Academics – Page 17 – Butterbees and Bumbleflies

Printable Pattern Blocks

Topic: MATH

This post today is super simple, and it started from a super simple need. I really wanted Becca to have pattern blocks. But I’m also really trying to cut my online spending… so I decided, why buy her pattern blocks when I could make some and laminate them MUCH cheaper… and then they could be whatever colors I wanted and whatever size I wanted… and in whatever quantity I wanted!!

(Be sure to pin this! Thanks!)

SO – HERE’S YOUR LINK FOR THE PRINTABLE

Just select what colors of card stock you want to use, print, laminate, cut, and PLAY!

Don’t want to go to the effort of making your own, and prefer to buy them online?
Here’s a fabulous set from an affiliate link for you. 🙂

Mirror Interaction

It’s been a while since I did a Baby Bees post, and part of that has been because our Baby Bee is just flying all OVER the place right now and I just can’t keep up! Crawling, pulling up to his knees, trying to eat everything (he’s teething – aren’t they always teething?), and of course wanting lots and lots of snuggles.

Today’s idea is one that might seem like a “no-brainer,” but it’s easy to forget to carve out time in the DAILY schedule for it. Even if you just take a couple minutes, make time to put your Baby Bee in front of the mirror DAILY. You can begin holding Baby Bee up to the mirror once you see that Baby Bee can focus on you and your face, and recognize you from across the room. At first, Baby Bee won’t recognize him/herself, or you. But eventually, they will begin to focus on your face in the mirror as you hold them close. I love love love sharing smiles through the mirror with my Baby Bee (and my Big Butterfly, too!). Once Baby Bee is secure sitting up alone (with you right behind), a great idea is to use your bathroom vanity for mirror time! As Baby Bee gets more secure in sitting up, you can step to the side, and let Baby Bee fully interact only with his/her reflection. It’s an amazing thing to watch.

Watching themselves in the mirror helps Baby Bees gain confidence in their movements, as they watch the other Baby Bee in the mirror do what they do. I read this really amazing article from Nat Geo about what animals (specifically dogs, dolphins, elephants, magpies, some great apes, flamingoes, and horses) see in the mirror, and it says it takes human babies 18-24 months to truly “catch on” and realize they are looking at themselves. It’s so so important to have this mirror interaction time for them to play, experiment, and learn from the Baby Bee that’s staring back at them.

As in my photos, once your Baby Bee is confident sitting up in front of the mirror, and is used to interacting with that other Baby Bee that they see, try adding an object for play. Grayson played with his hat for several long minutes, and finally began moving his hat to see if the Baby Bee in the mirror would move HIS hat, too! It was so cute – specifically in the bottom left photo, he picked up his hat, and shook it, then shook it again, intently watching the other Baby Bee in the mirror. I knew he was done interacting when he looked up at my reflection, held my eyes, and smiled. (Bottom right.) We smiled at each other for a minute, but once he found my face, he was done looking at the other Baby Bee in the mirror.

Do you try mirror interaction with your Baby Bee? Share what activities you have done in front of the mirror! I’d love to get your feedback!

Love this post? Share it with others! Also, be sure to “Like” and “Follow” my Facebook page for more posts like these and ideas from other bloggers about similar topics. Facebook selects for you which pages’ posts show on your news feed, so be sure to click over to my page frequently and “like”, “comment”, and “share” my posts so that Facebook will show them to you in your feed!

Make Your Own Foot Book!

Typically on Fridays, I try to share ideas that you could add to your 2016 Calendar… but this one is a little off topic… yet still right in line with keeping the ART in STEAM… so… we made our own Foot Book! As you know from Wednesday’s post, Becca LOVES The Foot Book (Aff link, thank you!) So I thought we’d have a little fun and make our own.

I grabbed some old shoes that we couldn’t do anything with anyway, and we did some paint stamping. But, we also stamped with our actual feet, and had fun (LOTS OF GIGGLES!) running to the tub (after having painted in our skivvies) and hopping in to wash all the paint off. WORD TO THE WISE: Tempera pant washes off tile super easily… the grout, well… the grout is still blue. (Insert super embarrassed Mommy face here, and a not-so-thrilled Daddy face… sigh. Please learn from my mistake and use washable finger paints… and still, be careful of the grout.)

Anyway, after all of our art was dry, I taped the pages together with the Washi tape of her choosing, and then she helped me pick what words to put on which page. We didn’t make enough art to do a page for the entire Seuss book – we just picked our favorite pages. Definitely had a blast making it, and she loves reading back through it and giggling all over again about running to the tub with Mommy to wash off our blue and yellow feet. Good times. (Even if I do still need to make a baking soda paste and see if I can scrub the grout with a toothbrush….)

Fraction Feathers With the Fuzz

This week’s topic: MATH

Becca is totally in love with Gertrude McFuzz. She has the app on her Kindle Fire HD Kids (find out more about it from my post here and here.) and listens to it/watches it FREQUENTLY. So much so that she pretty much has the entire story memorized, and can take Yertle the Turtle and Other Stories (aff link) and almost read Gertrude line for line. (And honestly, it’s a fabulous moral/life lesson to be engraining in her brain – if you haven’t read it, you really must!)

