Clark Planetarium

A few weeks ago, I took Tempe, Helena, and Juno to Clark Planetarium at the Gateway. We don't really do Play School lessons any more, but I'm always on the lookout for fun activities that go along with the things we are learning about with our Quiet Time baskets. This field trip was in conjunction with our outer space basket.

Whoa! The planetarium has scale models of all the planets. The room isn't big enough for a scale model of the sun, but they have the walls painted yellow to give you a bit of an idea of how big it really is. I couldn't fathom it. It is so, so big! The girls really liked seeing how much bigger Jupiter and Saturn are than Earth.

Here are my three little astronauts on the Moon-scape...

... and on the Mars-scape!

The planetarium was really fun. There's an IMAX theater there, too, but we just looked at the free exhibits. Tempe and Helena really liked the cloud machine and playing on the Moon and Mars. It was a fun place to spend the morning!

Adventure Day

So I haven't done Play School since before Juno was born. I tried once and it was a complete failure. Three kids is hard.

But Tempe has really been missing it, so I've decided to give it another go. Instead of doing actual lessons once a week, I am going to concentrate on just doing a fun "themed" activity once a week. And today was ADVENTURE DAY!!

The girls were so excited for it. I made a little "treasure map" on an old crumpled paper bag, complete with an X marking the spot. We had to follow the treasure map up the street, through the secret passageway that connects our street to the one behind us, down their street, and to the drainage area next to our house...

To end our Adventure Day, we are watching "Swiss Family Robsinson" for family movie night--my personal favorite!

Play School: My Skeleton

To finish off our unit on the human body and to celebrate Halloween, this week we learned about skeletons!!

Concepts: What is my skeleton? How does it help me move? How can I take care of my skeleton?

Books: Bend and Stretch: Learning About Your Bones and Muscles by Pamela Hill Nettleton; You Can't See Your Bones with Binoculars: A Guide to Your 206 Bones by Harriet Ziefert; I Spy A Skeleton by Jean Marzollo and Walter Wick; The Skeleton in the Closet by Alice Schertle; I Can Move by Mandy Suhr

Activities: I found this glow-in-the-dark skeleton at the grocery store a few months ago for only $1 and I knew it would be perfect for Halloween and this lesson. It's about 3 feet tall--a little taller than Helena and a little smaller than Tempe. We used it to see what our skeletons look like and also to demonstrate how our "hinges" (joints) help our skeletons to move.

My brother Tyler broke his wrist over the summer and was in a cast for about 3 months, so the girls are pretty familiar with casts. I made a few soft casts out of felt and put them with their doctor kit so they could pretend to break their bones. We talked about X-ray machines and how they can take pictures of the inside of our bodies and help us see our skeletons.
Songs: I'm all made of hinges, so everything bends.
From the top of my head right down to my ends.
I'm hinges in front and I'm hinges in back.
And I'm glad I have hinges, or else I would crack!

You put your arm bones in, you put your arm bones out,
You put your arm bones in, and you shake them all about.
You do the Hooky Spooky and you give a little shout.
It's Halloween, you better watch out! Boo!

Sensory Bin: We still have black and white beans and assorted Halloween shapes in neon colors in the bin this week.
Snack: Skeleton cookies. Don't ask about the green.
Letter of the Day: G is for Garden

Play School: My Guts

First, an update on the rock candy we made during our lesson on rocks. It took an entire month to grow enough crystals for this to be candy, but it was worth the wait--at least the girls think so! Unfortunately, I only made one, so they had to share. They didn't mind.

This was a fun, although long, experiment. The girls loved checking on their rock candy every day after lunch and seeing the crystals grow bigger and bigger.

This week's lesson continued our unit on the human body: My Guts (or, in other words, "Inside My Body")

Concepts: What are my guts? What do they do? How do they help me play, talk, laugh, and help others?

Books: The Magic School Bus Inside the Human Body by Joanna Cole and Bruce Degen; Thump-Thump: Learning About Your Heart by Pamela Hill Nettleton; Breathe In, Breathe Out: Learning About Your Lungs by Pamela Hill Nettleton; and What's Inside? My Body by Angela Royston

Activities: We focused mostly on our brain, heart, lungs, and stomach, although we also talked about our blood a little bit. We talked about how our brain is like our body's computer and it sends messages to the rest of our body. I told the girls to use their brain to send a message to their feet and kick, or send a message to their hands and wave. We listened to each other's heartbeats with our play stethescope and squeezed and relaxed our fists to mimic the pumping of our heart. We felt our chests to see how it rose and fell when our lungs filled with air and then emptied out. I couldn't find a balloon but I was going to blow one up to show how our lungs work. We listened to each other's stomachs gurgling and talked about how our food goes into our stomach. We looked at the veins in our wrists and elbows and talked about how our blood flows all through our body. The girls really thought that was neat! Helena kept pointing at her teeny tiny little veins and saying "My blood is in here!"

