Reading Confetti

Kid's Co-op Link Party

2012-02-24T07:44:00.000-06:00

Welcome to the second week of the Kid's Co-op link party! When you link up, your project will appear on all of the blogs that are co-hosting (you can find the list below). So link up a kid-friendly project or activity and find next week's projects.

Let's Lasso the Moon, Imprints from Tricia, Nurture Store, It's A Long Story, RainbowsWithinReach, Life & Love Expressed, Train Up A Child, Growing A Jeweled Rose, My Creative Family, Toddler Approved, Rainy Day Mum, No Time For Flash Cards, Dirt and Boogers, Mum of Twins a Toddler and a Teenager, B.Inspired Mama, The Mommies Made Me Do It, PlayDrMom, The Good Long Road, Ways2Play, Smiling like Sunshine, Scribble Doodle and Draw, Small Types

I'd love a link back so everybody can join in the fun. Also, if you have a few extra seconds (yeah, right!), I'd love for you to leave me a quick comment telling me you linked up. If not, no biggie of course. I'm going to do my best to visit all the links, but I really want to make sure I don't miss YOURS!

There were so many great ideas and activities last week! Here are two of the ideas I pinned:

Make, Do & Friend made these adorable 3 Little Pigs Puppets.

Growing Book by Book shared ideas for books beyond repair. I especially liked the magnet idea!

(If you'd like a featured button, you can find it here.)

Yarn Llamas

2012-02-23T18:59:00.001-06:00

I wish I could take credit for this idea, but my 3 year old brought it home from school. I wanted to share it because I thought it was so cute, and not just because Drew is obviously such a talented artist and borderline genius. (Did I take that too far?)

If you want to make your own, you can choose one of the llamas from here and print it onto cardstock. Cut it out, punch holes in it and loop some yarn through!

At school, the teacher paired this with Is Your Mama a Llama? about the little llama looking for his mama who is answered in rhymes and riddles by other baby animals describing their mamas. My little ones like to shout out the name of the animal before we turn the page.

This activity would work well with any of the Llama Llama books too!

Linking to Living Life Intentionally, JDaniel4's Mom
Sharing Saturday
I Can Teach My Child
Sunday Showcase

Interrupting Chicken Finger Puppet

2012-02-22T17:24:00.000-06:00

We have a couple of little chickens around here who like to interrupt, especially during bedtime stories when all the stops are pulled out to prolong the moment before lights out. I do have to admit that as a reading teacher, I encourage interruptions during stories. There's nothing better than realizing that there's some thinking and questioning going on while we're reading. It drives my husband nuts though (he's more of a just get through the story kind of guy), so Interrupting Chicken was a cute story for us.

It's about a little red chicken who interrupts every bedtime story her papa tries to read her. It's comical because she will burst into the middle of a story like Chicken Little and yell, "It's just an acorn! Don't worry about it!" Eventually the little red chicken tells her papa a story and puts him to sleep. As a parent, I suspect his falling asleep had more to do with sheer exhaustion than the actual bedtime story.

I wanted to make a cute prop to go with this. I started with one of these party things:

I took off the cardboard decoration and taped on eyes and a beak.

The idea was for the kids to use them as finger puppets.

And also to blow them during the story when the little red chicken interrupts.

Of course, what ended up happening is that they blew these things all during the story and barely paid attention to anything else. Ah well.

Linking to It's Playtime!
Gluesticks
Mom on Timeout
Bear Rabbit Bear
Link it up Thursday
Happy Hour Projects
The Educators' Spin On It
Sassy Sites
Sun Scholars
Bacon Time
Toys in the Dryer
Tatertots & Jello
Family Ever After
I Heart Nap Time
Afterschool Blog Hop
The Girl Creative

Where's My Peanut Butter Sandwich?

2012-02-20T20:53:00.000-06:00

Today we did a super easy and really fun story retelling.

Peanut Butter Rhino is all about Rhino who makes a peanut butter sandwich for his lunch with Elephant. He accidentally sits on his sandwich, which sticks to his bottom. The book shows Rhino asking all his friends to help him find his sandwich, while the reader can see where it really is. When it's finally time for lunch, Rhino is happy to discover that Elephant has packed two peanut butter sandwiches! This book is simple enough for preschoolers to understand, appreciate, and retell but I think the humor makes it suitable for readers who are a little older too.

