The Grouchy Ladybug Activities

I love the humility lesson in The Grouchy Ladybug along with the friendliness of the friendly ladybug despite the attitude of the grouchy ladybug. 

As we read through the book this week, we mimicked some of the other animals the ladybug came across. Here are the few of the actions we did:

• showed our stinger like the yellow jacket
• used our hands as horns like the stag beetle
• prayed like a praying mantis
• opened our mouths like the sparrow
• stretched our claws like the lobster
• lifted our tail like the skunk
• hissed like a snake
• laughed like a hyena
• beat our chests like a gorilla
• lowered our noses like a rhino
• raised our trunk like an elephant
• said THANK YOU! like the grouchy ladybug

Grouchy Ladybug - Friendly Ladybug - Leaf w/ Aphids Craft
I like to think that at the end of the book the Grouchy Ladybug becomes friends with the Friendly Ladybug. They also help the leaf by eating all the aphids. Saying thank you when a friend shares and thank you when someone helps us shows appreciation to our friends or acquaintances.

To show the end of the book relationship, Sweet P created 2 ladybugs and a leaf w/ aphids on it. The Grouchy Ladybug had a down-turned mouth and frowny eyebrows to show the difference between the two ladybugs.

She chose pink for the Friendly Ladybug and red for the Grouchy Ladybug. Because she wanted to paint with green and yellow, she used both on the leaf.

I set the plates outside to dry while Sweet P played for a bit. When I brought them back in she glued on eyes, mouth and eyebrows. I was going to have her poke through the plate with a pushpin to make a hole for the antennae, but the plate was wonky and she had a hard time so I did it.

Using a circle cutter with a grip, she cut out 10 black circles for ladybug spots. We used a sunburst hole punch for the aphids, but it was too hard for her to push. I even had a hard time! I punched out 10 aphids for the leaf.

To finish, Sweet P glued the spots on the ladybugs and counted the 10 aphids before gluing them to the leaf.

I set them together to take a quick photo and she rearranged them so that the ladybug mouths were touching the leaf so they could eat!

Here's what Baby Blue was up to while Sweet P glued!

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{Readathon 2012} Pretend Play Parties

Sweet P LOOOOVES birthday parties (partly because she LOVES cupcakes) and celebrates daily with several of her stuffed toys and dolls. Most days, one of her toys has a birthday (I think Beary is now 8 years old) and she has a great time setting up her dolls and serving food.

After reading Lott's Tea Party as part of the MeMeTales Readathon, I noticed how many of those things Sweet P does to prepare for her own pretend play parties and as we read we talked about the similarities. She loved the owl drinking tea and wiping his mouth. We also noticed that Lott wears a bow just like Sweet P!

We have a set of felt cookies that I made for Sweet P as a Valentine's gift and they are so much fun. Last week as we played upstairs she made cookies for me, the Farmer, Beary and several other toys. I loved watching the thought that went into each cookie and her preparation as we told her the color of frosting and how many sprinkles we wanted.

Today we'll be making cookies for a friend who recently had a baby and delivering them on Saturday!

Check out more Friendship ideas on the MeMeTales blog and if you haven't already joined the Readathon 2012, you still can! Find out more info in this post.

Visit MeMeTales Week 1: Animals and our 5 Little Ducklings post for animal-related ideas.

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The Wonderful World of Eric Carle

Happy Birthday Eric Carle!

We have several Eric Carle books, but I suppose we're a bit cliche when I say that The Very Hungry Caterpillar is our favorite. The Very Quiet Cricket, The Grouchy Ladybug and Brown Bear Brown Bear What Do You See? are three others we enjoy.

Last year we did 2 different caterpillar activities that went alongside The Very Hungry Caterpillar:

Our pipe cleaner caterpillar, who Sweet P adored! 


And our feed the caterpillar activity that involved another pipe cleaner caterpillar who turned into a butterfly.


May's Virtual Book Club book was The Very Quiet Cricket and we went on a cricket hunt! We never did find him, but she had a fun time trying!

This week we'll be doing activities to go along with The Grouchy Ladybug and Brown Bear Brown Bear What Do You See?

I'd love to hear about what you've been doing with Eric Carle books! Join me and a group of fabulous bloggers to celebrate Eric Carle's birthday! We'll be sharing various ideas throughout the week and you can link up your own ideas here! Be sure to visit the participating blogs throughout the week for a wide array of Eric Carle book activities! The linky will be up all week long so come back any new ideas you might do this week!