Another one of her recent fascinations has been fractions. I recently said something like “let me cut that in half for you,” and she said, “what’s half?” And then we had a conversation about something else that was divided into equal pieces… and then she asked about my measuring cups… and then she finally said, “You keep telling me things are fractions. Can we do them?” Hahaha. Seriously. This girl. She LOVES math! So, working from my background knowledge of introducing fractions, and combining that with the way I know her brain works, I came up with this super fun activity that she just absolutely LOVED!

$fraction feathers$

(Get your FREE PRINTABLE HERE!)
Please note – the photos the front cover of my printable are just google search images.
The photo of Gertrude used for the feather pages was snapped by my camera from the book.
Can be printed in color or b/w.

So here’s how it works – print the sheets on card stock – so the glue won’t mess up your paper. Then, get some feathers (Becca knew we were doing Gertrude when we bought the feathers, so she selected the blue/green/yellow pack because Gertrude’s feathers are those colors in the story – you could use any colors). A great way to introduce the concept of fractions is to talk about what the top number and bottom number mean. You don’t have to call them numerator and denominator, but you can if you want to. For Becca, I started with the bottom number. The bottom number is the total number of feathers we need to glue on. Then, the top number tells us how many special feathers we need to pick of the same color.

She didn’t want to mix the colors up, but you could obviously easily have 2/5 be one color, and the other three be other colors, etc. We glued them on to Gertrude, and let the pages dry. Then, we went back and talked about the fractions, and she told me what color feathers matched with the fraction. I wrote the color word on the line for her. Then, we made them into a book just by punching holes and tying ribbon through the holes. You could easily laminate them and put them in a ring binder, but she loves to feel the feathers. I know that it won’t last forever, but it was a super fun project, and every time we read her book, it’s fabulous fraction practice all over again!

Like this activity? Please share it with others! You can also share my Facebook page with others – I share activities like these regularly – not only from my own blog, but also from other bloggers. And, each day at noon, I share a new must-have book to add to your personal library! Coming up this next month, March is all about “real” books – you won’t want to miss these fabulous non-fiction finds for ALL ages of kids!

Gross Motor Strengthening – Playground Exploration

playground exploration

To finish out this month’s Tuesday mini-series on Gross Motor Strengthening activities, today I want to share with you some ideas for your kids for when you take them to the playground. Something about having a second child has made me be not quite the same helicopter mom that I used to be. And combining that with Becca’s age and growing abilities has been a really good thing for her physically. Because I’ve started letting go and letting her do more things on her own. She used to be really scared on the playground. Everything looked big and overwhelming. She needed help with everything. Part of that was her age, and part of it I truly believe was her reflecting my emotions toward the whole event. Last year around this time, we enrolled her in a six week gymnastics class at a local place. That made a huge difference for BOTH of us on her confidence level, and she started being more willing to do things! YAY!

But, with the arrival of little brother, new changes began to occur for Becca – I needed her to be able to get into the car by herself. (Once I open the door.) Showing her how to climb into the car and into her car seat was a process, but now that she has mastered it, I’m starting to see her really gaining confidence on the playground. Because she knows how to crawl, stretch, and climb into places that aren’t right on the ground anymore. And also because Mommy is often holding baby brother, and she needs to do things herself.

Enter the metal bridge/stairs at our local park. It had been a while since we had been to the park, and one sunny afternoon recently we went on over, and she really wanted to do the metal stairs. She asked me if she could try them. For some reason, I didn’t hesitate. I said “sure, just be careful! Watch where you put your feet.” Here I am, holding Grayson, didn’t think to bring my carrier, didn’t have the stroller… just trusting that she, my super dramatic, fall all the time, run into every wall child would be ok. And she was. I just knew she would be. I watched her carefully, and guided her through verbally the first time. She was SO proud when she reached the top. She did it over and over again that day. One time, her foot slipped off of the bottom rung (thank God it was the bottom!) and she felt what it feels like to step through. After that, she was cautious, but I encouraged her to keep going, and she did it several more times. I snapped these pictures from the bench.

Young children often have irrational fears, and as parents, it’s often hard to know how to combat those fears. One fabulous source for talking about fears is our Dr. Seuss connection today, in our week long Seussical tribute to the man and his work. Have you read this book with your kids yet? Becca loves this book, and it’s a fabulous way to approach fears with humor, and to realize that maybe there’s not really so much out there to be afraid of after all. (Buy your copy here – aff link thank you!)

It’s amazing how once they conquer one of those fears they have, they are empowered. Once Becca conquered the metal bridge, when we went back a week or two later, she immediately went to the chain ladder and asked “Mommy, do you think I can climb this? I think so. Ok?” I replied, “Sure you can! Just watch your feet AND your hands.” I verbally guided her through where to put her hands and feet as she climbed, and stayed back so she had to do it herself. She did it just great, and did it over and over again all by herself without verbal cues or even me standing close. It’s just baffling to me why sometimes I think she can’t do something, but when I am forced to step back and let her just do it, she does great. Maybe I need to take a lesson from Dr. Seuss too… and let go of some of my irrational Mommy fears… how about you?