Bird Feeder

Inspired by the bird feeder that Julian gave me as a present for Christmas, he decided he wanted to make his own.

He lathered a toilet paper roll in peanut butter and rolled it in bird seeds.

It turned out to be a cute quick FREE craft.

Open Ended Art - Christmas Stocking

I was in crunch mode yesterday studying for my final exam (ugh!) so their craft today was open ended art (Click here for an explanation of what open ended art is for kids).

Yesterday, I set out green & red paper, christmas scrapbooking paper, cotton balls, crayons, markers, paint dabbers, glue and scissors and I let their imagination take off.

I always like Open Ended Art because it takes them time to complete their project (thus giving me time to study).

Julian's stocking...so cute.

Candy Cane Lane

We went to a playdate called "Candy Cane Lane". It started off with the host reading a book called J is for Jesus (you can find it here on Amazon, I highly recommend it).

Then, the kids made a candy cane craft and had some cookies (candy cane of course).

O Christmas Tree

First off, let me apologize for the poor quality of pictures. I bought a really cheap camera on Black Friday and it produced cheap pictures! So I returned it and got a better one. (SORRY!)

Monday, the kids made a Christmas tree using our bingo dotters and then painted a star (cereal cardboard). We practiced singing "O Christmas Tree" to get ready for our Christmas caroling later this month at the nursing home.

The bingo dotters are perfect for Claire's hands to hold.

The finished product turned out very cute.

Letter Tt Week

This is our Letter Tt tub. This was an easy letter week for them, easy as in, they learned the sound, words associated and recognition of the letter within a word quickly.

They even pointed out this cute plate that Julian made a few weeks ago and tried to "test" Thanks for the T sounds (tuh, tuh, thanks) and it didn't work. So I had to semi explain that Thanks does start with a T but it has an H after which makes a th sound. I love that they were so proactive in learning though.

We read a story about Time, which worked out great because I have been meaning to start talking to them about time telling. We will get more into that soon.

As with every Letter, we made the letter Tt and they had the option to use toilet paper and/or toothpicks. Julian had attempted to use toilet paper with his open ended art last week and didn't like it being stuck to his finger because of the glue, so he stuck to just toothpicks this time.

Aislinn used TP and toothpicks.

This next turkey project was the best craft I have done all year!!! First of all, a great learning tool and helped reinforce the letters they are already very familiar with and helped to remind them of the others that we haven't gotten to. Also, this craft last like 45 min. They were both very detailed and they took their time in accomplishing it. I loved it!!! I kept looking at the time and thinking wow, its been 20 min, then 30 min, then 40. LOL. I will duplicate this over and over with a rainbow, a slide, etc. Be on the look out for it.

They had to glue the corresponding letter to the correct space and then color their turkey.

Here is the template for anyone interested!

This site is a great resource.

I showed them some numbers to see how they would do with recognizing the letter Tt and they were champs, so we moved onto harder things :)

I quickly typed up a story about a Turtle named Tommy that lost his Tooth. There were soooooo many T's in the story, they had a blast highlighting the T's and finding them. I kept telling them it was like a scavenger hunt.

Open Ended Art - Black and White

Open ended art gives children free creativity, allowing the child to create art, how he/she sees it. I didn't invent open ended art, I simple saw the idea from Adventures of a Flake and Mommies Wise Little Bookworms.

The open ended art theme was balck and white.

This was a project that only Julian did.

In his words, he created a scary ghost. :)

Ocean Week

Ocean Themed Week was awesome! They did sooo much, from visit the aquarium, to creating ocean habitats, to painting their own seashells, to learning the sting ray shuffle, to watching YouTube videos of different ocean life. I can say, it was one of my favorite weeks and I'm know all the kids enjoyed it too.

This post has pictures of the kids making the ocean habitats and the seashell painting.

The materials.

Aislinn picking out her seashells.

Baby Claire makes her own materpiece.

The finished seashells looked tie-dyed and I loved them.

Julians seashell sits in my kitchen and I look at it often.

Musical Mania

My son, Julian, loves music and loves playing in his own band. So I came up with an idea of hosting a musical playdate in my home and invited our PALS. We made several instruments, played in a band, and danced to different music.

Miss A* was decorating her tambourine.

They also made Maracas and egg shakers.

Julian playing the drums with a paint can.

We call these noise makers.