Firefly Flashlight Craft!

This was a really fun little craft to make, and the second bug craft we did… M agreed to it (despite the craft strike) because a flashlight is involved.  Flashlights have batteries and anything with a battery is a sure thing with this kid. 

You will need:
A flashlight (find one that has a cord looped through it, or a key ring or something, as this is where you’ll attach the antennae), pipe cleaner, construction paper, marker, scissors, googley eyes, glitter (if you dare), a small container for the glitter (if you dare), and glue.  I ended up hot gluing the eyes onto our firefly to speed things up, although I think if someone had been patient enough for it to dry, regular white glue would have worked.

To begin, I folded our construction paper in half lengthwise and drew a half oval (roughly):

M cut it out and unfolded it to see the oval:

Apply glue in a pretty design all over your oval, which will be the wings: 

I dumped our little pack of gold glitter into a small applesauce container, and M used his fingers to pinch it and sprinkle it onto his firefly’s wings:

While the wings are drying, remove the cord (or key ring, or whatever) from your flashlight, and thread the pipe cleaner through.  Twist it a couple of times so it won’t slip, then twist up the ends of the antennae:

That is not a very clear photo of this step, so here’s a close up of what it should look like at this point:

Put a line of glue down the center of the flashlight and attach to the center fold on the wings, then glue on the eyes:

Finished!  Let it dry, and play with your new firefly!
This would be pretty with lots of different colors for the glitter, don’t you think?  This mama was only brave enough to use one color this time. :)

Have a beautiful day! :)

Click Beetle Craft… and he flips!

There are about 1000 awesome bug crafts that I’ve come across online in the past few weeks, and of course M has decided to go on another craft strike.   Oh, that kid.  He said to me, “I like to do art, but only when I can do my own thing!” 

He is throwing my own philosophy of art (for small children) back in my face, isn’t he?  Apparently, he doesn’t understand that crafts are cute and if Mama wants to do one, philosophy can fly out the window.  ;)

Ah well, of the many buggy crafts I was hoping to do, only two of them were interesting enough for him to agree to.  The first is this click beetle that I’ve seen around quite a bit, but think I first found at Prekinders.

You will need:Fun foam or cardstock, glue, a spring-type clothespin, googley eyes, a pom pom, dot stickers, a marker, and scissors.

I drew two wings on the fun foam and M cut them out:


Next, he decorated them with the dot stickers.  If you use cardstock instead, you could use dot painters for this part; I’m not sure how the painters would work on the foam.

Glue the upper corners of the wings onto the clothespin, like this, kind of:

Glue on the pom pom head, then add the eyes onto the pom pom.

Finished!  And isn’t the little guy cute?  The best part is this – after the glue has dried, press down on his tail (the end of the clothespin), let go, and he will flip or jump for you, making a satisfying “click” sound at the same time. :)

Note: if we do this again, I’d use cardstock instead of the fun foam.  The wings have to overlap a bit and when we used regular white glue the top wing didn’t stay put very well.  I ended up hot gluing it on.

Have a beautiful day! :)

The Art Box – June 7, 2010

I’ve been doing some major reorganizing around our home lately (more posts on this soon!), and, while rearranging my craft stash, I set up two drawers of one cart for Art Box items. 

 

Now, once a week, M and I go down to our exercise / hobby room and I let him choose items from those two drawers to put in his Art Box for the week.  This has really renewed his interest and enthusiasm for his Art Box!

 

I keep the basics – glue, scissors, paint brushes, etc.  out for him, and he adds in the *fun* stuff – tubes, yarn, buttons, eyes, scrap paper, pipe cleaners, etc.  He really has fun choosing things and has ended up making some very interesting and 3-dimensional art…

 

A  collage made from a cork, pipe cleaners, tissue paper and a peanut butter lid: 

 

A collage for Grandpa (who was absolutely delighted to receive it) made from stamps, glitter, another peanut butter lid (lol), and some scrap felt pieces that M said looked like raviolis:

  

And yet another collage made with paint, scrapbook paper, another lid, a craft stick, pom poms, and buttons.  Whew.

 

A painting made with the roller, which is always a hit:

 

A finger painting, the first one he’s done in ages:

 

And, finally, a colored pasta and pipe cleaner collage:

 

Creativity has been running rampant around here lately, which makes for a very happy mama!

