“HOME” Project & a Puzzle

August

September

and a few more I am currently working on for other months.. actually there are a lot more I have done but do not have in my possession..as soon as I do, I will post pic! I am gathering quite a few ideas..multiples for each month…

Nov, June, Aug

       

For the Birthday Week

Another fun project. I bought (less than $2) a 2x2 board from Home Depot and cut it into square with my Miter Saw. Then I bought a cute little (about 6” x 6”) calendar from Michaels for $1. Cut the calendar to fit the blocks and decoupaged them on. THEN I went over them all with a sanding brick and sanded all the edges and corners. And finally went over the top of them with decoupage again to seal it all. I sanded them after so I could sand down the pics and make them flush with the wood.. I didn’t want the pics to hang out over the blocks. SO this is a 6 sided puzzle. Different pic on each side. My 4 year old can do it..but needs a little help at times. With 54 puzzle pieces..and only 9 needed at a time.. it can be a little hard for young ones! I am going to try this with pictures of the family soon!

     

   

Some calendars from Michaels. I have also gotten them from Target dollar bins in years past.. but don’t pay more than a dollar! You can actually get 2 full puzzles out of one book, since you only need 6 pictures and calendars have 12! Great Christmas gifts too!!

 

Cuffs

    

My son LOVES them!

He says they make him strong :)

We’ve been making a lots of them!

 

I thought I’d post a couple more pictures of this most cutest boy ever! We painted faces the other day..he wanted to be a pirate..and just happened to be wearing the most perfect shirt ever!

 

When we washed it off.. he said mom, I’m a pirate. Then we washed the mustache and he said..now I’m a pirate boy. Then I washed off the eye piece, and he said..now I’m just a boy! lol!

“A”

Last week I had the kids for preschool. We are worked on “A” this week, and for the month we are working on RED and HEART! I also realized that this Monday would be President’s Day, so I tried to work that in a little too.

Here are some tips on how I cam up with the week!

So first, I just made a list of a bunch of "A" words to start..

Apple, Animal, Alligator, Ape, Airplane, Astronaut, Arrow, Awesome, Ant, Arachnid, Ambulance, Aquarium, America

From that I wrote what we'll be doing that day..and paired it up with an "A" word if I could!

Snacks:

day 1: Applesauce & Animal Crackers in an ark (bowl)
day 2: Apple juice & ants on a log & arrows

Art:

day 1: Rock Ants, Airplanes
day 2: Apple Tree finger paints (talk about George Washington’s Apple Tree)

 

Songs:

5 little Apes, swinging in the trees..teasing mister Alligator…

The itsy bitsy Arachnid goes up the water spout ;)

day 2: Song about presidents: With picture of coins (sung to Mary had a little lamb) ~”Do you know who’s on the Penny, On the Penny, On the Penny. Do you know who’s on the Penny, Abraham Lincoln”, “Do you know who’s on the quarter, on the quarter, on the quarter, do you know who’s on the quarter, George Washington” and so on.

Games:

Pass the Apple (pass an apple around in a circle till the music stops. the one left with the apple goes into the middle..the apple patch)

How many apples am I? (cut out apples and lay them straight and see how tall the kids are)

Reading:

Dr. Seuss’ “ABC’s”

Day 2: Read a book on America, work on The Pledge of Allegiance

The kids have all been begging for more school, and are all so excited to begin their second week tomorrow! If you are interested in more outlines for letters let me know! I only do it every 5th week, but can come up with outlines each week!

I ordered my parachute from Oriental Trading!

Munchkin Monday ~3

I made this weather chart a couple weeks ago. I used Pelon for the fabric, then I just used colored, fine tip sharpies to draw with. A button in the middle holds the arrow on so they can rotate!

We had a few BIG snowstorms. When it finally stopped snowing, we played in it!

Building snow castles, and Snow heads!

Then we enjoyed some Hot Chocolate to warm up!

Preschool

A few friends and I started an At Home Preschool this week. Here is how we have it organized!

Each Month we are working on a Color and a Shape. We just incorporate those into the lessons each week.

Each Week we are working on a Letter. Different Letter each week. This week was “A”, next week is “B”, and so on.

We meet twice a week for two hours each day and each mom takes a week in rotation. So this week, I had the group both days. Then I won’t have them again for another 5 weeks. Next week, another mom has them both days, and so on.

Each Day we have it broken down into a pretty set schedule. It’s nice because you can be flexible with it, but the kids always will know what is coming next. With five ~3 year olds, their attention span isn’t very long, so we have to keep them moving! It has worked out great!

Our daily schedule is like this:

9:00 - 9:20 Focused Free Play time (while everyone is arriving) then clean up

9:20 - 9:30 Pick helpers for the day, Weather and Day charts

9:30 –9:40 Song w/ finger plays time – Itsy Bitsy Spider, 5 little Monkeys, etc.

9:40 - 9:55 Writing/Worksheet Time

9:55 – 10:10 Snack and then clean up (put their bowls in the sink)

10:10 – 10:20 Story/Quiet Time. Quietly read books, then I read them a story or two.

10:20 – 10:35 Craft Time

10:35 – 10:45 Large Motor Skill Activity

10:45 - 10:55 Free Play with Toys time

10:55 Clean Up

11:00 Home

It has been GREAT! And I don’t feel rushed. I can adjust it as I need each week. That is how we are running the daily schedule!

