Little Grinner

Florida: Strawberries

Florida is famous for their Plant City Strawberries.  Plant City, FL is also known as the winter strawberry capital of the world.

Today, we read:

Sweet as a Strawberry by Sally Smallwood
Sweet Strawberries by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
Saving Strawberry Farm by Deborah Hopkinson

We also read more of our chapter book, Strawberry Girl by Lois Lenski.

We made our favorite strawberry smoothies for breakfast. I usually measure the ingredients and then Arin does the rest.
1 cup frozen strawberries
1 banana
1/2 c. milk
1/2 c. vanilla yogurt
drizzle of honey
Blend together.  This makes about 2 cups of smoothie, which is enough for the girls and I to share.

Next we made strawberry bread.  The recipe can be found here.  It was the first time any of us had strawberry bread.  It was a huge hit!

Lastly, Arin had a fun time with a strawberry craft, which was inspired by No Time for Flashcards.  Arin put the seeds, one by one, on a strawberry.

Happy Anniversary

HAPPY 46th ANNIVERSARY MOM & DAD!

Cotton

Today, Arin had the opportunity to see a cotton field for the first time.  It was a lot of fun to see her excitement as she looked at the plants and felt the soft cotton.  I told her how our shirts were made of cotton.  She was fascinated to hear the process that cotton goes through from plant to clothes.  We also were able to pick a little of the cotton and "disect" it, taking the seeds from the plant.  The whole time we were there, Arin kept saying, "This is so amazing". It was a great learning experience and we hope to visit another cotton field in the near future.

Play Putt-Putt

One of the things on our list is to play putt-putt.  Last month we took Arin to do this.  She thought it was one of the greatest things that she has ever done and she often asks to do it again.

Mosaic Turkey

Today, we opened a back of 15 bean soup (dried beans).  Arin separated the beans into piles.  She really enjoyed this.  We talked about the colors, sizes, shapes, and even the patterns that some of the beans had on them.  Once the beans were in their piles, I gave Arin some glue and a picture of a turkey.  She had a great time placing the beans on the turkey's feathers.  Then, she colored the turkey's body with crayons.  She kept telling me, "This is so fantastic!"

Along Came a Spider

While playing outside this morning, we found the coolest looking spider.  I've never seen a spider that looked like this before. It had bright orange spots on it and green legs.  We enjoyed looking at it and watching it run around its web.  I took several pictures of it.  Tonight, I tried to figure out what kind of a spider it is, but no luck so far. 

I set the computer up on the dining room table and gave Arin some crayons and paper.  She was able to look at the pictures of the spider and draw one for herself.  She is really enjoys this new activity of drawing what she is looking at.