We've read this story lots of times, but today we decided to make our own squished peanut butter sandwiches out of construction paper. I cut out the pieces

and Drew and Lainey assembled them with glue sticks.

Then we stuck some tape on the back and sat on them.

We had lots and lots of fun going around the house pretending to look everywhere for our peanut butter sandwiches. This was enough to entertain my little ones, but if you wanted to adapt it for older readers you could put a mystery word on their sandwich and have them try to figure it out by asking yes or no questions.

Linking to Tuesday Tots
Playing with Words 365

Polka Dot Cupcakes

2012-02-19T16:07:00.000-06:00

Since I saw this polka dot cake at Sugar and Spice and All Things Iced, I've been wanting to try some polka dot cupcakes. We even have the perfect book to go with them!

Put Me in the Zoo is a classic about a polka dotted animal who can do amazing things with his spots like changing the colors and even juggling them! The rhymes in this book are perfect for fans of Dr. Suess.

For the cupcakes, I started with old family recipes from Uncle Duncan and Grandma Betty:

I made some cake balls from a cooked and cooled white cake mixed with a can of frosting. Then I tinted the mixture pink and formed small balls.

I dropped four or five balls into each chocolate cupcake before I baked them.

As you can see, my polka dots weren't perfectly round. I put too much frosting into the cake balls and they were difficult to work with, but nobody seemed to mind. We topped them with some more polka dots (M&Ms).

Linking to The Girl Creative,
A Round Tuit
The Southern Institute
Homemaker on a Dime
Destination: Craft
Ginger Snap Crafts
Shine On Fridays
Six Sisters' Stuff

Kid's Co-op - New Link Party!

2012-02-17T19:13:00.000-06:00

I got a really exciting opportunity today to be part of an amazing new link party. A whole group of kid blogs are collaborating to make the best link party ever! When you link up, your project will appear on all of the blogs that are co-hosting. So link up a kid-friendly project or activity and find next week's projects.

The link party will appear here every Friday and will close on Thursday. I'd love a link back so everybody can join in the fun. Also, if you have a few extra seconds (yeah, right!), I'd love for you to leave me a quick comment telling me you linked up. If not, no biggie of course. I'm going to do my best to visit all the links, but I really want to make sure I don't miss YOURS!

Letter Treasure Maps

2012-02-16T21:52:00.000-06:00

Drew is definitely not a worksheet kid. I love all those cute printable preschool packs, but he does not. If he so much as smells a worksheet, he runs the other way. So I was surprised when he liked this activity so much.

After our R racetrack we read Shiver Me Letters: A Pirate ABC. "'R,' roared the captain. 'R's not enough. We need other animals to help make us tough.'" and so his crew goes looking for all the letters of the alphabet. Their anchor goes into an A, a B floats by on the bay, and they find a C carved into a cannonball. The only letter they forget to find is Z, which they discover while they're sleeping that night. This is a really fun rhyming story and it's lots of fun to look for each letter in the illustrations.

Then I made some "treasure maps". Obviously, there is no artistic talent required. Drew followed the path of little r's and big R's to the treasure. I tried to throw him off with some D's and B's but he made it!!

He liked it so much we had to do a LOT of them!

Linking to Living Life Intentionally, Shine On Fridays, Sun Scholars, Read Explore Learn, The Kid's Co-op, Tatertots & Jello , Sharing Saturday , I Can Teach My Child, delicateCONSTRUCTION, Adventures in Mommy Land, ABC and 123, Mama Smiles, Letter Treasure Maps

R is for Race Track!

2012-02-15T20:14:00.000-06:00

By the end of this activity my 3 year old could recognize a capital "R" and a lower case "r", he knew that they make the "rrrr" sound (as in race!), and he was worn out.

All for about 10 minutes prep!

I cut computer paper into fourths and made a bunch of big R's and little R's. Then I used painter's tape to make two "race tracks".