Participating Blogs:

Mom to 2 Posh Lil Divas
No Twiddle Twaddle
Reading Confetti
Teach Preschool
Mommy and Me Book Club
The Educators' Spin On It
Living Montessori Now
Living at the Whiteheads Zoo
Famiglia and Seoul
Smiling Like Sunshine
The Iowa Farmer's Wife
Rainy Day Mum
Familylicious
Our Feminist Play School
Inspiration Laboratories
Royal Baloo
Kitchen Counter Chronicles
Smile Play Learn

Introducing: MeMeTales Readathon 2012

I mentioned the MeMeTales and PBSKids Readathon 2012 last week in my 60 Ways to Make Reading Fun post, but here is the post that will tell you all about the Readathon and how YOU can be a part of it!

It's simple, it's educational and it's fabulous!

So how does it work?

1. Visit How Do I Participate in Readathon 2012 for a complete list of details and instructions regarding the Readathon.
2. Each week there will be a series of new ebooks your child can borrow/read through a MeMeTales app (available for iPad, iPhone, Android phone/tablet and Kindle Fire) or through MeMeTales online (this is how we read it since we don't own any of the above!). 
3. By signing up or downloading the app, you instantly receive 20 ebooks free! You'll have access to a newsletter with weekly activities centered around the theme. 
4. Each week of the Readathon (6 total) has a theme:
• Week 1: Animal Fun
• Week 2: Friendship
• Week 3: Character Development
• Week 4: Imagination
• Week 5: The Green Earth
• Week 6: Global Cultures
5. Participating in the Readathon also supports FoodForEducation.org, an organization devoted to helping children around the world attend school. For each child who joins the Readathon, MeMeTales donates a meal to send a hungry child to school. 
6. Various bloggers are participating in the Readathon and creating crafts/activities to go along with one of the featured books each week. Check back to see ours for Week 1. 

I sincerely hope you'll join us in participating in Readathon 2012! Use hashtag #readforgood to interact, communicate and connect with other Readathon participants.

60 Ways to Make {Reading} Fun

I was inspired to write this list after our library distributed a list of ways to make reading fun during Spring Break. I absolutely, positively love to read, and can only hope I share that passion with my children. While most of these talk about reading with/to your child, these can most certainly be done by a child who can read on their own. Read to, with or alongside your children as often as possible.

Read {where}
1. in the bath tub (empty, of course). Fill it with blankets, pillows and books.
2. outside. In a chair, on a blanket, under a tree, in a tree house, at a park.
3. in a fort. Build a fort with your child and climb inside for a book or two.
4. with a flashlight. Turn off the lights and read to your child by flashlight.
5. in a book nook. Create a special place for reading books with comfy blankets and stuffed toys.
6. at the table. Start each meal with a book or a bible verse.
7. wearing dress-up clothes.
8. under a table.
9. in a laundry basket (if you're small enough to fit!).
10. out loud.
11. on the stairs.
12. every day.

Read {what}
13. a book in a different language.
14. a how-to book.
15. a pictures-only book.
16. a book with chapters.
17. a year book (preferably your mom or dads).
18. the newspaper.
19. labels at the grocery store.
20. a comic book.
21. the Bible
22. street signs.
23. a book from the library.
24. a book that plays music.

Read with {or to} your
25. mom.
26. dad.
27. grandma.
28. grandpa.
29. brother
30. sister.
31. cousins.
32. aunt.
33. uncle.
34. neighbor.
35. best friend.
36. babysitter.
37. favorite stuffed animal/doll.
38. pet.
39. self in the mirror.

Read a Book About
40. your hometown.
41. your state.
42. your country.
43. a castle.
44. dinosaurs.
45. the past.
46. the future.
47. another country.
48. your favorite animal.
49. your favorite food.
50. your favorite activity.
51. the moon.
52. going on vacation.
53. the place you're going on vacation.
54. fairy tales.
55. someone famous.
56. a holiday.
57. the seasons.

{Active} Reading
58. sing the words.
59. act out the words.
60. spell the words.

Since we're talking about reading, I wanted to share some exciting news! We are joining PBS and Memetales for their Summer Readathon 2012! As one of the blogs participating in this project, we'll be sharing a weekly activity that corresponds with one of the Readathon books. Stay tuned for more about the Readathon later this week!

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Our 10 Favorite Kids Books

Cars Galore by Peter Stein: Sweet P LOVES the book and has it memorized. It's full of fun cars and fun rhymes, including a Rusty, Dusty, Hunk of Junk car that Sweet P adores. The illustrations go perfectly with the rhymes and keep a child interested. Great book for boys and girls who love cars!