 

Have some kids’ artwork you’d like to share?  Link up below!  Make sure to link back here  somewhere in your post

 

Have a beautiful day! :)

 

Book Review – Somewhere to Belong, by Judith Miller

This story is set in the late 1870’s in the Amana Colonies in Iowa.  Having visited the Amanas Colonies several times, I was very excited to read this book!  It did not disappoint.

The story centers on two young women, Johanna and Berta.  Johanna has lived in Amana her entire life.  Her brother, upon reaching adulthood, left the Amana way of life and moved to Chicago, and this has left Johanna curious about life outside of the colonies.  Her parents are very protective, having lost one son to the outside world, and another son to an ice-skating accident that ended his life. 

The other girl, Berta, is from Chicago and used to the privileged lifestyle of her wealthy family.  She is all about fun, not rules.  Her family has moved to Amana for reasons Berta can only guess, and she struggles with the rebelliousness in herself and the many rules of community life that she encounters in Amana.

These young women are on a journey to discover themselves and although they are on much different paths, the friendship they form is a help and encouragement to them both.  There is a bit of mystery playing out in each of their families… for Johanna it has to do with the circumstances of her brother’s death and why her other brother moved away.  For Berta, the mystery surrounds her father and why the family moved to Amana in the first place.

There is also a welcome bit of romance for both girls.   But the main story is how each of them comes to an understanding of who they are, what they believe, and where they belong. 

I enjoyed this book, but felt it was geared towards teenage girls and young women who are suffering from a lack of peace within themselves… wondering what God has to do with them and what life has in store for them.  It was a quick and entertaining read, and I would recommend it to young women (16 to 21) as a wholesome alternative to many secular books.

Thank you to Bethany House for providing me with a free copy of this book to review.

Books of the Week – June 5, 2010

We have been reading so many good, good, GOOD books lately!  M and I (and Daddy too!) just love all the ones in the carousel above, so please check them out. 

It was hard to decide on just a couple to talk more about (I usually try to just write about 2 books in detail, since I tend to be wordy… ).  And I decided to go with the two that M has been requesting almost daily over the past two weeks.

First, Encore for Eleanor, by Bill Peet.  Peet has become one of our very favorite authors.  This is a cute story about a circus elephant who falls from her stilts one day and is sent to spend the rest of her days at the zoo.  Poor Eleanor – she is so talented, but what can she do at a zoo?  Everyone stares at her and she stares back, and finally decides to hide in her zoo barn.  Thanks to a teenage girl who visits the zoo, Eleanor discovers a new talent and happily becomes a performing elephant again.  M loves this book so much, I think we are going to make some stilts like Ticia’s to go along with this book.  (I know… I said I was going to make them immediately after you wrote that post, Ticia, but you should know nothing ever gets done that quickly around here.)

Secondly, Farmer Dale’s Red Pickup Truck, by Lisa Wheeler.Wheeler is quickly becoming one of our favorite authors too.  In fact, this story is also about animals with interesting talents.  The story is in rhyme and it’s very well done, which is always important to me.  There is nothing worse than a rhyming story with a rhythm that doesn’t work, or words that don’t really rhyme.  Sweet-tempered farmer Dale picks up several animals on the way to a talent show in town; they end up being too much of a load and the old truck breaks down.  The sheep picks on the cow, the cow bosses everyone around, the pig is sort of whiney… it’s actually a pretty funny story.  I love when the cow is steering while Dale pushes and when he says, “ turn the key”  the sheep says, “He can’t, he’s got no h-a-a-a-nds”.  Cracks me up every time! :)  They actually learn a lesson about working together by the end of the story, but that’s almost eclipsed by just how much fun this book is.

For more reviews of children’s books, check out Mouse Grows, Mouse Learns and Feed Me Books Friday.

Have a beautiful day! :)

Books about Dinosaurs

I wanted to list (for my own records, and as a recommendation to others) all the dinosaur books we’ve read and loved.  If you are interested, I wrote about all of our dinosaur activities here.

These were mostly just-for-fun stories; the next time around we will find more non-fiction books about dinosaurs.  There’s a great series about types of dinosaurs by Carol Lindeen that I plan to check out sooner or later.