The little r race track was smaller and went around the kitchen island. The big R race track went all the way through the dining room.

After a little introduction where I explained that though they looked different, they both made the same sound (like RRRRRRRRace), I yelled out "Big R!" or "Little r!" and Drew ran around that track. Sometimes I switched before he was all the way around the track. After the first few times, he had it down! We played for a long time, which I thoroughly enjoyed because he was getting worn out and it was requiring very little effort from me. Plus, staring at all those R's while he was running helped reinforce which was which.

Other letter uses might be J's and have them jump around the track, H for hop, C for Crawl, etc.
We also read Rabbits and Raindrops about 5 little bunnies who get caught in a rainstorm. Their mother hurries them under a hedge where they see lots of other animals and insects also looking for shelter from the rain. My preschoolers loved looking for all the different things in the illustrations and counting the raindrops.

Check back tomorrow for our Letter R Treasure Maps!

Linking to 733, Homeschooling on the Cheap, Playing with Words 365, Toys in the Dryer

Last Minute Kiss Print Valentine

2012-02-14T06:51:00.000-06:00

My sassy girl decided that she was not going to take a nap yesterday so we made a quick Valentine for Daddy. We put on lipstick (of course, Lainey had to do it herself).

And kissed some paper.

Then Lainey decorated the card.

And we read one of her favorite books, which we do not reserve just for Valentine's Day.

This is how our Valentine turned out:

This is how the lipstick turned out:

Don't you hate when it's on your teeth and nobody tells you??

Happy Valentine's Day!

Reusable Activity Book

2012-02-13T09:17:00.000-06:00

I saw a cute quiet book on Adventures of a DIY Mom and decided to make my own. I printed some activities I thought the kids would like from First-School and Kidzone.

I laminated the pages and three hole punched them. Then I put them in a 3 ring binder. If you don't have a laminator, page protectors would work too.

I bought some dry erase markers from the Dollar Store and cut a square of felt to use for an eraser.

Easy!

Linking to Adventures in Mommy Land, delicateCONSTRUCTION, The Southern Institute, The Girl Creative, Type A , Reasons to Skip the Housework, One Tough Mother , 733 , It's Playtime , Thrifty 101, Mom on Time out, Link it up Thursday, Bear Rabbit Bear, Happy Hour Projects, Bacon Time, Sassy Sites

Hunting for Kisses

2012-02-10T07:42:00.001-06:00

In honor of Valentine's Day, we went hunting for some kisses! I started by gluing circles into a heart shape on a paper plate. (Lainey got the red and Drew got the silver.) I numbered the circles 1 to 10.

I also numbered 10 red Hershey's Kisses and 10 silver Hershey's Kisses.

Then I hid the Kisses and gave Drew and Lainey their paper plates. Their job was to find their color Kisses and match them up to the numbers on the plate.

Lainey wasn't able to match the numbers yet. In fact, she totally disregarded the numbers. And the directions. The instant she saw that Kiss, she tore off the wrapper.

But she did a good job of putting a Kiss on each circle.

You could adapt this by doing letters or shapes. Math facts might be fun for older kids.

We also did a Kiss craft:

Our book today is not really a Valentine's book but still fits well with the love and kisses theme. I Love You All Day Long tells about Owen, who doesn't really want to go to school without his mother. Mama tells him that she loves him all day long. She loves him when he's making new friends and making mistakes. She loves him when he makes a mess and when he needs some help. She loves him all day long. We love the vibrant illustrations in this book and it's perfect for preschoolers and kindergartners.

Brimful Curiosities also has a great list of Valentine's books about kissing and hugging! Head over there to check them out!

Linking to Living Life Intentionally, Read Explore Learn, Toys in the Dryer, Sassy Sites, Shine On Fridays, Sun Scholars, The Play Academy
Tatertots & Jello
Sharing Saturday
I Can Teach My Child
Six Sisters' Stuff
Adventures in Mommy Land
I Heart Nap Time
Crayon Freckles
Ginger Snap Crafts

Murphy's Laws of Dressing Your Preschooler

2012-02-08T20:55:00.002-06:00

5 Murphy's Laws of Dressing Your Toddler or Preschooler

1. Your toddler's insistence on dressing himself without help from you is in direct proportion to how late you are. Similarly, your preschooler's desire to choose his or her own clothing is tied to the importance of the occasion.

