Craft Time – Egg Carton Flower Garden

Say it fast – it sort of rhymes. :)

We still have this little art project, from almost a year ago, in our breezeway (the play dough is hard, but still holds!):It is one of my favorite things.  M noticed it a few days ago and wanted to make another one.

However, our lovely weather turned cold and rainy for about a week, and so we decided to put a twist on the activity and make our own flower garden.

Supplies:Old play dough (especially some that has been mixed together to form that lovely gray-brown), an egg carton, 12 craft sticks, 12 coffee filters, dot markers, a stapler, and… green paper, scissors, and pipecleaners all came in handy too.

Make large balls with the play dough and push them into the egg carton wells: 
Use your green dot marker (or whatever you wish) to paint some flower stems (craft sticks): 
At this point, M asked about leaves, so I got out the green paper and cut some leaves while he finished up the stems: 
Use the dot markers to decorate all 12 of your coffee filters: 
Staple the leaves to the stems: 
Assemble the flowers:We were going to staple the coffee filters to the stems, but they just flopped over, so we tried wrapping them on with pipecleaners, which worked much better.  Fold the coffee filter in quarters, then twist the bottom point a bit, and attach that part to the top of the stem.

Stick the stems in the play dough-filled egg carton, and fluff out all your coffee filters: 

Aren’t they sweet, all lined up in a row?

These were just what we needed on a gray and gloomy morning!

An egg carton, cut into smaller sections (say a square of 4 sections), would make a super-cute May basket to give away, wouldn’t it?  I wish we’d thought of this sooner, but it is still May!

I’m linking this up to Kids Get Crafty!

and

Have a beautiful day! :)

Learning by Heart – May 13, 2011

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

  Mother’s Day 2011
This was taken at the end of the day – I look worn out and
M looks ready to go. :)  That is usually how it is around here! 
I normally wouldn’t post a picture of myself with glasses on (I so dislike how I look in them), but I have to be in SOME pictures on here!  It’s my blog! :)

~M is 4.5 years old~

Literacy

M continues to love poems and these sequencing cards are a great activity.  He can do these all on his own, as long as I separate them into groups for him (one paperclip of cards for each poem): 

His homemade puppet theater (a tension rod in a doorway with a blanket thrown over the top) has been seeing more action lately, and we made these great little stick puppets for The Three Bears.  This is a fun way of doing more story sequencing and mom and dad get a cute little show to watch. ;) 

And M wants to learn to read.  You can read more about that in this post.

 

Science – Dinosaurs!

M loves the little dinosaur fossil eggs you chisel apart in order to find the bones.  He’s done many, many of these over the winter and early spring.  You can find them at Michael’s as well as Dollar Tree. See the little hammer lying on the table?  That quickly got set aside, and M began using his “real”, big hammer.  This kid is all about action, not patience.

     This particular one is an Ankylosaurus.  For each dino he’s unearthed and put together, we’ve looked for a book to learn a bit more about it.  I can’t remember the names of the books, but there are a ton of dino books out there (on the odd chance you haven’t noticed)!

 

Fine Motor Skills, Practical Life, and Misc.

After seeing this post over at My Montessori Journey, I thought it would be fun to set something similar out for M.  I found simple step-by-step tutorials for drawing a bird and a dog (look towards the bottom of the web page for the dog), and made instruction cards for M.  He wasn’t as eager to do this as I imagined he would be, and that was fine.  I don’t want to inhibit his own imaginative drawings by making him think things have to be drawn in a certain way.  However, I did enjoy seeing how he was able to go from step to step in order.  Here are the cards (I had each set on a ring):
And here are M’s finished drawings: Are these not absolutely adorable?!  :)  He said, “look at my chicken!” – I think he surprised himself, haha.  I have to say I like his chicken better than the bird he was trying to draw. :)

 

M loves to watch me use my sewing machine.  It is an event, let me tell you.  He anticipates it, watches every move, tries to figure out exactly how it works, and begs for more when I’m finished.  Sometimes I think he’s going to break into applause.  Part of it is his inclination towards all things mechanical, but part of it is just a love of the idea that something new can be created.  So I set out a simple embroidery hoop, some muslin, and a little yarn for him.  He wanted to sew a picture, so we started with a smiley face.  He learned to backstitch in order to create a line of stitches (although not perfectly, as you can see!), and overall really enjoyed this.

 

 

May Day meant a little flower crown for the statue of Mary in our garden.  I used some leftover flowers from a lei, cut a crown shape out, and let M staple the flowers on.  He LOVES the stapler (totally supervised, don’t worry!). 

 Ok, I guess the garden needs a little work.

It’s a little big.

We read two beautifully written and illustrated books about Mary:

 

 

Art

Here’s a look at M’s Art Box for spring (which has recently changed into an Art Cart – more on that later).  It was full of things to make flowers and butterflies: 

Here’s a bit of his artwork: 

 
And, my favorite, a ribbon and flower collage on contact paper for Mother’s Day. :) 

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

Have a beautiful day! :)