Go take a peek…

Take a look at my newest post over at The Homeschool Classroom, where I share some fun ideas for an artsy St. Patrick’s Day!  
Have a beautiful day! :)
 

Preschool Craft – Cardboard Tube People

We made these silly and fun little guys a few weeks ago, and they’ve been joining us for meals ever since. :)
M actually inspired this craft by drawing  a face on a cardboard tube and sticking a big pom pom on it’s head.  Alas, that little guy has been lost, but when I found some face stickers at Michael’s I knew exactly what we’d use them for.

Supplies:Glue, pipe cleaners, pencil, buttons, large pom poms, cardboard tubes (toilet paper size), googley eyes, face stickers (or other items to make a face), and construction paper strips cut to half the size of your tubes, and long enough to go all the way around them.

I got the face stickers at Michael’s, but you could also use markers, buttons, and small pom poms for facial features.  We made our large pom poms (for the hair) from yarn. 

Wrap a tube with a piece of construction paper and glue in place:
Add details to the “shirt” with buttons or a marker, and add your facial features:The pencil is lying inside the tube to weight it down so it won’t roll while the face and shirt decorations are added.

Wrap a pipe cleaner around the pencil and slide it off.  This makes it “twirly” (and it’s just fun to do):
Poke holes in the sides of your tube, and stick the pipe cleaners in for arms.  After doing this I realized they would stay in better if we had threaded one long pipe cleaner through both arm holes, then twirled the arms around a pencil.  Our arms kept falling out, so I eventually put a dot of glue on them inside the tube.

Pop on the pom pom hair, and you’ve got some pretty cool tube people:

Give ‘em a snack:        
These guys are so much fun to play with! :)  It is especially hilarious if they run across the table, then lean over to look at the food on your child’s plate, and their “hair” falls out. ;)  Good times!

Have a beautiful and funny day! :)
 

Learning by Heart – January

“The mother’s heart is the child’s schoolroom”
– Henry Ward Beecher

The sweet deer that visit us weekly at our nature center.
  We are getting to be good friends with these graceful and beautiful animals. :)

I’m not sure where the time has gone this month!  We haven’t done a ton of learning activities, but we are slowly getting back into the swing of things.  I’m re-thinking and re-planning some things as we go.  I’ll try to just hit the highlights of this month in this post (sorry if it gets too long!).

~M is 4 years old~

SHELF ACTIVITIES
(independent or semi-independent activities)

Mostly, I’ve been rotating toys on M’s shelves this month.  New toys from Christmas make this easy to do for a while.  I have plans to create a page where I can list all the activities I rotate on the shelves for M, because I think it’s fun to read that kind of thing, but also because I think it gets kind of tedious on these weekly posts to keep listing the same things time after time.  I will, however, make sure to mention any new items that I put out for him.

Folding:

M folds laundry like a pro (towels and washcloths mostly), but has been practicing his paper-folding skills since we got this great little book.  He loves this book, and I let him do as many pages as he wants.  He tends to get obsessed with something until he has mastered it; apparently this is just what makes him happy and how he learns best, so I don’t really follow the rule of stopping an activity while he’s still enjoying it.  Doing that frustrates him and makes him less likely to take it up again.  Here’s a little example of what this book is like:

See the little mouse?

Eek!  It’s really a giant elephant! ;)

It is so much fun – I’m not much of a fan of traditional workbooks, but the Kumon group of books is excellent.

 

Cutting and Pasting – I cut construction paper in several colors to size, hole-punched the edges, stuck it all in a 3-ring binder and gave it to M for his own photo album: He has his own digital camera (an old camera of ours that doesn’t have a memory card, but takes about 20 pictures at a time), so I’ve been printing out some of his photos for him.  He loves to cut them out and place them on the pages.  He actually uses double-stick tape most of the time for the “pasting” part of this.  I think it will be so much fun for him to look back through when he’s older.  It’s not the best quality, but it’s simple, inexpensive, fun, and a good way to sharpen those scissor skills. :)

As you can see, he’s fond of self-portraits, hee hee:

 

Mazes and dot-to-dots - I also made a little book of these for M.  The mazes were from another Kumon book, and the dot-to-dots were something I found on Amazon.  I cut off the binding and placed each page in a page protector, then all of it went into another 3-ring binder:

This has been a big hit with him.  There are, I think, roughly 80 mazes – great for reasoning skills and fine motor skills.  The dot-to-dots each go up to 100, which is a real challenge for him right now, and we normally do those together.  Since the pages are all in page protectors, he uses a dry-erase marker to do them, erases them with a piece of felt, and then does them over and over again.  I think this will be a great car-trip book!

Math: Not much has been done on this front, although M continues to enjoy counting anything and everything.  One day he decided he wanted to count to 100 and surprised himself by actually doing it. :)  He only needs a little help once in a while, and he does not recognize the written higher numbers, but wants to, so that’s what we’ll do next. 