2. Any sauces, condiments, or art supplies that stain are 4 times as likely to land on clothing as their non-staining counterparts.

3. Statistically speaking, when left to their own devices, male children will wear an article of clothing for an average of 6.25 days. Female children will want to change after 2.5 minutes.

4. Taking your preschooler out in public with dirty clothes and/or unbrushed hair triples your chances of running into someone you know. (If you are the one with dirty clothes and unbrushed hair the chances quadruple.)

5. A lay person will tell you that the odds of your toddler putting their clothing on backwards is 50%. Moms know that the odds are closer to 99%.

And since this blog is supposed to be about children's literature and not my ranting and raving, here is an adorable book about getting dressed:

Chamelia is about a little chameleon who likes to stand out. She likes the spotlight and dresses to be the center of attention. Unfortunately, she finds out that some of her style choices don't work. Like high heels and soccer. Chamelia feels left out. By the end of the book, she finds a way to show her own personal style AND join in the fun.

DIY Cat Stamps and the Letter C!

2012-02-07T07:56:00.000-06:00

Since we did some cat activities yesterday, I decided to do a little something for the letter "C" today.
I secured a marker and three pencils with a rubber band to make a kitty print stamp.

We dipped it in paint and stamped our letter C's.

Then just for fun, we did a "C is for Clap" game. I cut a bunch of letter C's from construction paper.

Then Dad dropped them. The object was for Drew to catch them by "clapping" them between his hands.

Then Drew took a turn dropping them and Dad clapped them.

We also read Cat's Colors. This is a simple book about all the colors Cat loves. He likes purple for the yarn he plays with and blue for the sky where he chases the birds. Cat likes lots of colors, but his favorite color is orange because that's the color of his mother. Say it with me, awwwww..... The illustrations are very vibrant and fun.

Linking to Crayon Freckles, 733, Junk in their Trunk, Red Ted Art

Rainy Day Mum

ABC and 123

Handprint Cats & Sorting

2012-02-05T19:23:00.000-06:00

We love kitties around here. We spend about 50% of our day pretending that we are cats. So of course we loved Cats, Cats, Cats! It's about a little old lady with lots of cats. Her cats get up to all kinds of silliness when she goes to bed. The rhyming text makes it fun to read and we love the water color illustrations. It's one of those books you can spend a long time looking at because there's so much going on in the pictures.

We made some handprint cats inspired by Handprint and Footprint Art's black Halloween cats. We started with a handprint, turned it upside down, and added a face (don't forget the whiskers!) and a tail.

Here's one Drew did mostly by himself. He also wanted to cut it out because he love love loves his scissors.

For Lainey, I did a sorting activity. I cut a bunch of animal pictures from magazines.

Then I made a "kitty bed" by putting a dish towel in a tupperware container.

I told her to put only the kitties on the kitty bed. She began by scooping up all the pictures and plunking them in the container while yelling, "Good night night, Kitties!"

She did much better when I told her to actually look at each of the pictures.

Linking to Delicate Construction, Adventures in Mommy Land, The Southern Institute, Mama Smiles

I'm a Big Wide-Mouthed Frog and I Eat Flies!

2012-02-03T08:28:00.000-06:00

In my house, if you yell, "I'm a big wide mouthed frog and I eat..." both the two and three year old will yell, "FLIES!"

One of our very, very favorite books is The Big Wide-Mouthed Frog. This is the cutest story about an obnoxious frog who hops off to see the world. He asks every animal he meets who they are and what they eat. And each time, he loudly announces that he's a wide mouthed frog and he eats flies. This continues UNTIL he meets a knobby brown log sitting on the riverbank. He asks the knobby brown log who she is and what she eats. The knobby brown log says with a lazy smile that she's a crocodile and she eats wide-mouthed frogs. The frog changes his tune and says in a very quiet voice that he's a small narrow-mouthed frog and hops off!

We have read this thing to tatters.

