Thanksgiving Tree Idea and Template

I’ve been seeing a lot of Thanksgiving ideas online lately, so I thought I’d go ahead and share what we are planning to do this year… and hopefully every year from now on! 

A couple of weeks ago I had a whole day to myself while my husband took M to his family farm and they picked apples in the orchard.  So what did I do with my free time?  Why, I made something of course.  I can not stop myself…

We plan to do a Jesse Tree for Advent this year.  We did one last year and it was a lot of fun for M, plus a great way to sneak in a lot of quick Bible stories – one per evening. I’ll write more about the Jesse tree in November.  Anyway, I drew a tree with bare branches and then realized it would be perfect for Thanksgiving too.  I always love something that has more than one use. :)

In fact, I’m guessing there could be a lot more uses for this – like a seasonal tree to decorate with felt ornaments.  Maybe snowflakes in winter, flowers in spring, green leaves in summer, red and orange leaves in fall…

So, I uploaded the template I made, enlarged it, then printed it and cut it from some brown flannel.  Here’s the paper pinned to the fabric:  It ended up being about 24 inches long and maybe 15 to 18 inches wide (my estimation powers are not great so don’t hold me to that!).

I made another flannel board for it (foam core board and flannel) and attached it with some gold-colored tacks so the branches would not be floppy.  I plan to cut leaves from some fall-patterned scrapbook paper and we will each write one thing for which we are thankful on a leaf each evening of the week before Thanksgiving.  We’ll attach them to the tree with more tacks.  :)

I’m really excited about this idea, I think it’s going to look nice!  I’m so pleased with how the tree turned out.   And it’s going to be nice to have our focus on what we are thankful for instead of just how are we ever going to stuff all that food into ourselves.  ;)

If you are interested in making one like this, feel free to use my template.  You can download it here.  Be warned that the cutting can be a little tricky in some places.  You can find the original small version here if you need a visual to help you out while you are cutting.  This is my original drawing, so please link back here if you make this and post about it. 

Have a beautiful day! :)

Color Mixing with Play-dough

Wednesday we were stuck at home with cold, rainy weather and feeling a little cabin-feverish.  Thank goodness it’s no longer snowing, but still… we would love a little nice, sunny, beautiful autumn weather before winter really comes.  I’ve gone outside just to be outside one time so far this fall. 

Anyway, since M coughed, breathed, and just generally snotted (Check-spell is telling me that’s not a word.  Hmph.  It doesn’t know my kid.) all over his play-dough a couple of weeks ago when he was sick, it had to be thrown out.  And today we made a new batch.  :)

I love making play-dough at home – it’s all nice and warm when you knead it and the colors can be so vibrant!

We made two batches actually – one yellow, one blue: Then we took a little chunk of yellow, and a little chunk of blue and kept squeezing them together and mixing them up.I asked M what color he thought they would make.  He alternated between “dark blue” and “kinda brown”.  He always says this, no matter what colors we are mixing.  Anyway, if you are wondering – they made…. GREEN!  Just amazing, isn’t it? ;)

(Thanks to whisperingwhispers at Children Grow, Children Explore, Children Learn for this idea in an email!)

Then he played.  2 hours straight.  I’m not kidding.  He even skipped lunch. 

Here’s the best play-dough recipe I’ve come across.  I don’t even remember where I first saw it (it was at least 3 years ago).  We’ve tried lots of others, but always come back to this one:

1 Cup white flour

1/4 Cup salt

2 Tbs cream of tartar

1 Cup water

1 tsp food coloring

1 Tbs vegetable oil

Mix flour, salt, and cream of tartar in a medium-sized pot.  Add water, food coloring, and oil.  Cook and stir over medium heat 3 – 5 minutes.  When it forms a ball in center of pot, turn out and knead on lightly floured surface.  Store in airtight container or plastic bag. 

It lasts several weeks!

