Giant Eye Spy Art Piece

We saw this giant eye spy at our local kids museum. Isn't it great? What a great idea for a pre school class or playroom! This would be easy to do with a bunch of those photo laser stickers and a large thrifted tray.  Spray paint the tray white, add stickers and hang.  Awesome!

Doing Art Together: Family Hand Portrait

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This was a homework assignment for Lu. She had to count everyone in the families hands then trace their fingers on a page and number them.  I thought it would be fun to take it a step further.  I had Lu use watercolor paper. She traced every ones hands, overlapping each hand as she went along. I traced them with a Sharpie and Lu numbered them. Then I gave her some watercolors and let her paint them any way she wanted. I think it came out beautiful! What a great family "portrait." I am definitely framing this one!

This would make a great gift for a Mom, Dad or Grandparent!

Tip: I highly recommend you use water color paper. Water color paper won't buckle as much and will hold up better. Also outlining the hands using a permanent marker will make sure the hands don't get lost under all the paint.  You don't need to have your little one number each finger unless you want to reinforce counting.

Making Clouds

We took this terrific book, Explore Spring! 25 Great Ways to Learn About Spring by Maxine Anderson, out of the library. It is full of kid friendly experiments and fun facts. The first activity Lu wanted to try was the Make Your Own Cloud experiment.

Luckily the experiment required common household items.

The directions were clear and simple.

1,2,3...





Success! Our own little cloud.

Book Inspired Character Mobile

 Have your kids turn their favorite characters into an easy mobile (no wire cutters necessary!) See how we made ours...

Book Inspired Crafts

It is Winter Break. The girls and I are stuck at home with the sniffles. We decided to work on some suggested literacy homework. Children were asked to keep a reading log and create a book inspired project (i.e. mobile, diorama, puppet...)

I read Clara and the Bookwagon by N. Smiler Levinson to Lu. We checked our book out of the library but if you are interested it is available for sale here. The I Can Read Series is an excellent introduction to chapter books. This is a particularly great one! Lu wanted to make a bookwagon for her project.

Kids Vacation Journal

 Lu's teacher gave Lu xeroxed pages she could use to document her vacation. Lu and I enjoyed spending some quiet time together working on her journal each day. We got to talk about what she liked best about the previous day. I encouraged her to write at least one sentence on her own, per page. I let her dictate the rest to me. 

 

When we got home we added pictures and some stickers to decorate her journal.  I slid the pages into plastic page protectors. Lu had fun making a wonderful keepsake of her vacation (and practiced her writing in the process!) She is so proud of her journal and wants to show it to everyone!

Thanks to Mrs. N for suggesting Lu keep a journal of her vacation!

Christmas Craft: Make A Mini Keepsake Book

Katie's Nesting Spot inspired us to try our hand at our very own predictable reader. The phrase "This is..." appears on each page. This style of book is great for pre-readers and early readers. Check out Katie's book she made for her daughter, ER. It is about the different colors Christmas lights.

For our book, Lu used Christmas stencils. She had never used a stencil before and really enjoyed using them. I have a feeling she will be asking to use them again!

• Take some scrap paper, fold, punch two holes in the center fold and tie together with ribbon. I used card stock as the outside piece to give it more of a "book" feel. You could also use the card board from a cereal box.
• If using a stencil, tape down the stencil sheet first. This prevents the stencil moving around as your child colors. There was no tree on our stencils sheet so I cut one out using card stock.
• Lu decorated her tree with stickers and glued on a card board star that she colored.
  

I am off to help Lu finish her book. We still have more several more pages to fill, plus there is the cover to think about! I know when we are done Lu will enjoy reading her book to her sister, stuffed animals, Grand Parents and probably even the Mail Man! This is one that we will save. I am thinking about tying a loop on it and hanging it on the Christmas tree as a mini keepsake book. Have fun crafting with your little elves!

Milk Carton Dice

Turn an old milk carton into a large dice for your toddler. We chose to put color blocks on the outside of ours to help teach Em her colors. Katie from Katie's Nesting Spot has a great dice game you can play to teach colors.

You can put numbers to teach counting, pictures of animals to get ready for a trip to the zoo, pictures of family members photos to help learn names... If you think up a cool way to use the dice let me know. I may want to try it!



