Just as a side note I filled mine with rice and it turned out so heavy so don't skip buying the poly fill beads.
Monday, September 27, 2010
I-Spy Bag
Have you seen these? They are so cute. Here is a tutorial here.
Just as a side note I filled mine with rice and it turned out so heavy so don't skip buying the poly fill beads.
Just as a side note I filled mine with rice and it turned out so heavy so don't skip buying the poly fill beads.
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.
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.
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
G is for... and B is for..
G is for garden.
We went to the Thanksgiving Point Gardens. We looked at the flowers for a little bit but spent most of our time in the children's garden. M* had lots o' fun hiding in the trees and running in and out of the bear cave.
G is for grow.
I found these at the dollar store you put them in water and then they grow. M* wasn't terribly impressed with the growing part but had lots of fun putting the beans in the water and then taking them back out.
G is for green.
We did a "green" scavenger hunt where we looked for things in the house that were green. M* decided about 10 mins into it that she was done finding green things and wanted to find pink things instead. What a girl.
G is for goat.
We also got a book from the library on goats and made a trip to the farm to look at them but of course we mostly looked at the bunnies instead.
Other things I wanted to do but we didn't get around to was make a giraffe puppet here are the instructions here, plant some flowers (garden), and make gingerbread men.
B is for balloon.
We did a couple things with balloons. The first thing was I hung balloons from the ceiling and let M* hit them with a bat. In the picture below though she had decided that the golf club was a better tool for the job. She was quite distracted by the static electricty. You will notice her small amount of hair is sticking up.
We also painted some balloons. It was a nice change to just painting on paper. I taped ours down onto bigger paper it was easier for her to paint and easy clean up for me. I also saw an idea on perpetual preschool that said to tape a few balloons (not full of air) to a dowel and let the child use it as a brush but we didn't try it so I don't know how well it works.
We went to the Thanksgiving Point Gardens. We looked at the flowers for a little bit but spent most of our time in the children's garden. M* had lots o' fun hiding in the trees and running in and out of the bear cave.
G is for grow.
I found these at the dollar store you put them in water and then they grow. M* wasn't terribly impressed with the growing part but had lots of fun putting the beans in the water and then taking them back out.
G is for green.We did a "green" scavenger hunt where we looked for things in the house that were green. M* decided about 10 mins into it that she was done finding green things and wanted to find pink things instead. What a girl.
G is for goat.
We also got a book from the library on goats and made a trip to the farm to look at them but of course we mostly looked at the bunnies instead.
Other things I wanted to do but we didn't get around to was make a giraffe puppet here are the instructions here, plant some flowers (garden), and make gingerbread men.
B is for balloon.
We did a couple things with balloons. The first thing was I hung balloons from the ceiling and let M* hit them with a bat. In the picture below though she had decided that the golf club was a better tool for the job. She was quite distracted by the static electricty. You will notice her small amount of hair is sticking up.
We also painted some balloons. It was a nice change to just painting on paper. I taped ours down onto bigger paper it was easier for her to paint and easy clean up for me. I also saw an idea on perpetual preschool that said to tape a few balloons (not full of air) to a dowel and let the child use it as a brush but we didn't try it so I don't know how well it works.
B is for bird.
We did some bird watching outside our complex. We live right by a canal so there is nice variety. We also took some bird seed out there and threw it out for them.
B is for bubble.
The library had a bubble party (this was my sole reason for doing b on the week we did). M* had lots of fun. We were going to try an activity at home where you tape a clear lid (like on a pringles can) to a flash light and catch the bubbles on it. It's supposed to make it easy to see all the colors in the bubble. I bought cans just for the occasion and threw them out without thinking about it.
Other things I had planned but we didn't have time to do were float some boats in the bath tub (you could make your own or just use a toy boat), and go bug hunting.
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
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.
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!
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
A if for
We worked on the letter A and our colors this week.
For colors I took the bottom of an egg carton and colored the pockets each a different color. Then found things for each color for M* to sort out into the cups. She did the "sort the colors" thing for about 10 mins and then she just played with the little things and had a good ol' time. When your child masters the 6 colors then you can add 9 then 12 etc.
A is for...
Airplane- we flew paper airplanes around the house on Monday. Make 4 or 5 for your toddler to throw some where and pick up.
A is for...animals. It is currently 2 dollar Tuesday at Thanksgiving Point so I've been planning our letters around what we can do there. We went to the petting zoo and looked at all the animals.
A is for...apple. This was super simple. The tree is just construction paper taped together with small pieces of velcro glued to it. The apples I just cut out of felt and wrote "A" on some "a" on some and "apple" on others. M* then picked them and put them in her basket. Also check out http://www.perpetualpreschool.com/ for some fun apple songs and crafts.