King Hugo's Huge Ego by Chris Van Dusen: A book with a good message about being humble. I don't love the fact that there is a "sorceress" involved, but the illustrations are silly and Sweet P loves the parts about his head growing bigger and bigger each time he brags.


Look...A Book by Bob Staake: Staake is the illustrator for Cars Galore and this seek and find book is simple enough for toddlers. It's full of silly pictures and ideas with fun rhymes and little windows throughout the pages.


Miss Lina's Ballerinas by Grace Maccarone: I think I might love this book just as much as Sweet P. The book is about 8 little ballerinas that turn into 9. All of their names rhyme, which is too cute: Christina, Edwina, Sabrina, Justina, Katrina, Bettina, Marina, and Nina...Regina is the 9th. There is a sequel called Miss Lina's Ballerinas and the Prince, but I like the first much better.


What is Your Language? by Debra Leventhal: Hands down Sweet P's favorite book. I bought it at GoodWill for 89 cents and it's one of the best purchases I've ever made. It's about a young boy who travels around the world learning how to say yes in several languages. Sweet P's favorite is Inuktitut.

Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown: If you don't have this in your library of books, then go get it!


Way Up High in a Tall Green Tree by Jan Peck: A super cute story about a little girl in a tree saying goodnight to various animals. At the end you discover she's in her bunk bed with her stuffed animals. It has a lot of different animals, which helped Sweet P (and me!) learn a few new ones.


Every Cowgirl Needs Dancin' Boots by Rebecca Janni: The sequel to Every Cowgirl Needs a Horse. These books are super cute and perfect for any girl who loves boots or dancing! I read it in a Texas accent for fun and Sweet P loves the glitter girls and the part when Nellie Sue slips.


Fancy Nancy (the original) by Jane O'Conner: We love any Fancy Nancy book, but the original is our favorite. I love these books and Fancy Nancy's love for words and books.

Any lift-the-flap Little People book: These books are great for travel with over 40 flaps to lift in each book.

• Cars, Trucks, Planes and Trains
• Let's Get Moving
• My Little People Farm
• School Bus

What are some of your favorite children's books?

Book Recommendations for Big Girls

And by big girls I mean women.

I'm on my 13th book of the year (I've mentioned before that I'm a bona fide book nerd) so I felt like it was time for some book recommendations for ya. Same as in the past some aren't worth mentioning...so I won't. I'll just mention the good stuff (the ones you just can't put down even though it's 1am and the baby's going to wake up any minute).


The Restorer: The Sword of Lyric Series #1 ,The Restorer's Son (book #2) and The Restorer's Journey (#3): A trilogy about a mom wanting to grow closer to God who finds herself in another world. A world whose faith in God is astounding and a world where she's been sent by God to embark on a spiritual journey. I don't want to ruin anything, but you'll want to read 2 and 3 after reading the 1st one!


The Heart Mender: Based on true events, this book is an easy read full of history and a beautiful story about forgiveness and 2nd chances.

Still Alice by Lisa Genova: This book was heart-wrenching. Lots of tears involved, but such a good book about a 50 year old women who discovers she has Early Onset Alzheimer's Disease.

The Christmas Sweater by Glenn Beck: Definitely don't have to be in the Christmas spirit to read this book. A compelling book about forgiveness, the power of God and learning that God is MORE than enough. Based on true events.

The Sex Lives of Cannibals: Adrift in the Equatorial Pacific by J Maarten Troost: I know I'm going to regret writing that title in my blog, but the title really has nothing to do with the book. It's a hilarious book about the author's experience in Tarawa, a South Pacific island in the middle of absolute nowhere. Reading about the lives of those living on an atoll was so interesting and intriguing!


Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford: I'm at the end of this one (it's number 13), but I can already tell you that it is such a good read. The history alone is fascinating and horrible at the same time.

I also reread The Hunger Games so I could refresh my memory before the movie comes out and it was just as good as the first time. If you haven't read it, then you should!

How do I have time to read? Well, I make time for it because it's something that I love. Sometimes I hole up in the bathroom in a bath and read until the water gets cold, or I stay up late to read. But by far the best way to read is while nursing the baby both at night and during the day. It's also something I want my children to see me doing so they know it's something you should do on a regular (every day) basis.

5 Days of Advent Calendars: Book Calendar

5 Days of Advent Calendars: Book Calendar

I couldn't decide on just one Advent Calendar this year so I decided we'd do not 1, not 2, but 5 different things. Overboard? Maybe. But we've had so much fun on day 1 that I'm glad I did.

When I pulled out and counted our Christmas books, I realized we have 16, which is the number of days we'll be home before driving south for the winter (or at least Christmas). Some are just about snow, but since it snows so much here I figured they'd be a good addition to the Christmas pile.

We've accumulated the books over the past year (we had about 3 last year). I picked up several from garage sales over the summer, bought some on Amazon and Gammie found a few at thrift stores throughout the year.

I'm not sure which ones are our favorites because we haven't read them, yet! But the 5 I listed have 4.5 to 5 stars on Amazon so it sounds like they're some good ones.

I wrapped each book and will set one book under the tree for Sweet P to unwrap each day. We'll then sit near the tree or in our reading corner and read the book for the day.

I'm excited to start this tradition with her because she LOVES books. I know she'll be excited about getting a new book to read each day this month.

We have a variety of books, but here are a few:
If You Take a Mouse to the Movies by Laura Numberoff
Little Porcupine's Christmas by Joseph Slate
The Big Snowball by Wendy Cheyette Lewison
Lift the Flap Nativity
One Night in Bethlehem by Tim Wesemann

Our other Advent Calendars:
Day 2: Chain Calendar
Day 3: Gift Calendar
Day 4: Advent Action Calendar
Day 5: Santa Calendar

Tot School: Week 3

Let me start by saying this poor post will lack pictures because I did a very dumb thing to the setting on my camera. I turned it to "raw" and that was a dumb idea. Because now our pictures from the 2nd half of the week are just that, raw. And pixelly and yeah, just bad all around. The Farmer is super sad, too, because he got some hilarious shots of Sweet P on Thursday night when she was running around in her diaper before bedtime. Sigh. Here we go anyway:

We spent most of last Monday running errands all around town. Sweet P had tons of fun helping me pick out little gifts for Operation Christmas Child (more on that tomorrow). I have a video of her riding an electronic horse at the grocery store, but sadly I can never get my videos to load on blogger. Anyway, Monday is also lacking pictures due to our crazy day of errand running.

Library story time: I won't name the library, but the story time last week was NOT our (or should I say my) cup of tea. I'm not a fan of people who lead children's activities who act as if they were forced to do so against their will. Needless to say, we won't be going back to that story time. A shame too, because I really enjoy that library.

Mega Bloks: These stay in Sweet P's closet so I decided to bring them downstairs to see what we could do with them. This was the first time I've seen her stack them on top of one another, usually she just pulls them apart.

Rocks: Monday, during our errand running, we stopped and picked up a box of rocks (I had shoe boxes). We brought them home, I washed them off and she had a great time playing with them.

Sensory Bowl/Container/Bucket: The sensory bowl has moved locations several times this week. It started in a bowl, then got moved to a spinach bin waiting to be recycled and now it sits in a large pumpkin-like container that had Halloween pretzels I bought for all those trick-or-treaters I never saw. She has been loving it this week. Contents: Tiles from the game, Bananagrams, a pack of jingle bells, soccer ball magnets, clear decorative stones and an acorn or two she's found outside during the week. It has been dumped out more times than I can count, but she's great at helping me pick them up.

Paper towel tube/pom pons: I saw this activity several times this week. I can't remember everywhere I saw it, but I did see it here. She really liked it until she realized she could bypass the tube and just stick them in the cup.

PomPon sorting: This was MY favorite activity this week. And I think Sweet P liked it, too. I separated the pompons by color in a muffin tin because I'd already tried asking her to pick up the "green" and "yellow" and "blue" pompons with no success. So I sorted them for her and then took out 3 at a time. She'd pick one out and put it back with the appropriate color. I'm pretty sure I clapped with delight when she did this several times. We've had trouble with colors so I was really excited to see she could sort them by color.

Kitchen toys: I was making muffins in the kitchen and had given her the strainers to play with in the living room. I checked on her and this is what I saw:

Helping make muffins: I let her stir and tried to let her help scoop the batter into the muffin tins. Uhhhh, I'll let you imagine how that went. In the process, she licked some batter and kept signing more (there was nothing raw...no eggs) so I let her taste it again. I tasted it to see what it was like. Um, gross, but to each their own.

The rest of the week went like this:

Coloring and stickers with daddy: Sweet P still hasn't quite gotten the concept of coloring. She'll doodle for a bit, but like I said last week (or was it the week before?) she'd rather put the crayons back in the box.

