For April Fools' Day, I found this adorable book at a discount store called Garden Ridge. If you have a store by you, it is worth a look through their books. Books there are typically less than $5, usually closer to $3. I would much rather spend a few dollars on a book than close to the same amount on a card! 
We hosted a preschool play date where we also discussed the four seasons. I was the leader, and to go along with the book and cling activity, I wanted to do an art project with the kids to work on their fine motor skills and to have the kids give a reason they like a certain season. These are the examples I made so the kids could see what theirs could look like. I had the moms trace and cut out the arm and hand of each child, then the children used glue sticks to put it onto a blank backdrop. Each child then chose the season he or she wanted to make his or her tree. 
Beforehand, I cut strips of paper-- green for summer leaves and red and orange for fall leaves were for cutting, and the white for winter and pink and green for spring buds were for punching.
After the kids punched and cut, they put glue onto the fingers to attach the leaves, snowflakes, or buds.
Finally, the kids dictated to their moms what their favorite season is and why. I think if E and I did this activity on our own, it would have been fun to do each of the seasons instead of just one, plus it would have given her the opportunity to have practiced the fine motor skills of both cutting and punching.
We have been staying so busy with visitors, MOMS Club activities, soccer, and illness, somehow we have lost Springtime and landed ourselves right into summer! We upgraded our very tiny blow up baby pool into this bigger 8-foot blowup pool to beat the heat and enjoy even more time outdoors. After two days of just fun in the pool, today we added a set of foam letters to work on letter recognition. At first, E was just grabbing any letter, identifying it, and bringing it to me to put into the collection bucket. She was doing pretty well, especially considering that some of the letters were upside down, facing the wrong direction, etc. I would ask her to manipulate them into the right position before removing them from the pool.
The second round we mixed things up a little. This round I would ask E to go find the letters, one by one, in the order of the alphabet. When she brought them to me, we would talk about things that start with that letter, focusing on the sound of the first letter. Sometimes E couldn't locate the letters (mostly because with all the letters, toys, and even her big ole mama in the pool, it was difficult to find each little letter). So, this started a couple of other skill games. The first one she learned the basic of in a game of hide and seek with her grandparents during their visit. That was the hot or cold game. As she would "swim" around the pool, I would tell her if she was hot and close to the letter or cold and far from the letter. Another way I would narrow it down for her was to tell her what color the letter is. I think there are six total colors, so that was a great way for her to have less to focus on.
Over the weekend, we were planning on taking a road trip (about four hours in the car), so I loaded up this desk with items for E to play with in the car. Unfortunately, the stomach bug got the best of this mom, and we ended up not going :(. Instead, this loaded up desk became a great filler activity for me when I was more interested in doing nothing than planning and executing activities for E. I know it would have been great in the car, too, because it held her attention for about 30 to 40 minutes.
So, what's in the desk? Here is a list: ColorWonder markers and drawing pad, dress up doll stickers and paper to put them on, a Velcro shape activity book (with a CD that would have been great for the car), a couple of books, a Colorform type habitat and cling page, pony beads and pipe cleaners, and a snack.
For the first part of this activity, I created two sets of note cards, one set with the five senses written out, and the other set with pictures of the body part used for those senses. I had also picked up the rubber face puppet that E is holding to use with this activity. I used the funny puppet to read the letters and then the words on the cards to E using a fun voice. It was her job to match the picture card with the word card. This acted as a review for all that we have been talking about. Some of my pictures were not so great, so the puppet would ask her to point to his body part if she was confused by the picture. E enjoyed the puppet part of this very much, and matched up all the cards between giggles.
For the second part of this activity, I had sorted through a box of lettered short bread cookies to find the letters that match up with the senses words on the cards a few days beforehand. 
E then would take a cookie our of the container, tell me the letter, and look for a letter to match it up with. We had never done an activity like this before, but she did a great job. She had a few letters she didn't know, and a couple she couldn't match up, but I was very surprised with how easily she accomplished this task. Of course, she kept asking if she could eat a cookie.
And, as she completed a word, I did let her eat the cookies for that word. I love the built in motivation and reward of this activity! What a fun and productive half hour!
E's best friend and cousin is turning four in a couple of weeks, and I saw the idea of making a birthday cake with a hand print on Pinterest. I thought having E make a card for her using the hand print would be a fun activity that uses the sense of touch. E picked out all of the colors for the different parts (the pink and blue make up the cake, the white is for the candles, and the flames on the candles are a mixture of yellow and orange), and I painted her hands using round stencil brushes and regular paint brushes. There was a lot of giggling from the tickling the brushng caused on her hands. We left the thumb blank for this activity so that the palm would be the cake and the four fingers would be the four candles on the cake. We made two prints (which I didn't take a picture of :(). 
After the prints dried, E decorated around the handprint with sticker fours. She then put happy birthday stickers and balloons on the inside. I helped her to write her cousin's name and her name on the inside of the card. Finally, she practiced her letter identification by using letter stickers to label the outside of the card.
I cut out the second print to make the tag for the package. The prints came out very cute, and E loved working on this project for her best friend.
To begin this unit on the five senses, we started by reading the book Look, Listen, Taste, Touch, and Smell by Pamela Hill Nettleton. It is a great overview of the senses and the body parts we use for those senses. Parts of the book go into more detail than what E probably understands, but the great illustrations by Becky Shipe keep her entertained. She has actually asked to read the book a couple of times since that initial reading.
After we read the book, we then used E's Mr. Potato Heads to work on matching the sense with body part. I would say, "put on what we use to hear." E did a great job of finding all the correct parts and wanted to do the second potato head. I made the clues for the second one a little more tricky, such as "if I am baking cookies, what might you use to know they were in the oven?" Once again, she did great! She even got the question right (also discussed in the book) for what someone might wear if they can't see well (that's why Mr. Potato Head has on glasses), and what we can wear to protect us from the sun (that's why the Mr. Potato Heads have on hats). The mustache is just for fun :).
Finally, we did a journal entry where E took the parts off Mr. Potato head and traced them. After she traced them, I had her dictate the labels and the corresponding sense to me. This whole activity was so fun and really solidified the background information for the whole unit!
A few weeks back, E and I attending a preschool type class where E was exposed to patterning, probably for the the first time formally. She did not do well, and I felt horrible for not really exposing her to this before. I have had some trouble in my journey as a first-time mom with allowing myself to become complacent and not challenging E enough. But, I am a learn as I go mom, so I gathered some of the foam stickers and sheets I had in the craft room, and I created some patterning activities. These are similar to busy bags, but these particular activities are not easily reusable, so they aren't busy bags in the truest (or best) form.
Today we created a journal for E. Nothing too complicated here: a three-ring binder with blank pieces of paper three-hole punched. The plan for this journal is to do interview and scribe types of entries, gluing pictures, using stickers, and, of course, doing drawings.
