Thanksgiving crafts

Here are two of the Thanksgiving crafts that Naters did.  On the tree i glued the tree, base, put the scarescrow together and the words together; then she applied them and decorated the scene.
on the turkey she loved putting the head together and gluing on the feathers!

Halloween crafts 2011

Halloween crafts that Naters did.

thanks for looking!

becky

Lakeshore Learning shopping trip!

I'm so excited!  I now have a Lakeshore Learning Store about 45 minutes away from me!!!!  They have a huge summer sale going on, and this is what i purchased on my most recent trip.  Everything i purchased was 20% off except for the super safe eye droppers and the jumbo magnifier (i got that at 50% off!) 

Thanks for looking!
becky

July 4th Learning & Activities

While we will be doing an ocean theme for the month of July, we did patriotic themed activities & learning through the July 4th holiday. 

We had our first try at shaving cream art and she really enjoyed it.  Want to thank the following women and their blogs for all the wonderful patriotic themed printables they crafted:  1+1+1=1, Little Piles Everywhere, Confessions of a Homeschooler, and 2 Teaching Mommies.  THANK EACH OF YOU FOR ALL THAT YOU DO! 
Thanks for looking!
becky
p.s.  I found that the children's clothing hangers that clothes come on when you buy them, makes for a wonderful way to hang moist art work that needs drying time!!!  just thought I'd share that with you....

Paint chip Mosaic

I saw a post about the free paint chip samples you can get at most stores from My HomeMade Montessori and kept thinking about getting the samples and what i'd do with them.  i'm sure there are tons of ideas out there I just haven't had time to investigate.  I stopped at Walmart on my way into work one night to get a salad for my lunch an remembered to run by the paint section and get some paint samples.  I got a rainbow of assorted colors.  Then came home and cut them up and put them in a baggie.  Naters loves to do crafts and i figured we'd be able to make some kind of paint chip mosaics as a craft.  We are doing a farm theme for the month, so i pulled out a letter F page.  She wanted to apply the glue with a paint brush (she was offered glue stick, a bottle of glue, or glue in a cup with a paint brush) so I gave her the glue in a souffle cup, a paint brush, blank letter F sheet, the container of cut up paint chips and let her go! 

This was definitely cheap, easy and fun! For Naters (she's 45 months old) using the paint chips was much easier for her to do than the tissue paper squares which is a too flimsy to hold up to very much handling (when wet with glue)   Another thrifty tip:  I got these plastic souffle cups with lids in bulk for $3.00.  i also have the craft cups from oriental trading co. (which i do like) but I like the souffle cups better.  they can be washed and reused; i like the small quanity they hold  (great portion control for crafting) and when you put the lid on you can save glue or paint for next use.  So glad i got them!  You'll like them too!

Thanks for looking! 

becky

Organizing Foamies Sticker Buckets / Bags

I like to buy these FOAMIES sticker buckets in themes to go along with our Letter of the Week curriculum, sensory tubs or holidays when i have coupons for Joanns, Michael or Hobby Lobby, but sometimes a local merchant here, Pat Catan's has a great price too!  So in thinking ahead for summer ( we will be doing an oecan theme, Birthday theme, Insect & Bug theme, and a disney Theme--we are going to disney world in Sept).  I found this Foamies Under the Sea sticker bucket!  This is what i do with my bucket or large bag of stickers when i buy them. 
1.  open up the entire package and sort it out.  I also poke out things like eyes, etc.
2.  figure out how many baggies i can fill the same way (colors may vary but the number of stickers/subject  stays the same)
3.  sort out however many I know I can get.  In this Under the Sea tub, I was able to divide the package into Seven baggies equally and set the extra aside.
4.  print of labels and label each bag. 
5.  I can also use a package i've divided up for a Birthday party, our crafting preschoolers group etc.  Having them presorted & bagged also makes for a quickie craft we can take with us somewhere and I like knowing she can share these with her little friends!  I also like doing it this way so not just one sticker type is used on a page.  So far I've done this with Patriotic, Princess, Zoo Animals, Space,  Lady bugs & Flowers, Insects, animals, Butterflies & Flowers, and Sweets. 

