Jingle Bells!

   Jingle bells, jingle bells,

  Jingle all the way.
  Oh! what fun it is to ride
  In a one-horse open sleigh.
  Jingle bells, jingle bells,
  Jingle all the way;
  Oh! what fun it is to ride
  In a one-horse open sleigh.

Hey Friends,

I am sure you are busy getting ready for Christmas. I miss Christmas in the USA. I think you are fed up with me saying we don't have it here in Egypt. Only Christians here celebrate it,you find some Santa Claus figures in some stores and that's all about it so its spirit at least is not in the air :( It makes me sad!

Do you want to hear some news about us? I'll assume you do and go on and tell you about it. Sarah is going to wear eye glasses and she's so excited about it, I'm not! Farida has an eye infection , as usual! It is not safe or fun to walk in the streets of our country, we are having a second revolution. 

Now let's get into some serious talk, jump in on our fun train and see what we did yesterday. I was trying to revive the Christmas spirit (not in the religious sense) so I prepared a Christmas sensory tub for both girls. I almost had everything on hand except Santa Claus and this one I got from a store here, it was ugly and pricey but glad that Sarah liked it anyway. In order to keep Sarah more focused, I created her a word document with some things to hunt for in the tub,. I put a picture of the item and its name, whenever she finds something, she uses a do-a dot marker to light it. I made candy canes out of fuzzy pipe cleaners.

Here's what's inside:

ornaments
2 small Christmas trees
Santa Claus figure
snowman figure
a gold butterfly
a stocking ornament
Christmas dough cutters (Star, gingerbread, candy cane)
snow flakes
pine cones
red and green dried flower petals
red shiny shreds
bells
a present box 
gems


It was very messy but easy to collect later. Both girls had fun showering with the shreds.

Then, I made a simple face paint using 2 ingredients that I'm sure you have. Crayola paints and lotion, yes, that's all. I found this recipe on Pinterest. Sarah asked for a Christmas tree on her face. I drew a heart on Farida's face, I wasn't sure she was going to stay still of I did something more complicated. It took some more time to dry than the usual face paint but we were satisfied with the final outcome.

This is another idea I found on Pinterest, a felt Christmas tree that can be re-decorated over and over again.

Then, Sarah used tongs to sort some glittery pom poms. She was very focused.

Finally, we read a book about Christmas (I'll talk about it in another post) and Sarah played on some Christmas applications on my phone (coloring, memory games, puzzles and decorating a Christmas tree). It was tons of fun. We of course will do some more crafts about Christmas.

Thank you for being with us.

Love,

Late!

Hi all,

I know everyone has finished "back to school" theme, we also did but I am late in blogging so here it is. First, I have to mention that I am impressed with Sarah. In a couple of months (in which we rarely did any activity), she is able to use the scissors pretty well. She is counting now till 20. She knows how to do patterns and sort according to size. I think her daycare helped in this a lot. 

On the other hand, Little Miss Farida is driving me bonkers. She is screaming non stop, how dare we take something from her? She takes everything from Sarah and throws it away. Sarah can't take it anymore and is starting to play rough with her. Farida is also able to walk 5-6 steps on her own. However, she doesn't say any words, not even baba or mama. She does random sounds but not a word. It is starting to concern me :( 

Here we go, thank you 2teachingmommies, I printed all the materials from there:

Sharpening the pencil, lol!

Scavenger hunt!

I have no idea what caused this face!

Sorting according to size

Phonics

This tongue was out throughout the whole cutting process, lol

Roll & graph!

Thank you for being with us!

Love,

Over Dose!

Hi,
Today, we had over dose of fun. We played from noon till night. Today, we were talking about Rainbows, Rain and Rabbits. Yes, it is letter "R". I wrote letter "R" on her black board and then we searched for it in our alphabet soup.

This is the first time Sarah does do-a-dots. She loved it. She was using a different color for each dot and then, she became obsessed with the green color.

Remember a month ago when we tried the tracing thing and it was a total failure, guess what? She did it today. Not perfect but she did it and I'm one happy mama :)

This was also the first time Sarah uses a stamper, it came with the rainbow pegs. It has a transparent peg to which you attach the letter. It has the ink and the alphabets.

So mommy, "R" is for ......

1. Rainbow colors!

This is colored tissue paper.

Cotton balls & glitter glue.

2. Rain drops.

3. Rabbit.

I don't know whether this is a coincidence or not but we do both the letter and its sound at the same time and Sarah told me it is the same as that in "Sarah" and "Frog".

I gave the rainbow sensory tub another try and you dear friends were absolutely right,

she had fun as if it was brand new.

This was at night, she asked to play some more.

I couldn't say no. 

I drew a rainbow, made its outlines and Sarah was supposed to 

put the appropriately colored sequin on the right color.

She was apparently sleepy and tired so that's all what she did but she got it right :)

She also played some more with the play-dough. 

This time, she was more creative.

Also, I printed these cards from this wonderful site. It is free. I laminated them. gave them to Sarah and asked her to pick only two cards. I took her two cards and we started talking about the pictures. I asked questions and she answered and then we said the whole thing again but this time, without questions. 

The following pictures were taken yesterday.

At the park on the big kids' swing :)

Yes, you can climb the tree.

I'll climb it mommy when I grow up a little now but for now, 

the baby doll can do it for me ;)

^^^These were her actual words, lol.

I had a doctor's appointment yesterday and Sarah literally can't sit still on a chair for over than 10 seconds so i had to keep her busy. I brought another felt kit and she did a frog for her sister. After we got back home, she gave Farida the cat and took the frog ;)

Now, family members accuse me of not giving Farida as much attention as Sarah but Come on, this blog is about our learning and playing journey and Farida is still immobile. She learns through her senses, she touches, listens to us singing and looks at what we are doing. That's why she is taking more part in the sensory activities but she is ALWAYS with us. So for my lovely family, here are a few pictures for Farida with her lovely charming smile.

Thank you for sharing our fun moments and please, come back soon.

Love,