Animals & Building

Last Sunday, we talked about Noah through the topics of animals and building!  I brought in some wood blocks from home for the kiddos to build with (or just put in their mouth : )  and we continued to play with the animal sensory bin - which is comprised of tons of Fisher Price's Little People animals, a few animal finger puppets and a Noah stuffed plushie I had on hand.

Our art project this week was making an ark that can hold animal crackers or vanilla puffs (which look a bit like vague animal shapes - sheep perhaps...) depending on the food stage of the child or preference.  On the one side, it was colored like an ark (see my 2-year-old's version) with an ark-topper-shape glue-sticked to the top.  The boat part is made of a paper plate I cut in half and stapled on the rounded edge.  I prepped this part beforehand and cut out the ark topper shapes.

When you turn the ark upside down (without cookies in it), the other side is a rainbow.  My 2-year-old didn't draw one, but my visiting 6 year old drew one and many of the parents did for their little ones as well, commenting on the different colors.

 

The book we read last week was Drip Drop by Mary Manz Simon.  This book was actually a reading book for beginning readers that I found in our church library.  Easy-reader level books are great for reading to our toddlers as well!  They are usually short with lots of pictures and a fun way to read differently-cadenced books to our little ones.  Drip Drop was fun to read with the kiddos in class because of the “Hurry Noah Hurry” refrain that the parents got to say and pattering our laps during the ‘drip drop’ part.  An extra treat for me, was finding out later that it was written by Mary Manz Simon, who is also the author of Little Visits for Toddlers, an activity devotional, specifically for toddlers that I have used at Mustard Seeds and with my kiddos.

Tomorrow is Sunday and we will be having a Rainbow Party!!  I know a few toddlers who have been looking forward to more dancing and I have our rainbow wrist ribbons all ready to go!  More to come after tomorrow!