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Focused Free Play is that we are all working on one activity together. Play Dough, Sensory Box of Beans, Building Blocks, Puzzles, ..that kind of thing!

Helpers we use: Weather Helper, Snack Helper, Craft Helper, Writing Helper, and Special Helper

Large Motor Skill Activity can be anything to help build muscles. I have a 6’ parachute they LOVE!, play twister (learning right and left) running games, etc..

Writing time: Here are a few websites we use:

www.first-school.ws

www.everythingpreschool.com

http://confessionsofahomeschooler.blogspot.com

but really, we use anything we can find that we want to use for the week that relates to the letter, color, or shape. Please share with us any other great websites you know of, we would greatly appreciate it!

The kids are soooo EXCITED, and so are the mom’s! We just finished our first week, and my son has asked me 3 times already today when the next preschool day is!

Munchkin Monday 2

Little Minions

Remember warm fuzzies? Well, we added an extra eye and called them little Minions! hehe..my son loved it!

Pom Poms, googley eyes, and felt feet. (I think you can get it all from the Dollar Store.)

I tried a few different glues.. Elmer’s, FabriTac, and Hot Glue. The Hot Glue worked the best, so work carefully!

DIY Shoe Lace Cards

I made these Sunday before church. Needing something to keep my kiddos busy during the first hour, but I wanted the pictures to be something reverent, to remind them of church, so I googled some LDS Clipart. Saved them to Word, and printed them out. Colored, and cut them down and laminated them! (I love my laminator! –purchased from Wal-Mart office section)

Here they are laminated

I cut them out and punched some holes around the edges. If you have a hole punch like a “Big Bite” you can get further in, but my little “Cropadile” worked pretty well (Scrapbooking tools). This is a eyelet setter..and I thought about even putting the eyelets in. I still may later, that may make it a little more quiet when they are stringing the shoe laces! (about 14” shoelaces are good length)

If you have any to share, please leave the ideas or blogs or websites in my comments! Thanks a bunch! Hope you enjoy!!

 

Back to Munchkin Land

Munchkin Monday 1

I know it’s TUESDAY! So, this is a day late this week..but,

I’m going to start a “Munchkin Monday”. This will just be an idea or two or three of things to do with the kiddos! I’m getting ready to start participate in a little mom-run preschool group, so I will be looking for and needing a lot of ideas! Here is a place I can share ideas I like so I don’t forget them, as well as share some that we do in our group as well as just me and my kids at home!!

HOMEMADE PLAY DOUGH

Playdough is a must for any toddler’s! This is the best recipe I have found for making your own!!

2 C. Flour

2. C. Warm Water

1 C. Salt

2 Tbsp. Vegetable Oil

1 Tbsp. Cream of Tarter (helps w/elasticity)

Combine all ingredients over low-med/lo heat and stir with a wooden spoon until it starts to thicken like mashed potatoes. KEEP stirring (–use those muscles you didn’t know you had ~at least, I didn’t!) until the dough starts to pull away from the pot (looking like bread dough) and starts to become dry and feels like playdough.

When it feels like playdough, remove the pan from heat and allow the dough to cool enough to handle.

TIP: If it is still sticky, you just need to cook it a little bit longer..it WILL work!

Once it is cool enough to handle, you can divide the dough and carefully add a few drops of food coloring at a time, kneading it into the dough, until you reach desired color. Use gloves if you like, my hands are currently yellow! ;) I made a divot in the dough, added a few drops of coloring and carefully (reason my hand is yellow!) turned the dough over, kneading it until the coloring was all incorporated. I made a double batch in this picture, but had already given a little away, and my son had already been playing and mixing colors with it as well!(hence the first bag of dough!) I store them in individual Ziploc bags, and then in a covered container. My last batch lasted almost a year before I threw it out, but it could have gone a little longer!

(will start out looking like this)

SENSORY BOX

This next one is a sensory “Bean Box” that my son LOVES to play with! He pours the beans back and forth, sorts them by size and color, and just plays. I have thrown some measuring cups and spoons I got at the dollar store in, w/a couple little play kitchen toys. The other container has a stove coil I drew on the bottom with a permanent marker..needs to be redrawn, but he can use it to pour, or pretend to cook. and a few other little toys. He loves this box! I had a bunch of beans in my food storage that were expired, so that’s what I used. I’ve also seen this done with popcorn kernels, as well as rice!

I spread out a mat (shower curtain actually, also from the dollar store) under the box and he knows to keep all the beans on the mat. So he can dump them out and play but they have to stay on the mat!

If you have any to share, please leave the ideas or blogs or websites in my comments! Thanks a bunch! Hope you enjoy!!

Back to Munchkin Land

Painting the Snow

I’m not sure where I saw this idea.. but I just got a couple spray bottles from the Dollar Tree and put some water and food coloring in them. He had a blast painting the snow!

Bow and Arrow w/Quiver

My dad actually made the bow and arrows. Mom and I saw them at a craft fair and told him what to do.. then I made the quiver last night.. my son has been BEGGING me ALL DAY to play with it, but it’s just too cold outside. :( but we took some pics anyway! This has so far, been his most favorite Christmas present!

hehe.. HE insisted on LOTS of pictures and made sure to say “CHEESE” Every time..if I snapped too soon..he made me re-take.. lol.. that’s a first!

He’s a GOOD little shot too.. amazes me at 3 years old!

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