What you need: Milk/OJ Carton, Ruler, Scissors or Box Cutter, Marker, Glue (Mod Podge), Brush (I like to use a foam brush), Hot Glue Gun or Strong Glue, Color Squares or Pictures


Measure one side of the base of your carton. Use that measurement to then measure up the sides - marking all sides. Draw a line connecting all your marks around all 4 sides. ONLY CUT 3 OF THE SIDES!!! Leave the 4th side as the top flap. See below.

















On the 4th side - measure up from your original line to create a perfect square. This will be tour top. Add a 1/4 - 1/2 inch for the flap. Cut angled sides (see picture.)

















Fold down lid into box. Scoring helps with the folding. Glue. Hot glue is the easiest method.
Now it is time to decorate your box. I cut 6 color blocks and used Mod Podge to affix them to the cube. I made my squares slightly smaller than each side so I didn't have to worry about a perfect fit.

This was an easy project and the girls love rolling the dice. I will need to make more because Lu is already making up games to play with the dice. I think 2 will just add to the fun.

Have fun crafting with your kids!

Great New Educational Site: ABC & 123

Check out this great new site, ABC & 123. Perfect for families with preschool age kids and up. Each day provides a round up of educational ideas centered on a theme or concept. Each day offers several different projects, crafts, and teaching ideas to work on with your kids. Plus the ladies who started ABC & 123 are really great! You can also submit your ideas and projects to them! This is a great resource! I check it daily!

What to do with your child's art work?

For awhile, Lulu, loved gluing small squares of tissue onto paper (and then of course pouring glitter on top!) I had stacks of her tissue/glitter collages. After we made all the cards our relatives could stand I moved on to this idea.

I decided to cut them out into basic animal shapes. I think they look very cute plus they are a great way to dress up the playroom. You can of course use a painting or any other mixed media collage as your base. I added the letter just to reinforce the alphabet you of course do not have to. I think different types of dinosaurs, fish, bugs, or flowers would look cute. I included the elephant template to get you started. Print, cut out, trace onto back of child's artwork and cut out, fold ear and glue onto elephant. Click on picture below for template.

I have to apologize, I am not computer savvy. I can not get this elephant to print any bigger than 3/4 of the page. If anyone knows how I should be saving this file let me know. I am saving it "for the web" from Illustrator as a GIF file. *** Thanks to Clemencia at Storytime and More for fixing the elephant template!!!

Friday: Random Ideas

We hung up some sentence strips in the kitchen with Lulu's name, address, age, phone number... to help her with name recognition. It is more there for her to look at and not something we drill into her.

We have sung her name to the old Mickey Mouse song since she was a wee one.

Who's the girl that mommy loves, who cute as cute can be...
L-U-C...I-N-D...A...K-I-N-G, Lucinda King, Lucinda King...

We also sing the Muffin Man song for her address.

Do you know Lucinda King, Lucinda King, Lucinda King
Do you know Lucinda King, she live on insert street?



Allergies: Milk, Eggs, Nuts & Seeds

We love Cherrybrook Kitchen Cake Mixes. They are a little expensive but sometimes we catch them on sale and stock up! They are great for pure convenience. There are so many instances when Lulu is invited to a family gathering, birthday party or a class party and we need to bring something for Lulu in replace of cake or dessert. We make a batch of these and freeze them for just such an occasion. We recently discovered Tropical Source Dairy Free & Gluten Free semi sweet chocolate chips (http://www.worldpantry.com/cgi-bin/ncommerce3/CategoryDisplay?cgmenbr=172832&cgrfnbr=447959) that taste very close to the real thing. We mix them into the Yellow Cherrybrook Kitchen cup cake mix. Yummm! Even dairy/egg eaters like these.

Dollar Store Love

Check out these cute kid size scoops! 3 for a dollar ( in the housewares aisle) at our dollar store. Yeah I can reclaim my measuring cups from Lulu's Lentil tray.

Counting Bears Scale!

Counting Bears Scale! Our latest purchase. We have been playing and loving the counting bears for a while now. I figured Lulu was ready to move from counting and sorting to weighing. She is beginning to understand the connection between weight and the number and size of objects on the scale by experimenting.

**Great storage tip for small objects (like counting bears) at

http://myplumpudding.blogspot.com/2008/08/peanut-butter-jars-revised-edition.html

Megan at Plum Pudding drills a hole in the lid of a jar and top side of the jar, attaches a colorful ribbon to the top of the jars and connects it to the top side of the jar...so you never lose the top. I have been collecting my mayo and peanut butter jars for this project. Figure I'd do them all at once since it requires me taking out the drill. Check them out they look really cute!