Sensory Bin: I was going to fill the bin with cold, cooked spaghetti (you know, like the "brains" in children's haunted houses) but I chickened out--too gross! So our bin has black and white dry beans and an assortment of neon colored Halloween shapes--snakes, bats, spiders, skeletons, etc.

Letter of the Day: F is for Family. I never remember to take pictures of our letter projects, but we are hanging them all on a clothesline in the girls room. It's fun to see what we come up with every week!

Play School: My Five Senses

To kick off our unit on My Body, we had a lesson this week on My Five Senses.

Concepts: What are my five senses? How do I use them?

Books: My Five Senses by Aliki; The Listening Walk by Paul Showers; You Can't Taste a Pickle With Your Ear by Harriet Ziefert; Clang, Boom, Bang by Jane Belk-Moncure; My Five Senses by Margaret Miller; and various touch-and-feel books

Activities: We did a little activity for each one of our five senses:

Sight: Blindfold Marco Polo

Hearing: Telephone/Whisper Down the Lane

Taste: Our afternoon snack was Fake Fondue (apple chunks dipped in chocolate ice cream sauce, caramel ice cream sauce, and chopped peanuts) and we talked about how we could taste sweet and salty in every bite.

Smell: I let the girls smell all of my cooking spices. They both liked apple pie spice the best

Touch: We played with the apple pie play dough that we made earlier this week; this let us use our sense of smell and touch at the same time!

After our sense activities, we went for a senses walk and talked about the things we could see, hear, feel, smell, and taste (?)

Sensory bin: Apple pie play dough and various autumn cookie cutters

Letter of the Day: E is for Envelopes

Utah Museum of Natural History

Last night for FHE we took the kids to the Utah Museum of Natural History. The first Monday of every month is free and I thought it would be a great way to end our unit on earth science. In fact, there were exhibits for three of the four lessons we did over the month of September...

Volcanoes and earthquakes...

... inside the Earth...

... and rocks!

We had a great time!

{Even though we were at the U. Just kidding.}

Play School: Oceans

This week in Play School we learned about oceans!

Concepts: What kinds of creatures live in the oceans? What kinds of plants grow in the oceans?

Books: Going on a Journey to the Sea by Jane Barclay; How I Became a Pirate by Melinda Long; Atlantic Ocean by Jen Green; Vacation: We're Going to the Ocean by David L. Harrison; and Secret Seahorse by Stella Blackstone

Activities: We used Tempe's magnifying glass to examine the conch shell that Jason and I got in the Bahamas a few years ago; the girls were also excited to "listen to the ocean" in the shell. Helena got a puzzle for her birthday last year that has sea creatures with magnets on them, so I made a little fishing pole and the girls fished for the different sea creatures. Finally, we made sea urchins from playdough and toothpicks and talked about why the sea urchin wanted to be so poky.

Sensory bin: This week's sensory bin was probably our favorite so far! I filled the bin with water and a few drops of blue food coloring, a bag of decorative shells that I got at DI for $1, and a little rubber shark bath toy that squirts water. We usually keep our sensory bin in the kitchen, but since this one was a little messier, it stayed on the back deck. The girls loved it. They played with it every day this week and spent a lot of time sorting the shells by size and shape and looking at them with the magnifying glass.

Can I just say that if you don't have a magnifying glass, you should get one? Tempe got one for her birthday and it's her favorite toy. We use it all the time in Play School, but she also spends so much time by herself in the backyard, looking at rocks and sticks and bugs and grass with it. It's a great toy!

Letter of the Day: D is for Dragon! D is also for darn, I forgot to take a picture of it. We also used our fishing pole to fish for magnetic letters from our alphabet set. When we learn about letters, I've tried to get Tempe interested in learning to write them--she's not. I really do not want to pressure her or push her (she's only 4, after all) so we concentrate on recognizing the letters and the sounds they make. She's actually gotten really good at guessing what letter words start with by sounding them out.