Have a beautiful day! :)

Our ABC Book – Letter Aa

So, here is our first post for our ABC book! Since we were doing apple activities this week, it just made sense to start with “A” is for Apples!

I saw this cute craft at Izzie, Mac & Me and knew it was perfect for our book.

M glued the big “A” , the little “a”, and a rectangle (for the tree trunk) to a piece of blue cardstock. Then he used his markers to color the pieces. I wrote which color each should be, as he has enjoyed being able to “read” the color names in other projects. He was apparently not that thrilled about coloring this time around:He put his head down like he was bored to death, but it did get colored… barely.

Then he glued “apples” to the apple tree – these were simply red holes I punched.

Next he cut some clip art of things that begin with A out and glued them to another piece of paper: (Yes, this was a different day, different jammies.)

Here’s what our A pages look like in our book. Aa craft page:

Collage page and tracing page:

There is a dry-erase marker attached to the front inside of the book, and a piece of felt to use for an eraser.

Have a beautiful day! :)

Our New ABC Book

I have finally come to terms with the fact that I just. do. not. have. time. to make lapbooks for M for every single letter of the alphabet. At least not unless I want to take, oh two years, to teach him.

They are fun for me to put together, and fun for him too, so I plan to continue making them as I have time, but they will be for when he is a bit older and we’ll use them more for fun and as a review. As I complete them I’ll post them to the left over there where it says “ABC Lapbooks”. :)

In the meantime we are making a new, no-fuss, quick ABC book. I hope to do a letter per week, but I know realistically there will be weeks when I just haven’t had time to plan anything. The format of this book will work with that because I’m working on getting it all ready at one time.

The format is pretty simple. 3 pages per letter…

1. craft page
2. collage page
3. tracing page

So, right now I’m collecting ideas in a spreadsheet for a simple craft for each letter. This will be nothing fancy! Just something to help M remember the sound the letter makes.

The collage page will be a workbox activity for him, which will look like this: A blank page except for the upper and lowercase letters in the center. And this: Another page with 5 items that begin with the letter, which he will cut out and glue around the letters on the other page. I’ll include scissors and a glue stick in his workbox.

I am having a little trouble coming up with 5 items for some of the letters. For those letters I may do something different… we’ll see. For now, those are at the end of the list so we have time to think of something.

And the 3rd page is this: A tracing page from Making Learning Fun. The yellow dashed line in the letters is there if you look hard enough! I have attached a dry-erase marker to the inside of the binder with velcro. He can use the marker to trace the letters, then erase with a piece of felt which will be kept in the pocket.

I’ll be keeping a list of our crafts on the sidebar under “Our ABC Book”. I’ll also include a link to them in my weekly Tot School posts, where you'll find any other activities we did for the letter of the week.

I’m excited about this, and eager to go through the letters and phonics a little more quickly than we have been. It will be a fun ABC book in the end that M can look through and “read” on his own.

I’d love to know if you have something similar and what you do about those troublesome letters out there like X and Z. :)

Have a beautiful day! :)

Quick Traffic Light for your Little Driver

M was driving his little spiderman truck around the house this morning, and occasionally he would stop with a blank look on his face, totally staring into space. I finally asked him “what are you doing? (meaning, are you OK?)”. He said, “I pushed on the brake and stopped because the light is red.” “Now it’s green again, bye Mommy!” :)

Now, it really is ok to let your kids just do their thing and not interfere, but whipping up a little traffic light for him seemed like such a simple thing and I was in the mood. So… here’s what I did. No pictures for most of it, yet once again. (Sorry!)

• Empty your close-to-empty tissue box
• Take it apart and put it back together inside-out.
• Tape it up with packaging tape.
• Use your coffee cup to draw 3 circles on red, green, and yellow construction paper.
• Tape them to the front (what used to be the inside of the bottom) of your box.
• Give it to your kid.
• Watch him drive up to it and stop. Hope he knows he can pretend the lights change. :)

Have a beautiful day! :)

Button Board

I just made this: Isn’t it fun?!  This will be a shelf activity for M this week, but I like how it turned out so much that I’m sharing it early.  I think it will also make a great car trip activity!

