Hootie Who's Ready for the Weekend?

The flock is ready for the long Labor Day weekend, and we have the perfect kid friendly activity to usher in fall.  We can only hope and pray that fall is around the bend, because honestly there is enough heat and moisture in the air to cut it with a butter knife!  Nonetheless, we are super excited for the traditions that the season fall brings.  Back to school (you already know we love that!), college football, yummy food, family gatherings, pumpkins, and these adorable owls!

Making these cupcakes would be a perfect home or classroom tie in to Wednesday's Lil Sprouts Book Club choice.  Here's what you'll need:

Box of cake mix
White cookie/cake icing
Oreo cookies
Sixlet candies
Shaved almonds
Coco Puffs cereal
Goldfish crackers or Cheez-It crackers

Directions:

Follow the directions on the cake box to make cupcakes.  Let the cupcakes cool completely and then add your icing.  

Your mini pastry chefs can decide if they would like to create a brown owl or white owl.  If they would like a brown owl, have them put a handful of Coco Puffs into a resealable baggie and crush.  Sprinkle cereal crumbs on top of the cupcake.  Carefully twist apart two Oreo cookies to use as the owl’s eyes.  You’ll need to use two so that you can have two eyes that are covered in the yummy white frosting!   

Place a Sixlet candy on the icing to finish off the owl’s eyes.  Now using your shaved almonds create wings for the owls by making staggered rows.  Your final touch will be the beak.   

Let your kids use their creativity!  They can shape a Goldfish cracker into the beak, or even bite off the corner of a Cheez-It cracker.

 Extend the fun and learning with a journaling activity that has your little owls practicing their writing and sequencing skills.  Simply save the image below into a Word document and print for your kids. 

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Lil Sprouts Book Club: The Little White Owl

 

Living all alone in the snow under a starry sky, a little white owl imagines himself as a knight or as a rocket, blasting off to the moon. These fantasies inspire him to take off, he journeys to the tropics where he meets some very colorful owls. To the white owl, they seem just like him, but the other birds don’t feel the same, and order him to go away. After he tells the colorful birds his magical stories of castles, knights, and dragons, though, they are so stricken by his tales, that when the white owl goes back to his snowy home, the tropical crew begs to join him. The tropically hued, textured illustrations show the huge-eyed birds’ transformation from mean bullies to friends of the little white owl.

This is one of my favorite stories to read at the beginning of the school year to my students. The pictures are engaging and really capture the attention of my students, my little kids at home are no exception. They enjoyed listening to this story as well, captivated by the vivid pictures and colorful owls. This story teaches a very valuable lesson. That no matter how small, or different someone may be you can't really judge a person until you get to know them. Using the message of this story to bring together a class, a family or a group of friends helps little ones to see the importance of their actions and words towards others. As the school year gets started it's important to remind students, no matter what age they are, of the importance of being accepting and valuing each others differences. 

A fun little activity to remind students of this story and it's valuable message is to make little colorful owls. I did this tonight with my two little ones. 

 

The materials are simple:

2 patterns of scrapbook paper

scissors

favor box

white paper, black paper

orange felt

glue stick

Since my two little ones are too young to cut such small items I cut my pieces out ahead of time. You need to cut 2 white circles, two smaller black circles, a small triangle, and a heart from the felt. Use the scrapbook paper to cut small rounded rectangles (feathers) out (trace the tip of your pinky finger as a guide for size).

Leave the favor box flat, have your little one use the glue stick to attach the feathers in a  row, It is easiest to start at the bottom and work your way up. Leave about 1 1/2 inches empty at the top of the box ( for the eyes). Even my 18 month old son got in on the crafting action. He loved using the big glue stick most of all....I am pretty sure by the time he was done everything was stuck to the table. With a little direction he was able to keep up with his 4 year old sister.

Attach the eyes and beak and then assemble the favor box folding the top and bottom, then place the heart shaped (claws) at the bottom for the little owl to stand on.

 Lastly cut two oval wings out of the scrapbook paper, and attach them onto your owl. *as you see we forgot this step....I will update our pictures once my kids add them....I knew we were forgetting something :)

If you love owls as much as we do, be sure to check out our Back to School is a Hoot Kit!

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The Letter O is for Owl! Hoot Hoot!

Today we learned about the letter O

We started out with a sensory activity. I squeezed some different colored paints ( blue, purple, black, light blue, glitter paint) onto a piece of construction paper. Kaitlyn practiced making her o's by moving the paint around with her finger. When she was all done we sprinkled on some glitter and set it outside to dry.


While it was drying we went out to the front yard and gathered some fall leaves and found a nice branch for our picture.

I used the hot glue gun to attache her branch and her leaves onto her painting.

I then traced the body of an owl onto some construction paper and asked Kaitlyn to color him brown.....I look over a few seconds later and see that she drew feet onto the owl ( this was a first for Kaitlyn) She is starting to become more accurate in her depictions of things. We made some handprints for wings and added them onto her picture!

We discussed today how owls are nocturnal animals and how they fly quietly at night to hunt for their food. We read several books today about Owls, Kaitlyn's Favorite was Owls, by Gail Gibbons

 

 

Letter O, Practice

Kaitlyn practiced her letter O's today on her mats I made. She used pom pom's to make the shape of the letter O. She also used her dry erase crayon board to trace the O's

Hoot Hoot! It's Orange Owl Cupcake Time

Kaitlyn and I had some fun in the kitchen this afternoon cooking up some orange cupcakes. Kaitlyn and I decorated them to look like owls. We used oreos and little green candies for the eyes. She then decorated the bodies with almond slivers and cocoa pebbles cereal to mimic the feathers. The finishing touch was a goldfish cracker as a beak. They were so much fun to make! Now to find a small army to eat some owl cupcakes!

Kaitlyn loves "school" time and loves practicing with her learning puzzles. This is a great one that we actually got as a gift. Kaitlyn matches the color or texture to the object. It is a great way to learn about describing words. When she is all done she practices reading the cards by pointing to the words and saying the describing word and the objects name.....a great way to develop those early reading and decoding skills.

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