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This was kind of a mixed up week, since Mommy had ordered the wrong book for the week and we didn't get the right one (from the library) until it was over... But basically, the theme was snow, snowmen, and wild animals.

We had TONS of books:

• Stranger in the Woods: A Photographic Fantasy (Nature) by Carl R. Sams II & Jean Stoick (This was SUPPOSED to be the book of the week)
• Annie and the Wild Animals by Jan Brett (This was my FAVORITE book and what ended up being the book of the week)
• Winter's Tale: An Original Pop-up Journey by Robert Sabuda (A gorgeous popup book that I had all kinds of fun playing with, but Mommy always put it away if she wasn't around to play with me)
• When Winter Comes (Real Reading) by Pearl Neuman (A good nonfiction children's book about what animals do in the winter)
• Snowballs by Lois Ehlert (A pretty board book with all kinds of snowman ideas)
• Snowflake Bentley by Jacqueline Briggs Martin (Another good nonfiction biography - I read it a few times, but it was a little advanced for me)
• The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats (A very cool book!)
• Millions of Snowflakes by Mary McKenna Siddals (Another very cool book!)
• Snowmen at Night by Caralyn Buehner (A very FUN book!)
• Dream Snow by Eric Carle (A Christmassy book, but it's one of my absolute favorites, so we pulled it back out for my "snow" theme)
• Geraldine's Big Snow by Holly Keller (A fun book - at least the snow actually CAME for Geraldine. We're NEVER gonna get snow here in Oregon...)
• The Snowman (Step-Into-Reading, Step 1) by Raymond Briggs (One of my absolute favorites - though it's got no words, so every time I ask Mommy to read it, she says I can read it as well as she can. What-EVer...)
• Walt Disney's Bambi (I watched the Bambi II DVD OVER and OVER - so I really loved this book, too!)

With all the Bambi DVD watching and book reading, it's a wonder that we did anything else, huh?! Here are some of the things we did.

First, Mommy bought me a set of wild forest animals (from Michaels). So every time we read Annie and the Wild Animals, I would bring out the corresponding little animal to act his part.
In that book, Annie feeds the animals corn cakes. So I made some corn cake, too. Only no wild animals got any of it!
I DID make some pine cone bird feeders, though. First I spread peanut butter on the pine cones...
And then I sprinkled birdseed on the peanut butter!
Mommy put a snowflake doily on a paper plate, and I painted all over the doily onto the plate.
Then I took the doily off and put it on a clean white plate. Now I had two identical snowflakes - only one was blue on white and one was white on blue!

I matched colored scarves to snowmen with the same-colored hats.

We did the traditional Do-A-Dot page - an "O" since that was one of my letters this month, and an owl since it was a wild animal in the book of the week.
And I used Do-a-Dots on a counting worksheet. There were six circles next to each number on the sheet, and I stamped the correct amount of circles for each number. Easy peasy! Mommy didn't even have to help AT ALL. (Worksheet from childcareland - sign up for their free daily email if you want in on these...)
And I played Snowman BINGO! Mommy called letters as she drew them from a stack of alphabet flashcards, and I had to see if I had those letters on my paper (a page of snowmen with letters handwritten on them). If I did, I stamped the letter. We kept playing to I had stamped ALL my letters!

We practiced counting with a spinner. I had a foam snowman kit, and the idea was that I could spin and put on the amount of pieces of the number I spun, and then it was Mommy's turn. It got a little crazy, though.

We made a snowman with two English muffin halves, cream cheese, dried blueberries for eyes, a baby carrot for a nose, candy rocks for the mouth, a fruit roll-up for the scarf, and candy for the buttons! Yummy! I ate ALL the candy parts.

I moved my little wild animals through the scenes of Robert Sabuda's Winter's Tale: An Original Pop-up Journey pop-up book! That book is REALLY cool!

We made a BIG snowman on blue posterboard, using three different-sized doilies. Then I painted snow on the sides with my brush and qtips.

I had the bright idea of making animal tracks with the white paint, too! It looks pretty cool - like lots of snow flakes. Here's the finished snowman.
I matched up pictures of animals to their tracks! This was pretty easy for me - I didn't even use the words at the bottom of the cards to help me out.
We made "snow" play dough. We mixed in glitter and peppermint extract just to add to the excitement. Then I made a snowman, all by myself! With toothpick arms and a bead for a nose. And a tiny ball for a hat.
I also made animal tracks in the snow play dough with my little wild animals.
I played in shaving cream "snow" again! And wrote a few letters in it.
And I am still very much in love with my scissors. Mommy dried to get me to do a holly craft with holly leaves and red pompoms, but I cut up the background paper instead of gluing everything to it.

Here are a couple of crafts I did at day care that week! First a paper plate cow - pretty cute, huh?!
And cotton ball cows grazing on a field of grass...