I first saw the idea for a button board at Chasing Cheerios (I can’t find the exact link), and have been meaning to make one ever since.  I had a lot of ideas to make it more boyish (hers was flowers) and thought of wheels for cars and trucks.  However, I finally decided to make it easy on myself and just made shapes. 

It will be great for learning this practical life skill and will give those fine motor skills a good workout!

It took me about an hour total to put it together.  Should’ve taken pictures, but I didn’t…. anyway, here’s what I did:

• Cut a piece of corrugated cardboard to desired size and shape.
• Choose fabric from stash to cover board.
• Decide where you want to put buttons, and mark spots with an “X”.
• Sew buttons on.  This is the not-so-fun part, especially if you choose to have 15 buttons.
• Put thin layer of glue over the cardboard and smooth fabric with buttons out on top, centered with extra to overlap onto the back.  I used decoupage glue, you could use regular white glue thinned with water, or spray adhesive.
• flip the board over and wrap edges around to the back.  Secure with duct tape or more glue, or both.
• Cut several shapes of all colors and sizes from felt.
• Cut button hole slits in each shape in the center. Felt is so great for projects like this because there is no sewing involved!
• Button your shapes onto your board! 

You could make this with more room between the buttons, and then outline the shapes on the fabric around the buttons.  Your child could then match the felt shapes to the shape outlines. 

I like it this way, even though it is a little busy looking.  M can rearrange the shapes however he wants, and come up with a new design each time.  It’s great for a shape and color review tool too!

Have a beautiful day! :)

Pay it Forward – giveaway!

I recently participated in the Pay it Forward game going on in blogland… if you know where this originated, please let me know as I would love to link to the original post.

Well, last week we received our awesome package from Whisperingwhispers at Children Grow, Children Explore, Children Learn. This is such a wonderful blog, I always love seeing what cutie-pie Selena is up too – such a smart and sweet girl!   The author has so many creative ideas, and I always get a sense of calm when reading her blog (this is high praise, I’m telling you!).  She seems like such a wise and patient grandma, she is truly a remarkable woman! :)  Thank you!!!

Here’s what she sent us: Isn’t it awesome?!?  It was addressed to M, but to be honest I ended up opening it when he wasn’t around.  I couldn’t wait to see!  (If you know me, you will not be at all surprised by that fact.)  I’m glad I did, because that cute foam visor and those racecar foam stickers are going into a fun workbox activity for him this week! :)  And I love the autumn stickers – so pretty!  I have lots of plans for those cookie cutters too!!  Thank you again, so much, Whisperingwhispers! :)  You were very generous.

So, now it’s your chance!  Here’s how it works… if you are one of the first 3 people to leave a comment on this post you will receive a little gift package from me!  Please remember to **pay it forward** and do something nice for 3 of your commenters too!

Good luck!  Have a beautiful day! :)

Tot School – October 18, 2009

M is 37 months old

Well, this week M was recovering from having a horrible cold (I guess that’s all it was, but it was a bad one) and I was trying to not get sick, and hard at work keeping a migraine at bay for the first half of the week.  We are both feeling better now!  Whew!  But, unfortunately not many pictures were taken.  M did a lot of school on his own, with me lying on the couch, opening one eye now and then to make sure he was ok. :)  I’ve taken pictures of the shelf activities he did, but not many of them were taken when M was actually doing them.  Anyway…. here we go…

First, some apple activities… (excuse M’s half-dressed state, dressing was not a priority this week, sigh).  He sorted small and large apples into baskets with tongs:He loves any activity that includes tongs! 