Next week our unit on "Our Body" starts with a lesson on My Five Senses!

Play School: Rocks

To continue our Earth Science unit, we learned about rocks this week.

Concepts: Where do rocks come from? How are rocks made? What kinds of rocks are on our Earth?

Books: Rocks! Rocks! Rocks! by Nancy Elizabeth Wallace; Diary of a Worm by Doreen Cronin; A Gift from the Sea by Kate Banks; I am a Rock by Jean Marzollo; and Cool Rocks: Creating Fun and Fascinating Collections! by Tracy Kompelien

Activities: We started out the week by making (or attempting to make) rock candy using this recipe. It's been sitting on top of the fridge for 5 days and there are a few crystals starting to grow--or maybe it's just the syrup hardening on the stick. I can't really tell. I might have to just buy the girls some rock candy.

We also went for a rock walk with Tempe's magnifying glass and a canvas bag to collect small rocks and pebbles along the way. Helena was really into this. She spent a long time looking at the large rock in our friend's front yard (the one in the picture) with the magnifying glass, and when I finally pried her away, she ran down the sidewalk saying "Let's examine another one!" The girls were interested to see little rocks embedded in the sidewalk, rocks used to make houses (brick), and rocks used to make walls. Rocks are all around us!

Sensory bin: I meant to fill the sensory bin with rocks from the yard and the magnifying glass, but the girls loved the Gak from last week so much that I left it in.

Letter of the Day: C is for Caterpiller. She's a little tearful in this picture because she and Helena got in a fight over who got to hold the letter.

Next week we conclude our Earth Science unit with a lesson about the Ocean!

Play School: Volcanoes

Tempe has had a fascination with volcanoes since last summer when Grandma Lisa bought the girls a set of stacking blocks with pictures of the desert on every side. There's a volcano on one block and Tempe has wanted to know more about them ever since!

Concepts: What is a volcano? How are volcanoes formed? Why do volcanoes erupt?

Books: All of last weeks books + Volcanoes and Earthquakes by Ken Rubin

Activities: You can't learn about volcanoes and not do a baking soda/vinegar eruption! We also made Gak and dyed it orange so it would look like hot lava.

Sensory Bin: The sensory bin was filled with dry black and white beans, cardboard tubes, and scoops until Thursday, when we made the Gak and put it in the bin instead.

Letter of the Day: B is for Bananas

Play School: Inside the Earth

This week we had our first Play School lesson of the year: Inside the Earth.

Concepts: What shape is the Earth? What's inside the Earth? What is the Earth made of?

Books: Planet Earth/Inside Out by Gail Gibbons; The Magic School Bus Inside the Earth by Joanna Cole; Our Patchwork Planet by Helen Roney Sattler and Giulio Maestro; Home on the Earth: A Song About Earth's Layers by Laura Purdie Salas; and Planet Earth: How the World Works in 1000 Photographs by John Farndon, Jack Challoner, Robin Kerrod, and Rodney Walshaw.

Sensory Bin: Various balls (tennis balls, marbles, bouncy balls, etc), cardboard tubes, and funnels.

Snack: Brownie and pudding trifle (layered like the layers of the Earth)

Letter of the Day: A is for Alligator

Sensory Bin: Balls

One of the things we are doing this year as part of our Play School curriculum is a sensory bin. Kids learn so much through touching and manipulating items on their own, so I'm going to fill the sensory bin with items that relate to our lesson every week. I thought this would be something Helena would really enjoy, but Tempe loves it too!

I got this bin for $3 at Wal-Mart. It's deep enough that when there are dry beans or rice or other small things in the bin, it will be easy to keep them in the bin! The lid latches on and has a handle so the girls can get it off the shelf themselves. They know our sensory bin rules: No throwing or scattering, and no putting anything in your mouth!

Our first Play School lesson next week is on the Earth; specifically, what's inside the Earth. Because the Earth is shaped like a ball, I filled the sensory bin with a variety of balls of different sizes, weights, and textures, and a funnel and tube to drop them through.

So far, we've sorted the balls by size and lined them up from largest to smallest; tested to see which balls bounce and which balls roll (they all do); and discussed the differences and similarities between the different balls. I told the girls that even though sun looks small to us, it is really much, much larger than our Earth. Then I had them back all the way across the room and walk towards me slowly as I held up the large ball, to see how it looked bigger as they got closer.