Yes, the cover is ripped right off. This is what it should look like:

We made a fun little game to go with our book. I started with a milk jug.

In case you didn't know what a milk jug just looks like. :)
I cut around the handle and spout.

And (very sloppily) covered it in some green Christmas wrapping paper.

Then I hot glued some google eyes to some white pom poms and attached them to the top.

And cut a tongue from red craft foam and attached it to the bottom.

Then my adorable assistant made some "flies" on painters tape that we stuck to some of our bouncy balls.

We made sure that our big wide-mouthed frog got plenty of flies by bouncing them into his mouth!

Linking to The Play Academy, Living Life Intentionally, JDaniel4's Mom, Sharing Saturday, Family Ever After, Tatertots & Jello, I Can Teach My Child, No Time For Flashcards, DIY Home Sweet Home, Homemaker on a Dime , Type A, Ginger Snap Crafts , Thrifty 101 , Mom on Timeout , Playing with Words 365 , Gluesticks, Bear Rabbit Bear, 733, It's Playtime!

Guest Post: Child Made Books

2012-02-02T07:29:00.000-06:00

Donna from Mom of 4 is with us again today!

Recently, (one of ) my 4 year old(s) brought home Knuffle Bunny from the library. It's the story of what happens when Trixie's stuffed bunny accidentally gets put in the washing machine and is left behind at the laundromat. After reading it to them a ~~few~~ hundred times, they were inspired to make their own Knuffle Bunny books.

This isn't a new activity. I remember making books when I was younger, but I would never have thought of it if they wouldn't have first. The directions are simple. Staple a few pieces of paper together and give them some markers or crayons and then be on hand to help them write whatever they want to write. The important part is letting them take the lead. This is full of all kinds of pre literacy lessons that you can read about here, but if you ask me, the most important one is that they enjoy reading/being read to/writing (hence letting them take the lead.) Cole's was several pages, and he was mostly the illustrator. He asked me to copy passages out of the book for him. (My anal self really wanted to not leave the important parts out, but I reminded myself that this was his project.) He added the creative twist of having a "big dinosaur" and a "little dinosaur" in the story which you can see illustrated here (the big teeth and the little teeth):

Ellie wanted hers short and she retold the story to me as I wrote it down (so if you wanted more of a summary, here you go...if you can read my writing, except her version also has a dragon in it.)

Ellie is also interested in the "About the Author" part that is usually at the end of the book so she had me write this. (This is really from another book she made, but I had to share it because it's too cute!)

The Heart Project: AHA Benefit & Free Gift!

2012-01-31T21:00:00.000-06:00

I'm really excited to be part of a terrific group of bloggers who have united to raise money for the American Heart Association. Jamie over at Hands On: As We Grow has worked tirelessly on this project and deserves great big kudos!

Over 70 bloggers from around the world have contributed photographs and links to 100+ heart projects available in one incredible ebook! These projects are all kid related and they are CUTE!!! If you donate just $5 to the American Heart Association, you get this ebook FREE! What a great way to contribute to an important cause and get yourself a little something in return too! You can get your ebook (available during the month of February only) by clicking here:

Here's a sneak peak:

AND Craftprojectideas.com is contributing $1 for every ebook sold this month! That means in addition to your $5 donation by purchasing the The Heart eBook, Craftprojectideas.com will donate another $1 on your behalf (up to $500!)! We'd love for you to stop by their facebook page and give them a big thank you! You can find them here: http://www.facebook.com/Craftprojectideas

If you'd rather have the printed soft cover version ($20 donation) you can go here:

US $20.00

Order the Printed Version

If you'd rather simply donate, of course we'd love that too! You can click this button:
Here is what we've raised so far:

There are also some fabulous giveaways running from now until Valentine's Day:

And some fabulous auctions:

Fundraiser Auctions:

♥ All proceeds of each auction will go to the AHA ♥

Melissa & Doug - 4 Trunki with Teddy Bear Auctions!

Fudoo Boards - 3 Fudoo Board Kits for Auction!

