stART: Little Quack

It's stART time and we had a great activity and story to use. I actually had an Olympic-themed story planned, but when Maddie excitedly pulled Little Quack from her shelves, I decided to run with it.

She loves Little Quack and despite reading it a hundred times, still gets anxious when Little Quack decides to finally jump in the water.

Sweet little Quack :)
These were our original supplies, though the project evolved as we went.
Originally, we were only going to make little Quack himself, but then she thought it'd be cool to make the whole family.
So, we needed more paper.
We also opted out of using the feathers because she said they didn't "match." Ha!

I drew the ducks and then she colored and painted them. I gave her dot stampers, watercolors and markers.

And, there's our finished product, complete with little Quack still in the nest, and according to Maddie, "waiting to be super brave."

We really had a lot of fun with this one and I loved that Maddie took control and wanted specific things (water, nest, two googly eyes on the mama...).

Go check out other stART projects right HERE!

stART: Noah's Ark

This was totally not what I had in mind for stART this week, but it actually turned out to be one of Maddie's favorite projects we did this week (way better than what I'd originally planned for and will post about in Tot School!).

We're experiencing some crazy storms here, which is awesomely appropriate because our theme this week is all about rain. Anyway, the story we read (from her Toddler Girl Bible) was Noah's Ark, a familiar and favorite one of Maddie's. We'd always focused on the storm and the animals and Noah's faith, but for this, we talked more about the rainbow that appeared at the end of the storm.

She's been really into watercolor painting so after we read the story, she wanted to, "paint the rainbow." I gave her piece after piece of cardstock (which holds her glops of paint better than regular printer paper) as she painted the rainbows.

Clearly, she worked hard on this, huh?!

When the pieces dried, I took each one and cut an arc, each one fitting inside the next. I used up all of her artwork to do this (and she was okay with me cutting it, since I told her we were making a puzzle).
Then, I gave her the arcs and explained that we were going to make a rainbow. She was thrilled because it was her art we were using.
She had to find the biggest piece, glue it and place it on the sky (or, scrapbooking paper).

She kept doing it, piece after piece, constantly stopping to see if it'd fit or if she'd need another piece.

When she finished, she glued on some clouds that I'd cut out.

She is so proud of this rainbow and will tell you that she painted it and put it together!

To see what others are up to this week with stART, visit Michelle's blog!

stART: Goldilocks and the Three Bears

We had a fun stART project this week and I'm excited to be back linking up to such a fabulous blog.

Maddie and I are currently studying bears so for stART, we read Goldilocks and the Three Bears (this is actually not the exact copy of the book we have; the one we have was mine from childhood and apparently isn't sold on Amazon anymore!).

Anyway, we read the story together and Maddie was amazed (Hello! Goldilocks was, "messin' everything up!" She also added, "That's disappointing," since I guess Mommy is more prone to say "disappointed" than "mad." Ha!).

Then, we headed to the kitchen where everything was set up...

This was thrilling for Maddie. Huge butcher paper, watercolors, glue... What more could she ask for?!
First, we talked about forests and what we would see in forests (since she kindly reminded me that we've never actually been in a forest). We chose colors like brown and green and blue (for the sky) to paint the forest scene from the bears' house.

Then, I'd printed these two coloring pages from the story. Maddie colored them in and then...

We sequenced the story, talking about which event came first and which came next.

Basic story summarizing at one of it's earliest stages! The reading teacher in me was loving it. Ha!

She glued them down and then we talked about which one we would label "1" and which event would be labeled as "2."

It was a great time. Just enough art, just enough story and just enough reading comprehension for Mama.

Go check out other stART projects by clicking HERE!

stART!

This was actually a stART that we did for last week's linky, but when my camera went missing, I couldn't participate. Now that the camera is found, I can share!

This is such a sweet book that tells the story of Jesus' birth. Maddie fell in love with it almost instantly (and, it actually took her a while to figure out that the button on the cover activates a song and makes the cover light up).

But really, after only reading it a couple of times, she started "reading" it on her own and retelling me the story.

And so, I thought we ought to make our own manger. I was inspired over HERE (a VERY fun blog!). This how I laid it all out. We used black construction paper, popsicle sticks and shapes pre-cut by yours truly (and, the little star shape puncher was a life saver!). Oh, and lots of glue!

Maddie was thrilled to create her own scene and worked so diligently.

Didn't it turn out cute?! I think this is a keeper for years to come!

stART!

One of my favorite blogs, A Mommy's Adventure, hosts a linky that incorporates the combination of stories and art. I have long since wanted to join in on stART, and this week, we finally got our act together. We read Jan Brett's, The Mitten, and Maddie fell in love with it.

This is such a great "wintery" book about woodland animals that squeeze into a little boy's lost mitten.

After reading it, we made our own mittens, assembled them and glued them down (I'm thinking you can guess which one I made and which one she made, right?). :) I found the mitten template on Making Learning Fun but for some reason, can't find the link... Weird.

By the way, Maddie's "morning hair" cracks me up.

She was so proud of the mittens (notice the "bling" we had to add; she insisted on adding two tiny jewels).

She talked about the book all day long, so I prepared some more activities for her to do the next day, too. This was a dot stamper page found HERE.

Then I printed out one with circles and she used magic pebbles (or, decorative floral rocks I found at the dollar store) to fill in the picture. She filled in both of the animals and half the mitten before declaring it, "very all done now."

And finally, I cut a small mitten out of fleece and hid it in her winter sensory bin (I'll post more about this popular thing in Tot School). She loved, and has continued to love, this. She'll sit and sift through, saying, "Nicki, where is your mitten?!"

To see other stART projects, click over HERE now! Michelle has such a fun blog that I often turn to for inspiration. Plus, she runs a darling Etsy store and she's currently hosting a giveaway. So, go visit!