Sunny Day, Painting the Clouds Away!

The Sprout Scouts love all kinds of weather, but sunny days with fluffy white clouds are one of the best parts of summer! And definitely the perfect weather for taking it outside for an afternoon of sky gazing and cloud painting.  We love these printable cloud viewers from E is for Explore! We started off by printing out a family set, cutting out the center and laminating them. I duct taped a wooden craft stick to the back as a handle. We brought along some pallets of paints with blue and white tempura paint for the boys to mix and use. Some brushes and water for rinsing brushes were at the ready, too. Lastly, we brought some flat framed mirrors. You can also use unframed craft mirrors, just opt for something a bit thicker and utilize support and supervision with little ones as mirrors are fragile.

Painting on mirrors gives the artist a unique view to work with. Using mirrors for painting indoors provides a unique and washable surface. Outdoors, it can provide an inspiring reflection of nature, especially the sky! Imagine how this might look in a wooded area full of trees, or set on the ground in a wildflower garden... For children (who are naturally lower to the ground), things above their height can be not only out of sight, but also out of mind! This technique brings the distant world above them within their reach as they explore painting and mixing colors on this smooth and shiny surface.


When you are done, simply wash, dry and reuse! Artists who wish to have a more permanent work of art might benefit from a piece of paper to replicate their work on or even make a print on.

And there you have it...no one here will be guilty of commanding you to get your head out of the clouds! We're not even chasing the clouds away! We're just enjoying the sunny and slower pace of summer and, as always, happily playing!

Sprout Scouts Playcamp: Water, Water, Everywhere

Water, Water, Everywhere!

Every great Sprout Scout knows a good rain is great for the garden, but even so, a rainy day can be a real downer! This theme is a great way to explore and celebrate water, water life and rain. You can use these activities as a stand-alone theme or stash them away for the perfect rainy day! The very best thing about water play is that it can be done with a wide range of ages and developmental levels in mind--from infancy through adulthood. This theme has something for everyone--just add water!

Materials List:

• water!
• shaving cream
• food coloring
• sidewalk chalk
• paint brushes in a variety of sizes, especially sponge tip and paint rollers\
• plastic and/or rubber toy frogs 
• tempura paint
• washable markers
• watercolor paints, watercolor pencils
• white paper (watercolor, card stock or construction weight paper is suggested)
• nature's loose parts--pine cones, sticks, stones, leaves, twigs, drift wood, etc.
• fresh, aromatic herbs such as mint, lavender, rosemary--whatever you like and/or have on hand
• containers, colanders, sponges, buckets, etc. for exploring, pouring and playing with water and freezing water
• plastic pipettes (available on Amazon)
• sandwich size ziplock bag, sandwich size fold-top bag
• rubber bands
• permanent markers
• tape (masking tape, duct tape or even scotch tape are fine)
• balloons in a variety of sizes
• scissors
• glitter
• toy hammer and other toy tools
• party favor necklaces, jewels, wands 
• Kosher salt
• recycled brown paper shopping bags
• clear glass jar

Art:

• Rain Art: This is one of my favorite rainy day activities! You'll need some heavier weight paper and washable markers. Young artists will begin by doodling and drawing on their paper. You'll want to preface the activity by explaining that this will be Rain Art and perhaps even asking your young, artistic scientist what he/she thinks might happen to washable marker drawings left in the rain. Once you're ready, you'll set your artwork out for a bit of time in the rain--but not too long, or you'll come back in with white paper again! Observe the results, allow it to dry and you'll have a lovely work of art to display or use for collage or gift-wrap. You can also use this as an opportunity to experiment with the affects of rain on different art mediums. What happens with permanent marker? How about watercolor pencils? Crayons? 

As an indoor alternative in the event of drought, you can also conduct your rain art experiment using a spray bottle or pipettes to wet your artwork!

• Watercolor Painting and Drawing with Watercolor Pencils are wonderful art mediums for children of all ages to explore. With younger children, using a sponge to wet their paper first can help the color to more easily spread. I recommend a heavier weight paper such as watercolor paper, card stock or construction paper. You might experiment with the affects of kosher salt on watercolor. Perhaps you will experiment with other types of paper such as paper towels, white coffee filters or tissue paper. You might even bring along paper and watercolors to the sprinkler park or poolside for a shady spot activity when kids (or parents) need a break from the sunshine! 