Fudoo Board Kit, ends Feb 10
Fudoo Board Kit, ends Feb 10
Fudoo Board Kit, ends Feb 10

And last (but not least!) is the list of participants:

hands on : as we grow	♥	A Little Learning for Two	♥	Among Many Blessings
Angelique Felix	♥	At Home with Ali	♥	Broken Treasures
Busy at Home	♥	Busy Kids Happy Mom	♥	Carrie Saindon's Photo Journey
Child Central Station	♥	Classified: Mom	♥	Classroom Magic
Creative with Kids	♥	Creativity My Passion	♥	Critters and Crayons
De Tout et de Rien	♥	Dilly-Dali Art	♥	Dinosaurs & Octopuses
Excited 2 Learn	♥	Hand Over the Cookies	♥	Handprint & Footprint Art
Happy Hooligans	♥	Heart Journey	♥	Imagination Soup
Jamie's Jumble	♥	Kitchen Counter Chronicles	♥	Kreative Resources
Let Kids Create	♥	Little Illuminationss	♥	Living Montessori Now
Loudness of the Lambs	♥	Love and Lollipops	♥	Mama, hocemo nesto da pravimo
Mama Pea Pod	♥	Mama Smiles	♥	MemeTales
Messy Kids	♥	Mindful Meanderings	♥	Mom to 2 Posh Lil Divas
Mommy Labs	♥	Mommy Perks	♥	Mum Paints Lives
Mummy Mummy Mum	♥	My Creative Family	♥	NurtureStore
One Artsy Mama	♥	Peace Love & Rainbows	♥	Play Dr Mom
Putti Prapancha	♥	Rainbows within Reach	♥	Reading Confetti
Ready. Set. Read!	♥	Red Ted Art	♥	Sense of Wonder
Share & Remember	♥	Stacy Molter	♥	Sun Hats & Wellie Boots
Teach Preschool	♥	The Artful Child	♥	The Chocolate Muffin Tree
The Craft Barn	♥	The Educators' Spin on It	♥	The Golden Gleam
The Imagination Tree	♥	The Iowa Farmer's Wife	♥	The Joy of My Life
The Kids Fun Review	♥	The Outlaw Mom Blog	♥	The Preschool Toolbox
The Seeds Network	♥	Toddler Approved

Rainbow Snowflakes and Color "Crawling"!

2012-01-31T07:15:00.000-06:00

We had so much fun with the salt letters that we made some salt snowflakes to go with our book Hooray for Snow! It's about three little squirrels eager to play in the snow. Papa doesn't want to join them because it's too cold and Mama has too much work to do. After they convince Papa to come out, he discovers that sledding is too much fun to worry about being cold and by the end of the book they convince Mama to join them. It's a simple book celebrating the joy of playing in the snow. A perfect winter story for preschoolers.

For our craft, I drew a simple snowflake design on construction paper and Drew traced it with glue.

We sprinkled coarse salt over the glue and shook off the excess.

Then a few days later, I saw this cool color web activity over at Tot Treasures. We made another batch of snowflakes and then used an eyedropper to drop some colored water (just food coloring and water) onto the end of each spoke (don't know what else to call it) and watched as the color "crawled" along the salt line. It was really cool!

Usually, Lainey would rather color with her markers than do a more structured craft project, but she got in on the action this time. As you can see, she is loyal to the color red. Very loyal.

And, of course, Drew had to do his beloved D!

Linking to Type A, ABC and 123, The Educators' Spin On It , Ginger Snap Crafts,

Crayon Freckles, Red Ted Art, Playing with Words 365 , Bear Rabbit Bear, 733, stART, Link it up Thursday, It's Playtime!, Cachey Mama's Classroom, Homeschooling on the Cheap, Happy Hour Projects

Sassy Sites!

Sun Scholars

One Artsy Mama

Jiggler Waste = Valentine Crazy Jello

2012-01-29T20:46:00.000-06:00

We went to a birthday party recently and Drew was introduced to jigglers. He. fell. in. love. So we made some Valentine jigglers to go with our book, Valentine Surprise.