Thanks for looking!
becky

Completed crafts from Crafting Adventures Playgroup

These are Naters completed Easter crafts from our playgroup

The handprint chick Idea i got from The Dubiens
Thanks for looking!
becky

Crafting Adventures Playgroup, Easter

Naters is 44 months old!
I host a little girls crafting playgroup at my house for mommies & their little girls.  at most there is 7 mommies & 7 little girls who attend.  Usually have a theme for each time we get together.  This month was Easter crafts!

1,  Decorate a foamie egg with jewels & Beads
2.  Make and Easter Beads Necklace
3.  decorate either a chick or bunny paper bag
4.  make a handprint chick
5.  Foamies Easter sticker collage page
6.  do a dot art pages (tulip & Egg)
7.  Decorate foamie bunny head, large egg, small egg
8.  handprint bunny page
9.  Goodie bags & coloring books I made up.
Thanks for looking, tomorrow i will show pics of some of the completed crafts!
becky

more Easter crafts we've been working on

Naters is 44 months old today!  These are more Easter crafts we've been working on.  For the jewel eggs (pink & blue), I gave her a bottle of glue, a bowl of beads & jewels and let her do it solo!  The scroll is mine.  I used stardust stickles on it (very sparkly in real life!)

Thanks for looking!  becky

Easter Crafts, Foamies & Felties

Naters is 43 months old!  There are some Easter crafts kits that Naters & I completed.  She is always so happy doing these, especially when she knows they are gifts.  The yellow egg was all Naters, I gave her the egg and the decorations and gave her privacy she did great I think!  The little chics with the feathers came in a pack of 8 and we are mailing them to family members and she was saying who each one was going too! 
I use my hot glue gun and put some pretty heavy circle magnets on the back so people can put them on their fridge.

Thanks for looking!
becky

Easter Lacing Cards

These are some Easter lacing cards I made for Naters.  I just went to google, under images and typed in Easter.  Founds images i liked, printed them on heavy cardstock, laminated them and punched holes.  Quick & Easy as well as Cheap!

Thanks for looking!
becky

Easter Decorations for the house

Here are some decorations we made for the house for Easter.  Naters loved adding the grass to the bunnies display and she helped decorate the jelly bean cottage with the flowers and jelly beans.  This was fun and I am surprised at Naters response to our crafting times.  She's really taken with it and requests to do crafts each day.  We do watercolors, fingerpaints, gluing, markers, crayons, beading, etc.  I'm looking forward to nicer weather here (we got snow today!) so i can incorporate more nature/natural items.

Thanks for looking!
becky

Happy Spring

Happy Spring...hmmm we have a wood fire in the fireplace and i think it's 31 degrees outside.  I decided to let Naters do a Foamie sticker sheet.  I have many ziploc bags full or various types of foamies strickers, so i went through them to gather up what i could for a Spring themed sticker sheet.  While i had them all out, I also put together a few more themed mini bags i can grab for her to another sticker sheet in the upcoming months.  For the activity, I put out two bowls for Naters; one filled with the assortment of Foamies stickers and an empty one for the peeled off sticker backing. 

This is proudly displayed on the fridge currently!  This was cheap fun and she asked to do another right away!
Thanks for looking

Winter Weekend Crafts, January 2011

I've had this idea cooking in my head for a few weeks.  Wanted to build a snowman and then have Naters glue down some cotton balls for snow.  I little craft that we could display for the month.  I got the little hat for $0.45 and bought 3 sizes of styrofoam balls (more costly than i thought--but doable) and the rest of the items(buttons, beads, brown chenille sticks, glue, cotton balls, yarns & blue cardstock I already had on hand.  Naters was very excited to glue down the cotton balls.  I gave her a craft cup of glue and a paint brush showed her gluing down one cotton ball and I let her go to work!  I'm happy with how it turned out!

Second craft we did was to build the Gingerbread tree kit I bought yesterday for $1.00 on clearance at Michael's.  I thought she'd want to do the white tipped tree, but she didnt want any white frosting on the tree!  She had so much fun decorating this tree.  She did try to eat a piece and spit it out.  But the fun was in assembling and decorating.  I'd definately buy this kit again
(great for younger kids)
Thanks for looking!
becky