Do the Monster Mash!

Ok, maybe a monster themed week would have been more appropriate for Halloween week, but we're doing happy monsters this week. Big Monkey is calling them "silly monsters." We had a good time this morning despite the fact that Baby Monkey was a crying mess the entire time (almost). And just as a reminder - even if you have ZERO interest in homeschooling (and I don't necessarily blame you), all these activities and printables are great for entertainment, take relatively little effort on your part (for most things), are fantastic for early skills development to prep for preschool/kindergarten, and they are fun!

My printables from this week come from 1+1+1=1 and 2teachingmommies.

We started off with our usual morning calendar and weather time. Reviewed today, tomorrow, and yesterday, and went over our name and address. He's rockin' the address this week.

Next we did a monster size sort. Big Monkey stacked littler monsters on top of big monsters. This was our first size sort of this type, so I had no idea how Big Monkey would do. Well, it only took him a few short minutes to stack up all the monsters in the right size order!

Yes, we are wearing our Christmas pajamas already. :) We then built sock monsters together! I didn't have fabric glue, so we just used white glue. I'll have to check tomorrow and see if it held. I sure hope so. That and I hope the pair of socks we used from Daddy Monkey's sock drawer was not a favorite. Giggle. Big Monkey's monster is on the right.

Meanwhile, Baby Monkey was stuck in the exersaucer happily playing with the "knock off unlicensed Donald Duck" chattering toy from China (brought back by family). He loves that thing. This was about the only time he was not crying at me this morning.

Our next activity was sort of didn't work out as planned. I had seen a craft where you use droppers to drop paint onto paper and then use straws to blow the paint out like a splat. Then you could draw on arms/legs/eyes and make monsters. I think our paint is too think. I helped Big Monkey drop the paint on the paper (couldn't really get it to drop from the dropper - it just kept filling up more and more and more. Who knows where the paint was going). Then when I showed him how to blow on the drops, I about passed out! I had to use that much force to get the paint to move. No way was Big Monkey going to be able to accomplish that one on his own. He tried and then proceeded to ask me to use the straw for all the other paint dots we had already put on the paper. Oye... In the end, it turned into finger panting and making handprints. I also sprinkled a little salt on the paper so he could feel the different texture. He thought that was funny and described it as "feeling like sand."

Baby Monkey spent this time pulling on my pajama pants making them fall down and crying. I carried him around most of the rest of the morning after we cleaned up the paint. He looks like he is smiling in the picture below, but it was really a break between the screaming pose. See we're real around here - it's not all glitter and stickers.

I then pulled out the sensory bin! This week I put together a make a monster bin (I need to find out which blog I pulled this idea from - I think Carisa at 1+1+1=1). Not sure if it was just the day or if the bin is not that popular, but Big Monkey was only interested for about 5-10 minutes. I think Baby Monkey would have played all morning in that bin. Of course he really just wanted to dump it...

Since I wouldn't let him dump it again, he decided to sit in it.

Our creation together

We filled other parts of the morning by reading about respect, going outside to play, coming in since it was soaking wet outside, doing a wood monster puzzle, and watching Monsters, Inc. All in all a good day.