The Chaos and the Clutter

Homeschooling

Dr. Seuss Theme Party

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I like planning parties at the best of times, but I have to say that this one was especially fun to do! The only negative was that due to Pinterest, there were so many ideas I wanted to incorporate that it was hard to settle on what I could accomplish in the time I had!

Dr. Seuss Themed Food Ideas

For all the food, the kids made little signs out of old file folders and white paper.

  • ‘Poodles with Noodles’ (pasta salad)
  • ‘Oobleck’ (green pudding for kids, guacamole for adults)
  • ‘Hop on Pop(corn)’, ‘Ring the Gak’ (Ringolos)
  • ‘One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish’ (gummies, goldfish crackers, and jello cups with Swedish fish made by my neighbour Christie)
  • ‘Cat’s Hat’ (marshmallow dipped in red melts on Oreo dipped in white melts made by my friend Michelle)
  • ‘Truffela Trees’ (marshmallows topped with edible glitter)
  • ‘Horton’s Peanuts’
  • ‘Cheese Trees’ (cheese cubes on toothpicks stuck in foam triangle)
  • ‘Green Eggs & Ham’ (devilled eggs with centers dyed green and ham)
  • Thing 1 & Thing 2 (cupcakes topped with blue cotton candy

 

 

 

 

Decorations

I used the box from a book set and filled it with bright tissue paper for the centerpiece on the craft table. I stood Dr. Seuss books up here and there throughout the main party rooms. I chose to use primary colours and keep the decorations simple instead of using actual Dr. Seuss decor. We made Cat in the Hat cups by putting red electrical tape that we bought at the dollar store around white cups.

Also because some of the food was so brightly coloured, it served as decoration too.

Activities

Miss Optimism drew this awesome Gak on poster board and we put a large water bottle behind it so that the kids could use rings to “ring the Gak” like it talks about in the book “One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish”.

We also had a Dr. Seuss puzzle for the kids to do.

Michelle organized a craft for the kids based on One Fish, Two Fish where they painted a background on one paper, set it aside for it to dry, drew a big fish with a pastel, painted over the fish, waited for that to dry, cut the fish out, and glue it on the background they made. They turned out so well!

 

 

 

 

 

I had planned on having the kids making Truffula tree pencils using pencils and bright feather boas I got at the dollar store but it didn’t happen.

The kids also played a Cat in the Hat game. The younger kids liked it. It seemed to have just about the right amount of silly!

Party Favors.

My kids decorated green bags and I filled each one with these great lollipops I bought at Bulk Barn. They just screamed “Dr. Seuss” to me and because they were considered Valentine’s stock, they were at clearance prices. I also put in some Swedish Fish and a Dr. Seuss bookmark.

Other Dr. Seuss Fun

This party was a great way to celebrate Dr. Seuss’ birthday week! Earlier in the week, the kids also:

 

Dr. Seuss Muffin Tin Tray

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For our Dr. Seuss unit this week in celebration of his upcoming birthday, I made the kids a themed muffin tin.

the “Hat” – made using banana and strawberry slices on a skewer

Oobleck – made using vanilla pudding dyed green (we couldn’t use pistachio pudding because of Miss Optimism’s nut allergy)

Green Eggs and Ham – it was really hard to get passed the look of the green eggs for the kids and even for me. Apparently, I do not like green eggs and ham; I do not like them Sam-I-Am!

Pink Ink – which is actually strawberry milk

One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish – coloured goldfish crackers

You may also want to check out our Dr. Seuss themed party.

A Dr. Seuss Writing Activity

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We have started our Dr. Seuss unit and have many plans in store. The kids are excited, especially for some of the fun food I have planned. I have crafts and many hands-on activities laid out and we even have a few friends coming over on Thursday to help us make this a really memorable unit study!

Dr. Seuss’ birthday is this Saturday and our local Michael’s store is hosting a special time for the kids to come a make a Dr. Seuss craft in celebration of that so I’m hoping we can end of our fantastic themed week with that activity.

To kick off this theme, I am sharing a simple Dr. Seuss Writing Activity. I made this to be an early writing activity to help my kids think about the books we’ve been reading and of course, to encourage their own writing.

There are so many awesome Dr. Seuss activities out there that there is no way I can cram them all into one week. You can check out my Dr. Seuss Pinterest board for some of the activities I have planned and dozens of great ideas that I won’t have time to do!

Hope you have a great week regardless of whether you are celebrating Dr. Seuss’ birthday!

Winter Theme Unit

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In our homeschool last week, we did a winter theme unit. The weather certainly cooperated in this as there was deep snow in the yard. No imagination about winter was needed!

The kids were able to get a lot of outdoor fun in including snowmobiling, making snowmen, digging, searching for animals by following their tracks, and just generally playing and having a great time!

Winter themed muffin tin lunch:

  • banana snowman (three slices on a toothpick)
  • snow (coconut)
  • snowballs (mini marshmallow)
  • pine tree (cucumber)
  • snowman (sandwich with cucumber peel scarf, raisin buttons and face drawn with edible markers)
  • candy hockey stick and puck (date)

Chalk snowman:

On blue construction paper, draw a snowman in chalk. Use your finger to smudge the chalk to even out the look.

