Beans, Penguins and Snowflakes

This month I thought we'd take some time and learn about the letters P and S. Seeing that its cold outside, the snow has fallen, it is only appropriate that we highlight and talk about whats happening outside our windows! So we started off the month talking about Penguins; where they live, what they look like, we checked out some books from the library, and even a DVD (which was a huge highlight) for Peanut. We typically do any sort of learning time when the Big Guy is down for nap time (he is more destructive these days). We talked about snow, snowflakes, and the importance of only eating WHITE snow, not yellow, brown, or any other color!

Peanut came up with the following
P words: Penguin, Purple and Peck (the last, I was a little surprised by!)

S words: Snow, Snowflake, and Stop (which had nothing to do with our project, but rather reflects her backseat driver ability, when she points out every red traffic sign saying, "theres a red octagon stop sign, are you going to stop mom." And for those of you wondering, YES I always stop for the stop-signs. I must confess it may not always be a complete stop.

To help and highlight what we've been learning, we've been reading some of the following books.... One of my favorites, Bear Snores On, so cute, captivating, and funny! And some of our others include, Fancy Nancy, Diary of a Fly, Click, Clack, Moo, and the all time favorite Tickle Monster. Which is best read by the J-man, so Peanut tells me.

Beans.... yes, this is the month where I find beans in the toys, beans on the floor, beans in pockets and it all goes on and on... but I just deal with the hassle of it all, for the sake of playing with new textures, filling and dumping, measuring and building, and sometimes, crunchy things in the mouth!

I got what is actually a an outdoor sand-table last year and instead of sitting it outside, we use it inside during the winter months. It is filled with beans i got for $10 from wally-world, yes, they have lasted two years now... the nasty ones we have dumped, but for the most part, they are as good as new. This provides endless hours of entertainment, and takes about 15minutes to clean up every day.