• Ice Painting with Watercolors: One of our very favorite and most often repeated art activities at home is painting ice with watercolors! In advance, freeze water inside a plastic container or dish. When you're ready to paint, release your ice onto a tray or baking pan and simply provide watercolor paints and brushes. You may also add in additional water for washing brushes or kosher salt to create a unique texture as the ice melts Another fun way to explore watercolors and cool off at the same time is to provide ice cubes in lieu of water and brushes. You can even freeze some "ice brushes" by sticking a small wooden craft stick or Q-tip inside your ice cube tray. 
• Sidewalk chalk + Water = PAINT! Oh, this is a fun one! One you can do outdoors on a warm, rainy day or on a sunny day with added water--you might want to coordinate it, either way, with a good soak in the tub afterward! Grab your sidewalk chalk and maybe some brushes if you like (although hands and feet work just as well) and see what happens when you mix water and chalk...

• Frog Prints: Ponds can be found in almost any area and are such a wonder to explore. One of the most fascinating critters to learn about is frogs! Here's a bit of process art fun for those plastic or rubber frogs you can find at the dollar store. Set out some paper, a tray of green paint (or your color of choice), some toy frogs and paintbrushes if you wish. Once those frogs get a hoppin', there's just no stoppin'! This is particularly fun for the younger crowd...
  
  

Outdoor Activities:

• We're Going on a Frog Hunt! This requires a bit of preparation prior to beginning. Gather a selection of toy plastic and/or rubber frogs. I've found these year round at Dollar Tree stores. You can do this at home in your own yard or even at a park. You might want to count how many you have beforehand! Hide your frogs around the area, on the ground, under trees and bushes, on a leaf.... Next, you'll gather the troops. You might even provide a small container to collect their findings. You can talk about how some frogs and toads protect themselves by camouflaging into their natural surroundings, while others have brightly colored skin to ward off predators by letting them know they are poisonous. We love to do this activity outside, but it can also be done indoors on a rainy day...
  
• Rain Drums: This is one (of many) great ideas in the book A Little Bit of Dirt: 55+ Science and Art Activities to Reconnect Children with Nature by Asia Citro, MEd. You'll need a selection of different sized plastic containers (no lids necessary) and a variety of corresponding sized balloons. You'll also need a rainy day! And perhaps some rain gear or waterproof clothing... Cut the ends off your balloons and stretch one over the top of each container. Take your drums outdoors and listen, ever so quietly, to the musical interludes of raindrops falling. The harder the rain, the louder your drums will play! You might even experiment with other types of coverings and see how they sound... Or perhaps you'll test out some metal tins turned upside down that you have in your Mud Kitchen? There is something so inherently soothing about the sound of rain falling! It might even brighten up the next rainy day...
  

• Ice Castle Excavation: Ice is an oft forgotten form of water that is great for play--especially in the summer. You'll need to prepare in advance for activities like this one (and maybe explain to your spouse why you have to eat all of the leftovers tonight because you need the freezer space to make an ice castle...). Using a castle shaped bucket and/or containers in any variety of shapes and sizes (even muffin tins are great), freeze some water. You can add in glitter, food coloring of your choice, and jewels, necklaces and other trinkets from the party favor section of your dollar store (keep in mind that these may not survive the activity, so don't use your finest family heirlooms!). I find it best to prepare this the night before we want to do the activity. When you're ready, choose a space outdoors either on the ground or in a sensory bin/water table to set up your ice castle excavation. If you have a hard time getting the ice out of any container, just run a bit of warm water over the bottom. Ice excavators can use toy hammers and other tools to try to to retrieve the jewels frozen in the castle. They can also test out what happens when they add water and or kosher salt to the ice. You can use safety goggles if you wish and, as always, provide support and supervision with the use of hammers and tools with young children! 

• Painting With Water: I have great childhood memories of using a big foam tipped brush to paint fences and sidewalks with water in the summer and it's an activity I introduced early to my own kids. Big paint brushes and sponge brushes are still one of the most popular (and fought over) toys I bring to the sprinkler park each summer. It is so much fun to create designs and pictures with water and watch the sun make them disappear!

Indoor Activities & Active Play:

You can't always get outside for a good puddle jump in the rain, so here are a few activities to try inside, including some that will get you and your kids moving!

