Earth Day

There was a book fair the other day near my place and I found these books which I bought. They are super cute. They are written by the same author (Jean Marzollo) of I Spy and other very good and known books. The illustration is beautiful, all made out of cut paper. Even though it is a book for a 4 years old who starts to read, my daughter loves it because she is starting to understand how things work in this world....I really recommend you this collection of books. They have several titles.

For the occasion of Earth Day, we read the book I Am an Apple (Hello Reader Science Level 1). We could learn how a little seed changes into a big tree with a lot of apples in it! We also read about all the things you can do with apples! Yammi!

Later we looked for some material so we could make our own apple tree...

I found loose fill peanuts, a toilet roll, a half Easter egg, paint, glue....

We put the half egg inside the roll to create a base.

We glued the peanuts and colored them green...(we used one of the peanuts to paint them. We painted the toilet roll using brown.

I still had some "San Valentine Day" hearts. These were perfect for our Apple Tree!

Happy Earth Day!

Looking for the High Rise Step Stool, Kitchen Helper or Learning Tower?

My daughter loves to see everything I do. When I am in the kitchen, she wants to be there and help! We have some barstools where she was trying to climb on, but I didn't let her since I thought it was not really safe. So surfing the web I found these 3 perfect options!

1.- The Learning Tower by Little Partners

2.- Guidecraft Kitchen Helper

3.- Guidecraft High Rise Step Up

I really liked The Learning Tower by Little Partners. My sister-in-law has one and it is really sturdy, easy to access (for the kid of course) and easy to clean, but too big for our kitchen.

Guidecraft Kitchen Helper was another good option because it folds so you can store it. But to store it you have to take out your tool kit, and right now, I don't have time for that....

So the last option was Guidecraft High Rise Step Up, which was a little smaller and not so expensive as the other two. My daughter loved it!

She climbs and gets down whenever she wants, and she loves it so much that some days she prefers eating standing so she can be on her stool.

If I had more space in the kitchen, I would have probably bought The Learning Tower by Little Partners, but this stool does the same function and it is light enough to carry from one point to the other...

My daughter loves to do the dishes and I let her! (Looks like I have one thing less to do, right? ummmm...No!

First I have to clean them and leave them in the sink... she thinks they are dirty and washes them again... It is so lovely to see her imitate me!)

Her you see her cleaning the dishes on her Guidecraft High Rise Step Up

MONTESSORI: This is a wonderful Practical Life activity and kids love it!

I Love your Blog Award

Yeah!!! My first award!!!

I was nominated by Painting Pink Pajamas and I am so happy! 

I always saw the award on other blogs and thought..."That would be so cool to be nominated! People must really like this blog!" and now I have one! Thank you SkylarKD, I REALLY do appreciate it!!!

Here are the rules:

1. Add the logo of the award to your blog
   
2. Add a link to the person who awarded it to you
   
3. Nominate at least 7 other blogs
   
4. Add links to those blogs on your blog
   
5. Leave a message for your nominees on their blogs!
   

This is a great opportunity to share some of my favourite child-related blogs with you! My nominees are:

1. Everything Except the Grill
2. Salt and Chocolate
3. Crafty Mama
4. La Paz Home Learning
5. See the Woods and the Trees
6. Two Heart Together
7. A bit of This and a bit of That

I could list so many others, but I guess most of them will have gotten the award already...

Thank you once again for the award!

Button Caterpillars (and cat)

I had absolute no idea what to do yesterday afternoon, so we opened our craft drawer, and found some buttons, some chenille, glue and some eyes...

Since it is Spring time, I thought about creating something for the garden. (We do not have any garden, but that doesn't matter...it is the idea, right? :-)

Caterpillar Material

Originally uploaded by www.MiniCuties.com

So...it could be some flowers...a butterfly...a Easter bunny...

But while I was thinking, my daughter was already very busy putting the buttons in the chenille stem. 

We ended up making this beautiful creatures!

Take a look!

MONTESSORI: 

This activity is a great way to practice hand and eye coordination, 

concentration and fine motor skills, a skill needed for writing later on.

After the body was done, we made a little face and glued the eyes

Voila!

She had so much fun that we made a couple more...

We used all the buttons we had! And here the whole family!

This morning my daughter woke up and the first thing she did was asking for more buttons....I could only find these ones. She made this beautiful cat!