Spooky Binoculars for Kids

Unfortunately for Lorelei she had to stay home sick today while Daddy and Hannah went out. We are also missing a local festival full of apples, pony rides, crafts and a petting zoo plus so much more. That makes me sad as well, but hopefully we can get up and out to make the festival on its last day tomorrow.

Now onto what we did this morning just the two of us. We were first introduced to the project by Jennifer during preschool and Lorelei wanted to make it again! (I think that's a pretty good project if a kiddo wants to do it again.) 

I scavenged through the craft cupboard to find these items:

We did pull out a glue stick to help the binoculars stick to the felt. And yes to all of you wondering if that is my kiddo on the table. Shhhh...don't tell her father! Too funny. I thought it would be okay this time considering the climbing one year old wasn't here to see it happen.

After Lorelei glued the toilet paper rolls to the felt using a glue stick/wet glue combo I cut the excess, but left just a bit. It looked like this:

I cut slits where I needed them and folded them in. In the end I wasn't thrilled and I wanted to use the stapler, but Lorelei thought it would ruin it. We left it like this:

We used some spooky decorations to give them a Halloween feel. (This is all we are talking about in our house as well as watching a lot of scary Scooby Doo episodes from back in the day. Today she was watching one and she said "I'm a little scared, but I like it." To each his own I guess.) Here is what the binoculars looked like:

This is after I added a loop to hang it. (Why do words leave me so...you know what I mean..a loop.)

Viola. Lorelei loves them! Here is my pajama clad, at home sick three year old Lorelei in love with her new set of binoculars. She even wanted to sleep with them at nap time.

What do you think? Please leave any other craft ideas or links to something you have done with your preschool and toddlers. I would love to give it a try! Thanks!

Preschool: Introduction (A Warm Welcome)

So you may or may not have read my debates within the past few months about preschool and whether or not Lorelei was going to go to public school or stay home this year. If you're curious and have yet to read the debates click here for the first debate and here for part 2.

Okay, now that we're ready I'll let you in on what we did for our first day of preschool. Remember we are all moms with the best of intentions and are learning the ropes so be kind. To introduce the kiddos to preschool we let them play for about five minutes so they could get their wiggles out before we sat them down. After a few minutes the kids were more than ready to sit down and paint! 

We got out a banner I put together out of a roll of paper I got off of our easel from home. I simply wrote out the word "Preschool" to introduce them to our upcoming (nine week) lesson plan on letters. We talked about the letters on the banner and associated them with their names. (Our goal is for the kids to learn at their own pace and get the individual attention they need while having a nurturing learning environment.) They picked their letters and paint colors and got to painting.

Lorelei: I swear she enjoyed the painting more than this photo is showing. Too funny, she saw the camera aim her way and she blanked. I was impressed with her painting skills and happy she enjoyed the time with others.

Zeke (Momma from A Beautiful Life): Had a wonderful time mixing the colors! He also knows a lot of letter sounds. I was very impressed.

"E" (Momma from A Day's Journal): Was very polite and painted within the lines. She could also write her name which was very impressive.

The girls stayed the longest. Here they are finishing up the banner. Our goal is to put it up during each class so the kids understand the difference between a play date and school. Let's cross our fingers. 

Recess after snacks (Sheri provided yummy snacks which included peanut butter crackers. Lorelei immediately asked me for some for her house). The kids played Ring Around the Rosie among other games.

It wasn't easy to get all three of kids with their people. I cut out the people and clothes before hand from construction paper. Jenn brought the "google" eyes and the kids decorated. "E" quite enjoyed the activity while I was impressed with Zeke adding the shorts in for the letter A and Lorelei really loves her creative outfits doesn't she.

We have a plan for next week and we will be starting with the theme "Sky" and will introduce the letters A, B, and C with individual associations. We would also like to get a book in next week! Wish us luck. Overall though I think it was a wonderful success. The kids told us their favorite parts, other things they want to learn later and their little brothers and sisters played nicely!

If you have any other ideas or thoughts please share!

Make Your Own Doll House

Something that we have plenty of in this house are diaper boxes. They come into this house often and I always wonder what to do with them. I have used them to store old baby clothes, made them into doll beds with Lorelei's help, made one into a stuffed animal bus, recycled them and now made one into a doll house.

This box kept staring me in the face every time I rounded the corner so finally we got out our craft paper, glue and scissors and got to work. We started the doll house on Friday early in the morning and then had company so we set it aside.

Lorelei has been asking me all weekend if we were going to finish the doll house because she wanted to play with it. Today was the day.

When we were finished Lorelei put all kinds of guys to work in the house.

I couldn't help myself but to take some pictures. This is Lorelei's painting she made including the frame. She also was the one to glue it up and pick the spot in the house.