Indoor Puddle Jumping with Letters or Sight Words: Using recycled brown paper shopping bags, cut some large mud puddle shapes. On each puddle, you'll write a letter or (with older children) sight word. You can add in some music to get everyone moving and when the music stops, it's time to puddle jump. There are three ways to play (depending on your puddle jumpers' level of ability). You can call out and/or show a letter name (for letter recognition), a word (or picture) for beginning sound, or a sight word for word recognition. You can even make this into a rhyming word challenge and provide a word and/or picture on each puddle and call out rhyming word. Everyone will have a great time being active and jumping in mud puddles without any of the muddy mess afterward!

Frank the Frog: Rain Forest Yoga from Cosmic Kids Yoga:
Got a little yogi at home? We love the videos from Cosmic Kids Yoga for rainy days or afternoons that just beg for a bit more movement. Many are available on YouTube and this one is one of our favorites!

Science:

• How Do Clouds Make Rain? Water Cycle in a Bag Experiment: This science experiment is so simple to set up and a great one for teaching about the water cycle. You'll need a ziplock bag (sandwich size is fine), a permanent marker, some masking tape, duct tape or packing tape, and water. You can also use blue food coloring if you wish. Begin by drawing a body of water on the bottom of your bag and clouds at the top. Fill your bag about a quarter of the way full with water, adding food coloring if you wish. Tightly seal the bag and add some tape for reinforcement. Lastly you'll want to tape it to a window and observe throughout different times of the day how the change in sun exposure/temperature creates "fog" in the clouds that eventually drip into "rain" back to the body of water at the bottom of the bag!

• Rain Cloud in a Jar Experiment: This is another simple and fun way to demonstrate how clouds make rain! You'll need a clear jar or glass, some additional small recycled containers or cups, shaving cream, food coloring, pipettes and water. Begin by filling your glass about 3/4 of the way full with cool water. Meanwhile, fill your extra cups/containers with water and a color of your choice to set aside as your "rain." Squirt a fluffy shaving cream cloud atop your jar of water and have your junior scientists try their hands at sucking up and gently squirting drops of "rain" onto the rain cloud. As the cloud gets heavier and heavier with colored water, you'll observe colorful drops of rain coming through the cloud down into the water! It will be the most beautiful (or at least the most colorful) rain storm you've ever observed!

• Do Leaves Sweat? You betcha! In this simple science experiment, also featured in Asia Citro's A Little Bit of Dirt, you'll need a clear plastic bag, a rubber band and leaves on a tree. You can even set up more than one observation on different types of trees to compare and contrast. Bundle a few leaves in your plastic bag and gently fasten it with the rubber band so it won't slip off. Observe what the leaves look like now--maybe even draw or take a photo of it! Come back to the same spot the next day and you should see a fair amount of water in the bottom of your bag. Because the bag prevents water from evaporating back into the atmosphere, moisture that is sweated out by the leaves collects in the bottom--similar to how a rain cloud works!

• How Do Plants Drink Water? Have you ever wondered how the water we provide our gardens or from rain gets to the plants and helps them grow? In this great experiment from Buggy and Buddy, you'll observe how water travels through the stem to other parts of the leaf over a period of three days. You'll need a cup or jar, a leaf, water and food coloring. Read more about how to set up and observe your experiment at Science for Kids: Exploring Leaves.

• Sink or Float Science: Experimenting with materials that sink or float is another favorite science activity here. We do it several times a year and in a variety of ways. I especially love using items found in nature to test. Grab a basket and fill it with interesting leaves, seed pods, flowers, pine cones, acorns, twigs, rocks--whatever you can find. You'll need a basin of water and then the test is on! You might talk about what makes items sink to the bottom or float to the top. What materials tend to float? What are boats made out of? You might also try this inside with household items. Perhaps you'll talk about the difference between fresh water (like a pond) and salt water (like the ocean) and add a couple of salt water basins with a different amounts of salt. Does that affect the results of your test items? The best thing about sink or float science is that it can be done inside in a bin, in the bathtub, in your sink, outside, at the pool--wherever water is available! You can record your results if you wish or just enjoy the process. It's a great experiment to do on a family vacation or trip as it requires very little in the way of preparation or special materials.

