Sign of the Week- Pig

This week we are having fun with the fairy tale The Three Little Pigs so here is the sign for pig.
Place hand under chin palm facing down. Bend fingers down and up.

Lightning flashed
Thunder roared
The earth was tossed and shaken
This little pig curled it's tail
And ran to save his bacon.

This little pig went to market
This little pig stayed home
This little pig had roast beef
This little pig had none
And this little pig went wee, wee, wee
All the way home.

Piggy Pancakes

This week we read the book If You Give A Pig A Pancake by Laura Numeroff.  Then we made Piggy Pancakes for snack.

Mixed the batter and cooked the pancakes.  Then followed this step by step recipe card from Making Learning Fun

Then because we are also covering the fairy tale of the Three Little Pigs.  We pretended to be the big bad wolf when we gobbled the piggy pancakes up.

Baggage Ramp Converted

The Mom and little boy that created our airport's baggage ramp were back to play today and Poppa was with them.  I'm not sure who started this play, I only saw the little one carrying a dryer hose over his shoulder walking from one of our rooms to the other collecting what he needed.  He was looking for balls and he knew that there was a toy boat that had balls in our main room.  We convinced him to leave those balls for the boat (a toddler was playing with them) and use some others.  He gathered them up and headed back to the second room.

By the time I got there with my camera he was busy with his Momma and Poppa converting the baggage ramp into a ball ramp.

But the balls kept getting stuck in the dryer hose.  There wasn't enough of a slant. And the dryer hose wouldn't connect with the eavestrough and the balls wouldn't go all the way through.

So blocks were used to build up the slant and poppa cut a cardboard tube in half to fix the connection problem.  They were ready to try it again.

Another problem arose when sending the balls down the ramp too fast.  They became stuck again.

 I was impressed with the parent's patience with letting the little guy use his own methods to discover where the balls were stuck and how to get them out.  He didn't say a word just set to work.

After a couple of more adjustments, finally success.
Their ramp play inspired others to give it a try.

The excitement of learning.

Tropical Destination

Our Airport/airplane dramatic play continues with wonderful role playing.

  flight attendant serving snacks




  fire fighters in case of a crash

Part of our original plans were to have a baggage conveyor belt.  

Well neither my husband or myself could figure out how to make one but one of our families could.

This mom used a piece of eavestrough that was in the corner to make a luggage ramp.  She told me that her son talks about last years fieldtrip to the airport and how they watched the pink suitcase come down the ramp.

Today we made it more permanent.

For our tropical destination we had moved all the sand from the sandbox in to a wading pool. Placed a palm tree beside it and added shovels with pails.

It is busy everyday.  I enjoy watching how many children can fit comfortably around the sandpool plus their grown ups.

Big trucks and little trucks came and went.

And the construction and deconstruction of sand castles happened.

 By everyone!

Squeeze Bottle Painting

I was thrilled to find a recipe for salt dough painting at Family Fun website.  A couple of weeks ago when I was on the main land for a conference I was shopping at Daiso (a huge $2 store) and found some squeeze bottles with multiple tips.
 
So today we mixed up a batch of the Drawing Dough and gave it a try.

The recipe is so easy.  Equal parts of salt, flour and water (2/3 cups of each) and then add paint for colour.  Although we did find with those measurements that the dough was way too thick for the little ones to be able to squeeze out of the bottles so we added more water.

Everything made and gathered we were set to go.

 Look how hard he's trying - love the focus.

And the grown ups were amazing.  I've been focusing on having my goals for the crafts available to them and they definitely responded today.  The big goal for this activity was to build the fine motor muscles in their child's finger.  Squeeze, squeeze, squeeze!  It was a really hands off activity until a child asked for help.

 Can you see the blue streaming from the bottle.  So much fun.

Once the squeezing was done we brought out some tools and sparkles.

Even the littlest ones were given an opportunity to squeeze.

But he preferred to put it in his mouth, luckily it was the bottom and not the tips.

National Flag Day Canada

Today in Canada it is National Flag Day - not a day that most would celebrate but I felt it fit right in with Valentines Day, love and the colour red.
So at the craft table were materials to make a Canadian flag but with a twist.  I mixed cherry jello powder with a little water and then blended it into the red paint in hopes that when the flags dry they will still have the fragrance

A few children, instead of making a the flag, were quite happy to put paint anywhere on the paper, so I pulled a poster "Flags of the World"  and pointed out other flags that had red on them.  That started a conversation with families who have moved to Canada and what their birth country flag looks like.

Our flag has only existed since 1965, not very old in comparison to the world.

This craft provoked good conversations between parent and child and between families.  Where do we see flags?  What colours are they?  Why does it smell like cherry? (I hadn't mentioned at the beginning that I had added jello powder).  What do they feel llike?

This little guy wandered over to the light table and found coloured transparent squares and started to look through them - interesting that he chose red.

And of course flags are great for waving.