More Shapes!

Hey lovely faces, 

We are still working on shapes. I know Sarah knows them so well now but the variety of the activities doesn't give her the chance to get bored. I am also somehow following her lead and interests. For example, Sarah is currently very obsessed with clowns. She is even planning from now to her coming birthday party and she has decided to use the clown theme. I used this obsession to help us with shapes. It was something I saw long ago on Pinterest. We made a shape clown. Sarah also used pipe cleaners to create shapes.

Both Sarah and Farida played with shapes and play-dough. We did some dot-a-dot on shapes. I also drew the shapes with white crayon "wax colors" on a sheet of paper and then both Sarah and Farida colored it with regular markers to reveal the shapes.

Sarah did some cutting practice too. Farida also gave it a try :D

I have started a photo-dictionary that we are going to build ourselves. All the vocabulary words we are going to encounter are going to be put in this dictionary. The shapes were our starting words. Here:

All the sheets used are taken from this great source: 3 Dinosaurs.

And these are just recent taken images taken on the sea shore.

I don't like the new collage pictures I have used, they don't show the details and they are way too distracting. I promise I amnot going to use them again.

Also, I forgot to share with you an error I have done in the last post here. Thank God, a lot of people liked the ideas in this post an it was even featured on Sunday Showcase but what I forgot to mention is that I forgot and left the whole sensory tub untouched for a couple of day. Guess what happened? Mold grew on everything :( Yikees! I of course had to throw the water beads and deeply clean the shapes with Detol and other stuff. So, this is something I have learnt in the process.

I need to consult you, my friends, in something. Farida doesn't seem interested in any of the prepared activities we do. She wants to throw anything or disturb Sarah and take her things away. She screams and cries as if we are torturing her. The only thing she seems to enjoy is the sensory tubs. I know there is a 2-year- gap between both girls but I really don't know how to overcome this knowing that I currently don't have anyone to help.

That was all for today. We will continue some more with the shapes in our twisted ways following Sarah's leads. Thank you for visiting. Please, come back and check soon.

Love, 

Scary Feet,Scary Feet, Scary Feet!

Hi lovely faces,
Don't deny, I wasn't absent for long this time, LOL! Today's post come from my classroom :)
This our Course book in class. Module 4 unit 7 talks about body parts. Lesson C has a simple activity that asks students to make their own monsters out of play-dough.
Here is the deal:
The school provided each student with one block of not so safe play-dough. No googly eyes, nothing but this block that is supposed to magically turn into a monster :D Our students were never asked to do anything imaginary in their lives, they might be asked for a chart or something which mommy does of course :(
Our class rules rules were simple:

• Don't put your hands or the play-dough in your mouth.
• Students were divided into groups of 5s (Those 5 are supposed to come up with one big monster, this gave them also a variety to vary the colors)
• I play soft music as a background. If it stops, it means I have an important notification for them to hear.
• After they create their monster, we will gather in a circle and each student will describe his group's monster in one sentence (They were just introduced to have got/has got)

Of course, we were eagles hovering over their heads making sure no one forgets and puts anything in his mouth. Also, we had to show them other possibilities. For example, it was surprising to them that they could use their rulers to shape,carve, ...etc their play dough.

Here:

Yes, I love bragging about my students and my class. Yes, our students' monsters weren't the best if compared to other classes BUT it was their group work and their imagination! Our class was the only class that did this activity in groups while playing music with no help from teachers or mothers at home.

Currently, we are busy at home applying for Sarah in different schools! She is turning 4 in April! Wow, my big girl!

Thank you for being with us. Come back soon! We love seeing you here :)

Love,

More Monsters!

Hi all,
Today's post is as late as usual but I know you'll excuse me this time, poor baby Farida was hospitalized for 2 nights. We are glad we are back home and she is safe in her family's arms.
This is what we did just on Halloween's day: Sarah created her own monsters, I did only one, can you guess which one?

Then we turned on the black light and danced with Sarah and Farida wearing their hairy head bands that glow in the dark :)

 We also did some glowing in the dark erupting volcanoes, pardon the pictures but it's hard to take a photo while stopping Farida from shooting everything down and helping Sarah all at the same time.