Sensory Play:

Water is an amazing tool for sensory play. It's available just about everywhere all year round. It's usually free (or at least already included in your monthly expenses). It's allergy safe and fun for all ages and developmental levels. I have yet to meet a child who tires of a simple water table set up--just water and a container or two for filling, pouring, and transferring. You can add in toys, vegetables for washing, or even items found in nature. Water play is also a wonderful way to introduce sensory play to infants and young toddlers. Read more about that in Waterplay Wednesday: The Baby Edition. Here are a few more of my favorite water life and rain related sensory play activities:

• Frog Pond Sensory Bin: Pond life comes alive with this small world sensory bin! You'll need some toy frogs and from there, you can add in whatever natural and man-made materials you have on hand. We used rocks, a variety of wood pieces, glass gems, a plastic baby dish drainer made to look like grass that we never actually used for its intended purpose, and some artificial flowers. This captivated my older one for days! We changed out the water each evening, but when small world play and sensory play collide, the result is often hours and hours of fun!
  

• Scented Waterplay with Fresh Cut Herbs: If you happen to be growing herbs in your garden or have some leftover from a recipe, this is a heavenly way to add an additional sensory component into waterplay. The bonus is that it's totally taste safe for the still-mouthing and/or younger crowd. Choose some fresh herbs that you particularly like together (like a couple varieties of mint or lavender and rosemary...) and add them to a bowl or basin of water. You can also add in spoons for mixing or bowls/cups for pouring, but this is just as lovely on its own with two (or more) hands to splash in it! You can add as much or as little of your fresh herbs as you like, and if the thought of just tossing out fresh cut herbs when you're done simply tugs at your heartstrings too much, you can still give them another good rinse and use them for cooking or making tea!

• Shaving Cream Clouds Sensory Play: Shaving cream is such a fun sensory play material! You can squirt it right on your table top (it's a self-cleaning play activity!), on a tray or even in your tub. Little hands will love making designs in the shaving cream clouds. You can also add in a few drops of food coloring or tempura paint (one or more than one color for mixing). We love doing this as a story stretcher activity with Eric Carle's Little Cloud and trying to make different cloud shapes as seen in the book. For those who may be a bit sensory averse or hesitant to dig right in, a plastic fork or comb or wooden craft stick can be a great tool. Providing a wet rag alongside can also help children who are averse to messy play to feel more comfortable.

Family Field Trips & Extension Activities:

We are so fortunate to live near several sprinkler parks. These are so much fun in the summer! They entertain a variety of ages (yes, even the adults) and it can be active fun for the whole family. Some children are game to jump right in (and through and over and under and on top) of the sprinklers while others are a bit more hesitant. My own older one used to be the jump-right-in-type and aged into the give-it-a-wide-berth-type. For the more hesitant ones at the sprinkler park or pool, I like to offer some support tools and alternative activities. A plastic bucket or basin can be filled with water for poolside or park-side water play and combined with the add-ins of your choice. Taking along some of the art materials or activities listed above can also be a great option. Read Waterplay Wednesday: Spicing Up the Sprinkler Park for more ideas on great waterplay take-alongs.

Cloud Watching is another great (FREE) family activity! You'll need one of those perfectly blue sky and fluffy cloud kinds of days, maybe a big grassy hill, a cozy picnic blanket to lay on and maybe some sunglasses. Watch as the clouds go by and see what shapes and pictures you can find in the sky.

Talking about water conservation is something that most of us probably do without even thinking of it. How many times a day do you remind someone in your house to turn off a faucet or to hurry in the shower before the fish run out of water? Take it to the next (less nagging) level this summer by using leftover water in your water bottles to give your garden a drink or practicing using the sprinkler and hose at their most efficient hours (early morning or dusk). Additionally, you can model and talk about protecting water life by cleaning up rubbish in parks and pond areas, and avoiding the tempting activity of feeding ducks human food. If you do live near a pond, river, lake or other body of water, it's a great family field trip to take and observe the flora and fauna. You can check out a variety of interesting books, both fiction and non-fiction from your local library!

I'm throwing in a little backyard (or front yard) hack today as well to encourage and invite water play without always needing a hose and running water. I love using a large plastic spigot jug filled with water for my kids to use as a filling/pouring station. It's great for use in the Mud Kitchen, watering plants and even a quick rinse of the hands! When it's empty, simply refill it and you're good to go. Just make sure to provide separate water for drinking and in general, to avoid areas with stagnant water in your yard that can invite mosquitoes and other unwanted pests.

Well, Sprout Scouts, we will be back with our next playcamp theme soon. Until then...[don't] stay dry and happy playing!

Mad Science Monday: Make Your Own Rain Cloud! Plus a Bonus Story Stretcher...

