A Gift for Mother's Day

This photo arrived in my inbox last night from a dear friend who I am taking very "small steps" towards hopefully meeting someday!   I still don't have a copy of her new book yet, but my sister-in-law (Hubby's only sister Melissa) received a signed copy from her husband, my brother-in-law Tom, for Mother's Day! 

I am so jealous excited for her!!  :-)  

Melissa is such a wonderful sister-in-law and I sure wish we didn't live nearly 3,000 miles apart!  Hopefully it won't be too long before we are able to see her and her family again. . . 

Happy Mother's Day Melissa!  We love you!!

Highlights from "T" Week

Learning Along the Alphabet Path

~ Letter Formation ~

The girls made the letter T with Modeling Wax,  Wooden Pieces and on paper.

~ Thrift Fairy Coloring Pages ~

They also colored from the The Flower Fairies Alphabet Coloring Book while listening to A Flower Fairy Alphabet on CD.

~ Picture Book Science ::  Tallest Trees ~

On our way home from Our Trip to see the Tide pools, we stopped to see some of the Tallest Trees in the world, the Coastal Redwoods.  

As soon as we got home our Tree Toys were all taken out and I got quickly got online to order some picture books on the Topic!  ;)

My children especially love our Folkmanis Sequoia Wildlife Play Set and the Tallest Tree Stacking Blocks.

I also have my eyes on some Tree Blocks (like these) and a stacking Tree... Perhaps for next Christmas.

Here are the books we've been reading through about Trees:

A Tree Is a Plant (Let's-Read-and-Find-Out Science)
A Log's Life
Tell Me, Tree: All About Trees for Kids

Crinkleroot's Guide to Knowing the Trees

The Gift of the Tree

The Great Kapok Tree: A Tale of the Amazon Rain Forest
Sky Tree: Seeing Science Through Art
A Tree Is Nice
The Giving Tree
The Apple Pie Tree
Fun With Nature (Take-Along Guide)

For lunch one day, while I was preparing some Toasties, the children made Veggie Pine Trees and Fruit and Cookie Palm Trees!  They were both very easy, fairly healthy, and so much fun!!

(I got the idea for the palm tree awhile back from an old magazine.  They had it paired with some Alpha-Bits cereal for a snack to go along with Chicka Chicka Boom Boom.  It would actually be a fun addition to Week 5 of the Garden of the Good Shepherd too!) 

It looks like I didn't get any pictures, but they also did a picture study on trees using Museum ABC's book and nesting blocks.

~ T is for St. Therese ~

Here is our hand-painted St. Therese dolls for with An Alphabet of Catholic Saints.

The girls had fun dressing up in their St. Therese Costumes, playing with Rose's St. Therese Dolls, and loved watching The Miracle of St. Therese.  

They also colored St. Therese Coloring Pages from Catholic Artworks and completed some copywork, which I created at Writing Wizard using the quote from An Alphabet of Catholic Saints.

We also read about St. Therese in our Catholic Children's Treasure Box books.

You think you might be able to find lots of other ideas for St. Therese in my archives! ;)

~ T is for St. Teresa of Andes ~

We also watched St. Teresa of the Andes.  My children (and I!) LOVE this movie even though it is in Spanish.  It truly is very inspiring!  While we were watching the movie, I worked on painting St. Teresa to add to our collection.

~ T is for Treats ~

Continuing from S Week, the girls have been playing with their Felt Sweets Treats, as well as making a few more!

We continued our celebration of the 50 Day's of Easter with The Garden of the Good Shepherd: A Sticker Calendar to Count the Fifty Days of Easter and a Garden Party based on the theme The Wind and Sea's Obey Him.

~ Toffee Bars and Tea with Tasha Tudor~

I've had Tasha Tudor's Toffee Bars in the back of my mind ever since seeing them over at As Cozy as Spring last September.  I thought T week would be the perfect time to try them out! ;)  They were so easy to make and very delicious!!  While we enjoyed our Toffee Bars, and some Tea poured from a pretty new (to me) Teapot from a sweet friend, we  read a few books by Tasha Tudor including  A Tale for Easter and A Time to Keep: The Tasha Tudor Book of Holidays.