And these were some erupting volcanic monsters ;) We loves these!

Thank you for being with us. Come back and visit soon :)

Love,

All in one post!

Hi all,

How are you doing? Everyday, Sarah wakes up half an hour earlier than the day before.  Today, Sarah woke me up at 6:45 a.m. Knowing that I go to bed at 1 or 2 am, wake up 2 or 3 times to nurse my baby, I'm tired, I need some decent sleep. This was random talk. Anyway, after breakfast and Farida's bath, we headed to the dollartree store. I bought chalk board, colored sand (I'm so optimistic with this one), some miniature items, dice and musical instruments (2 flutes and 2 harmonicas, 1 for each girl). Well, unfortunately the flutes are no better than whistles and the harmonica are too much work. I'm not so sure harmonicas are that hard but these require a lot of heavy blowing so to me, this was an error and a waste of $4 which I don't like :( Then, we headed to the supermarket and bought Cream of Tartar and reasonable-priced salt (You might have guessed what was on my mind).

We returned back home and continued on our rainbow fun. I saw this idea somewhere but unfortunately, I don't remember where (I'm so sorry). Simply, you paint a sponge with the different colors of rainbows and you get brilliant rainbow colors.

Then, we colored hands and feet. Sarah wasn't so excited especially that she wanted to continue coloring with the sponge but it ran out of color and became dry but once, I started doing Farida's feet, she got too excited :)

Sarah's foot!

Farida's foot, if you look at the following picture,

you'll know what she did with the colors :)

I found this magnificent site that adds effects to pictures like the one you sees above. It is as easy as 1, 2 & 3 and FREE. Here are another random pictures to show you how beautiful the effects are:

Hehehe, wouldn't it be nice if people held her picture!

By the way, she was pretending to drive her uncle's car in Egypt in this picture.



Then, I made bath paint colors. The idea is fantastic and so much fun. I found it on pinterest but I did an error. You are supposed to put shaving foam, add some food colors and stir it with a paint brush. I never watched my husband shaving so I filled the whole muffin tin with foam not knowing that stirring it will make it foamier and more. So, again, here is a waste of a lot of shaving foam that could have been saved for later time. It wasn't a real bath as much as playing with colors and water. I can claim that this was the funniest time Sarah spent in water. She played until the water got cold. By the way, it is so easy to rub off the tiles.

Needless to say that Sarah painted her legs instead and left the walls and dipped her brush in water. She was so happy to color the water. 

Remember what we bought today from the supermarket? Did you guess? Yes, we made play-dough. Let me say that, I was never that person who home made baby food or thought a lot about the ingredients of something but what really made me think about doing it is that we had tiny bits of play dough at home. They are expensive and very hard to maneuver and not as bright as the ones I saw online. Thank you Counting Coconuts for the recipe. For those who don't want to leave this page, it is 1 cup of flour, 1/2 cup of salt. 1 tablespoon of cream of tartar, 1 tablespoon of cooking oil and 1 cup of water. You mix well the dry ingredients and then add the wet ingredients and mix well.Add contents to a large pan and cook over medium-low heat, stirring constantly until it forms a ball and the wet parts begin to look dry. Turn the dough onto your counter top and knead it until smooth.
Add food coloring and glitter after the dough has cooled. I tried the ingredients at first and it worked so I did it again but this time I did everything X4. I must have grown muscles in this process. I added rainbow colors and glitter, lots of glitter and I am so satisfied with it (maybe I just need to change the way it smells although I don't know how).

Pouring.

Mixing.

To store, put in Ziploc bags and to the fridge.

Here's one problem I faced: Sarah didn't know what to do with it. So, I was the one who suggested most of the ideas:

Using a dough cutter.

Maybe in the future, we'll use it for fractions ;)

I told her let's make a face :)

We'll have to play a lot with this play-dough until Sarah gets the hang of it. Tomorrow is another day but it is not just like any other day, IT IS MAD SCIENCE SUNDAY and you bet it is still about rainbow. See you, God willing, very soon.

Love,