An apple counting book that I downloaded from Childcareland : He did this on his own one day when I was napping (Daddy was home) – I couldn’t believe it.  He sat and put apples on all the pages from 1 to 10.  I will leave it out for next week so we can do it together and actually count. :)

Same / Different cards from prekinders with apples:I laminated these and put them in a container with a dry erase marker.  M must’ve done these 5 times this week and I didn’t get a single picture.  Some of these were difficult, but he did great!

Some fall-themed lacing cards:

 

An apple file folder game where he had to match up the combination of apples on the front of the pockets, from homeschoolshare:This is a great file folder game – M loved putting the apples in the pockets.

Pockets are apparently a big hit, because he loves this color-sorting file folder game too:I printed this from Homeschool Creations, and made pockets in a file folder with the color name cards.  There are several pictures of objects in various colors that are sorted into the pockets.  I made this a long time ago and M has definitely gotten his use out of it!

We did a fun counting activity with this printout.  I have discovered that adding a clipboard to any activity makes it a ton of fun. ;)  Here’s M taking off with the clipboard in hand to go count the windows in the kitchen:(Still in his jammies at noon, yes he is.)  We had a lot of fun walking around counting items in our home.  M colored over the pictures, then I helped him write the numbers in.  Here he is very seriously making a notation with his little pink crayon, hee hee:

 

I gathered up M’s foam uppercase letters, and some wooden lowercase letters, as well as some clipart from our ABC lapbooks.  M matched the lower and upper case letters, then we sorted the images by beginning sound.  M did great with this; I have to say I was pretty proud of him!  It helped that we only had 3 letters and sounds to work with.  I think he really enjoyed this and I plan to do it in the future as we add more letters to our lapbook collection.

 

M has been making up a lot of rhymes lately, he is really into it.  So we did this rhyming card activity: These can be printed from here.  There are several to choose from and I will be making more of these.  This was  a fun activity for M and he did very well.  I wrote the words on the back (mainly for my reference so I could give M the right words – bug, not beetle for example) and put red stars on one set and blue on the other so he can sort them out first.  The red group rhymes with cards from the blue group.

 

M also helped gather in the last of our carrot crop (goodness, there were a lot): And yes, he needed to be bundled up like that – it’s been snowing on and off all week, and in the 20’s. 

We also saw more of these guys: Gobble Gobble!

Hope you all had a fabulous week and are warmer than we are here!  Go here to see more Tot School posts!

Have a beautiful week! :)

Build-a-Letter Templates

A week ago, in this post, I mentioned the letter templates and foam shapes I created for M to use in “building” letters.  There are a couple of books out there that do this same thing, but you know me – I won’t pay for something I can make myself. :) 

There has been a small amount of interest in these, and I have decided to post my templates for anyone who might want to do this too.  Click on this image:
A couple of things you should know…

1. The first two pages of the file have the shape templates that you will need to cut out and trace onto craft foam.  The rest of the pages show how to put them together for each letter.
2. I’ve made notes on the file telling how many of each shape you will need to cut from foam in order to build any letter.  However, if you want enough foam shapes to put all of the letters together at the same time, you will have to cut several more.  We do one letter at a time, then pick another letter and re-use the shapes we need.  (Sure hope that makes sense!)
3. Because the template pieces will need to overlap a little to make many of the letters, some of the lines are not showing up on the file.  For example the B: I could not figure out a way to get them all to show, so part of the lines are missing.  It was the middle of the night when I created this and I finally gave up trying!  I suggest you go over your sheets with a marker and fill in the missing parts so your child will have an easier time *seeing* how to build the letters.  This was only a problem because there was extra space around the templates in the file.  Obviously, it won’t be a problem when you are using the actual foam pieces.

If you use these and blog about them, please link back here!

Only uppercase letters are included in this, but I hope to make a set for lowercase letters sometime soon!

