C is for...

C is for clothespins.
We practiced putting clothespins on things a lot this week. M* didn't quite get it but she had a lot of fun pretending to clip things on and of course she knew exactly how to get them off. I cut some clothes shapes out of felt and we made a mini clothes line for her to clip them on. She had fun just trying to put them on but I would also ask her to find me the one that was pink or blue etc... and then ask for a specific clothes item like a sock.

For this activity you need clothespins circle stickers (like the garage sale stickers) and bowl or a cup. I used a cool whip bowl and put paper around the outside. Stick different color stickers around the outside and have a coordinating clothes pin for it. I put sticker on the inside and outside of the bowl. M* wouldn't turn the bowl or let me turn the bowl so this way she could do all around it without upsetting her.

C is for cake. We made a cake this week. M* loves to bake. She is a pro and dumping all the ingredients in and stiring them up.

C is for camping.
We set up a tent in my mom's backyard for the day. (I am greatly looking forward to the day when we have our own backyard to set things up in). The first thing we did in our tent was put together a simple puzzle. I used this picture here and cut it up into about 5 pieces. Then we did our caterpillar activities that we had been doing through out the week (see below). And then we went on a "C" hunt. I clipped some papers with the letter C written on them around the tent (using clothespins) and had M* find them and put them in her bag. To finish the camping fun we made some smores in the microwave.

C is for caterpillar.
I found this new great website. This gal is amazing I can't believe how talented she is. We will definitely be using her things as part of our letters. The blog is called Confessions of a Homeschooler. Here is the link to her letter C stuff. Some of it was a little too old for M* but we used the color matching caterpillars, the letter lace card, and the lacing cards for the story "The Very Hungry Caterpillar". All of which M* was able to do with to problem (she is almost 2 just to give you an idea).

Also, just out of pure happenstance we made this cute chicken at the library story time.
You need a cup, a piece of string, a small piece of felt, a small piece of sponge, and something to poke a small hole (we used a skewer). They also gave us eyes and an orange nose (that was torn off before I took this picture) but you could just draw those on.

Poke a small hole in the top of the cup. Thread the string through and tie a knot onto a red piece of felt.
Tie the small piece of sponge onto the bottom of the string. Then let your child color it and decorate it however you want.

When it's done you make it make a noise by wetting your fingers a bit and pulling down on the string. It actually makes a chicken noise it's pretty cool.

Dinosaur Land

This idea came from this super spectacular idea here. Mine is way scaled down compared to the awesomenes that the idea came from but oh well. I must apologize for being terrible and giving tutorials. I don't think to take pictures a long the way until it is done. I found the pack of dinosaurs for this in the dollar bin at target.

First thing I did was cut out to pieces of brown felt for the ground you can make them as big or small as you want.

Cut out the shapes that you want for your grass, water, and whatever else you would like to add. That brown bump in the back of mind is supposed to be a cave but its a little flat. Sew these pieces to your top piece of felt. Also if you would like yours to fold up then put a piece of velcro on each side (You can see mine in front of the the cave and behind the water).
For the trees on mine I glued them to a piece of felt and then stuck some velcro on the bottom of it. That way when it gets folded up you can take them off an lay them down.

The next step is sew the two pieces of the big felt together. I sewed mine wrong side together and then turned it inside out but if I were to do it again I would just put them together right side and sew around the outside since the felt won't fray.

This works great fold up into your bag and take to restaurants especially if you have a toddler that isn't terribly interested in the crayons and paper.

D is for

D is for drip. We did a fun art activity with eye droppers.
Materials:
paper towels
paper or Styrofoam plate (if it's paper it needs to be a higher end one that repels water not soaks it in)
3 bowls with water
red, yellow, and blue food coloring

This has 2 parts to it. Put a few drops of food coloring into each bowl. First set up the paper towel on top of the plate and let your toddler squeeze the water onto the towel, it makes a pretty cool painting. Then once he or she is done with that then just let them squeeze water directly onto the plate. The colors will mix to create new ones! As you show them how to squeeze use the word drip as you drop stuff onto the plate and talk about what colors are on the plate.

Just a side note- If you have leftover eye droppers from an empty liquid medicine bottle use that instead of real ones. Why? Because they are plastic. If you have to use the glass ones just make sure they get put away so your toddler doesn't get a hold of one the next day unbeknownst to you and proceed bite and chew the end off while you're not looking...What's that you ask? Why no this didn't happen to us why would you assume that?....okay maybe it did happen.

