Learning can be very yummy!

I don't think we as Mom's realize the little things we do everyday that we can turn into learning experiences for our children. For example I was putting the dishes away and started to put the silverware away and it dawned on me that this would be a good sorting activity for Mason so I got all the silverware and the tray it goes in and sat on the floor then invited Mason to come help me he then proceded to divide the spoons, forks and knives in the tray and he thought it was great fun...Ok onto my topic for our classroom today which is baking yet another thing we as moms probably do with our children that can be so educational. We discussed ingredients (language) encouraged Mason to name them. Did lots of measuring and counting (math skills) you can count amounts of ingredients, how many stirs, how many eggs, how many chocolate chips...etc... and lots of dumping, pouring, stirring, cracking and licking (fine motor and fun skills:) Learning can be very yummy!

Lickity Letters...

We have begun our quest of learning the Alphabet. I have been waiting for Mason to give me a sign that he was ready to do this and the other day he pointed out "his letter" M on a t.v. show so that was my que. We started with of course the Letter A cut out of cardboard and painted white we then talked about what it is what sound it makes and that it starts the word Apple. We expanded on that by learning the differant colors apples can be and even eating one which was Mason's favorite part. We decorated our A with pictures of apples, apple stickers and a plastic apple which Mason thought was pretty funny this project was "A OK"!!

Snow Goggles!

Who wants to be blinded by the snow? What better to have than a nice pair of Snow Goggles! We created these by cutting up an egg carton adding yarn to tie around head and decorating with markers we will have to go outside and try these out....regardless of there functionality they are absolutely Hilarious!

Snow Painting...

A few day's ago we did some painting in the snow! If you think about it what better place to create art with such a beautiful clean canvas. We mixed water and food coloring into four different cups yellow, red, blue and green then dipped our brushes in and got to work! I thought it really looked beautiful in the snow and Mason ended up splashing the cups on the ground which created a nice effect! Next time I think we should try using spray bottles to disperse the colors better.

Bridge...

Bridge's can also be very fun to eat as well!

Bridge Over Troubled Water...

Our Classroom always starts out strong on Monday's and by the end of the week begins to collapse just like a bridge... speaking of which we learned about today. Every time we go to visit Mason's Aunt Makaya, he loves to go over the large bridge that leads to her town, I say "no hands" and Mason lifts up his hands as we go over the bridge. So today we decided to explore making our own bridge... We started with Marshmallows, toothpicks and playing cards. We then went on to connect the Marshmallows and toothpicks to form the structure of our bridge. I thought that I would be doing most of this part myself but as you can see Mason was quite good at it and participated equally. We then put our "road" on our bridge and Mason drove cars on it. This turned out to be a very fun activity that I hope he learned alot from....it certainly helped in keeping him entertained for the rest of the morning.

The Letter M

We made the first letter of Mason's name with playdough and learned the sound "mmmmm"

Baby Love...

Our Classroom was all about babies today. I got out the tub of baby things and Mason was very excited to try his hand at parenting. I could tell he was really imitating mom and dad as he took care of his own baby. He fed the baby a bottle, gave it a bath, and diaper change and then rocked him to sleep. I say him because when I asked Mason what his baby's name was he of course answered "Olidder". He went on playing with the baby longer than I anticipated and put him in Oliver's bed and highchair as well there is so much imagination that goes into this pretend play that I just adore!

Oliver liked the baby too!

String Shapes..

We made some basic shapes out of strings today, just trying to add an interesting element to something that really bores Mason he helped me glue the string on and Mama helped a lot to form the shapes. He was very proud to show his dad and passed with flying colors when his dad quizzed him on them.....this has inspired me to start a new shape project...

He sells seashells...

We explored "The Beach" sensory tub today and Mason did alot of organizing big and little shells. He is very aware of Big and Little things lately and I can only assume it is from our emphasis on being a big brother to his little brother. Mason is a boy of few words but always amazes me with his thought process. He began to pick out shells and hand them to me saying "DaDa", MaMa" (pointed to himself) for the Mason shell and "Oliiider". He did this on his own with no prodding from me and I thought it was brilliant you can see from the picture that the shells go from largest to smallest in order of our family. Little minds can be quite wonderful....

Feelin Blue?

Daddy helped on our Blue hunt today Mason set up the photo by arranging all of his blue things on his blue chair (notice the blue radio underneath) he can be very particular sometimes hmmm...just like Daddy?

It takes so little to excite us....

Can you believe it?! I don't know who was more excited Mama or Mason over seeing that Squirrel grab the pine cone off the string and run up to a higher spot in the tree with it!!

Its the little things.....

Inspired from our walk in the forest...

After our walk in the forest yesterday we came home and made ourselves and the squirrels some lunch. We started with tying a string on a pine cone then covered it with peanut butter (don't forget to take lots of licks while spreading) we then rolled it in a mixture of popcorn and small pieces of bread Mason interrupted the activity by insisting that we feed the squirrels fruit snacks as well so they were also added. We then took our lunch and hung it in the tree for our squirrel friends hopefully they will enjoy it!

Our Classroom
started today with
a hunt for Red things
in our house. Mason
got a kick out of
marching around
the house searching
for the color red I think
the shoe he found is my favorite!

The Forest...

Today's classroom began with the discovery of various animal tracks and pure delight on Mason's face as he "mama" mama" and pointed when he found a new one, exploring a giant oak tree came next which of course included some impressive climbing, as well as our new two-year old obsession Squirrel's which will inevitably lead us to our next project of making them some lunch.....until then.