Lily wants to make the perfect Valentine heart for her mommy, but each day something goes wrong. On Monday it's too pointy and Tuesday it's too round, etc. Finally it's Valentine's Day and she strings all the imperfect hearts together to present to her mother. Of course, her mother loves them and loves Lily because her heart is perfect. This was a good book to go with our treats because our hearts most certainly didn't turn out perfect.

I started with big boxes of strawberry and black cherry Jello. I was looking for the watermelon to make pink but they didn't have it. I chose black cherry thinking it would make a rich romantic red. I was wrong. Black cherry actually turns out pretty much black. Go figure.

We had a lot of scraps left after cutting out our jiggler shapes, so I wanted to use them for something.

This recipe is loosely (and sloppily) based on The Food Librarian's broken glass jello. I took the scraps, chopped them up, and put them in a small glass dish.

Then I sprinkled 2 packets of Knox unflavored gelatin in 1/2 cup of cold water and let it sit for a few minutes. Next, I added 1 1/2 cups of boiling water and stirred until it was dissolved. Finally, I stirred in a 14 oz. can of sweetened condensed milk and let it cool before I poured it over. I was going to cut it into squares but I couldn't resist the lure of the heart shaped cutters again...

The problem? More scraps! :)

Problem solved!

Linking to Everything Under the Moon , DIY Home Sweet Home , The Southern Institute, Home Savvy A to Z, The Gunny Sack, Reasons to Skip the Housework, 733, Mrs. Fox's Sweets, Mom on Timeout , Gluesticks, Scraps of Life, Delicate Construction, Six Sisters' Stuff , I Heart Nap Time , Michelle Paige , Itsy Bitsy Paper, The CSI Project

Valentine Story Props

2012-01-27T08:22:00.000-06:00

I made some quick story props for two of our Valentine's Day books this week. They're both counting books. The first is One Heart: A Valentine Counting Book. A little girl puts one heart in her pocket, gives two hearts to her parents, three hearts to her kittens, etc. All the way up to ten when she goes back to one and gives the special heart she put in her pocket to her teacher. It's a simple rhyming book that's perfect for preschoolers.

The second counting book is also a fun rhyming one. It's called 10 Valentine Friends. Ten little friends work on making special Valentines. Their Valentines are personalized with dinosaurs, gorillas, princesses, etc. I like this book because there is a column on each page where you can watch the Valentines stack up as each one is added. Excellent counting practice and fun too!

The props are pretty self-explanatory, but I did take some pictures. I started with craft foam cut into 10 heart shapes (I added some faces too) and 5 pipe cleaners cut in half.

I glued the hearts to the pipe cleaners with a hot glue gun.

And twisted them around a marker.

Stick them on your fingers and you've got some perfect story props for Valentine's Day counting books! My cute little assistant held up the right number of hearts for each page in the Valentine's books.

Linking to Read Explore Learn, The Crafty Nest, Toys in the Dryer , Shine On Fridays , Sassy Sites , The Play Academy , Family Frolics , Sharing Saturday, Six Sisters' Stuff, I Can Teach My Child , I Heart Nap Time , The Girl Creative , Sew Can Do, Monday Madness, delicateCONSTRUCTION, Adventures in Mommy Land, Tip Junkie, Junk in their Trunk

Snow Spray Paint

2012-01-26T08:49:00.000-06:00

Turns out I am a big chicken. Back when we were doing our advent calendar, I had planned to do splatter painting with the book Is That You, Winter? It's a cute story with great illustrations. Old Man Winter wakes up crabby. After he does his job of spreading snow and cold, he wonders who he is going to all this trouble for. Then he stumbles and a little girl takes care of him. By the end of the book, he's happy knowing who is enjoying all his hard work. The art is all done in a messy splatter style that's a lot of fun to look at.

Instead of doing splatter painting, we took it outdoors and did a little spray painting instead. I mixed some finger paint with water, just enough to tint the water.

I considered using food coloring but I wanted something that wouldn't stain their jackets or mittens. This wasn't as big a hit as I thought it would be but they had some fun with it.

