Muffin Tin Monday {Ocean Theme}

Over at Muffin Tin Monday, the theme was Ocean...!

The kids get all excited when their food has a theme.

Today they ate:

Ocean Water (Kool-Aid), Seaweed (Ramen noodles), Sea Shells (pasta shells), Sharks (gummi shark), Fish (fish crackers), Octopus (hotdog).

Teacher {Appreciation} Week

Teacher Appreciation Week is coming up soon.

We decided to make their teachers a small token of our appreciation. We have been blessed with wonderful teacher's.

I bought King Size packages of Reeses Pieces. I then had the kids write "I love you to pieces" on cardstock. On the back they wrote special messages. We hole punched through the card stock. I also hole punched through the candy package as well. At first I just tied the brown ribbon around the candy package but I didn't like the look of it.

A cute gift that the kids cannot wait to give to their favorite teachers!

~Side note: As I was looking for Reese's Pieces.... I was thinking of little cheesy sayings looking at other candies. You can really use any candies. "You're a Whopper of a teacher!" "You Rock!"(with Pop Rocks) "You make me Laffy!" (with Laffy Taffy)

I'm a cheeseball, but I would appreciate any of these!

Review Time...!

Every 6 or so letters, we do a review week before starting another letter.

This week we reviewed the last letters we did which were: Bb, Dd, Jj, Rr, Ff, Tt.

This is the alphabet chain we've been making. During our review weeks, we add the last letters that we studied. It's neat to see what they've learned!

A popsicle matching game that I made. I mixed these up, and the girls had to match together the capital and lower case letters.

Each clothespin has a different letter that was written with a Sharpie. The girls had to take the flashcards and figure out what flashcard went with the different letters on the clothespins.

We read tons of alphabet books this week and also books that involved learning the colors because of all the colors in The Very Hungry Caterpillar book.

Friday Book Project {Butterflies}

For our Friday Book Project, we read The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle.

This is one of our favorite books that we have read many times over the years. We've also done projects galore on this book. Actually, we even had a birthday party with this theme....!

I wanted to make something that we haven't done yet.
 I came across this butterfly idea from Preschool Daze.
It was easy, cute and appropriate for the kids ages.

These butterflies make my heart flutter.

FaIrY GaRdEn

Last week, Adventures of a Flake showed us a post on her fairy gardens.

I fell in love with that idea instantly.

The girls are so into fairies. Secretly, my son is too. He'll tell us that his "sisters" want to watch a fairy movie. We've caught on!

We made these fairy houses complete with every shade of pinks and purple and gold with tons of glitter all over them!

I purchased our birdhouses at Michaels for $1.99, but I saw way smaller ones at the Dollar Tree.

Soil was put into foil pans that I purchased at the Dollar Tree.

The girls picked flowers from all around our yard and put them into the fairies yard.

We don't have that many rocks in our yard. Only special heart shaped ones that my husband collects for me when walking on mountains during fire season. So, brother Noah graciously gave them rocks from his collection.

Now, the fairies have been living with us!

Earth Day.

This Earth Day, we were inspired by No Time For Flashcards with her Earth tambourines.

We made ours slightly different because I wanted to incorporate their footprints into the craft project.

I showed the girls a picture of the Earth from the computer and talked about what Earth Day means.

On a blue piece of construction paper, I traced a large circle. I then put green paint onto their feet and had them step onto the paper. When it dried, I cut out the Earth.

On the back side of two paper plates each, the girls painted them blue. When they dried, we put dry beans in the middle of the plates and stapled up the sides facing each other.

The girls then glued their Earth onto one side of the tambourine.

For their bedtime story, we read The Giving Tree.

Even if you were a busy bee today, make sure you talk about the Earth with your kiddos another day. We didn't get to everything I wanted to teach them about today, so I'll spread it out throughout the week and weekend.
The Earth is such a beautiful gift from God.
Let's share it and take care of it together!

It's a bird, it's a plane.....

It's Shooting Star and Diva Girl to the rescue..!

My sister-in-law and I made these costumes for a Super Hero Party. On the back of Patience's cape, she has a star. On the back of Maelyn's cape, she has a zebra print crown.

The bad guys won't mess with them..!

April Showers...

April weather is crazy. It's sunny one minute and the next minute, it's raining!

We made some rain clouds for an art project.

I cut out a cloud shape from cardstock. The girls dipped a sponge in blue paint and painted the cloud. I cut rain drops out while the paint dried. The girls then glued the rain drops onto the clouds.
A simple project, but we were also able to talk about the weather and what types of clouds rain drops from.

Kids love to talk about weather!

