It's St. Patty's week! I love Holidays, there's just so many fun activities to do! It was hard to pick which activities to do, but I guess it's only Monday. Hopefully, I'll have a few more things to add later in the week (if I make it to the store first!)

For our craft we made Shamrock window clings (yes, I realize that's not a window!) It's also great magnet free art to go on the fridge that my 'Wednesday crew' can't take off :)
We stuck these shamrock shapes I cut out onto contact paper and the littles used their fine motor skills to put little pieces of tissue paper inside the shamrock.

Can't have a St. Patty's unit without a good hunt for gold! I hid lots of coins around our basement and set the little leprechauns free.





Here's the leprechauns counting their gold.

The cupboard was pretty bare today, so this was a very impromptu snack idea. I had hoped to do something like corn pops (they look like gold) or fruity cheerios (colors of the rainbow) or good ol' Lucky Charms but we don't typically have those on hand and I didn't make it to the store so opted for a healthier snack of vanilla yogurt with a tiny bit of green food coloring. They stirred up their yogurt and got quite a kick out of watching it turn green.

Finally, I printed and cut out these pattern cards I found here. We worked on an AB pattern using gold/leprechauns and then rainbows/shamrocks.

And now I'm REALLY craving a Shamrock shake from McDonalds!!! Happy St. Patty's week!

A new tooth for Blake

We had a minor accident involving a floor and a 3 year olds face this week, causing his front tooth to break.....

We made a quick trip to the dentist for x-rays and bad news. The chip was so high that the nerve in his tooth was exposed which meant we had two options. Option 1: pull the tooth which is I'm sure painful, insert a spacer and have no front tooth for 4 years (about the time it would take for his adult tooth would come in). Option 2: remove the nerve and tissue from that tooth (similar to a root canal) and place a cap over the tooth, which again is obviously painful. To top it off, we had to make a decision and get it fixed within 48 hours.

We went for option 2

Here's Blake at the dentist office, rocking some cool spiderman glasses they gave him. I wish I would have gotten a picture of him with Dr. Sarah. She is an AWESOME dentist by the way!

A little nitrous, A lot of prayer, and 45 minutes later we walked (Blake bounced) out of the office with a new tooth and some very special prizes he bought with his dentist 'token'

Here's Blake showing off his 'new' tooth and one of his favorite race cars which he likes to call Finn McMissle. Thanks to everyone for your prayers! Everything went so smoothly which was just another showing of God's grace.

Ocean lesson

We woke up to snow on the ground and Florida on our mind today. It's a little early to do an ocean lesson, I know, but we're beach bound in 15 days so why not?!




We started the day by talking about all of the things you find in the ocean. This book was given to us by our sweet neighbors and complimented the lesson perfectly. It is a pop up book that makes sounds of the ocean, dolphins, divers, etc. Super Cool!

The littles LOVE to finger paint, and I LOVE crafts using handprints, footprints, or anything to remember their tini-ness. This handprint crab craft was a 'win-win'

Gotta love a good snack-time activity! I found this and other ocean printables here We used our snack (shark, whale and starfish crackers- I know!) to measure how long some of our favorite ocean animals are. Blake LOVES to count and Emma LOVES to eat so another win-win!

I had printed a world map to color here. We used our 'world crayons' we had made on Valentine's day (still need to blog that on) to color our map. And a picture isn't complete until you've added stickers to it so we added some fish stickers in the ocean (and some on land) ;)

We brought the beach inside with a little sand and some sea shells. I layed a beach towel underneath to catch some sand which made for easy clean-up and a nice beach feel (until you look out the window). I had some beach tunes going because music is just necessary during play time :)

This kept little hands busy for a good 30 minutes. Eventually Buzz Lightyear and other toys were getting added and it was time to call it quits though.

A pre/post lunch activity: Alphabet fishing

We are ready to hit the beach!!

Dental Health Lesson

Today we talked about dental health. My kids love to brush their teeth, but brushing for them usually consists of them sucking the toothpaste off and then asking for more. Today I thought I'd teach them about why we brush our teeth

I first did an egg experiment with them. The egg had been hard boiled (well, boiled...I have yet to be able to hard boil an egg perfectly) and then soaked in a glass of pop for about an hour. The pop made the egg turn brown just as it does our teeth. You can also use coffee or colored fruit juice to get this effect.

I showed them the now brown egg and explained that one of the reasons we brush our teeth is so our teeth stay nice and white. We put toothpaste on a toothbrush and brushed our egg. You can see in the picture the white spot on the egg which is where we brushed ;)

Next, we took a laminated tooth cutout which I previously drew brown spots on using a dry erase marker. Using toothbrushes, the kids brushed away the brown spots.

I then gave them a little toothpaste (shaving cream) to brush all over their tooth to make it clean and white. They loved getting a great big glob of 'toothpaste' on their toothbush!

Next, we were on to flossing. I saw this idea online somewhere. Using giant legos we practiced flossing (yarn) the food (playdoh) out of lego teeth

I've always wanted to this snack idea I've seen everywhere. Apple smiles using apple slices, peanut butter and marshmallows for the teeth

CHEESE!

Teaching for the glory of God:

To include God in the lesson, we talked about who gave us our teeth and why (also had to include "did God give us teeth to bite our brother?" just for Emma). haha. I also incorporated that we are to take care of the things God gives us. The way we take care of our teeth are to eat foods that are good for our teeth and to brush twice a day.

Pee Wee All Sports

We signed Blake up for Pee Wee All Sports this winter and it has been wonderful. Last week was picture day which gave me the opportunity to bring my big ol' camera in without looking like a total crazy mom. It was also track and field day. Before class I thought, how on earth are they going to teach 3 yr olds shot-put, discus and hurdles? As always, they know what they are doing and it made for some great memories.

Shot put using wiffle balls

Discuss using frisbees

Long jump :)

Lastly, the hurdles. By far all the kids favorite thing to do was jumping over these foam hurdles

It's hard to tell in this small picture, but typically every time he jumped over the hurdle, the hurdle came with him. He smiled and laughed everytime he knocked them over nonetheless. :)

Snow Day!

Blake LOVES the snow (or "no" as he calls it)! He looks out the window everyday to see the "no" and loves to touch the snow that gets dragged in the house from our shoes. It's been a rough winter in our house for colds, so we haven't had the greatest opportunity to get him outside. BUT we finally did it......bundled him in his snowsuit and "boos" (aka- "boots") and took him out. Here's a peak at our "no" adventure......

It was an adventure getting him all bundled up. And HILARIOUS to see him walk in his snow boots and snow suit.

Walking in the snow was not so easy!

This is Blake's FAVORITE snowman that our neighbors built. He said hi and bye to it everyday.....until it's head fell off and melted :( Now he says "uh-oh" and points to his own head everytime he sees that last bit of formed snow in its place.