A "Dog" Craft (or... maybe some other animal...)

The first thing Saturday morning M wanted to do "art". I was a little bleary-eyed, but that was ok, you can't hold back a creative genius just because you are tired. ;)

So I asked him, "do you want to make a collage, do you want to paint, or do you want to draw with your markers?" I'm thinking, do I need to get out the glue, paint, what? M had a confused look on his face, and said, "No, Mommy, I want to make a DOG!" A dog? Well, that's a bit specific for a tired mama brain on a Saturday morning, isn't it? He normally isn't that specific in his art requests. Maybe we are entering the "crafty project" stage.

Anyway, the wheels slowly started turning in my head, and I came up with something that made him happy, but doesn't really look like any dog I've ever known. I'm not sure what it is. Anyway, it was fun, and that is what counts, right?

IF you want to make this same... um, creature... here's what you'll need:

paper bag, marker, scissors, paint in the color of your child's choice, something to paint with (we used a sponge), 2 googley eyes, glue, and 3 brads (if you want moving parts, and, honestly, who doesn't?). You'll also need a piece of cardstock or some heavy paper to glue the "dog" to.

1. Draw your dog parts on the paper bag - body, head, 4 legs/feet, tail, 2 ears:

2. Paint the dog parts with color of choice. M chose white. White didn't really go with the weiner type dog I had in my mind's eye and had already drawn on the paper bag; I was thinking more along the lines of brown, but he was not to be swayed. He knew what he wanted.

3. After the paint dries, cut out your pieces. The nice thing about painting on paper bags is that the paint soaks in and dries fairly quickly. You'll appreciate this if you have a child who is as impatient as mine is.

4. Glue the body of the dog onto your cardstock paper, then glue on the head, eyes, and feet as well.


6. Poke holes in the paper where you want the ears and tail to go, then poke a brad through each ear and the tail and then into the holes. Flip the paper over and open the brad prongs so they secure the pieces to the dog. (I'm so sorry I can't find the picture I took of this step, but you can see from the next couple of pictures where we attached the pieces with the brads.)

7. Use your marker to draw the nose and mouth. If you are a better artist than me (and you probably are) you could draw the head of the dog a little differently instead of using a plain old circle, and it might actually look like a dog when you are done! Imagine!

8. Tape it up and let your child "wag" the dog's tail and flop his ears around. What fun!

Enjoy! And have a beautiful day! :)

Tot School

(Matthew is 34 months)

My first Tot School post! I have read Carisa's blog daily for over a year now and it has been incredibly inspiring to me. I've been doing what she calls "tot school" with M for quite a long time, and one of the decision makers about whether or not to start my own blog was the fact that I was just so darn excited to be able to share what we do for our tot school time together.

Warning: my son has taken to wearing just his underwear around the house lately, so please excuse the lack of modesty. :)

We played with blocks a lot, building houses for his little action figures. He has really been into blocks lately, which I love to see.

We did these little wooden puzzles together:
We did our foam number puzzle. He hammers the numbers in while I tell him what they are. He really is not into numbers right now, so I keep trying to get him interested. Usually anything involving a hammer will catch his attention. We got this idea from Carisa, who does it with her tot with a foam ABC puzzle.
We worked with our Melissa and Doug Lacing Bead set. I tried showing him how to make a square, circle, square, circle pattern, but again... he was not all that interested. He did learn the word "cylinder" though!

We worked with our pattern blocks for a while. I have the magnetic kind and we put the pattern cards on a cookie sheet to do them. He stayed with this activity longer this time than he has in the past. He loved doing the helicopter, the robot, and the wagon. And he learned the word "rombus". It's so cute to hear him say words like "rombus" and "cylinder". :)

He stuck some car stickers on the little crate he keeps his matchbox-style cars in. I take the sticky part around the stickers off the page for him - it seems to help him get the stickers off a little more easily. Towards the end both he and I were covered in stickers. :)

We also played a lot of bingo. This is a picture of him playing it yet again with Daddy, giving me a break from all the bingo (we really have been playing it a lot). I printed the set out from this site, and we use buttons for markers. It's great for learning to take turns, counting, and to develop vocabulary.
That's it for this week. For more tot school ideas visit here!

Have a beautiful day! :)