{Letter Jj}

This week the girls studied the Letter Jj.
They made Jj's and glued JUJYFRUITS onto them {We live in a small town and all the jellybeans we wanted, were completely sold out.}

{ Patience made us JELLO for dessert}

Finally, we got to do something with all the JUNK MAIL we get.
They glued the JUNK onto construction paper, after it was cut out.
The girls made JELLYFISH.
Jellyfish, jellyfish, swimming in the water.....
 The girls sorted and counted their JUJYFRUITS.

 These were the books we read this week:

 

Friday Book Project {The Little Fire Engine}

For our Friday Book Project, we read The Little Fire Engine by Lois Lenski.

We decided to take a field trip to Daddy's new fire station. He is not a Hotshot anymore. He got a job as a captain on an engine. He just started a few weeks ago and we haven't been by to see his new station.

Off we went!

Noe standing where the engines are usually parked.

Gracie pretending to do work in Noe's office!

Carmendee pumping iron in their gym!

Only YOU can prevent wildfires!

Cross Window Art

The Lord has Risen!

Have a blessed Easter everyone.

Love The Camacho Family

Plastic Eggs.

This year we decided to try a new idea of what to put inside their plastic eggs.

In my Family Fun magazine, another Mom came up with the idea of putting coupons inside of their eggs.

We thought that was a great idea.

I brainstormed with the children to see what types of things they would want.

Some ideas were: Cooking with Mom, Play Chess with Dad, Feed the Ducks at Hart Park, Ice Cream from the Ice Cream Man {that purposely stops in front of our house everyday}, Piggyback from Dad, believe it or not Maelyn wanted a coupon to Dust the entire house.

{When it says with Mom or Dad on the coupon it's just for that one person and me or my husband. I cook or read with all of them, but very rarely is it one on one.}

I bought Easter eggs while on sale that are special to each of the children. They are ones that match what the kids like.

Letter Ff.

The girls made Fluffy FEATHER Ff's for Letter Ff Week.
 The kids stamped their papers with FRUIT.

 They know that FISH starts with Ff, like these Rainbow Fish.

 Last week, Patience asked me when we were going to study Ff for FIRE, which is why we studied Ff's this week.
Daddy's FIRE safety mascot is Smokey The Bear.

These are the books we read this week:

 

Easter {Baskets}

Every Easter we pick a theme for the kid's Easter Baskets. We have done a garden theme, art theme, learning toys, books, camping, and a sports theme.

While watching the sales ads this year, I came across some movies for $6 at Kmart.

We decided to make baskets with a Movie Theme. We bought those movies. The most expensive movie we bought was $10.

At The Dollar Tree, we found popcorn tubs. They also had the theater sized candies for $1.

We threw in some sodas {which they don't get that often}, rice krispy treats, and popcorn.

They loved them...!

{Bunny} Bags

Getting ready for Easter day, we made some Bunny Bags.

We'll use them for one of their egg hunts or to stick goodies inside. They are cuter than a plastic grocery bag.

When I told the kids about making them, they were bugging me all day to get started with the project.

They can't wait to fill them...!

Painting With {Cookie Cutters}

I have 2 Easter Cookie Cutters {an Egg and a bunny's head.}

Since Easter cookies aren't on my list for this week, I decided to get some use out of them with an art project.

The kids dipped the egg cutter in green paint and the bunny in pink paint.

I thought they looked cute just like that, but the kids had other plans for them.

When they dried, they decorated their eggs and bunny.

{Kids have the greatest imaginations}

{Bee} Projects

During Letter Bb week, the girls did a few more Bee Crafts.

Bee's are so adorable...I just wish they didn't sting. Bleh!

They made Paper Plate Bee's by painting the plate yellow and with Puffy Paint they drew stripes. Using wax paper, I traced their handprints and cut them out. The girls glued them on to make some wings. BUZZ!

These bracelets were buzzing fun...!

We found the idea on this site here. The girls kept saying BUZZ all day long while making their arms flap.

{Letter Bb}

We studied the Letter Bb this week.
The girls made BUZZZY BEE'S!
 BOOK starts with Bb.
The kids pitched in and made a book called "Bunny Hopping In The Grass."
They even illustrated it. The words were a little tricky to read, but my Kinder daughter liked it so much that she read it over and over and knows how to read all the words now.

There are many outdoor activities that start with Bb.
They played in the BACKYARD with BUBBLES, BALLS, and BEANBAGS.

The girls did BALLOON paintings onto art canvas.
Just don't do what I did. I didn't want the girls playing with the balloons that had paint on them, so I popped them and paint splattered everywhere! I scrapped it off my couch, leather chair, kids foreheads- it was a mess!

These are the books we read: