Green Week

 Our Theme for the week goes perfectly with the weather down here and the growing grass, trees and weeds!  It is all turning green!  I didn't think that I would have much fun with a simple theme like green, but we had a great week and really enjoyed being outside so much!

Activity 1 -  Find Green and Make an arrangement

My girls don't know all of their colors yet.  Some they get right off of the bat, but green is not one of those (they can almost always pick out orange, black, light pink and white).  The first thing we did was to "find" green outside.  We searched all around the yard looking for green things we could bring inside and admire all week.  The girls did a good job finiding things with help and the final arrangements looked nice on either ends of my mantle piece. : )

Activity 2 - Grow Green!

I have been dreaming about growing things with our girls for a long time!  I love gardens, both flower and vegetable.  I found some leftover seeds from a year or two ago along with some potting soil and figured we'd give it a try! 

The girls helped me pack the wagon with everything we'd need, along with great enthusiasm on FL's part! 

Then they worked together to pull it to the right spot - no easy task when you're 3 and almost 3!

We put rocks and soil in our pots and aerated it a little bit...

C and FL liked poking their fingers in the dirt to make a spot for the seed, putting the seed in, placing more soil on top and giving it a very thorough watering!!!

We can't wait to see what comes up!

At the end, they helped put everything away - teamwork!

Activity 3 - Wear Green!

Our Papa took us out to lunch on St. Patrick's Day!  Dressing up in green and finding green on other people helped my girls get some practice at identifying this color.

Here's FL and I - see?  I really do exist!

Sam and C had to take a selfie, too!

Activity 4 - Cut Green - Shamrocks!

C and FL need lots of practice at cutting.  It is a challenge for both of them and really requires them to think and use those fine motor skills.  I am still doing some hand over hand with this, but they are improving!  I'm proud!

Scout likes to watch us do all of the crazy things we do!  She's enjoying the girls more and more, and they are enjoying her more, too.

See?  Scout is even trying to take over the teaching!!!

I let the girls help me squeeze the glue dots onto the paper.  This was something they could not do at all in the past.  Next time we do this, I'm sure they'll need little to no help! : )

Normally, I am about to pull my hair out after doing these (we've done this kind of activity a lot-cut, dap glue, stick on), but it went so well this time!  Good job, C and FL!

Activity 5 - Green Thumbs!

C and FL used their thumb prints to make leaves for a tree.  That was really too tame for them, so they ended up using thumb and fingers on one hand and eventually both hands.  We make dots fast, and slow, loud and quiet.  I finally got smart and just took their dresses off instead of trying to put a smock over them.  So easy!!!

After the paint dried we added a brown rectangle cut out of construction paper for a trunk.  THey glued it on where ever they wanted - it was funny!

Activity 6 - Mixed Greens!

We took blue paint and yellow paint and went to town mixing it together to make green!

The purpose was not to make anything recognizable, but to get the sensory experience of the paint, to reinforce the color names and just have fun!

Which they did!  FL relaxed with the mess after a while and C enjoys a good mess all of the time!

The Results of 4,5 and 6:

We hang our finished work on a wood frame with chicken wire attached that my Dad made for me.  It has come in SO handy!  It was one of those strange spaces you find in a 1980's ranch style home. The cutout used to have spindles in it.  Now, thanks to my Dad, it is a great space for artwork, Christmas cards and pictures. The girls like to show Sam what they did during the day and we talk about it throughout the week.

At the top are our thumbprint trees, next is the shamrocks, the blurry pieces are the color mixing and our caterpillars from the week before are crawling up!

Another fun week -  Green is Great!