Then put glue along the bottom of the picture and in snowflake shapes here and there. Sprinkle coconut over the picture. Glue on buttons. You can also use smaller buttons for the eyes. For the snowman’s mouth, use dried black beans.

Winter theme sensory bin:

For this sensory bin, I used cotton batting, the lid off a Christmas tin, a styrofoam ball, sequins (which the kids pretended were snow), foam trees and letters to spell out “winter”, penguins, pom poms, white spoons for scooping, marbles, and snowflake shapes from my cookie dough press. It was made entirely out of things I already had.

Good old fashioned snow flakes: 

My kids love making snow flakes and this week was no exception. They spent hours using just white paper and scissors to create shapes. Here is just one pile of their snowflakes. As Einstein reminded me, no two snowflakes are alike!

Painting on Snow:

I filled spray bottles with water and food colouring and let the kids paint on the snow. Before you do this with your kids, learn from my mistakes! There are two things I should have done differently:

  1. I should have explained to the kids that the “paint” was for snow only, not for windows (grrr…)
  2. I apparently should not have used bottles that had formerly contained cleaning products because my kids decided to taste the different colours (ugh!)

Snow Ice Cream Recipe:

Stir together:

  • 8 cups of snow (be sure to tell your snow gatherers to avoid the yellow stuff!)
  • one can of sweetened condensed milk
  • half to one teaspoon of vanilla (do not add more)

This was so easy to make and it was a huge hit with the kids! (The Husband enjoyed a bowlful too!)

Hot Chocolate Sensory Craft:

When we made these, I made sure to take advantage of how sensory rich this activity was. I had the kids smell the hot chocolate mix and sugar and touch them before adding them. To make this craft, I printed off the sheets here. Then I had the kids colour the mugs, cut them out, cut out the marshmallows, add glue and sprinkle first with hot chocolate mix and then white sugar. After tapping the excess off, they glued some cotton batting to the top of the mug and glued the paper marshmallows on.

Printables and activity sheets:

Winter Fun Coloring from 1+1+1=1

Snow and Ice from 2 Teaching Mommies

Snowman Preschool Pack from Living Life Intentionally

Snow Day from Homeschool Creations

Snow Theme Word Sort from This Reading Mama

If you are looking for information on making sensory bins, you may be interested in my book. The Ultimate Guide to Sensory Bins

Zoo Theme Week

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A while back, we did a zoo theme. We had recently visited the Calgary Zoo which is pretty fabulous as zoos go and the kids were curious to learn more about some of the animals.

Our zoo sensory bin was a very simple one made using dried lentils and dried chickpeas as the base and Safari Zoo Toob animals, a few trees from the Safari Trees Toob and a few people.

I had several activities set up for the kids in their workboxes including making foam animal puppets, doing zoo animal lacing cards and putting together a zoo train puzzle.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our zoo theme muffin tin lunch:

-animal in the mud (animal cracker in pudding)
-zoo animal fruit gummies
-tiger tiger ice cream
-Zoodles
-trees (broccoli)
-animal crackers

 

 

 

We read the books Zara Zebra Draws, Animalia (one of our all-time favourites!), and ‘Twas the Day Before Zoo Day.

                

We used lots of fun printables throughout the week. Here are some of the links if you want to print off your own!

2 Teaching Mommies
The Zoo
Zoo Count and Color Books
Zoo Scavenger Hunt
Alphabet Zoo Scavenger Hunt
Another Zoo Scavenger Hunt
Z is for Zebra

Of course no zoo week would be complete without a trip to the zoo on the last day! We visited our local zoo this time which is undergoing renovations and admission that day was free which was a bonus!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This little guy kept coming over and jumping up to give Miss Optimism a kiss through the glass! It was pretty cute!

 

 

 

If you are looking for information on making sensory bins, you may be interested in my book. The Ultimate Guide to Sensory Bins

Shaving Cream Painting

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Since I had oodles of free shaving cream from back in my couponing days, I had been wanting to try shaving cream painting for awhile. I wish that we had done it back in our Color Week because it was a great exercise in color mixing. It was also a great sensory activity. I used the lemon-lime scented shaving cream to add to the sensory experience.

I used muffin tins and it worked really well. Just add drops of food coloring to the shaving cream and stir. I let some of the kids help in this step and they had fun mixing different colors to see what the outcome would be as far as making a purple that was more on the blue side or making pink by only adding a few drops of red.

Next, they got painting…

 

 

 

 

 

 

Or I should say that the girls got painting! First, they experimented with different brushes and foam and then they got in there with their hands. Meanwhile, the boys had disappeared into the bathroom and were using their paint in a different way…

 

 

 

 

 

 

They were practising shaving using the foam brushes! Pretty soon, the girls had painted their own faces with shaving cream and all the kids had loaded their hands up with as much as they could carry and gone outside to paint the trees!

While my kids didn’t use the shaving cream paint in the way that I expected they would, they had an awful lot of fun!

FYI: On my paler kids, the shaving cream did stain their faces for a few hours so you may not want to do this prior to any public outings or family portrait sessions!