L is for Leaves, M is for Monster

Yay for fall! I love love love this time of year. Cool, crisp air, crackly fallen leaves, apples and pumpkins and Halloween on the way. Cami loves it too. Halloween seems to be her favorite holiday- she's fascinated with skeletons and ghosts and witches, and loves seeing all the decorations around. We're going to learn about pumpkins next week and Halloween the following week, so that'll be fun.

A week ago, we learned about the letter L. I'm really not good at having a set plan, and structured activities and letter learning exercises, but I'm kind of just learning as I go. And trying my best. That's what matters most, right? But it's been fun. The first day, we went on a nature walk around the neighborhood. Wahoo- that's like the first real walk I've taken the kids on in like a year! I haven't really felt up to doing it, or have just been lazy, but it was nice to get out and just take our sweet time. Cami rode her big-wheel trike, and I pushed Lexi in the stroller, and we stopped and picked up anything we wanted to along the way. Leaves, pebbles, sticks, anything interesting laying in the road. :) Cami loved it. She would hop off her trike, get so excited to grab something, put it in our jar, and continue on. We overflowed our mason jar with goodies, and then sorted it out on the porch when we got home.

Then we took an empty toilet paper roll, and made a cute little leaf man out of it! Got the idea from here. Aren't they cute??

Then on Tuesday we went to storytime at the library and learned about leaves. Perfect! This was the make and take craft...so we brought the supplies home and made these cute tissue paper leaves with contact paper.

We also learned about ladybugs. Here's Cami in her ladybug outfit.

We did a ladybug counting activity (don't mind the vampire costume...she was just playing dress-up) that I found on this cute site. We cut out ladybug bodies, and a bunch of black dots, and then she picked a number for each ladybug, we wrote it down, and then she counted out and glued that amount of dots on the ladybug.

L is also for ladder. So I drew a block L on a piece of paper, and she made a ladder out of the tall side, and had fun coloring the page.

L is for Lexi! Yay!

And to finish off our L week, we enjoyed the first General Conference session during a drive through the Alpine Canyon to see the fall leaves. It was beautiful! We wanted to see the leaves in the mountains before the season is over, and I'm so glad we did. It was a perfect, blue sky day, and the aspen trees were bright yellow.

My favorite pic- this was a breathtaking view at the top of the Alpine Loop!

Oh, here's our little lion for L. I really need to get some brown construction paper.

Last week we learned about M. I didn't mean to do L and M together, but I think I was just excited to do monster stuff. But first, M is for marshmallows! I was reminded of this cute idea on pinterest- to make a marshmallow sculpture with toothpicks. It really is so fun! Once you start, it's hard to stop!

It was neat to see Cami's brain working...looking for the next spot to stick a toothpick, and where to connect marshmallows. She stuck this toothpick on top and said, "Look mom, it looks like a church!"

She ate a few along the way, but she was really into this sculpture making. This was our finished product. Good job, Cam!

We then made marshmallow Rice Krispie Treats for family night treat, and I made Cami's look like a monster with chocolate chip eyes and almond teeth.

Monsters are fun. And Cami loves them. This cute monster craft was found here and I was so excited when we finally finished a tissue box so that we could use it for our craft.

You just hot glue egg carton eyes onto the box, add some googly eyes and teeth strips out of construction paper or foam sheets. We added some pipe cleaner "hair" on the top and called it good. He hangs out in our "classroom" and keeps an eye (or 5) on things. :)

M is for Mexican dancing at the Church History Museum! Doesn't Lexi look adorable in this little skirt? We met Kate and her kiddos downtown (after I had a very frustrating encounter with Trax...ending with Jake having to pick me, Cami, Lexi and the stroller up in the rain at the end station where I was in tears. haha). I love this museum because it's free and it has so many cool exhibits. The best part is the kids area!

M is for Mae! Cami and Mae had fun dancing along with the dancers on the screen and twirling their skirts around.

Lexi loved this bike tire with sparkly pom poms in the spokes. They were enclosed, but she kept trying to grab them as the wheel spun around with her cute, chubby little fingers.

She also loved the magnetic fish and fishing pole. Here we are having fun fishing.

M is also for melting. I found this cute idea on this site who found this game here.

I played it with Cam in the morning, and she loved it. She giggled when she had to drop it down her shirt.

Here she's counting to 10 while it floats in the water...

And holding it in her little hand.

She really liked shaking salt on the ice, and kept trying to make the dice land on the 5 so she could do it. Our ice cubes melted at about a tie, but it was a fun process and I think any kid would have fun with it.

M is for music....at library storytime, they talked about silliness and danced to "Wiggle your Sillies Out". Then we made shakers at the end, made out of toilet paper rolls and beans. Cami put an eyeball on hers.

Here's a cute monster craft Cam made at our ward playgroup. Perfect for M week! It's just dabs of washable Crayola paint that Cami blew with a straw to spread around. Googly eyes make anything cute.

M is for Mouse....we made this little mouse from a toilet paper roll (these are really coming in handy!). The template was found here. We read "Town Mouse, Country Mouse" to go along with it.

Aaaand M is for Memory. This was Lexi's activity. I saw the idea here along with other awesome ideas for keeping toddlers busy. They say that Huggies wipes containers are perfect for little hands! And you can use Memory cards to have your child drop through the slit, and you can also teach them the names of the objects on the cards and help them with vocabulary. Lexi actually enjoyed this and stayed occupied for a little while, but soon turned to her favorite past time- eating. She chewed on a couple of cards before I could snatch them away. Little stinker.

I will have to get some more tricks up my sleeve for keeping baby busy during school time.