Science: M loves doing this: 

Mixing colors of water in an ice cube tray.  He asked to do this, which he does from time to time.  It’s one of his favorite things.  He likes to watch the colors mix, use the pipette, etc.  Normally he then asks for these ice cubes when he’s taking a bath, and enjoys watching them melt and color the bath water.

We’ve been doing one mama-led science experiment per week, and I’ll post about these at Science Sunday on Ticia’s blog – stay tuned!

As you may know, M is obsessed with all things electric, especially light bulbs and batteries.  He has been itching to know how these things are made, and I found a couple of interesting you tube videos about just that – How Light Bulbs are Made, and How Batteries are Made.  He was fascinated by the machines that make these things and loved the videos, although I’m not sure how much he really understood (the voice over sounds like a computer voice and has what might be a British accent).  I was pretty fascinated too!

 

Literacy:  We’ve been reading, reading, and reading some more these past weeks.  We are content for now for that to be the main thing in this area.  Actually, more than content, we are loving it.  I feel like we’ve found so many great books lately, which I hope to post about soon.  I’ve decided to wait until this fall to start any book units with extension activities – that’s what we will do if M doesn’t go to a “real” preschool then.  We’ve been reading chapter books at lunch over several days, and picture books for about 1/2 hour each afternoon (snuggle time!).  M’s comprehension of the longer books continues to amaze me.  Sometimes he understands things I don’t even catch!  He’s developing a real love of books, which makes this mama very happy. :)

He is also a rhyming fiend.  Everything has to rhyme lately – oh goodness, you can imagine the nonsense going on here.  Things like, “Mommy, did you ever see a bug licking a fug?”  {Sigh}  or “Are you a dishwasher, made out of fishfasher?”  {Sigh again}

I found some great nursery rhyme sequencing cards here.  I made a little cardstock mat to place them on: 

I printed out several sets of sequencing cards, and by looking at the cards, M was usually able to tell which poem they were for.  Then we’d say it together and then he’d say it again, while setting the cards out, in order, on the appropriate square.  He really enjoyed this.  I’ll probably set this out on his shelf with more cards for him to do independently.

 

Karen at Prekinders has these fantastic rhyming mats and cards, which we also did.  M always enjoys doing these!

 

Art:  We’ve started going to a weekly music class – it’s very informal – lots of playing around with a great assortment and variety of instruments, some movement songs, and lots of rhythm activities.  We enjoy it a lot, but I’ve noticed it’s the same activities, in the same order each week.  Occasionally there’s a new song thrown into the mix, but there just isn’t enough variety to keep us interested in going each week.  There are only 6 more sessions, so I think we’ll try to make it to 2 or 3 more.  It could be such a wonderful program if a little more effort went into the planning.

As far as other art – this drawing cracks me up:

It’s just a regular drawing of him, but see the rectangle drawn around him?  And how his feet aren’t touching the bottom?  It’s M jumping!  Hee hee, I love it.

We’ve also been doing one planned art project per week.  Most recently, we colored on white construction paper with crayons, then rubbed over it with mineral oil.  This was an idea from one of Mary Ann Kohl’s books (can’t think of which one right now), and it was supposed to make the colors brighter.  It didn’t really seem to be working, so I showed M how to make a loopy design and then color in each open area, hoping that with more color all over the paper it would work better.

It worked okay, and actually the oil made the paper seem more like a thick vellum, which was pretty neat.  We hung the finished artwork in the window to be a suncatcher, but unfortunately we haven’t had much sun lately.

 

Miscellaneous:  Lately I wander around my house, seeing things like this:

M has definitely mastered his screwdriver skills, and I realized that I really don’t need to worry about providing many fine motor skill activities for him anymore. :)

 

This is a little old, but every year, once Christmas is finished, we set our tree outside and make treats for the animals:

We also read The After Christmas Tree, by Linda Wagner Tyler:   which talks about the tree’s “second season of giving”. 

 

Finally, I’m not sure what category this falls into, but it was fun!  I filled a bowl with water, added a bunch of small objects, and let it freeze outside overnight.  The next day M chiseled away at it to get all the little things out.  He really enjoyed this!

 

Hope your winter is full of coziness! 

 

I’m linking this post up to Preschool Corner, Friday Wrap Up,and Weekly Wrap-Up; be sure to check them out!

Have a beautiful day! :)

 

Preschool Art – Epiphany Stars and Corn Syrup Painting

Today is the 12th day of Christmas – are your little drummers drumming?  If they aren’t, I bet they will if you tell them they can. ;)  I’m sure mine will, although that’s only one drummer, not twelve.  I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be ok with it if I had twelve drummers!

Tomorrow is Epiphany, and we’ll be moving the wise men all the way to the stable, where they finally get to see the baby they’ve been looking for.  They will bring gifts, and I plan to have a little something (a very little $5.00 something) for them to give to M also.