 I have a confession: we totally did our Mad Science Monday on a Thursday last week! Phew. I already feel so much better. It was the perfect day for it, too; too hot to go out for long, the fourth day of our week long play-theme on Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs by Judi and Ron Barrett, and there was a free science show at one of our local malls I wanted to take the kids to, so we were also short on time. Those types of mornings are perfect for a short stretch story stretcher and I had one more weather themed book I wanted to include this week: Eric Carle's The Little Cloud. This book is a great read to supplement a weather theme and goes perfectly alongside the supplemental book we read earlier in the week, It Looked Like Spilt Milk by Charles Green Shaw. Like the latter, this book also follows a cloud along its journey of changing shape until it makes a glorious rain. After reading the book together, we set out to experiment with making our own rain clouds using household ingredients you likely have on hand as well.

We have read this book often and are huge fans of Eric Carle here. We are also big fans of science experiments (in case you haven't noticed)! I found the idea for this experiment written up on this blog post quite a while ago and saved it for a rainy day--or a hot, sunny day! It is super easy to set up and orchestrate and requires only a few, very inexpensive materials. To make your own rain cloud, you will need:

• a clear jar, bowl, cup or glass
• shaving cream
• food coloring
• pipettes (optional)

Begin by filling your vessel with water, nearly to the top. Young scientists will love to help with this part, whether it's filling from the tap or from a pitcher. You can fill one jar or several. Next, squirt a decent sized blob of shaving cream on top; it will float! This is a great time to discuss floating and sinking with your young scientist. It is fun to observe from various angles how the "cloud" remains on top of the water. Ask your junior scientist what he or she thinks might happen if you add food coloring to the top of the cloud. You can choose one color or two or more. It's a great opportunity as well to explore color mixing. If you choose to use pipettes, you can dilute your colors and your children can use the pipettes in jars of colored water to suck up color and squirt it atop the cloud. We just squirt directly from the food coloring bottles. Please note that diluting the color will change the rate of the experiment as the coloring is less concentrated. I should also mention that food coloring undiluted can stain skin temporarily. Experiment with how many drops of color to add. If you are doing several demonstrations, you may wish to compare how the shape of the vessel or the number of drops of coloring affects the rate of the experiment. Remember to change only one factor at a time (like shape of the vessel or number of drops of coloring) to truly carry out and observe the experiment in scientific method. The next part is to wait! Once it starts "working," the color will drip through the cloud down the water in beautiful streaks that look like rain!

If your water gets too full of color, you can pour it out and try again should you wish! 

Want to do more rain cloud science? Try out this rain cloud in a bag experiment I posted earlier in the year!

Want to stretch out your story stretcher a bit?

• Here's a great art extension: Eric Carle made beautiful end pages in this book using white finger paint on blue paper. Let your young illustrator in training finger paint with white paint on blue construction paper to create his or her own cloud designs. Alternatively, experiment with symmetry using white paint on folded blue construction paper as we did in this post.
• For some more sensory fun, squirt a blob of shaving cream on a tray for your little one to play with. It's great and cloud like all on its own, mixed with some paint or food coloring to explore how colors mix or along with some tools like forks, combs, cookie cutters or anything else you'd like to to add. It's also a good medium to practice letters with for early writers and even sight words for beginning readers!

shaving cream sensory play

Short Stretch: It Looked Like Spilt Milk

It's our third day playing about our target book, Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs by Judi and Ron Barrett and I had a couple of additional theme-related books I wanted to incorporate this week. I decided today would be a great day to do a short story stretcher on the book, It Looked Like Spilt Milk by Charles Green Shaw. This book follows the curious mystery of a differently shaped white splotch on each dark blue page. The reader can observe it take on a variety of familiar shapes that it looks like, including spilt milk, an ice cream cone, a sheep...until the very end when it is revealed that it is, in fact, a cloud! This particular book was a great candidate to incorporate the themes of food and weather presented in our target book. We read the book together first and then proceeded to make our own version of the story with a simple and fun art activity.

To make your own version of It Looked Like Spilt Milk, you will need:

• blue construction paper
• white paint
• plastic spoons
• a cup or bowl for your paint
• a marker for writing (we used a white marker to resemble the book, but a darker color is fine as well)

Begin by drizzling white paint onto your paper. S really liked this part! Huge puddles of paint are not ideal but little puddles are just fine...

Next, fold your paper in half and press your hands over top to smooth the paint across the page.

The grand reveal is always exciting! This is a great opportunity to teach the concept of symmetry. Next your young author and illustrator can decide what the resulting picture resembles. We had a lot of butterflies, snow storms, and flowers here--but we also discovered a turtle and a dinosaur fossil! 