ABC's: The Farmer and I prompted Sweet P on Saturday and she said her entire ABC's! Can't wait to get that on video. Some of them are indistinguishable, the rest are almost exact!

Books: Despite the story time, we picked up some great books from the library. Here are our favorites from the pile we took home.

My Many Colored Days by Dr. Suess

Once Upon a Potty-Girl by Alona Frankel (the Farmer was not particularly fond of this book)

Snow Family by Daniel Kirk

Think Happy! by Nancy L Carlson (I loved this book)

Read All About It

Looking for a good book? I have a few for you.

In case I've never mentioned it, I love to read. Love, love, love it. I consider myself a bonafide bookworm. Not much can compete with curling up on a rainy day with a good book. Of course, these days my book reading is limited to bed time or while Sweet P is napping. But! I still make it work because I love books! Okay, enough of that. Here are a few books you should be reading:

The Help by Kathryn Stockett

The emotions this book invokes are plentiful. I laughed, I cried, I seethed...it was so, so, so good.

Same Kind of Different as Me by Ron Hall & Denver Moore with Lynn Vincent

I'm in the middle of this one right now, but it is full of wisdom, faith and grace. And it's a true story (I love those).

In the Presence of My Enemies by Gracia Burnham with Dean Merrill

Pretty sure I cried through this entire book. It's about a couple who are missionaries that get kidnapped in the Phillipines. They are kidnapped for over a year, this is Gracia's recount of the experience. Her faith and reliance on God is absolutely amazing. Whew, definitely a tear jerker.

Just wanted to share those with you. If you don't have time to read, make time! And if you have any recommendations for me...do share!

I'm not Oprah, but...

I have some book suggestions for you!

I may have a 6 month old, but that doesn't mean I can't feed my brain with great fiction. Here are just a few books I've read lately:

The Time Traveler's Wife: I haven't seen the movie, but the book was a good one. Definitely makes your brain hurt with all the time traveling, but such a heart-wrenching love story.

My Sister's Keeper: Also haven't seen the movie. MAJOR tear-jerker. Get out the tissues for this one.

The Red Tent: A fictional story about Dinah from the Bible. She is the one daughter of Jacob (he had 12 sons). If you aren't familiar with the Bible version (and even if you are), keep it close by for references.

I'd recommend the Twilight Series as well, but c'mon...who hasn't read that?

Eres tu mi mama?

One way or another (if you're like my mom, you are now singing song lyrics "I'm gonna getcha getcha getcha getcha." Sorry.), I am going to teach Sweet P Spanish. For some reason I am really gung-ho about this. When I talk to her in the little, broken Spanish that I know; it somewhat drives the Farmer nuts. Do you think it's because I talk in a high-pitched, extremely excited voice when I speak Spanish?

You're right. Probably not.

Sweet P's Godfather is fluent in Spanish. I told him that his duty as Godfather was to make sure she knew Spanish. But since he doesn't live here, I figured I better help him out a bit.

When Sweet P was 3 months old, I took her to an Hola Amigos class that was part of one of my Mommy & Me classes. I absolutely loved it. Did she? She liked it about as much as she likes any class I drag her to. But even though she didn't really have a clue what was going on, I learned a lot about teaching her another language. I even know Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes in Spanish. Here are a few tips for you on teaching another language to your baby.

Speak it whenever you can. Don't worry about pronunciation or if you're doing right. Those silly babies are smart enough to know what's right even if it sounds wrong.

Read to them in other languages. If you know how to read other languages, I say go for it in any language. I am sticking to Spanish because it's what is most familiar (but if you are familiar with French, Italian, German, etc. try those too!). FREE tip: Check out bilingual books from the library. It's free! I checked out 2 today and read Eres Tu Mi Mama? (Are You My Mother?) to her tonight before bed.

If you know songs in another language, sing them to your baby! She'll love hearing your voice and the different sounds that other languages make.

Learn the ABC's and numbers in other languages. Fortunately, I remember this from high school Spanish (and I know French counting from ballet class). You can also make flashcards with simple vocabulary (colors, numbers, animals) such as Ojo Pardo (Brown Bear) or Dos Gatos (Two Cats).

If you really want to go for it, check out local classes in your area on teaching your children another language.

Sweet P may not be fluent by age 2, but she'll at least have heard me talking like a cartoon character in Spanish as often as I can. She'll benefit from hearing different sounds than those in the English language and I bet I'll learn a little bit, too.