Linking to 733, stART, These Peas Taste Funny, Bear Rabbit Bear, It's Playtime!, Homeschooling on the Cheap

Sun Scholars

Living Life Intentionally

Mama Pea Pod

We Built A Car

2012-01-24T08:00:00.000-06:00

If I Built a Car is a fun book written by the same person who illustrated the Mercy Watson Series. It's a cute rhyming story, but a little long for preschoolers. It did hold my 3 year old's attention while they were describing a car that would have a pool, a snack bar, that can go underwater, and even fly! It was fun to think about what we'd like to have in our own car.

Afterward we built our own car out of boxes. This is certainly not a new idea but we had tons of fun with it.

We used paper plates for the wheels and steering wheels and plastic cups with flameless candles for the headlights.

Fingerprint Birthday Cards

2012-01-23T08:18:00.000-06:00

It was my husband's birthday last week so we had some fun making birthday cards. We did two different kinds. For the card from my 3 year old, I cut out 4 large rectangles and 3 small rectangles.

I helped Drew glue them into a cake shape.

We used his finger print for the flames on the candles.

For Daddy's card from our 2 year old, I just let her dip her fingers in paint and press them wherever she wanted.

This is what we ended up with:

I outlined the prints and added some strings to make balloons.

One of our favorite birthday books is Happy Birthday, Baby . My daughter got this for her first birthday, but my son is the one who asks to read it all the time. I think he likes the interactive pages and fun Dr. Suess illustrations and rhyme. The Great Birthday Bird takes the birthday boy for a fun ride into a flower garden where they have a hot dog lunch. Afterward, they wash up in the "ketchup mustard off pool". The book ends with a giant birthday cake!

As one of his gifts, I made this cute car shirt from The Blue Basket. The idea is that the kids play with their cars and Dad gets a back massage.

Heart Animals: My Heart is a Zoo

2012-01-20T09:43:00.000-06:00

Last year, my very talented colleague introduced me to a book called My Heart Is Like a Zoo. The author compares his heart to all the animals in a zoo like cozy as a clam and chatty as a jay. But the very best part of this book is that all of the animals are made from heart shapes. The back cover gives directions for making your own lion from hearts but the illustrations are clear enough to make any of the animals. We (okay, I) choose to do ours in Valentine colors.

I cut out the heart shapes beforehand since Drew really wanted to make the caterpillar. I knew our crafty attention span would not last through cutting out all those hearts, so he did the assembly.

I helped Lainey make the clam.

I couldn't resist - I also made the owl:

and the bunny:

Linking to Family Frolics, Bacon Time, Read Explore Learn, Toys in the Dryer, Shine On Friday, Family Ever After , Sharing Saturday, Tatertots & Jello,

I Can Teach My Child, Six Sisters' Stuff , I Heart Nap Time , The Southern Institute , Homemaker on a Dime ,

Sew Can Do , Today's Creative Blog , Playing With Words 365, Cachey Mama's Classroom

Someday Crafts

Crocodile Counting

2012-01-19T14:36:00.000-06:00

We checked out a great book from the library called Lyle, Lyle Crocodile: Lyle Walks the Dogs. Lyle the Crocodile has a new job walking dogs. On day 1 he walks one dog, on day 2 he walks two dogs, etc. On each page you are introduced to a new dog and asked to count them. The dogs have humorous names (like Scrappy and Sniffy) and distinct personalities (Scrappy does what he wants and Sniffy likes to, well, sniff). Even after a squirrel encounter, Lyle manages to do an excellent job. Since my kids like crocodiles, dogs, and counting this one was a definite winner around here.

In the book, you actually count the dogs, but I took a little creative license here and made some crocodile clothes pins using green and black magic markers.

I made the crocodiles with either one spot, two spots, or three spots. I made a 1,2,3 card to go with it.

I told Drew that the crocodiles liked to eat the same number of spots that they had on their backs.

He did so well that I made it a bit more challenging by making a new card with more numbers and adding some spots to those crocs! This time I used a paint chip for the card. I would've chosen something other than brown, but that's what I had here.

Linking to Cachey Mama's Classroom, 733, Homeschooling on the Cheap, Sun Scholars , Sassy Sites! , Living Life Intentionally , No Time for Flash Cards, The Educators' Spin On It

Everyday Math at Teach Preschool