Spring Work in the Sunshine State!

This is a book called Creep! Crawl! by Karen Pixton.
Can I just say that I love this book?

The illustrations are beautiful and very child friendly. The book is made out of something that feels either like rice paper or Tyvek, if you have ever felt that.
The illustrations are collages placed on what looks to be almost watercolor backgrounds.
Even though the book is intended for babies, I bought it because the artwork and layout are so nice.
It is a wordless book, and has so many possibilities.
As far as work, you can use the pages as story starters and let your child select a page to write about.
You could use the pages as three part cards for little ones by attaching Velcro dots to the pages with words for each little creature...
You could have older children sort the creepy crawlies into different categories, such as arachnids / insects, etc. or by pattern (stripes, spots, etc.)
You could also use these to inspire children to make their own creepy crawly collages.

There are two other books in this series: Flutter! Fly! and Wiggle! March!
If I can find these two in the store, I will be purchasing them as well.

This is one of my favorites from the book...a very cheerful caterpillar...love the eyes and the eyelashes...Little Bro is usually afraid of insects and having him use this book is great, because the artwork is so inviting.

Here is another...notice the beautiful background for the grasshopper.
Think that this book is such an awesome addition to our current garden themed collection of books.

This work uses a 1 to 20 number line and tiny little clothes pins. They can choose to do a pattern to make the number line, but they do not have to make a pattern.

Here are the clothes pins...so tiny, cute, and colorful!
They also provide both Big Bro and Little Bro great fine motor clipping practice.
These insect cards are actually cards that are intended to be used with a pocket chart.
This is a finger puppet from IKEA.
Another finger puppet from IKEA.
Another finger puppet from IKEA.

This is a Spanish work on our shelf. There is a little reader called El Puntito.
After reading the story, they have to spell the words with the Spanish magnetic letters, similar to the idea of a movable alphabet, but they are in green and orange instead of red and blue. I tried to find red and blue ones, but could only find this color combination for Spanish. Actually, I think it has worked out for the better, as it is easier to distinguish if you are spelling a word n Spanish or English depending on the colors you are using...
Cover of El Puntito by Natalie Whitney. Found this at a consignment store.
These are word cards for In the Garden. I took the sheets and made them into three part cards.
This is the illustration that goes with In the Garden. This works well as a starter for writing or as a card to use to encourage discussion about gardening.

Some lovely flowers for our yard. Gotta love Gerber Daisies!
Big Bro picked out the yellow ones...

Little Bro picked out the red ones. Since they each selected a different color, they get to be resposible for watering their color of flower in our yard. I will water the other ones.

This is a very cool 3D wooden puzzle.
The insects stick out from the background almost like knobs.

It is FINALLY starting to feel like Florida again.

We had a record cold winter season for our state, and although compared to many other places, it still was bearable.

But what was hard to deal with was to see so many of our plants and trees take a nose dive from the cold temps.

Everything was dull, dried out, moldy, brown, blackish-gray, and just not very nice to look at in our yard.

Well, luckily, the weather has turned around just in time for Spring and now, things are starting to perk up a bit. Yippie!

We have planted some new flowers, have purchased a power washer and Dear Hubby has worked very hard to make everything look clean and beautiful once again.

We also have some new sunny work on our shelves to go with the theme of Creepy Crawlies and Fiesty Flyers in the Garden.

Seeing the colors both in our home and outside just makes everything feel so alive again.

Thought that some of you might enjoy seeing these cheery photos, along with some of the descriptions of the work on the shelves.

Happy Spring!