The other painting she made. I was the one who cut out the rectangles for her. She painted the picture, chose the spot of color she liked best, I cut it out and she glued it up.

Here is the view of the house. She helped cut out windows and the carpet. Lorelei also chose all the colors for everything and decided where everything should go. She sometimes told me where to glue it or she glued it herself.

Here she is playing with her doll house. I think she liked it. The brown piece of paper you see is a couch. When she started playing she asked "but where's the couch?" when I made the couch she then asked "but where's the remote? They need to watch T.V." The T.V. is the black rectangle she glued above the black and purple bookcase. She did choose the colors of the bookcase and told me what to draw in it as well.

Gluing the back of her painting, Lorelei is working on her house. She is always very serious when working on craft projects. That or she is goofing around and not listening. Mostly serious though.

Even Hannah climbed up into the chair and wanted to help. This is a painting Lorelei had already made, but Hannah was content just watching the activity.

More playing with her house! She absolutely loved it. The joy on her face was priceless. I watched her more than anything. Her role playing skills are reaching a whole new level of cuteness.

The finished product. This is how Lorelei set up the guys so they could all watch T.V. I learned something with this activity. 1) it was a little advanced 2) she loves telling me what to do 3) the glitter lights that are on the ceiling are too messy. She dumped the glitter.

This project was a bit hectic, but in the end she really loved it and loves playing with it so I am happy with how it turned out in the end. I would offer advice of breaking the project into a couple of days if it's with a younger child and relax. Messes will happen, but let the kids enjoy the crafting. You too!

Get Crafty

Beautiful and gorgeous are the best descriptions of the lake view out of my window today. It's calm and just gorgeous. It makes me want to just dive right in and stay forever. (That is if I didn't have an odd fear of deep water, but I still love the water none the less.) As gorgeous as it is outside Lorelei wanted to do some craft projects today.

I promptly started grabbing ribbon, glue, feathers, cut out shapes and whatever else I could get my hands on just in case it was needed. I had my mother drop off some grocery type paper bags from a local store earlier in the day so we were already prepared. We already have numbers of feathers that have been collected and on display in my daughters room.

Think back to either your days in kindergarten or your children's. You probably remember the early days of learning letters and coloring. Learning to share and play house. One thing I remember was our day of pow wow. We made the head bands and vests with many decorations and sat down on the floor to eat rice off of small plates with our fingers.

I was not prepared with the rice today, but the project. Lorelei helped cut the fringe at the bottom of the medium sized paper bag after I had cut the slit all the way from the top of the bag straight through the bottom. I cut out a circle for the head in what was the bottom of the bag and opened the bag to make the arm holes.

Ready to decorate, Lorelei covered the bag with glue and started gluing on shapes. She colored on it with markers to make a design and we glued on a ribbon. She really wanted to put glitter on it, but I was too nervous about it being consumed by my smallest child and ending up on the floor. It's different when it's on a project she's going to end up wearing.

I think the bow was her favorite part. She tried to tie it into a bow herself many times and I was enjoying her immense concentration.

This is the beginning of putting the ribbon on and

Lorelei just getting the idea to tie it into a pretty bow.

Ah. A pretty bow indeed.

Lorelei loves these stamps by Melissa and Doug. Their products are amazing.

She called herself "A Feather Princess."

I think that is a wonderful name.

The project was fun and the outfit is silly. I think she enjoyed making and seeing it the first time than actually wanting to play in it, but the look on her face when she was done and running to the mirror was priceless.

I recently (always really) went through some old pictures and I noticed a few pictures that needed to make it out of their vault. Here are a few things I've missed sharing with you.

Hannah's cool trick.

I am more than impressed by Lorelei's Father's Day card. I had to write in what it was that she drew. I wrote down everything she told me to as well.

The Front. I cut out the letters and sat them down on the table so she knew how to spell it and she glued them on. She chose yellow for the stars and colored on the paper before I cut the stars out. I also helped put the glue down and she put down the glitter.

For other project ideas please check out Potato Stamps and also click here.

Pink and Purple Panda Puppet

After a long weekend of camping, hiking, the beach, playgrounds and so many other fun stuff with family and their dad the girls were quite tired. They fell straight to sleep last night right on time and even slept in a little bit this morning. My coffee didn't taste all that great this morning so I have made a mental note to change the filter (or kindly ask my loving husband).

Hannah fell back to sleep very early for her morning nap so Lorelei and I played and made Lincoln Log cabins. After nap Hannah was up and ready for a snack. Grapes and Froot Loops were the snack of choice today. While I was getting our pink and purple panda puppet set up Lorelei played with stickers and stamps.

The high chair must have bored Hannah because she quickly wanted down while I was still working on the project with Lorelei. Lorelei enjoyed the project and took it very seriously. She told me everything the panda needed and I cut out the shapes and she glued the pieces on. Lorelei's mid joy I hear a "sploosh" sound. This sound was half of the bag of Froot Loops splooshing to the ground from Hannah's tiny and capable hands. Apparently she is getting taller and can reach more places.