The girls love playing with their sensory bin and ask to get it out about 10 times a day! It's a hit!

Play School: 2010 topics and supplies

I said a few days ago that one of my goals in Play School this year is to have fun and encourage learning with Tempe, age 4 (almost) and Helena, age 2. The best way to do that is to plan lessons around the topics the girls are interested in.

This year we will start out learning about Our Earth in September: Inside the Earth, Volcanoes, Outside the Earth, Rocks, and Dirt. In October, we will learn about Inside My Body: My Senses, My Skeleton, and My Guts (Tempe has been asking about her "guts" a lot lately and I thought that works as a Halloween topic, too). November will be the last month we do Play School before the baby is born and I'm not sure when we will start again--January or February--so we will be learning about being Mommy's Helper: Chores Around the House, Being Kind, and Taking Care of Baby.

I have a large plastic bin that I store our Play School supplies in:

• washable paint and assorted paintbrushes (foam brushes, rollers, sponges, stamps, old toothbrushes, etc)
• construction paper and crayons
• gluesticks and white glue
• scissors
• recyclables (paper towel tubes, egg cartons, etc)
• pipe cleaners, cotton balls, pom poms, sequins, and googly eyes
• popsickle sticks
• clear contact paper
• magnetic letters and cookie sheet
• foam letters
• sensory bin and supplies (dry beans and rice, foam shapes, birdseed, plastic bugs, dry pasta, small balls/marbles, etc) and tools (funnels, measuring cups, clothespins, magnifying glass, toy cars, etc)

I've pretty much got September and October mapped out and hope to have November done too. As for 2011, I have some ideas for topics, but I still have a lot to do to be ready before the baby is born.

Play School 2010

I've been working on our Play School curriculum for this fall and winter all week and I'm excited to get started in a few weeks!

{Last year I called it Joy School--this year I am calling it Play School, because Joy School is an actual organization that sells their own curriculum and I would rather write my own--I will be changing all my Joy School entries to Play School}

This year we will be doing Play School just as a family, due to baby #3's arrival midway through the fall. My primary goals for Play School this year are:

1) Have fun and encourage learning

Children at this age have a thirst for learning that, unfortunately, is often squashed as they get older and start "real" school. I want to take advantage of their natural curiosity by exploring the things they are interested in, and by doing so, show them the joy that comes from learning.

2) Improve fine motor skills

I've noticed that Tempe's fine motor skills (holding a pencil correctly, cutting with scissors, etc) are a little behind for her age, so each lesson will have at least one activity that incorporates fine motor skills.

3) Letter recognition and pre-reading skills

I really don't believe that kids need to be able to read before kindergarten. I've found that trying to push children into doing something they're just not developmentally ready for (be it reading or going to the potty or something else) just makes it a harder and longer process than if you wait until they are ready. If Tempe or Helena are ready to learn to read before kindergarten, they will. If they're not ready, they won't.

What I do want them to be able to do before kindergarten is recognize the letters and the sounds they make, be able to write their own names, and understand the process of reading (letters form words, words form sentences; we read from left to right, top to bottom, etc). This part of Play School will be mostly geared towards Tempe, although I'm sure Helena will want to participate.

To meet my three goals, we will be doing Play School twice a week: one day we will be learning about our "fun" topics and doing projects and activities related to that; the other day, we will be focusing on a letter of the week.

There are so many wonderful resources out there for teaching your children at home! Some of my favorites are No Time For Flash Cards, Not Just Cute, and Family Fun. If you teach your children at home, I would love to hear about it!

Play School: Dinosaurs

Concepts: When did dinosaurs live? How do we learn about dinosaurs?

Activities/art/game: I came up with a lot of ideas for this lesson, so I'll include all of them and star the ones that I used.

Salt-dough fossils: Make a basic salt dough and use pinecones, seashells, or other common objects to make impressions. Let the salt dough dry according to the recipe.

*Dinosaur puzzle: Big B's mom gave us this awesome 3-D dinosaur puzzle a few months ago and I've been saving it for this lesson. The "bones" all snap together so you can put together a stegosaurus.

Trackway footprints: A trackway is a fossilized trail of footprints. Recreate this by dipping plastic dinosaurs or other animals feet in paint and have them walk down a piece of paper.

Fossil sensory table: Fill a sensory table (a large, shallow tupperware container, like the kind that rolls under your bed works great) with dirt, sand or mulch and hide "fossils" in it for the kids to find. You could also do this in a sand box.

