Safari Themed Birthday Party Ideas

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We decided to use what we’ve got for Kooks’s second birthday party. We invited a couple of families from town and had a beautiful picnic by the river. The kids had a great time splashing around so we didn’t have to come up with too many additional activities, but we did do a few things to make the safari party extra special. The kids each received an animal mask. I printed these off, laminated them, and duct taped a craft stick to the back. The monkey mask is from First Palette, the leopard from Color Me Good, and the rest from Sparkle Box. Sparkle Box actually has a set of eight jungle and safari masks you can print off but I only wanted to use animals [...] Read more »

Preschool Homeschool Lesson Plans: Week 7, Age 3

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It was a fairly quiet week as far as academics go but it was really busy as we prepared for Kooks’s second birthday party. This was also the week Boo decided to drop her nap! Literacy and Language Arts: I pinned up some letter cards and Boo practiced writing the letters on her chalkboard. We used our whiteboard for the first time ever. I wrote the letters Boo has already learned and she traced them while we practiced our letter sounds. I had originally planned to have her circle the letters when I said their sound but she wanted to trace them. Then she decided that many of the letters needed faces and curly hair. We also started learning the phonics song by KidsTV123. Cognitive [...] Read more »

How to Make a Paper Mache Leopard Pinata

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We decided to make a leopard piñata for Kooks’s safari birthday party. We had a lot of fun in the process and thought the end result turned out pretty well. For our base we taped some egg crates to a balloon. Then we added our layers of torn newspaper strips dipped in paper mache paste. We used a simple paper mache recipe with just two ingredients – one part flour, two parts water. We did four coats and left it to dry thoroughly between each coat. Then I cut out the top and two small holes for the wire to hang it from. We always stick a little piece of cardboard on the wire inside the pinata before twisting it off. It acts as a [...] Read more »

Preschool Homeschool Lesson Plans: Week 6, Age 3

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It was another good week. The littles keep surprising me with how serious they are about their work and with how much information they can retain. Here’s what we did during week six of our preschool homeschool. Literacy and Language Arts: This week we added lowercase l for ladybug and lowercase y for yellow yarn to our letter walls. The girls love doing their letter crafts and are getting pretty good with their letter sounds. We are about halfway through the alphabet but I think we are going to take a break from introducing new letters and focus on becoming really comfortable with the letter sounds of the twelve we have already introduced. We learned another nursery rhyme from Webbing Into Literacy - Peter Peter Pumpkin Eater. Cognitive [...] Read more »

Lowercase Y Craft: Yellow Yarn

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The only thing we could think of to do with a lowercase y was to make it yellow and add yarn. Materials: one sheet of yellow paper, one sheet of white paper, yellow yarn, paste, and glue. I cut the y out of the white paper and the littles pasted it to their yellow paper. I helped them get a thick layer of glue on the y without getting too much on the yellow paper and then they went to town adding the yellow yarn. It was fast, easy, and a whole lot of fun. Read more »

Make Your Own Dung: Play Dough Favor for a Safari Party

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Kooks is about to turn two and we are busy planning her safari birthday party. What better way to celebrate the African bush than to play with wildlife poop? Today we worked on our “make your own dung” party favors for her guests to take home. I made play dough using a recipe from Musing From a Stay at Home Mom. The only problem was I couldn’t find any brown food coloring and the play dough cooks so fast I didn’t think I’d have time to mix the colors while cooking the dough. Instead I mixed all the different food colors I had together with the water before I added it to the dry ingredients. That way I could make sure I got a nice [...] Read more »

Run to the Shape

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Run to the Shape

We have a deck in front of our house where the littles often play, “Run to the Hot! Run to the Shade!” The title pretty much explains the game. The girls stand in the shaded portion of the deck and yell, “run to the hot!” Then they run to the sunny portion of the deck. Immediately they shout, “run to the shade!” and they run back to the shaded portion of the deck. It’s a really simple game that they made up themselves but they love it. This game and a recent post from Teach Preschool about a game where kids run to a color in a taped out square made me think the girls would enjoy a running game to practice what they have [...] Read more »

Lowercase L Craft: Ladybug (Ladybird)

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Finally, Boo’s favorite letter! She was so excited to do this l for ladybug (or depending where you’re from ladybird) craft. My littles hold both U.S. and U.K. passports so it remains to be seen which word they use for this adorable little insect. Materials: one sheet of white paper, one sheet of colored paper, three red paper circles, a bunch of black paper circles made with a holepunch, a glue stick, a black marker, and green crayons. I drew a lowercase l on the white paper and the girls colored it in green to make a leaf. You know they were into this craft because they didn’t even notice the elephant that came for a drink at our waterhole! In fact when her friends [...] Read more »

Preschool Homeschool Lesson Plans: Week 5, Age 3

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Preschool Homeschool Week 5 - Mud Hut Mama

Since the girls saw their first black rhino last week, we spent a lot of time learning about rhinos in this week’s preschool homeschool. Unfortunately the injured rhino we found didn’t make it and so the girls and I never got another opportunity to see him. Literacy and Language Arts: We introduced two more letters and their sounds this week with n for night night and r for rhino. The girls are really enjoying their letter crafts and are getting very serious about their art. Click the links above to see the details of how we made these crafts. We also practiced writing letters. Here Boo is tracing letters I wrote with sidewalk chalk. That outline is of Kooks. She colored it in while Boo [...] Read more »

Lowercase N Craft: Night Night

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N for Night Night

Yesterday we introduced the letter n with this night night craft. Materials: a piece of black construction paper, a piece of white paper, star stickers, a small piece of material, glue, paste, a black marker and (although it’s not pictured here) a paper moon. For each craft I drew the n on the white paper and cut out two small circles that I drew closed eyes on. The littles had fun coloring their n’s. Then we stuck our star stickers all over the black construction paper. And pasted on our n’s. The girls really liked giving their n’s a blankie. To glue this on we needed the school glue instead of the paste. I thought we were finished but Boo reminded me that we needed [...] Read more »