A is for... Alligator. I didn't take a picture of this one-maybe one day I will and I will get it up here. I just painted and Alligator with an "A" on his back on a piece of cardboard and cut out a hole for his mouth and the center of the A. Then I made some quick bean bags and had M* play a toss it in game. Just for the record it looked more like a lizard with a shark fin on his back but M* humored me and called it an Alligator anyway.
We also did our rice pit with the letters in it. Remember when you are doing these activities to emphasize the word that starts with the letter.
For colors I took the bottom of an egg carton and colored the pockets each a different color. Then found things for each color for M* to sort out into the cups. She did the "sort the colors" thing for about 10 mins and then she just played with the little things and had a good ol' time. When your child masters the 6 colors then you can add 9 then 12 etc.
A is for...Airplane- we flew paper airplanes around the house on Monday. Make 4 or 5 for your toddler to throw some where and pick up.
A is for...animals. It is currently 2 dollar Tuesday at Thanksgiving Point so I've been planning our letters around what we can do there. We went to the petting zoo and looked at all the animals.
A is for...apple. This was super simple. The tree is just construction paper taped together with small pieces of velcro glued to it. The apples I just cut out of felt and wrote "A" on some "a" on some and "apple" on others. M* then picked them and put them in her basket. Also check out http://www.perpetualpreschool.com/ for some fun apple songs and crafts.
A is for... Alligator. I didn't take a picture of this one-maybe one day I will and I will get it up here. I just painted and Alligator with an "A" on his back on a piece of cardboard and cut out a hole for his mouth and the center of the A. Then I made some quick bean bags and had M* play a toss it in game. Just for the record it looked more like a lizard with a shark fin on his back but M* humored me and called it an Alligator anyway.
We also did our rice pit with the letters in it. Remember when you are doing these activities to emphasize the word that starts with the letter.
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
F is for...
We are starting doing things using the Amazing Action Alphabet book. You can check our their products at http://www.seeheardocompany.com/ The idea is to do their flip book and then do activities with the letter. You introduce a letter every 2 weeks or so. Along with all these activities we always looked at the flip chart before we started them to review the letter and the sound.
The first thing we did with the letter F is a rice pit. You make a rice pit by buying a small container with a lid I bought a 16 quart and pour a bunch of rice in it. I used 3 bigger bags. I also used beans but I would recommend just using rice. We started with things that are the letter F or start with F, like magnets, cookie cutters, frog, farmer, feather, flag. As your child digs things out say the name with emphasis on whatever letter you are doing it with. After we do the letters M* likes to play in it with spoons, bowls, and measuring cups.
F is for feather.
In the morning we did a craft with feathers. I drew a bird on a paper and then M* glued feathers on it and painted it with water colors. That afternoon we visited the aviary and I pointed out all of the feathers on the bird.
F is for fort and flash light.
We built a blanket fort and played under it all morning. We played with flashlights under it and read books.
F is for fish.
In the morning we did a fish pond. Tie string onto a small dowel or pencil and then glue a magnet onto the other end of the string. Cut out fish shapes and place paper clips on them. On the back of the Fish you can write things like, "jump up and down 10 times" or "sing wheels on the bus". You can spread the fish around the room or I put them in a small basket to keep it a little contained and easier to catch a fish. That afternoon we went to the aquarium. If you don't live by and aquarium you can head to the pet store to look at fish.
F is for face.
I drew different eyes, ears, noses, and mouths and taped them on the wall then had M* move them around to create different faces. Another way to do this would be to put them on flannel or Velcro and use it on the flannel board.
The first thing we did with the letter F is a rice pit. You make a rice pit by buying a small container with a lid I bought a 16 quart and pour a bunch of rice in it. I used 3 bigger bags. I also used beans but I would recommend just using rice. We started with things that are the letter F or start with F, like magnets, cookie cutters, frog, farmer, feather, flag. As your child digs things out say the name with emphasis on whatever letter you are doing it with. After we do the letters M* likes to play in it with spoons, bowls, and measuring cups.
F is for feather.In the morning we did a craft with feathers. I drew a bird on a paper and then M* glued feathers on it and painted it with water colors. That afternoon we visited the aviary and I pointed out all of the feathers on the bird.
F is for fort and flash light.
We built a blanket fort and played under it all morning. We played with flashlights under it and read books.
F is for fish.
In the morning we did a fish pond. Tie string onto a small dowel or pencil and then glue a magnet onto the other end of the string. Cut out fish shapes and place paper clips on them. On the back of the Fish you can write things like, "jump up and down 10 times" or "sing wheels on the bus". You can spread the fish around the room or I put them in a small basket to keep it a little contained and easier to catch a fish. That afternoon we went to the aquarium. If you don't live by and aquarium you can head to the pet store to look at fish.
