H and I!

H week started out with our handprint hippos.

 We made our dot marker H and h.

I broke out our foam sticker hearts... since Sam and Anna haven't seen these since February, they were excited to use them again!

We read lots of books about houses, hippos, hands, horses, hats and hugs.  In a unprompted moment, I caught Sam reading this book about what hands could do to Anna while I made lunch.  It was cute hearing him "read" the pictures to her!

 We made newspaper hats.

Sam and Anna hammered golf tees into styrofoam.

I found this heart shaped cereal (similar to cheerios) at the grocery store and it was a hit with Sam and Anna.  Sometimes you just gotta switch things up a little, I guess.  We ate ham, hotdogs, and hamburgers too.

And Sam got his hair cut, but I didn't take pictures of that.  It's getting harder and harder to get Anna's acceptance that only Sam's hair is getting cut and not hers, so I think her first haircut is in the near future.  It is getting so long, but it is still hard to tell since it curls right up.

At first, I didn't think there was a lot we could do with I, but then ideas kept coming up!  Here are our ice cream handprints. (Sam and Anna chose the colors of our ice cream scoops.)

We read the book Inch by Inch by Leo Lionni and then made inchworms out of paper tubes.

I froze paint in ice cube trays and then we painted with ice paint the next day.  Sam was over this fast, but Anna was still going strong 45 minutes later.  I had to tell her it was time to stop to be done.  She loved to feel the cold paint cubes in her hands. 

 (Messy, but worth it)

We did our dot marker I and i pages.

We have colorful rubber insects that we sorted by color, counted and made patterns.  Sam liked the dragonflies the best.

On one hot day we had ice pops.

I put food coloring in ice cube trays and then we explored them in water the next day.  I didn't want to chance the clothing stains from the food coloring and it was hot, so Sam and Anna did this sans clothes!  They melted FAST because it was so warm out.

We made our own ice cream- super easy and fun... and a nice extra after-dinner dessert treat.

Then finally, we wrapped up Ii by celebrating National Ice Cream Day by going to the nearest ice cream shop!  Our usually sluggish after nap kids popped right up when we told them where we were going to go as soon as their shoes were on, ha!

Sam was super pumped.  Can you tell?