Jenni is 3 years 8 months
We had a spectacular time exploring all the super things one can do during Ss week! Here is some of what we did...
Bible Verse:
Set your mind on things above, not on earthly things. (Colossians 3:2)
Sea World San Antonio
Eric had been out of town for a few weeks and was home for a weekend when we made a spontaneous trip to Sea World! Jenni loved the whales and Joshua adored the dolphins. We had so much fun learning about the letter Ss while we were traveling. We had an action-packed weekend watching the Shamu Show and other shows, riding carousels, playing in the splash pads, walking the boardwalk and spending some time in San Marcos shopping!
S is for Springtime
We learned about the different seasons and focused on Spring. I thought the best way to learn about Spring was to experience it! So off we went to a beautiful garden. We spent the majority of our time walking through the rose gardens - just spectacular. Jenni stopped to smell each rose bush. We brought the boys with us who were not slightly interested in stopping to smell the roses :) After our walk through the gardens we had a sack dinner consisting of sandwiches, strawberries, sun chips, and snickers for dessert :) After dinner the kiddos played some soccer.
Another great thing about Springtime in the South are bluebonnets and wild flowers :)
Sole Rubbings and Scissor Activities
Sole Rubbings - I taped a piece of paper around a pair of Jenni's sneakers that had a neat design on the sole. She rubbed her crayon over the entire shoe displaying the pattern underneath.
Scissor Activities - I made dashed lines on several pieces of paper for Jenni to cut through. Jenni kept saying to herself, "Follow the tracks. Follow the tracks. Get back on the road." It was sweet.
Sandbox Play
I called a half dozen local stores asking if they carried Crayola colored sand (usually in pink or blue - and in the gardening section). All the stores carried it but all were sold out. Who knew colored sand was in such demand? I went ahead and bought the good old regular sand and stored it in an airtight container for future uses. Jenni practiced writing s's in the sand as well as using spoons and shovels to spoon, shape and scoop with.
Sponge Painting with Shapes
I bought two packs of rectangular sponges from Wal-Mart and cut each sponge into two shapes making a circle, oval, square, rectangle, triangle, diamond, heart, pentagon.
Sunflower Hand prints
Jenni painted the sunflower with yellow hand prints and the sunflower seeds, stem, and leaves with her fingerprints. We worked on identifying the type of flower, the seeds, stem and leaves.
S is for Homemade Spaghetti Noodles (and Sauce and Salad)
I bought a pasta maker from Williams-Sonoma. It came with two attachments and you can buy additional attachments to make it even more useful. We love the purchase! Jenni and I made pasta dough, put it into the pasta maker, turned the wheel and out comes spaghetti noodles (I skipped a few steps :)) It's a fairly time consuming project but is such a neat kitchen gadget to have.
Sidewalk Chalk
Jenni loves spending her afternoons outside drawing with chalk.
S is for Ice Cream Sundaes
We made ice cream sundaes with vanilla ice cream, crushed Oreos, chopped walnuts, hot fudge and loads of sprinkles. Joshua enjoyed some Oreos with us :)
S is for the Science Museum
Jenni had a great time exploring all the exhibits the children's museum had to offer!
S is for the Strawberry Patch and Homemade Jam
We visited a nearby strawberry patch. It smelled lovely! Rows and rows of ready-to-pick strawberries. We picked a couple of pounds of strawberries, went home and started the process of making and canning jam. It was a neat (and tasty) experience to share with J and she was absolutely thrilled to can extra jars to share with her grandparents and great grandparents.