Disney or Bust!

    Alright, so here we are on the eve of our family vacation. I'm sitting here sipping a glass of wine b/c I really hope it all goes well. Sometimes the little munchkin can be unpredictable! So I have to be prepared for anything!!

   Anyhow, so I got a little carried away in hyping up our trip. Check it out: 

          *Thank You, Pinterest for all the wonderful inspiration!

           

    I purchased a personalized Minnie head (on Etsy) and used it both as an iron on transfer to make the little munchkin's carry on bag. And then just printed one out and used contact paper to secure it onto a paint tin. I filled it with Minnie Mouse goodies that are now in her carry on bag.

    AND we made our very own autograph book with foam sheets, index cards, ring binders and a cute Princess scrapbook sticker! It will save me some $$!

   After that purchase, I was hooked on Etsy. I came across seller, The Lemonade Girl, who personalized these cute cups for my little one to take into the parks! SUPER cute!! You have to go check her out! She makes lots of cute, personalized things!

                

    And LOOK! Even I wanted in on all the creative fun, so I went to the nail salon and they designed these awesome Minnie Nails for me (using an example from Pinterest, of course!)

                

   Ah, so much fun to be had with anything Disney!!
   For the past 2 days, (as if the excitement wasn't there already), I had quite a few activities planned for the munchkin. I found this Fairy Princess Bingo at From The Pond.

 We got really creative and here is our version of the game:

*We used her Princess toys as cover ups!

            

            

   And I used some printables from this Princess Pack created by 123 Homeschool For Me. ( I made sure to put some sheets aside to use on the plane ride)

She worked on Patterning.

               

                     And she made stick puppets!

                    

    Here is another Princess Pack I found  at Over the Big Moon and I printed a few pages for this one too...

     Super cute packs!!!

Well, I just wanted to share some of my Disney excitement with all of you!

Now it's off to bed for me!! We have an early flight to catch tomorrow! 

Dots! Dots! Dots!

    The little munchkin is learning about the letter Dd!

    Dd is for Dots, Donuts, and...Disney!! 

Yep, only 4 more days until we are in Disney World!

 

    Anyhow, our fun started with DOTS!! Lots and lots of dots!

    She worked on the Dd sound by using sparkly dot letter stickers (from Target's Dollar Spot) to spell words that begin with the letter Dd. She matched the letters, spelled it out aloud and then wrote each word.

        
               
                

    She worked on counting and number identification with these math mats I use in my classroom.

         

                  

    And dots are TONS of fun to paint, right?

    First she placed dot stickers all over cardstock paper and painted over it.

           

                       

     When it was all dry, we peeled off the dot stickers!

               

    And then I found these fun dot painter thingees for her to paint with.

         

                     

Lots of Dot fun!!

Rubber Duckies Rock!!

    We are camping with the Virtual Book Club Summer Camp again this week!

    We took last week off from the Book Club Summer Camp because of the 4th of July holiday and we had family in town. The first half of our week was filled with last minute family fun and we said goodbye to our family this morning. 

    So with the house empty (with hubby at work and my teen son in Chicago until Sunday), the little munchkin and I went camping again!

    This week's theme has been Water Play.

    One of the recommended books for this week is "10 Little Rubber Ducks" by Eric Carle.  Again, me being me and wanting to do so many things at once, I looked for a way to combine learning activities. 

   And since the next letter we are going to learn about is Letter Dd, a Duck themed book/activity was perfect!! Ah, some times I love the way I think!!

   Anyhow, here is the math (and water play) activity that I created for the little munchkin.

       

      I had originally wanted to use her water table, but with all the rain we have had, there was too much wet sand in it (and you know wet sand weighs a ton) for me to clean it out all by myself! 

    After reading the book, she searched each duck for the numbers to match the Number Line.

       

                 

And here is alternative version that was a little more challenging.

       

          

          

    Then the REAL water play fun started when she added in some dish soap and I gathered random toys & objects for her to use.

                     

   

  Discovering that some of the rubber duckies blew bubbles was the best part!

                     

      

    After about an hour of playing, she was pretty wet from all the little splashing and splashing and she wanted to come inside to change. I'm sure if it was warmer outside, she would have continued to play.

    Once she got settled inside, we did a quick spelling activity using letter stamps. She spelled the word DUCK, not one time, not two times, but THREE times!!

                 

So that was the awesome Ducky Water Play fun we had today! 

Letter Cc is for Cookie!!

   We are moving along with our SWEET unit, and after drooling over ice cream activities (and ice cream!), we have moved on to learn about the letter Cc.

   Last summer, we did an extensive Cupcake theme when we learned about letter Cc and had lots of fun with Laura Numeroff’s “If You Give a Cat a Cupcake.”

   Here are a few pics from that Cupcake Fun!

   So this time, we focused on a Cookie theme for our Letter Cc fun!

   To introduce a few items that begin with the Cc sound, she cut out a huge circle and looked at different pictures to determine which ones began with the “Cc” sound. She glued them onto a smaller brown circle and then made a large Chocolate chip cookie!

   And what better book to use than another of Laura Numeroff’s books: “If You Give a Mouse a Cookie”?

   We used my storytelling kit as we read the book and then used some printables that I came across from 123 Homeschool 4  Me, centered around the book. Best part: It's FREE!!

   I made each of the printables into more of a game, just to make it more fun and exciting.

   The packet has a few word tracing sheets and her and I took turns tracing the letters of each word and asking each other to name the letters. Can you tell which ones are her writing?

                         

  She also worked on her counting with a Cookie Jar Ten Frame game I created, which will be available soon in my TPT store.

                  

                     

   And then she had some spelling fun with these ABC Cookies for Learning Resources.  

                       

And I bet it was that much more fun because she was doing it in her new Tinkerbell tent that I snagged in the Clearance shelves at Walmart for a whooping $7! 

         

  Tomorrow I will be posting some Water Play fun as we join the Virtual Book Club Summer Camp once again! Stay tuned for tomorrow’s Water Play theme activity!

Let the Countdown Begin!!

   Hi everyone! I hope you all had a fantabulous 4th of July holiday! I sure did as I spent time with my family from Texas and my mom! Good times!!!

   Now that the 4th has past, it's time to look forward to our upcoming family vacation... To Disney World!! 

                    So... LET THE COUNTDOWN BEGIN!! 

   Check out our awesome Countdown to Disney calendar! I was soooo excited to make it!!

        

     The little munchkin and I are more excited than my husband and my son.... Ugh, boys, right? 

     Anyway, I even have a few Disney themed activities that I hope we can get to, starting next week!

          So, in the meantime, I have to remember ONE thing only...

                        

Happy 4th of July!!

   Hello everyone! Things have been busy here the past few days, with my family in town and the celebration of my 7th year wedding anniversary on the 2nd...

   One gift from my lovely hubby was a new iPad! I have the 1st generation iPad (aka the "dinosaur") and it has been giving me alot of issues lately. So he decided I needed a more updated iPad2! And I am using it to blog today!! 

   So while I play with my new toy, I just wanted to take a minute and wish everyone a Happy 4th!!!