We decided to make some stars to help celebrate, and I turned it into a full-fledged art project by introducing a technique we’ve never tried before – painting with corn syrup.  This was fun and I wished we’d tried it sooner.  It is not as messy as it sounds!

Here’s what you’ll need:Corn syrup, food coloring, small paint brushes, glitter, craft sticks, and stars cut from cardboard or cardstock.  And, because I just wouldn’t be me if I included all the supplies in the photo, we also used parchment paper, double-stick tape, scissors, and an ice cube tray.

First, pour a puddle of corn syrup onto one of the stars: 

Then use a craft stick to spread it out towards the points.  You want to cover the entire star:

Next, squeeze on a couple of drops of food coloring: 

And use the pointy end of a paintbrush to swirl the colors (you could use a toothpick or skewer for this too, obviously):

We loved watching the colors swirl around – so pretty!

Keep swirling out towards the points, until you have it just the way you want it.  We should have left it at that, because it was beautiful.  However, M was sure a little glitter would be great, and a little glitter probably would have been fine.  I think I liked it better before the glitter, but apparently I forgot to get a photo of that.  Here’s with glitter:

You can’t tell in the photo, but the corn syrup makes it very, very shiny – perfect for a star!  It almost leaves it looking like painted glass or ceramic.

Leave them to dry overnight.  Depending on your humidity level, drying could take a couple of days.  Our air is very dry these days, and it only took one night for our stars to dry.  They look just as shiny after they are dry, but are no longer sticky.

Next, we decided to try painting our cardboard stars with colored corn syrup and paint brushes instead of a craft stick.

I poured a little corn syrup into four wells of an ice cube tray, added some food coloring, and a tiny amount of glitter: 

We each painted one star (after watching, I just had to try this for myself – it was a lot of fun!):

Painting with the paint brushes left a much thinner layer of corn syrup, which meant less mess and a shorter drying time.  However, we weren’t able to achieve the swirling effect from earlier.  The swirling was mesmerizing and beautiful to watch.  When we do this again, we will paint plain corn syrup onto our paper, then drip on food coloring and swirl.  Hopefully that will mean a thinner layer of corn syrup, while still having the swirled look.

Our finished (painted) stars:

We have company coming over for dinner tonight, and one last evening enjoying the light of our Christmas tree.  We may watch The Little Drummer Boy, read Little Star, and sing Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.  We’ll read the story of the Three Kings from M’s little Bible tomorrow and I have a little mosaic crown project set up for him (pictures of that later).

I’m linking this up to Kids Get Crafty!

Have a beautiful day! :)

Preschool Craft – happy little Christmas wreath :)

We are crafting up a storm here.  At least the last 2 projects I’ve posted about have been spur-of-the-moment type things, and this one was too.  I’m realizing that we have more time for this kind of thing when we don’t have any planned preschool activities going on.  It’s been so much fun, and freeing, that it’s causing me to re-think a lot of things right now.  But that will have to wait for another post. :)  (Which, if my track record for that kind of thing counts, means don’t hold your breath for another post, heh.)

My husband snipped a few messy branch tips off our tree and was going to put them in our composter, but I rescued them for craftiness instead. ;)

SUPPLIES for this sweet little wreath person:  snipped ends of pine branches (just a bunch of loose pine needles would work too), glue, green cardstock, googley eyes, pom pom, 1/2 of a red pipecleaner, 1/2 of a white pipecleaner, dyed macaroni, glitter glue, sequins, miscellaneous sparkly stuff (we used glitter foam snowflake stickers and some leftover glitter foam shapes from this project; other ideas are buttons, shiny ribbon, metallic paint pens… you get the idea).

First, cut a circle from your cardstock.  Depending on how many pine snips you have available, you may want a larger circle than ours; our circle’s diameter is about 5 1/2 inches.  You could also use a paper plate, and color or paint it green if you wish.

I drew a smaller circle for the face area, just to give M some idea of where to place the greenery for the wreath.

Next, glue on the facial features before anything else, this helps you get the sense of where you want the pine needles and decorations to go. M used half of a red pipecleaner for the mouth, a pom pom for the nose, large googley eyes, and macaroni pieces to make eyebrows and a moustache (this was totally his idea - I love it!).

Next, glue on the pine snips and needles!  Wherever you want them is where they should go. M felt free to let them go over the edge of the circle, and I like the bushy look of his little wreath guy.  Doesn’t he remind you of a sweet grandpa who has just woken up and needs a shave?  Or is that just me?  He totally reminds me of my beloved grandpa who would “whisker” me every morning. :)

Lastly, decorate your wreath person with all the sparkly, fun things!

M named him, “Mr. Moustache Wreath”, hee hee.  He was so proud of giving him a macaroni moustache!  We hung him up over our Advent calendar, and I love seeing his happy, and a bit crazy, little face all day long.

(I’m not sure why the pine needles look a bit brown in the pictures.  They were fresh, and don’t look brown at all in real life.  It must have something to do with the green cardstock.)

Have a beautiful day! :)