*Dancing like a dinosaur: One of the books we read was about the different ways dinosaurs danced. I had a stick-"dinosaur" that I got at the dollar store for each of the kids, and they rode them and danced like the dinosaurs in the book as I read the story.

*Dig up a dinosaur: Fill muffin tins 1/3 of the way with muffin or cupcake batter, add a tiny plastic dinosaur, and cover with remaining batter. Bake as directed. After the muffins have cooled, give each child a fork and show them how to dig for their dinosaur. Make sure they don't eat it!

Books: Outside and Inside Dinosaurs by Sandra Markle; Dinosaurumpus! by Tony Mitton; Shadow of the Dinosaurs by Dennis Nolan (this one is actually pretty stupid. No, I mean really stupid); The Encyclopedia of Dinosaurs.

Songs/fingerplays: The "Dinosaur Train" theme song (my kids' favorite show!)

Snack: blueberry muffins from the same batch as the dig up a dinosaur activity--only without the plastic dinosaurs :)

This was our last week doing Play School. I can't believe how quickly the year flew by! I had such a fun time coming up with our little lesson plans and activities every other week. Play School has been such a fun way for me to spend time with my kids and to teach them a little bit every week. I'm already planning our lessons for next year! The kid we've been doing it with this year is going to be in preschool next year, and since I'm expecting a baby in November I don't really want to commit to a full group, so I will be doing a little lesson and activity twice a week with my two girls. Some of next year's topics include space, the people in my neighborhood, volcanoes, and inside my body. It'll be fun!

Play School: Flowers and Gardens

Concepts: How do flowers grow? What creatures live in gardens and help the plants?

Activities/art/games: Bumblebee thumbprints; cupcake liner and pipe cleaner flower bouquets. We were going to go outside to water the flowers and look for garden creatures and seeds, but it was raining.

Books: Buzz, Bee, Buzz! by Dana Meachen Rau; Wildflowers Around the Year by Hope Ryden; I Wonder What It's Like to be a Worm by Erin M. Hovanec; The Reason for a Flower by Ruth Heller; The Magic School Bus Plants Seeds: A Book About How Living Things Grow by Joanna Cole; A Seed, A Flower, A Minute, An Hour by Joan W. Blos; Slugs in Love by Susan Pearson

Songs/fingerplays: Here is the beehive (hold up fist)

But where are the bees? (shrug)

Hidden away where nobody sees! (cover fist with other hand)

Watch and you'll see them come out of the hive.

One, two, three, four, five! (reveal fingers one by one from closed fist)

Buzz, buzz, buzz, buzz, buzz!

Snack: Dirt (crushed Oreos), mud (chocolate pudding), and worms (thinly sliced bananas)

Play School: Weather

This week in Play School we learned about weather.

Concepts: Different kinds of weather; What is the weather like today?

Activities/art/game: Weather chart; Cloud gazing; Cotton ball cloud pictures; Mud sensory table (if you are really brave!!)

Books: Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs by Judi Barrett and Ron Barrett

Songs: Once there was a Snowman

Popcorn Popping on the Apricot Tree

It's Raining, It's Pouring

Rain, Rain, Go Away

Snack: Ants on a log

Play School: Safety

This week's Play School lesson was probably our most important lesson for the whole year. Our topic was.... SAFETY!

Concepts: Fire safety, stranger safety, Who can I ask for help?

Activities/art/games: The first thing we talked about was fire safety, and we took 5 minutes to practice "Stop, drop, and roll!" and crawling under the smoke. Oh, and it also helped get the wiggles out :)

Red Light, Green Light is a great game to help kids internalize the importance of obeying traffic signals.

We practiced dialing 911 on a toy phone (I emphasized the importance of only calling 911 in a real emergency and gave a few examples of times that they should call 911). For our art project, we made construction paper cell phones. The kids glued number grids on them, then colored in the 9 and the 1.

Books: Not Everyone Is Nice: Helping Children Learn Caution with Strangers by Federick Alimonti and Ann Tedesco; Ten Steps to Staying Safe by Cynthia MacGregor

Songs: This is the way we cross the road,

cross the road, cross the road.

This is the way we cross the road,

we stop, we look, we listen.

We stand at the curb and look both ways,

look both ways, look both ways.

We stand at the curb and look both ways,

before we cross the road.

Snack: cut up Kiwi fruit (green), cup up strawberries (red), pineapple tidbits (yellow) arranged like a traffic light.