...and a p.s. I know she looks super unhappy in this picture but this is her concentrating face-it really was a great activity.

D is for dinosaur. We checked out a few dinosaur books and colored some pictures of them. I think some great books are the "How do Dinosaurs..." series M* paid the most attention to them. We also went to the dinosaur museum where we got a dinosaur puzzle to put together. M* hasn't ever really been too exposed or had much of an interest in them but she picked up the word about 30 seconds into the museum. I found a dinosaur egg at dollar tree that you got to dig at and find dinosaur bones. It was a little bit hard for M* but she still had fun with it. I saw a recipe at perpetualpreschool.com that was edible that you can make eggs out of too but we didn't have time to try it this week.

D is for digging. We dug in the dirt and made mud pies this week too. M* loves Snow White so we sang the "dig dig dig dig" song while we dug.

D is for dressing up and dancing. M* put on her tutu and cut a rug. She loves dancing and our letter this week was "D the dancing dinosaur" so we made the sound that D makes while she dances (ddd) while we danced!

Hats off to Hats

Materials:
Hats and other random things to place on your head

Place different hats on your head and on your child's head. When you put thing on that don't belong tell your tot how silly it is-don't you love the word silly? Just saying it erupts smiles at our house. Make noises with each hat you put on; for example sirens when you put on a fire hat.

Mail Box

Materials:
Shoe box
Paper and/or Stickers (optional)
Envelopes
Paper

Cover shoe box in paper. I taped and glued mine in hopes that it would last a little longer but I don't think it's going to make a difference. Cut a slot in the top of the box. I put letters on the top that says mail, they were promptly torn off. Make "letters" to go in the mail box. I had M* put some stickers on some 3x5 cards for our letters. I think it would be fun to put a new letter in every so often. Maybe some days put some "packages" in, like some dollar store toys or a treat.

Cardboard Kitchen

M* Loves playing with pretend kitchens. That is all she does at her cousins house. Unfortunately I just can't justify spending $100 on a toy "just because." I was so excited when I found this idea in Family Fun. Their rendition is much prettier but this works for us. I'm not terribly great at writing tutorials but I think the pictures are pretty self explanatory.

Materials:
Cardboard box (you need a pretty good size box but you can make it as large or as small as you want)
Extra Cardboard
Two pieces of paper (different colors)
Bowl
Paint (optional)
Milk Carton Lids or Similar


First decide where you are going to put your "sink" trace outline of bowl onto top of box. Using a razor blade cut 1/4-1/2" inside the circle-so your bowl should have something to hang onto. From separate cardboard cut out the shape of your sink-like a candy cane. Cut a big enough slit into the main box so that you can slide the sink down into it.

Trace 2-4 circles on one piece of paper, cut out, glue onto the other piece of paper to make the "stove". Secure milk caps for knobs on the stove (I think it would be cool if you had long brads to secure them with so they could turn but we just used glue).


On the front of box cut out shape of oven. You can cut out a window out of the center if you would like. If your box is smaller you will want to cut it to the side so you will have enough room for your cupboards in a future step. Cut a strip from your extra cardboard and secure on as the oven handle.
When you cut out your cupboard be sure to leave enough of a boarder (the part in blue) so that your box is still supported. Cut two parallel horizontal lines and then a vertical one to divide them.

If you have enough extra cardboard you can cut out a panel to insert between the cupboard space and the oven space. We also added a shelf to our oven by gluing it in between the two walls.
On the opposite side of the cupboards make two holes line up with each other. Secure a ribbon using the two holes to use as a towel holder.
Paint. Then insert bowl into the hole you cut out for the sink.

Hopefully you haven't lost your mind reading my (terrible) instructions. M* has really had a lot of fun with it and it only took me about 45 mins to make. Good luck!

Flour Power

Materials:
Flour
2-3 bowls
Spoon(s)
Cookie Sheet

Place a handful of flour in a bowl. Show your toddler how to stir the flour and how to transfer it to another bowl with a spoon. Then let them cook up their creation. Another variation is to put flour on a cookie sheet and show them how to draw things in the flour.

This activity is like a miracle in a bowl. I pull it out quite frequently while I'm cooking dinner and it keeps meltdowns to a minimum. So, Hurray for it.