S loved creating this book together and dictating the story. He equally loves rereading it and showing it to Y!

This short book and simple activity are a great fit for when you're short on time. If you'd like to do more with it, here's a peek at some of our other activities today related to Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs and our supplement story, It Looked Like Spilt Milk:

• We are making homemade banana milkshakes this afternoon for snack. S is not such a fan of milk but does love smoothies!
• What do milk, meatballs and macaroni all have in common? They all begin with the letter Mm, which makes a sound just like the one we make when something tastes delicious: mmmmm. To review the letter Mm, we made this simple Munch Monster Game:

Fold a white paper plate in half and decorate it to look like a monster. We used markers and stickers for eyes. Inside his "mouth" I always write the letter Mm--older children can trace it or write it on their own. Munch Monsters are always hungry but only like things that begin with the letter Mm. I like to use sticky notes for children to write/dictate or draw their Mm words on. You could even use magazine cut outs if you prefer or printed images/words.

Mmmmmm, the letter Mm is delicious!

• It's always fun to sneak some science into the routine. We set up and created our own sun resist art today. This simple weather related science experiment produces a picture also somewhat in the style of the illustrations in It Looked Like Spilt Milk!

We used a cookie sheet and blue construction paper. Any darker color of construction paper will work well. You can purchase sun resist paper online or in craft shops that will actually turn white beneath the objects, but this produces significant results on its own! Choose objects from around your home to place on the paper. I recommend flatter objects for the best results. You can even use items found in nature if you prefer, like leaves, flowers, rocks, etc. Set your materials on the paper as you like and leave in a sunny spot. We left ours outside for a couple of hours this morning during the peak sun in our backyard and came back to amazing results!

The finished product can also be used like a puzzle. S loves fitting the objects back on their "shadows."

• For some more fun playing with your food, these free printable fun food playdough mats paired with your favorite playdough, tools and accessories make for a lot of creative fun in constructing and pretending about favorite foods.

S made a lot of cupcakes, birthday cakes and spaghetti with meatballs!

• For some more cloud themed fun, shaving cream is a great medium for sensory play.

You can squirt some shaving cream on a tray, use it in the tub or even outside. If you like, you can add some food coloring or paint. You can even observe mixing colors if you wish. It's a great medium for practicing strokes, lines, shapes and letters for early writers, for just getting your hands messy for those who like to, and for those who don't, feel free to add in tools like a spoon or fork , comb or craft sticks...

Hope you find one or a few of these short stretches a good addition to your own summer fun! We'll see you next time and until then...

Happy Playing!

Story Stretchers Play at Home Camp: Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs

 Welcome to the second week of our Story Stretchers Play at Home Camp! This week's fiction forecast is one of our favorite books of all time, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs by Judi Barrett, pictures by Ronald Barrett. This book captures the bedtime tall tale told by a grandfather to his two grandchildren of the town of Chewandswallow. This town is much like any other except for the fact that there are no grocery stores or restaurants; all of the food eaten by its inhabitants comes from the sky in the form of some very wacky (and tasty) weather! This great story along with its enthralling illustrations will really stretch your imagination (and possibly also your waistband if you're not careful)!
I must give credit where credit is due, and give a shout out to my sister (if you're reading this, hi, schvester!), who is an amazing play at home mom of two wonderful boys and early childhood educator by trade. She and her preschool aged sons also love doing story stretchers together and we often share our ideas. (Ok, I'm kind of more stealing this one than sharing it.) A few weeks ago as I was planning out the first few themes for our Story Stretchers Play at Home Camp, she sent me some photos of the activities she and her sons did with this book as well as its equally fabulous sequel, Pickles to Pittsburgh. I was super impressed and inspired, and knew I wanted to include a Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs week here, as it is already one of S's favorite books to read together. And with Father's Day coming this Sunday, we are also busy working on some homemade gifts for the amazing Tatty in our house and the two wonderful grandfathers in our sons' lives. What better book to inspire our play this week than one with a fabulous bedtime story narrated by a grandpa? I love this book as well for its very versatile play themes, including storytelling/tall tales, food/cooking, and weather/precipitation. These are all great sub-themes to expand upon through multisensory play and will inspire many of the activities we do this week as we make our journey to the fictional land of Chewandswallow to engage in some exciting dramatic play, art, sensory play, building/STEM activities, science experiments, and of course, taste tests!

