The Theme of Camping

Summer is for camping. Our children have no such experience yet but it does not prevent us from enjoying tent, campfire and all the fun in the nature.

Tent set up in backyard with red paper campfire

Dramatic play: camping

Pretended to Sleep in the Tent

Learn Words about Camping

Arts and Crafts: Collages

Making collage is an important crafting activity for young children. It helps them develop their fine motor skills and provides them with the first hand experience of colors, shapes, patterns and textures. When we have collage projects, we let children create without too much instructions from us.  To my surprise, I found their projects always ended up quite aesthetic. I believe those little artists have their own natural taste of beauty that more than what we can teach.

Summer Flower Collage

Summer Fish Collage

Making Fish Collage

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Home Made Rice Dumpling (粽子)

To celebrate the Dragon Boat Festival, we made rice dumplings with our children and cooked them for our  dinner. Our dumplings were made with sticky rice, marinated pork, red bean and peanuts. For most of our children, this was their first time to taste rice dumplings. We were happy to see that most of our children like it very well.

little helpers are all ready

making rice dumplings

dinner

The Theme of July 4th

We had some fun activities to celebrate the 4th of July,

An American History Book

The book was designed for young children, very illustrative and informative. It included all the significant turning points in American history, from Civil War to the Great Depression to Martin Luther King and human rights  Children like the image of  "Uncle Sam" appeared on each page and they learned to recognize the pattern of the star and stripes flag.

read American History book

Arts and Crafts: Patriotic Star Artwork

drawing stripes on star

patriotic star artwork

patriotic star artwork

Snack: Patriotic Popsicle

We used cool-aid and yogurt to make this fun snack with our children.  Each layer of this Popsicle was frozen separately, the next layer was added when the previous layer become semi-harded in the freezer,

pour blue cool-aid

in the freezer

pour red cool-aid

Ready to eat

Music and Rhythm: Yankee Doodle

We let our children used instruments to create music rhythm of Yankee Doodle and marched together.  It's important that toddlers not only enjoy being part of a group but actively participate in the music making.As they join in they develop confidence and self expression through movement while a solid musical foundation is being laid.

New adventures on our menu

I try to add new items to our menu and encourage our picky eaters to try different things. This week I made organic beef meatballs with sweet basil and Parmesan cheese, a daunting experience to myself. The good thing is our children liked it, even some picky eaters ate the meatballs with no problem. I used to buy big bag of meatballs from Costco, but my version seemed more liked by our children.

Organic Beef Meatballs from Oven

Meatball Pasta

Dinner

I also made another new item last week for our children: mushroom and barley soup. This was a completely vegetarian soup with many other veggies, such as onion, carrots and potatoes. Our children accepted it very well.

mushroom and barley soup

We shared some grape tomatoes with our children last week, which were harvested from our backyard. They are very sweet and fresh, completely ripe on the vine.
(We cut them in halves before serve to our children)

Grape Tomatoes from Backyard

The Theme of Father's Day

We did several things to celebrate Father's Day this week.

1. make a card for Dad

make card for Dad

make card for Dad

Happy Father's Day

My Dad is a Great Catch

2. Dad Rocks
This is a fun idea from internet. Our children painted the rock and added sliver glitter. I helped them write the words "Dad Rocks" and finished it with a paint sealer so the painting will last long. A wonderful gift for Dad!

Painting the rock

Dad Rocks

Dad Rocks

Dad Rocks

3. matching game

This matching game asked children to help Dad put the tools back into the tool box. Through this activity children learn how to write numbers and connect objects.

Tool Box Matching Game

Chalk Drawings on Sidewalk

Every childhood should include the fun of free chalk drawing on sidewalk, I believe. It was amazing to see a big chalk could bring so much fun to our preschoolers. Nobody wanted to come back when we called them for dinner.

chalk drawing

chalk drawing

chalk drawing