Have a beautiful day! :)

Books of the Week – {#7}

We have not been to the library for the past two weeks. This is probably a record for us – we usually go at least once a week. M was sick last week and I was on the verge of sick this week. Thankfully, we are both feeling much, much better! And this week I’ll share two of our favorite books from our own bookshelves. :)
First, Gregory, The Noisiest and Strongest Boy in Grangers Grove by Robert Bright. We actually have this book from my husband’s childhood stash. It is absolutely hilarious. Especially if you happen to have a “noisy” and “strong” little boy. M loves this book, but for completely different reasons than his father and I do. We love it because as Gregory goes overboard to do a simple chore for his grandmother (expecting of course that she wants him to do something strong, brave, and noisy since that’s what he is good at) it reminds us of the simplicity and fun, and plain silliness, of boyhood. M loves this book because Gregory is, well, very much like M. :) Loud, extremely energetic, and the strongest boy in Grangers Grove. Gregory wants some of grandma’s griddle cakes and to that end, he rides a bear, pushes a stubborn mule, gathers eagles’ eggs, and a lot of other silliness. He ends up getting so mad he “hollers and jumps” until “he jumped so high you couldn’t hear him holler any more”. When he comes down he lands in the well and the cold water finally subdues him a little bit. It has a very sweet ending with grandma getting a strawberry jam kiss. :)
Next, “Stand Back,” Said the Elephant, “I’m Going to Sneeze!” by Patricia Thomas. This one is a book from my childhood. My brother and I would read this to each other and laugh till we couldn’t breathe. M loves it too, and it’s pretty frequently requested at nap time. The last time the elephant sneezed, he blew monkeys out of the trees, stripes off the zebra, and spots off the leopard. He tries warning his friends that another sneeze is coming and panic ensues. Our favorite part is the crocodile’s snout turning inside out. :)
For more great book recommendations go see Mouse Grows, Mouse Learns!
Have a beautiful day! :)

Zoom Album Giveaway

Katie at Katie’s Nesting Spot is having a giveaway for a great little album from ZoomAlbums!  Go check it out – these look so awesome and like so much fun!!

Craft Time! – Paper Towel Leaf Mobile

M has had the watercolor fish mobile we made in this post hanging in his room for several months and I thought it was time to change it up a little bit.  I’ve been itching to do some sort of fall leaf craft, so that’s what we did!
I have to admit, this was a joint effort between the two of us, I did quite a bit of the work, but it was something I really enjoyed doing.  Mama needs a little craft time too sometimes! ;)
First, I drew several leaves of different shapes and sizes onto some paper towels (you can use coffee filters too, but for some reason paper towels seem to work better at having the colors spread out for us… I have no idea why).  I used an orange marker so the color would blend in with the rest of the fall colors we were using.
Then I cut the leaves out – this was the labor-intensive part for me. 
I put them on some more paper towels so the table would not get soaked, and had M scribble on them with markers and then spray them with water (note the tongue, hee hee): I had to snatch some of them away before he drenched them because after a certain point of “wetness” the colors actually started to fade away and soak into the paper towels below.
The finished leaves:
After they dried I used a needle and some white thread to string them together and then we hung them in M’s room (the brightness of the flash makes the colors look a little faded):
Have a beautiful day! :)

Gobble Gobble!

We’ve had some visitors in our backyard on and off the past few weeks… wild turkeys. :)  We live close to a creek bed and get quite a bit of wildlife, but this is the first time we’ve had turkeys just wandering around. 

Too bad my camera isn’t focusing well, the picture is a little blurry.

Perfect time of year for them, isn’t it?  They are safe with us (no hunting of course within city limits), but only barely.  My husband is itching to get out his bow and arrow.  :) 

After the first sighting M seems to think it’s perfectly normal to have them around.  We grownups still run to the windows to watch. :)

Happy Fall! :)

Our Flannel Board – part 3

Well, finally I am getting around to almost finishing up this little flannel board series!  {Part 4 will be the last part – a short one (I promise!) about games and making fun scenes for creative play time.}

Now that M is 3 years old, I’ve noticed he is much more responsive to stories told with the flannel board than he was at a younger age.  In fact, he loves it and will often re-tell a new story himself several times throughout the day and then again when Daddy comes home.  It is so much fun to see!

