oil. 
6. Animal bingo (**) http://gavinnjared.blogspot.com/2010/09/animal-bingo.html
7. What do animals eat? (**) Simple questions, but fun!
8. Make dog biscuits (***) I used this recipe: http://www.dogtreatkitchen.com/peanut-butter-dog-biscuit-recipe.html The boys loved giving them to the dogs we know!
9. Stuffed animal hunt (**) I just hid all of our animals, and send the boys to find them!
10. Balloon jellyfish (***) http://gavinnjared.blogspot.com/2010/09/jellyfiiiiiiissssh.html
11. Make puppy chow (***) They ate this like it was their last meal. 

Art Projects

1. Hanging fish (***) http://gavinnjared.blogspot.com/2010/10/omg-why-would-i-give-him-glitter.html
2. Hand print lion (***)http://gavinnjared.blogspot.com/2010/09/little-yellow-hands.html
3. Paper plate owl (**) http://gavinnjared.blogspot.com/2010/09/preschool-at-home.html
4. Dog paper bag puppet (**) http://gavinnjared.blogspot.com/2010/09/elephant-eats-guys.html
5. Spiral snake (***) I gave them a green piece of paper to color, then I cut it in a spiral. We added eyes to one end, and tied a string to it. They dragged them all over the place!
6. Cotton ball sheep (**)
7. Animal coloring pages (***)

I rated these on a 3 star scale, depending on how much the boys liked it!

Songs

1. Old McDonald
2. Mary had a little lamb
3. Little bunny foo foo
4. Ba ba black sheep
5. Three blind mice
6. This little piggy

Books

1. Velveteen Rabbit
2. Very Hungry Caterpillar
3. Lady Bugatti
4. Elmo's Zoo
5. Over the Meadow
6. Do Pigs Have Stripes
7. Gallop
8. If You Give a Pig a Pancake
9. Pigs Rock
10. Baby Bird
11. Where's the Green Sheep?
12. Animal Sounds

Videos

1. Milo & Otis
2. A Bugs Life
3. Finding Nemo
4. Peter Rabbit
5. Dumbo
6. Lion King
7. Tarzan
8. Baby Animals

Snacks

1. Ants on a log (celery, peanut butter, raisins)
2. Marshmellow & pretzel animals
3. Fish jello bowl (small bowl, pour blue jello in half, let it set, place some gummy fish on and fill the rest of the bowl with jello.)
4. Animal crackers
5. Cup of worms (pudding, crushed oreos, gummy worms)

OMG why would I give him glitter?

Yes, I gave my two and three year olds a bottle of glitter.

It was a crazy mess.

But... they loved it!

And I needed to vacuum anyway... 

I cut strips of paper about five or six inches long and an inch or so thick.

I put a line of glue on the strip and let the boys pile on sequins and little jewels.

Then they added a few shakes of glitter, and we let them dry.

Then I cut slits toward the end of both sides, and folded them into fish.

Our "fish tank"

Another Day in the the Life

I gathered up the left over popcorn from the birthday party, and we were off to feed the ducks down by the river!

Actually, there were less ducks, and more geese. No seagulls amazingly. 

Geese make me incredibly nervous, but these are so tame, David almost got them to eat out of his hand. 

This has become one of our regular activities lately. September is our animal theme month, and also the last really nice month - it only gets colder from here!

Jared wanted to eat the popcorn off the ground right along with the birds. Tragically, we didn't let him. 

He enjoyed the bench swing though!

Typical family picture, the little one tries to escape!

Awesome tree for hugging, 

taking pictures by, 

jumping off, and of course

climbing!

David is just a monkey, he just leaps right up there, I really have no idea how he does it. Seriously, the man climbs trees all the time. 

Jared was right with him. Gavin and I looked on. 

He wanted to keep going!

I love this weather because I love little boys in sweaters. And I love the soft light. 

The love each other so much. 

I just cannot picture one without the other.

From there we went to Jollay Orchards and met this little guy:

Cutest little pig ever!

He was so cute and hungry - we couldn't stop feeding him!

And the goats, who were almost busting out of their pen to get to the food!

And sheep!

There's so much to do there, and it's a really great setting for learning about animals. 

"Can I go in my bee house?"

This is probably Gavin favorite part, it's a little creepy if you ask me. A little house where the inside looks like a bee hive, and there's giant bees everywhere - yikes!

What a cutie pie!

They had a blast - and took and awesome nap!

Little Yellow Hands

Boy, do they ever love paint.

Especially when they get to use their hands!

I mean, who doesn't love that?

He could literally paint all day.

We all loved the end result - Hand print Lions!

Everyday since Gavin has "showed you sumpin" - he's so proud of his artwork!

Admittedly, the eyes he drew are kind of creepy, but that's what he likes!

And Jared just likes to color.

"Jellyfiiiiiiissssh!!!!"

What in the world is he doing??

Balloon Jellyfish!

So simple to make, and the boys played for hours. (really!)

The tape and streamers weighed the balloons down right to eye level. 

The only trouble I had was Jared kept ripping the legs off, and the balloons would float away. No big deal, I just taped them back on over and over until there was nothing left but a sad little balloon covered in tape.

We pretended to get stung, I would zap them when the jellyfish got them. Mostly they just bopped them all over the room dancing to the Beatles (probably the best album ever, Sgt.Pepper!) - it was great fun!

"An elephant eats.... guys?"

Today has been good so far, despite Jared having a cold, and I can feel one coming on. 

We woke up and made our art project for the day!

Dog puppets! 

I just cut out shapes of construction paper, and the boys glued them on to a paper bag. The colored it with brown marker to make fur. Gavin is in love with his and appropriately named him "doggy". Jared, as usual, liked making it, but then couldn't care less. 

Then, the boys were a little wild so we went outside to play. The weather is so great this time of year, you can still wear t shirts, but you don't sweat! The only downside is that my flowers are coming to an end.  I will miss them!

We went inside (after Jared scraped both of his knees and his foot) and made puppy chow! I've never made it myself, but I had it so many times as a child. Boy, did the little guys love that! Jared could not stop eating it.  While we made it, we went over what animals eat which turned into a funny game where Gavin would just call out anything he could think of instead of the real word, and then laugh uncontrollably.

Animal "Bingo"

I made a little game for the boys to play, kind of like bingo, only easier!

I cut a square, divided it into 9 little squares and drew animals in them. I made one for each boy, only two animals were different. Then I drew a larger card with all the pictures for the caller. We didn't shout bingo until the whole card was full which made it easier for Gavin to understand. He loved it! He's already asked to play it again, which we definitely will! Jared didn't get the game at all, or maybe he just didn't care, but he really enjoyed putting the buttons on and off the animals.