 

































Danny and the Dinosaur is by far our favorite, and one I remember fondly from my own childhood.  The "How Do Dinosaurs... " series by  Jane Yolen are great too, and a good way to learn the dinosaur names since each drawing is labeled.

Have any favorite dino stories?  Please let me know in the comments!

Have a beautiful day! :)

Preschool Corner / Weekly Wrap-Up - Dinosaurs

Goodness, we did our dinosaur theme way back in February, and I am just now getting around to writing about it.  I’m sure I’m not going to remember everything we did.

Some of the activities for this theme were homemade, because I wasn’t able to find what I was looking for online (or anywhere else for that matter) for a reasonable price… meaning free. ;)  My drawing skills leave a lot to be desired, but I am sharing the printables I made anyway, in case they meet a need for someone else, or give a better artist than I an idea of something to make!  I’ve linked to them where appropriate.

I’ve tried to organize the activities by skill set, but many of them overlap, so bear with me!

First, Sensory:
I put together a little rice and noodles sensory bin for M and placed some of his toy dinos in it along with some scoops.  He had fun just playing with them.

Math Skills:
We worked on counting with this printout from Prekinders.  I wrote in the numerals and the dots and M counted them, then matched them up. 

I also pulled out this dinosaur and egg file folder game that I made a long time ago (from here), for some easy color matching:

I turned two boxes into Triceratops and we took turns rolling the die, then feeding our dinos leaves with the tweezers.  The first to run out of leaves was the winner.  M really enjoyed this one!

He was just beginning to show an interest in measuring, so we measured dinosaur bones!  I had him mark the correct answer with a paperclip for fine motor work.

He always enjoys the shape crafts I’ve made for him.  This little Stegosaurus turned out awfully cute. :) 
And we sorted some little dinosaur cut outs by color:  
Fine Motor Skills:
M used a q-tip to paint the tiny dots on this page from Making Learning Fun:

I printed out some shapes (one is a dino, the others were just for fun) from Preschool Express.  To do this activity, M poked push pins into the cork board along the outlines on each paper.  This is a great workout for that tripod grasp.

And he did a dinosaur lacing carhttp://www.scribd.com/full/32089331?access_key=key-13l1pf4kzdo43w4xs505d:
Sorry I don’t have pictures of the finished work for some of these!

Literacy Skills:
We stamped out big and little letters on these dinosaur sheets from Prekinders.  I put a variety of upper and lower case letters in a pillowcase and we took turns pulling one out then finding it on the pages and stamping it out. 

And we put together upper and lower case letters on dinosaur puzzles.  I made these and despite the poor artwork, M really enjoyed this.  It was good for working on that mama and baby letter matching as well as reviewing the names of some dinosaurs.

Art and Poetry:
M used his toy dinos to make some dinosaur footprint art.  Some trucks got in on the action too. :)

I found a cute dinosaur poem from here and made some little stick puppets to use while we say it.  This is a great poem for working on ordinal numbers.

Science:
I found this very informative, albeit somewhat dry, little book about dinosaurs at Target.  We looked through it and talked about how some dinosaurs were plant eaters and some were meat eaters.  Then we matched up some of M’s toy dinos with the pictures in the book and talked about their long funny names.  It’s so cute to hear him say brachiosaurus and stegosaurus. :)

The following was not really a science activity, although we did use it to review the names of dinosaurs.  I noticed that M had many sets of matching dinos in his enormous box full of dinos.  So I set some up on one side of the room, and put the matches on the other end.  M had to pick one up and look at it, then set it down and run to the other side of the room to find its match.  This worked on memory skills, matching skills, and was just a good large motor workout.  He loved this!  
I found some life cycle cards here, and wanted M to sequence them.  He had a bit of trouble with this so I quickly made some numbered squares for him to use.  Somehow this helped and he was able to describe the sequence perfectly!

And, last of all, we had fun killing off dinosaurs with molten lava in a volcano. :)  The things I find myself doing (and having fun doing) as the mom of a little boy never cease to amaze me.
Stay tuned for a post about the dinosaur books we loved!

I’ll be linking this post up to Preschool Corner and Weekly Wrap-Up – check them both out for some great activity ideas!

Have a beautiful day! :)