If you'd like to set up your own Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs Story Stretcher, here are some materials you may wish to include:

• building toys and manipulatives, like blocks, Lego/Duplo blocks, Magnatiles or even recycled boxes for building your own Chewandswallow
• toy people and construction vehicles to add to your town of Chewandswallow
• play food, kitchen accessories, kitchen set, aprons for dramatic play
• construction paper (blue and any other colors you like), easel paper, white paper plates, glue, white paint, pompoms, dry pasta, markers/crayons, old magazines with pictures of food, scissors, stickers with pictures of food for our art projects
• dry pasta for cooking and for sensory play

We're all set up for some sensory bin dramatic play about the town of Chewandswallow! You can add in some blocks or building manipulatives, too, if you'd like!

• miniature food or buttons shaped like food, small dry pasta, recycled clear plastic bottles for Chewandswallow sensory bottles

S loves to help make themed sensory bottles for both he and Y to use with our play and story themes. Small dry pasta and miniature food from the dollhouse section of the craft store made a great filler for this week's books, Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs and its sequel, Pickles to Pittsburgh.

• shaving cream, food coloring and a recycled jar or glass for our weather themed science experiment later this week
• pasta in a variety of shapes and two or more varieties of pickles for taste testing
• any other theme related toys or materials you can think of! I pulled out a set of Mr. Potato Head toys we found a while ago at a secondhand store and S has had a lot of fun with this food themed toy!

Reading together!

I began setting up our story stretcher materials over the weekend, and as soon as S saw the target book on his shelf, he brought it over to read together. He loves this book! I always introduce the idea of what a tall tale is when I read this to young children. Many preschool aged children go through phases of telling their own tall tales. For adults, it can be alarming to hear children tell blatant fibs and pass them off as the truth. We wish for our children to grow up as honest, upstanding citizens and to be aware of and sensitive to reality versus the imagination. Of course, there is a difference between telling a fib to avoid getting into trouble--"It wasn't me, the baby did it!"--versus the types of tall tales children may tell to gain attention or just express creativity. With students I have had who frequently tell tall tales of the latter type, I do give the language to say "this is a tall tale," first so that their peers can identify when a story is true and when it is made up for entertainment. Honesty is an important social skill in developing friendships. That said, this type of creativity and story telling are fabulous skills that can be homed in on through an appropriate lens. Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs is a great book to demonstrate this--after all, as I tell my students, there is a whole section of the library devoted to authors who like to tell tall tales and it's called the fiction department! I encourage young story tellers to put their stories to words and pictures. Creating a space where telling tall tales is accepted can sometimes mitigate them being told in less socially appropriate fashions.

We began our week this morning by reading our target book again. Our art shelf is stocked with a tray of food stickers and food pictures cut from recycled magazines, greeting cards and food ads. Older children can definitely cut out their own given the materials. I set that out along with markers and a glue stick with his journal and the prompt "Today's weather is cloudy with a chance of ______." S got to decide what delicious weather would fall from the sky, and picked "lollipops and plums." 

He found a picture of an ice cream cone cut from an old birthday card and dictated that he would eat that first! In the land of Chewandswallow, dessert can always come first!

Using a piece of easel paper and a similar prompt taped to the door, S can enjoy working on a vertical surface to create his own Chewandswallow poster. He has gone back to this activity multiple times.

Pasta Taste Test

Meatballs are lonely without their delicious counterpart, spaghetti. I happen to have a toddler who is a particular eater. Now, when I say particular, I don't mean picky. In fact, S eats a lot of very healthy foods. He loves making smoothies with his Tatty and they put in ingredients like bee pollen and hemp seed and flax seed and chia seeds... He drinks kombucha and thinks it's a treat. He loves cucumbers and snap peas, fresh fruits of all kinds and, like many of his peers, also likes jelly beans and ice pops and cupcakes. He knows what he likes and eats what he knows; under the proper conditions, he will try new foods. Because he is more sensitive to trying new foods and I am more sensitive when I present them at dinner time after a long day, I tend to break the one rule I said I would never break and we serve two different suppers. I always offer what we are having and we also provide an option we know he will eat. When my sister showed me a pickle taste test activity they did with their story stretcher, I wondered if doing "taste tests" might inspire and encourage S to try some new foods or some less preferred ones again. Sure enough, he was very eager to participate in our Pasta Taste Test today. He got a face drawn on for each shape pasta he tried and its expression to match his own reaction. We cooked three shapes of pasta: spaghetti, bow-ties (farfalle), and shells. I kept it pretty simple for him and just added some margarine and salt (which he does like) but you can provide sauce and even meatballs if your taste tester is interested! I also prepared our results chart in advance and glued on dry versions of each shape of pasta as a visual aid. S got a real kick out of that and wanted to put some of his pasta on the paper as well--he will surely like some of our art activities later this week! S was most comfortable licking each shape first and then eating some. He has had pasta before, but it's not one of his favorite foods by any means. As a rule of thumb, I do not make a big deal one way or another with trying new foods; it's just not worth the battle. However, many times when I don't make a big commotion and I do provide a distraction--like a great book, less preferred foods are eaten without a fight. So today at lunch, we read Pickles to Pittsburgh, and as it turns out, S quite likes bow tie shaped pasta! 