F is for face.
I drew different eyes, ears, noses, and mouths and taped them on the wall then had M* move them around to create different faces. Another way to do this would be to put them on flannel or Velcro and use it on the flannel board.
Road Trip
Well vacation season is upon us. We took a nice vacation to the west coast and here are my tips for what they are worth.
The car ride:
First of all I think everyone with kids should have a car vacuum, vacation or no vacation. They are small and they plug into your cigarette lighter. On a vacation where you are in the car a lot it's so nice to be able to get rid of all the crumbs from snacks.
Pack lots of snacks. If you are taking fruit cut it up and put small portions in small zip lock bags. We put all of our cold food in a insulated grocery bag with some frozen water and it worked really well. Make everything able to just be able to grabbed and passed out. Take plenty of wipes for cleaning up the snacks.
If your budget will allow buy some new toys and books and put away until the day of the trip. If you can't do that put some toys away about a month before the trip so that they have a newness about them. You can grab books your child has never seen at the library. Pick interactive books, like the simply look and find books, books with flaps, turny wheels, fold out pages, etc. I would recommend "Curious George Discovery Day" my daughter loves any of the Curious George board books (the board books not the regular books) and "Pat the Bunny Hide and Seek." Also sticker books are super good. I bought some at the dollar store and also bought a vinyl sticker book that worked well.
We bought a car seat tray because there were rave reviews about them. M* wouldn't have anything to do with it and we got along fine without her using it. So I would say save your money.
Break up the drive. Plan on stopping about every 3 hours. We even broke it up bigger by stopping halfway and staying the night.
I had trouble deciding whether to take our big stroller that folds down so M* could take better naps and our cheap umbrella stroller. Due to space constraints we took the small umbrella stroller. M* only slept for 1/2 hour in it and there wasn't really ever a time I was glad I had the small stroller so I say if you can pack your nice one with the basket and fold back seat.
Speaking of nap times bring the lovey with you everywhere if it's small it'll help your little one fall asleep better.
The car ride:
First of all I think everyone with kids should have a car vacuum, vacation or no vacation. They are small and they plug into your cigarette lighter. On a vacation where you are in the car a lot it's so nice to be able to get rid of all the crumbs from snacks.
Pack lots of snacks. If you are taking fruit cut it up and put small portions in small zip lock bags. We put all of our cold food in a insulated grocery bag with some frozen water and it worked really well. Make everything able to just be able to grabbed and passed out. Take plenty of wipes for cleaning up the snacks.
If your budget will allow buy some new toys and books and put away until the day of the trip. If you can't do that put some toys away about a month before the trip so that they have a newness about them. You can grab books your child has never seen at the library. Pick interactive books, like the simply look and find books, books with flaps, turny wheels, fold out pages, etc. I would recommend "Curious George Discovery Day" my daughter loves any of the Curious George board books (the board books not the regular books) and "Pat the Bunny Hide and Seek." Also sticker books are super good. I bought some at the dollar store and also bought a vinyl sticker book that worked well.
We bought a car seat tray because there were rave reviews about them. M* wouldn't have anything to do with it and we got along fine without her using it. So I would say save your money.
Break up the drive. Plan on stopping about every 3 hours. We even broke it up bigger by stopping halfway and staying the night.
The Hotel:
If you have you or your partner go upstairs to the room before your kid and childproof what you can. For example we were in our room for 5 minutes and M* broke one of the coffee mugs they put out, almost crushed herself with a table lap and called china with the phone (alright maybe a little exaggeration but not much of one).
Bring the toys in from the car. Subconsciously I thought we would just relax in the hotel room but reality said, "Hello! Have you met your daughter? She doesn't know how to relax." So take something to entertain in the hotel room.
If possible take a pack and play. Especially if you plan on staying in more than one hotel. Having a little consistency in where they sleep will be a big help. Not to mention that hotel cribs look like something out of a horror film.
Places:
You know your toddler best, if they aren't the type to wait patiently for something don't plan on going somewhere where they are going to have to wait a lot unless you are willing to deal with the tantrums that ensue.
We bought a harness backpack. This is one thing that I saw before I was a mom and scoffed at but M* is a runner so we bought one. People pointed and laughed a little at it but I say it's worth the peace of mind.
I had trouble deciding whether to take our big stroller that folds down so M* could take better naps and our cheap umbrella stroller. Due to space constraints we took the small umbrella stroller. M* only slept for 1/2 hour in it and there wasn't really ever a time I was glad I had the small stroller so I say if you can pack your nice one with the basket and fold back seat.Speaking of nap times bring the lovey with you everywhere if it's small it'll help your little one fall asleep better.
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