Learning About Weather + Rainbow Activity

I wanted to create some sort of daily routine that involved learning and observation. I decided to keep it simple since Zel is still a toddler. I chose to use a calendar to check the date and make a weather wheel to record the day's weather. Every morning we go to the calender and I tell Zel which day to cross off. Then while pointing to the words/numbers, I tell him the date, including the name of day of the week. He loves this!

I found a weather wheel on Google images (find it here) and I had Zel use watercolors to paint it. We keep it on our fridge and Zel can move the arrow to the different pictures that correspond with the day's weather. Since starting this I have noticed him commenting on the weather more often. We also record the weather so that we can see what type of weather we had the most/least each month.

When we first started our weather observation I made a fun rainbow "puzzle" for Zel so that he could learn the colors. We also found a great rainbow song that we like to sing from the cat in the hat TV show.

I got out construction paper of all the rainbow colors and cut a strip of each piece plus two white clouds. I gave Zel a black piece of paper to use as a background to build his rainbow. I sang the rainbow song a lot to help him remember which color came next.

 He had fun and was really proud when he finished.

 Then we had lots of fun scissor practice with all the scrap paper!

Countdown to Christmas Activity Calendar

I've seen a lot of advent calenders going around Pinterest and decided that it would be fun to do one with Zel this year. I made it a countdown because that seemed more exciting and to me, the word advent makes it too religious.

The countdown from little eco footprints is the first calendar that got my attention. I loved that it was nature themed rather than all Christmas or religious. During our outdoor playtime, we searched for the best leaves of all different colors. Once we started setting up the calendar, I realized that I didn't have enough clothespins. I decided that it would be much easier to just write the calender on the window with window markers and use the leaves for one of our activities.

I didn't want to just have a list of activities since that wouldn't be very exciting for Zel. I came across the advent jar from mess for less and knew this would work for us. I had recently purchased a pack of colored popsicle sticks and my mom always has a million extra glass jars around the house. I picked activities that I knew Zel would enjoy and would take little preparation. I used some Christmas projects and activities, some Hanukkah stuff, and a few projects and outings that are fun anytime of the year.

Unfortunately as I was writing this post, Google told me that I reached my photo limit. So please check out the blogs that inspired me to do this project and go to the Z is for Zel facebook page to check out our photos from Christmas countdown activities until I solve this photo dilemma. I will also be posting Zel's activity choice each day on facebook and I will write up blog posts on our favorites...Stay tuned!

Update: Thanks to my fellow KBN bloggers I figured out how to add more pictures!