Wonders of watercolors

Naters is 41 months old!
She's been asking to paint with her watercolors.  she's really been on a craft kick since we hosted our  Crafting Adventures playgroup here at the house on Saturday.  We've been doing something crafty each day which I know is good for her fine motor. 

Naters painted the dinosaur picture for her grandma.
Thanks for looking!
becky

Crafting Adventures Preschool Playgroup

Naters is 41 months old!
I hosted a group of 5 girls (aged 2.5 to 5 yrs old) with their Mommies here on Saturday morning.  We did five crafts and then took the girls to McDonald's Playland for lunch.  Everyone was worn out afterwards but it was such fun!  It was a great way to spend some time with Naters before I went to work that night.

1. decorated a craft stick snowflake (i painted them white, hot glued them together and attached a ribbon for hanging beforehand) with beads & jewels
2. decorated a cupcake for themselves and for their Dads (had carryout containers to get them home in)
3.  decorated a snowflake or snowman with peel n stick snowflakes and glitter glue (they could also use the beda & jewels too!
4.  made a foamie marshmallow snowman
5.  Did a painted footprint snowman (decorated the snowman with buttons & used brown chenille stick for arms.  Idea from Handprint and Footprint Art
We are getting together in a couple weeks for some Valentine's Day crafts, can't wait!!!
thanks for looking!
becky

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

Love Lakeshore Learning!

At the end of last month, my best friend from high school came into town.  Kim has 12 kids and has been homeschooling for decades.  We shot down to the Columbus, OH store after Christmas last month and I picked up a few things.  Had a coupon so i saved $15.00 on what i bought!  She bought stuff too!

Naters has already played with the lowercase letter lacing beads and has given them the thumbs up!  I'm excited for spring since we now have a step 2 easel, and I've bought the tempera paints, no spill paints cups, brushes, and now the paint cup carrier!  We can have art studio sessions outside (no fear of paint on the grass!)
Thanks for looking!
becky

January games we are playing, 2011 01

We've been playing a lot of games; due to our winters here we haven't been going outside too much.  The games she's been enjoying are:  Lakeshore Learning Beginning Sounds Bingo, Hot Potato, Princess  Dominoes, and Froggy Boogie!

She also loves to play with her My Little Pony house & ponies and My Littlest Pet Shop pets with house.  Playdoh is a given, she plays with that multi times a day.  I let her have five cookie cutters, a rolling pin and one other playdoh cutting item (we change them out each week --she picks what goes in the bin!)
Thanks for looking!
becky

January Bookshelf, 2011 01,

These are the books on our honor shelf this month.  She has two bookcases, one in her room and one near her classroom, but i keep selected books out on a special shelf for one month, usually to go with our theme for that month.  This month in keeping with winter, snowman & snowflakes here are the selections for the month:

The Snow Bear and the the Little Penguin books have embossed pages and she loves running her fingers over the pages!

Sensory Tub update:  this is the first month i've used such a light weight medium (filler) in her tub.  i used mini glitter poms poms.  In other tubs i always add in large poms for texture and she plays with them.   with this tub, she just keeps sifting out all the texture items (beads, buttons, etc) and leaving the poms in the tub.  This is by far not her favorite tub, but she still plays with it a little each day without any prompting.  She definitely prefers the rice, beans, popcorn type mediums (filler) in her sensory tubs.  Just keepin' it real folks!

I'm going to be hosting a preschooler craft day at our house 1-2 saturdays a month through winter, so i'll post those projects in the following weeks also.  I've got the first two sessions crafts picked out.  Naters is excited!

Thanks for looking!
becky

Playdoh of the Month January 2011 01

Sorry I'm late with posting this; being sick and then working the last two nights, I got behind but we did make the Playdoh together the other night before I had to go to work.  Both colors are peppermint scented.  Turquoise blue doh has white & iridescent glitter and white (natural) doh has 2 purple and 2 blue shades of Martha Stewart fine glitters in it.  She enjoyed helping and i liked doing it together!

Thanks for looking!  becky

Winter Sensory Tub, January 2011 01, snowman sensory tub

Since we live in Ohio, I'm focusing on Snowmen & Snowflakes this month..  Our classroom calendar features snowflakes.  This is Nater's sensory tub for the month.  I've been sick, so i'm a bit behind; the playdoh will be made tomorrow.

Thanks for looking!

Becky