I'm not sure if he will go for the pickle taste test I have planned for later this week...but if he doesn't, I'll eat the leftovers! We have a lot more planned for our week ahead and look forward to sharing it here. Until then, happy playing!

Noah's Ark Theme: Part 4

We wrapped up an amazing week of learning and play in the theme of Parshas Noach. Within the story of Noah's Ark, there are so many sub-themes that could easily stand alone! Animals are a fun and incredible topic to explore with children, and I usually devote a few weeks to a theme like this one rather than cram into part of one week. The animals on Noah's ark still made an appearance in our activities, nonetheless, particularly gaining a lot of attention from my toddler in the theme related discovery basket I set out and in our teivah sorting activity. Building the teivah could also become a theme in and of itself through building with different materials at home and other construction related activities. I made sure to have some building toys, hard hats and tools accessible this week for theme related independent play, and many an activity was spent over the last few days with me wearing a yellow hardhat because my son requested it!
We shifted our focus this time on the colors of the rainbow and some basic concepts of clouds and rain. It was fabulous to watch my son learn through art, science and hands-on exploration. Perhaps the absolute highlights were watching how excited he was each day and engaged in many of the activities. As an added bonus, he walks around the house singing the Rainbow Song now!
We read Eric Carle's Little Cloud together and had some sensory fun with shaving cream to make our own Little Cloud. To help weave in our learning about color mixing, I added a squirt of red and blue paint to the shaving cream. I offered a plastic fork for mixing and playing but also let my little one know he could get his hands in there, too! He does not mind getting his hands messy altogether, but seemed to favor the fork overall and also likes to be able to clean off his hands independently as he feels ready. For that reason, I also provide a wet wash cloth when we work with messy materials so he doesn't need to leave the activity to intermittently wipe off big gobs of paint or shaving cream or glue. With the red and blue paints, he experienced hands on the mixing of our final secondary color in the rainbow, purple! This led us right into the final strip of our rainbow texture collage.

For some more purple themed fun, read Crockett Johnson's Harold and the Purple Crayon!  Now, having explored each of the colors individually, we had some playful fun with all of the colors of the rainbow.

I saw a lot of cute ideas using playdough and pipecleaners to build a rainbow. Somehow, I lacked a set of pipecleaners in each color, so I checked my craft stick stash--also missing colors! Guess it's time to restock, but for now, I was inspired to create an Invitation to Play with the Colors of the Rainbow using loose parts. 

He had a blast! 

After sticking the foam beads inside the ball of sparkly purple playdough we made earlier last week, he used the craft sticks to cut up his "challah" and even made a brachah on it!

Then he used the foam beads for building (and knocking down) towers! I confess to breaking my own rule and buying those beads from the dollar store over a year ago with no plan in place for them. They have sat in a container for that long and today, my son showed me what to do with them! I suppose it was worth the dollar!

We took our easel outside with paints in all three primary colors for some color mixing process art. Mixing to brown is a learning experience, too! Although this time he didn't quite reach the brown stage!

We usually reserve our Friday mornings for Field Trip days. I find that focusing the "homeschool" aspect of our week into four days allows us both more time to unwind at the end of a week and for me to plan for the week ahead, wrap up anything we didn't get to and/or prepare for Shabbos. Plus, having a fun outing in the morning helps us spend quality time together before my husband and I get busy preparing for Shabbos to begin. This week we visited our Science Museum, which has a fabulous exhibit for children ages 0-5 all about colors and light! He always has a great time here, and we were able to incorporate the themes of animals, weather, rainbows and even building while we made our way through the museum!

Join us this coming week as we start exploring the theme of Autumn. Until then, happy playing!