Here are some pictures of the project we worked on this morning, the pink and purple panda puppet and Hannah's personal project that she decided to work on.

Checking out the progress of her puppet. Pretty good if you ask me. She glued after I cut out the pieces she said we needed and we added google eyes.

When she got done and started playing with it she decided she wanted arms and legs too.

While I was cutting out the legs and arms this is what Hannah did to entertain herself. Froot loops. Yum.

Gluing on her arms and legs to finish off her panda. She wanted to keep his belly brown, but in the end we cut out a round belly to finish him off.

Finishing the project. I might suggest cutting out the shapes ahead of time to avoid any confusion with siblings and what they might be up to, but I really enjoyed it and I think Lorelei did too. She kept comparing him to her stuffed panda. What do you think? Does it look like a panda?

Potato Stamps

The plan for the day involved the beach and the beach only. Sounds relaxing doesn't it? Especially when you include naps in between. Well, we were rained out. It doesn't look like the weather had our plan in mind. So when you can't go outdoors you plan crafts in my house.

I had read on another blog yesterday that she had used potato stamps to decorate her kids clothing. I was inspired, but I'm not sure if I'm that enthusiastic or that talented with a potato. Being in the experimental stage I wanted to make it fun for the girls too.

First I halved a few old potatoes.

Next I tried a couple of different techniques to get the actual shape to appear on the potato. First I tried to use the tip of the potato peeler and created a circle. Then I carved it out with a mix of the steak knife and potato peeler. Using these tools made it a bit messy and the technique wasn't easy. In the end what worked best for me was drawing my shape out with the tip of a tooth pick. After making a deep outline with the tooth pick I used the steak knife to slice from the outside of the potato in to my tooth pick design. I plucked off the excess and viola. A potato stamp.

I took some paper from the easel and taped it down onto the table and dressed Lorelei in something I didn't mind getting paint on. The paint did say washable, but you can't be too careful. I completely took Hannah's clothes off because you just never know where the paint might end up with a one year old.

Hannah wasn't interested one bit as it was closing in on her morning nap time. Instead of the stamps I squirted out some finger paint for her. She still wasn't interested. Lorelei however was super excited. I used an old lid from a shoe box to squirt the paint in and an old make up brush as the paint brush.

The potato was very easy for her to hold and I didn't have to worry about it slipping or making a mess. Plus the make up brush was large and covered the stamp easily. She mixed her paint and stamped away.

She washed up easily with the Crayola washable Kid's Paint pack we used too. The clean up was super easy with practically no washing, because I used such a large piece of paper that covered the table and the "stamps" just got thrown out. I wiped the paint "tray" out and am letting it dry on the counter while the brush just gets rinsed.

What I learned: Next time I wont cut the potatoes in half with a steak knife. They left lines in the stamps. I might even dry the potatoes a little bit after rinsing them. Over all it was great fun and we all enjoyed ourselves. (Except Hannah who went down for a nap while the project was still progress.)

I might suggest adding other objects to your stamps like paper towel or news paper as well. Crumple them up and let the kids make different designs. Kids love to see what the results will be with different objects, techniques and shapes.

Ducks in a row. Oh, now mom needs a little smile too.

Elephant Cake: Better Late Than Never

My oldest turned three over a month ago, but I wanted to share with you the cake I made for her birthday. First I asked her what she wanted her theme to be. She at just over two and half asked back "thumb" and in a confused manner held her thumb up and stared at it. She answered "elephant." I can't remember now, but she wanted her "pointer" finger to be another animal. Too cute that girl.

After explaining to her what a theme was she still wanted an elephant to be the focus of her third birthday party. I was very worried that she wouldn't like the elephant when it finally became time, but she told everyone she was very excited about her elephant cake. She would invite everyone she spoke with and told them they could have a piece of the elephant cake too.

This is a picture of the finished product:

It's quite simple really.

To begin I chose my design and if you can see the invitation is on the table there. I made up a large elephant on a piece of my daughters plain white craft paper and let her paint it with water colors. When it was complete I wrote up the information and a joke for the back and had my husband scan, shrink and print.

Next I took my rectangular cake pan and traced it side by side on another piece of large white paper. I drew the elephant on the inside of the large rectangle to make my pattern. I chose my cake mix (Betty Crocker) and baked two cakes. I placed them side by side on this large pizza tray my parents lent me and put my pattern on the cake. I used a bread knife to slowly cut the pieces off from around my shape.
This is what the shape looked like when I was done. Not so pretty yet.

My daughter chose the color purple for her elephant cake days, even weeks ahead of time. I mixed the colors according to the box on the back of my dye. I used two cans of frosting and after thoroughly stirring I applied it to the two sheets of cake. I added a tail from a piece that had been cut off in the shaping process.