Field Trip: On Tuesday, we met up with M and her kids and two other moms and their kids in our neighborhood and went to the fire station, where we watched a short fire safety video, toured the station, and each got our very own fireman helmet!

Here is B trying on a real fire helmet.

And the whole group with the nice fireman who gave us a tour!

Play School: Friendship

I have been in a Play School funk, but I'm getting out of it starting... now.

Concepts: What is a friend? How can I be a good friend?

Activities/Art/Games: We actually role-played situations that arise when young children are playing together: sharing, taking turns, being mean, etc. I videotaped it but Blogger won't upload the video... maybe I'll try later.

Then we made friendship handprints: the kids each stamped their hand on a piece of construction paper, one on top of another, so they were "holding hands". Get it?

Books: Once again, my Berenstain Bears collection was a lifesaver because I neglected to check out any books from the library. Doh! We read The Berenstain Bears and Trouble with Friends by Stan and Jan Berenstain.

Songs: The Barney "I Love You" song. Really. I said I was in a funk, ok?

Snack: Frozen grapes. The kids think it's candy.

Play School: Staying healthy

Today in Play School we learned about staying healthy.

Concepts: I can keep my teeth healthy; I can keep my body healthy

Activies/Art: We practiced flossing on Fred the Milk Carton Flosser. Unfortunately, my camera cord is not working so I can't upload pictures, but I drew a face on an empty milk carton and cut out a smiling mouth with slits for each individual tooth. Then the kids "flossed" Fred's teeth.

The girls have a huge collection of toy food and we went through the container, one by one, sorting the food into healthy and unhealthy piles. Then we made a collage of healthy food with pictures cut from old magazines. I intended to have a handwashing demonstration and practice, but we didn't get around to it. Finally, we went outside and did an "exercise routine" and then just ran around and exercised. I got a kids' workout DVD from the library but since it was a sunny day, we decided to go outside instead.

Books: I had so many activities that I didn't check out any books from the library, but I did read The Berenstain Bears Visit the Dentist and The Berenstain Bears and Too Much TV by Stan and Jan Berenstain. I'm sure that it wouldn't be hard to find lots of kids books that are about exercise, eating healthy, and personal hygiene.

Songs: {To the tune of I'm A Little Teapot} I'm a tube of toothpaste on the shelf. I get so lonely all by myself. When it comes to bedtime, hear me shout--take off my cap and squeeze me out!

Snack: I sliced a red apple, stuck two slices together with peanut butter, and then stuck mini marshmallows between the slices to look like teeth in a smile.

Field Trip: A first visit to the dentist would be a perfect field trip!!

Play School: Snowflakes

This week's lesson in Play School was on snowflakes.

Concepts: The water cycle: Where do snowflakes come from?; Snowflakes are unique, like me!

Activities/Art: Snowflake painting: The kids dipped snowflake shaped cookie cutters into different shades of blue paint to make snowflake prints on construction paper.

Soap snowballs: I grated Ivory soap into a big bowl, got the kids hands wet, and helped them mold the grated soap into snowballs--do it the same way you would regular snowballs. This is a very messy project, so put newspaper down on the floor, wear smocks, and try to stay patient! I have to admit that I got frustrated with the mess it was making and had the kids finish up before they were ready :( Mean mommy. They loved squishing the gooey soap between their fingers as they molded the snowballs, and now they have a new useful bath toy! Two bars of Ivory soap yielded three good sized snowballs.

Books: Millions of Snowflakes by Mary McKenna Siddals; Simon and the Snowflakes by Gilles Tibo; The Snowflake: Winter's Secret Beauty by Kenneth Libbrecht and Patricia Rasmussen; The Snowflake: A Water Cycle Story by Neil Waldman

Songs: {to the tune of "Are You Sleeping?"} Dance like snowflakes, dance like snowflakes--twirl around! Twirl around! Twirling, whirling snowflakes, twirling, whirling snowflakes, to the ground, to the ground.

{to the tune of "I'm a Little Teapot"} I'm a little snowflake, look at me! No other snowflake is just like me. I am so unique, as you can see. And just as special as I can be!

Snack: Cinnamon snowflakes: I cut snowflakes out of tortillas using snowflake shaped cookie cutters, sprayed them with Pam, and sprinkled them with cinnamon sugar. Then I baked them for 6 minutes at 400 degrees. Yum! These would be great served with hot chocolate.