We don’t have a lot of felt story sets, but I have ideas for several.  Just have to find the time – you know how that goes! ;)

Here are the story sets we currently have (and links to the source, where appropriate):

• Brown Bear, Brown Bear:As you can imagine, this one is popular!  We don’t own the book but we’ve checked it out from the library enough times to have it memorized.  M loves doing this one by himself – the rhythm of the story (more like a chant), is fun in and of itself!  Be sure to check out the link above – Making Learning Fun has a ton of great ideas for this story, not just the felt set!

 

• The story of the first Thanksgiving:This set is really just a grouping of clip art from kizclub.  I used it last Thanksgiving to introduce M to some new words (it was so cute to hear him say “cornucopia”!), and this year I’ll use it to tell a simple story of the first Thanksgiving.

 

• This set is all about feelings:M had a small board book (Sesame Street’s Monster Faces) about feelings and it was the best one I found that labeled feelings in a simple way.  There was absolutely no copyright information anywhere in the book, and since Sesame Street characters are pretty easy to obtain, I had no qualms about just photocopying the pages and attaching them to felt.  These came in very handy when M was in that whiny stage around 14 months or so and we were trying to give him the words to use to describe his emotions.  I’m including this one to give you some ideas for making your own felt sets!

 

• The Little Red Hen (perfect for autumn / harvest time!):

 

• The Nativity: This is a fabulous set for telling the story of Christmas!  Last year M was not that enthralled with seeing the story on the flannel board, but he enjoyed playing with the figures!  This year I know we’ll get a lot of use out of this one, and I’m excited!

 

• Another Bible story – Jesus and the Children:This is one I simply threw together to go with the Bible story… I used clip art I found online and some online coloring pages too.  I’m sorry I don’t have the links to any of them.  I’m including it because even though it’s not as nice-looking as some of the sets, it is one of M’s favorites.  He loves telling this story and he really does not care that the size of the disciples is totally out of proportion to Jesus, or any of the other minor details that bothered me about it when I made it.

This brings me to a related topic that I would like to mention… 

Flannel board stories are fabulous especially for telling Bible stories.  They help the story come alive for the child.  I’ve really seen this with M.  Whenever we have a felt set to go along with a Bible story (or any kind of visual aid like story sequencing cards) I’ve noticed he comprehends and just enjoys the story so much more!  He also goes back and reviews the story over and over again if the pieces are left out for him. 

I am very disappointed that there are not more free resources online for Bible story felt sets.  I’ve found a few, which I’ll link to at the end of this post, and if you know of any, I’d love to hear about them in the comments!

I am going to enlist my husband’s help for making future felt sets for Bible stories – he is not an artist, but he does have quite a bit of talent when it comes to drawing – and I hope to make them downloadable here for any of you that might want to use them too!  This will be a work in progress, but if there are any specific Bible stories you’d like to see, I’d love to know about it!  Please feel free to comment or email me!

LINKS TO RESOURCES I’VE COME ACROSS:

• Sparklebox has several Bible story resources on this page.  These include some sets that can be used for storyboards or flannel boards, as well as some cards that are great for story sequencing
• Making Friends has several paper doll-style printables here that could be adapted for flannel boards.  They also have some great Bible story craft ideas!
• Browse through Christian Preschool Printables for a few great felt set and story aid ideas.
• Danielle’s Place is not the easiest site to navigate, but if you have time, it’s well worth looking through – she has quite a few free printables that would work for felt sets.
• Look through DLTK’s Bible section for crafts, coloring pages that can be made into felt sets, and other ideas.

Any others you know of?  Share them in the comments!

Have a beautiful day! :)