I outlined the design of the elephant to match the invitation and viola. You have an elephant. I added in The Happy Birthday sentiments to my daughter and later added the elephant cookies (which took most of the day may I add) as a corner decoration. Scroll back to the top for the completed version of this cake. It was quite yummy too!

Projects to Do With the Kids

There are the ever most popular and beloved finger paintings, coloring books, water color paintings, crazy shape cutting, and many other basics we can do with our kids, but sometimes it's fun for me to make something special from all the basics or beef them up a bit.

We have used old diaper boxes and made them into baby doll beds and school buses for 'L' so her guys could ride around inside them. I unfortunately didn't take any pictures of this escapade but I can explain.

Bus

1. Let the toddler/preschooler apply glue to one side of the diaper box after you folded in or cut off the top flaps yourself.

2. After the side of the box is saturated undoubtedly in glue help apply the choice of color your child chose for their bus. We chose yellow. (Repeat this step until all sides are covered)

3. While the glue is drying help cut out rectangles for shapes. I made long strips out of basic construction paper and let her cut across to make the rectangles. Also make larger shapes for the front window and back windows.

4. Let toddler/preschooler apply glue to the backs of the rectangles and help guide them to where the windows should go. Let them have fun. If one is out of place let it be. It'll still be a bus to them.

5. If you are comfortable with your drawing skills ask your child who they want to drive the bus and ride in the back. Draw faces of animals or family members in the windows. In our case Daddy "drove" the bus and the family as well as many animals rode in back.

6. Add any personal touches like sparkles or stickers if you'd like. This would also work for the people riding the bus if you'd like.

7. Finishing details like dividing the doors with a line and adding handles, lights etc.

Your bus is complete! Let your child enjoy their new homemade toy they had a hand in making.

Baby Doll Bed

1. Using an old diaper box you now have two options. You may cut the corners half way and fold or cut the remaining flaps to make shorter sides or you may later add a pillow to fluff up the middle. We made both beds.

2. Choose the color of the baby doll bed and let your toddler/preschooler apply glue to one side of the box and help apply the paper. Repeat until all sides are covered.

3. Choose stickers, paints, crayons or cut out more shapes and glue to the sides to let your child express themselves.

4. Finish the project with your own personal touch. I added a small beach pillow for the mattress and let her use her old receiving blankets for baby doll blankets.

All done! Let your child enjoy her reward after all of her hard work; the baby doll bed!

Another project we ventured in was a bouquet of roses or daffodils. This was a lot of fun because she got to collect some things from the beach and I used what I had lying around the house.

Fake Flowers in a Vase

1. Choose your vase. You can use an old one you have lying around, a plastic cup or one of your kids cups. I had a plastic, pink vase lying around after receiving it as a gift when 'H' was born.

2. Go to the beach and have fun! You can go to the beach, park, playground or your backyard, but make it fun. Let your child choose all of the fun stuff like rocks or shells to go inside the vase to hold down your small vase.

3. Go home and collect the rest of your supplies. I used bendy straws for the stems but you can use colorful pipe cleaners if you'd like. For the pedals we used baking cups in the traditional size and the small size for tiny cupcakes.

4. Fill your vase with all of your goodies. You may clean whatever you found first if you wish.

5. Mom, poke holes in the center of your baking cups after counting out how many flowers you would like to make. You can double up the baking cups to make numerous pedals or just use one per stem. Let your child decide.

6. Let your child slide the baking cup onto the bendy straw. We cut a bit of the tip off being that it would stick out too far through the flower. The baking cup will stick well to the "bendy" part of the straw if you did not make your center cut too large.

7. Add any personal touches like leaves made from more pipe cleaners or construction paper glued or taped on. My daughter didn't want to make leaves but wanted to add pieces of straw in the bottom with the rocks and shells so more flowers had a chance to grow.

Sit back and take a break. Display your childs beautiful vase of flowers in their room or in the center of your table. 'L's is still in her room to this day.

You can also make maracas out of old water bottles. For little fingers you can use macaroni noodles and let them drop them in. Older kids might like using a funnel and spilling in rice. You can decorate the outside with stickers, paper or even paint. Another favorite is making masks out of paper plates. We enjoy making crowns out of construction paper. I'll even ask 'L' for an animal and I will cut out a frog for instance, but add a construction paper band for a crown. She ran around in this crown until it fell apart. Which in some cases may be very quickly!

I hope you enjoyed some of these ideas. Don't forget to check out more sites like www.babycenter.com or other mommy sites for more projects and check back here for more crafts in the future. You can come up with your own ideas too! Make them kid friendly and they don't need to be gorgeous but they do need to be fun and age appropriate. Enjoy the time with your children.