A Year of ABCs: D with art, literacy, math

D is for Do-a-Dot markers.

Few things bring Little Lady more joy than painting so we spent a very long time making dots with our Do-A-Dot markers.  She dotted up an entire page with

Dropping colors

One afternoon I gathered medicine droppers and three small bowls of colored water.  I used primary colors for a fun coloring mixing experience.  I drew some small circles on card stock, and then larger circles with a color "recipe" for Mini Me to mix.  I left the rest of the paper blank for his creative pleasure.

At first we tried to fill each tiny circle with one drop of color.  This was good for getting him used to the dropper.

He was extremely enthusiastic about reading the color recipes and then mixing

DIY shrinky dink photos and more ideas

See my other shrinky things posts here and here!


Alongside the fun and unique shrinky things you can make with recycled #6 plastic, you can also purchase Shrinky Dinks brand photo paper and shrink any digital photos or images you have.  This stuff is awesome and not too expensive!  

Plate sewing fun

One day I decided Mini Me needed a fine motor skills challenge.  I aimed to work on the good 'ol activity of sewing letters on a paper plate.  With a pencil, you can punch holes in the plate that you can then thread with yarn. 

A Year of ABCs: C with movement, music, science, Spanish

C is for copy cat actions.
When do toddlers not copy cat?  We made a point to play "copy cat" a little more this week which was really fun when Mini Me got into being the leader.  They touched tummies, arms, hopped (or tried to), and made silly faces. 

Moving with books: Blue Hat, Green Hat

Also see  
Moving with books: Barnyard Dance
Moving with books: Waddle
 
Sandra Boynton's Blue Hat, Green Hat is a fabulous book.  Our copy is quickly wearing out.  With it, you can talk about colors, clothing, and body parts.... not to mention the humor of that cute little turkey.  When we read it, Mini Me still likes to shout "Oops!" when the turkey dresses himself incorrectly and Little Lady laughs hysterically.  


Despite our love of this book, this activity was a bit of a dud.  (Long ago I did a similar activity with Little Lady you can read about here.)  I attribute it to the fact that we kinda sorta act out this book all the time, being silly as we get dressed.  Sometimes we even shout "oops!" as we jokingly put items of clothing on incorrect parts.  The dud activity is a case of me trying too hard for a formal activity.  I need to remember to keep it simple and as non-instruction-like as possible. I thought it would be fun to use our big bin of dress up clothes while we read the book and acted it out.  Nope.  

Little Lady did end up standing in her hat, with her shirt on her legs, socks on her hands, and a jacket on her face.

Dud. 
It's more fun with the kids' own clothes, and probably even more fun if the kids have clothing in the colors that match the book.  Oh well.  The next day as we were getting dressed, we did it "wrong" and shouted "Oops!" and they had much more fun that way.

DIY shrinky dink book mark and zipper pull

See my other shrinky things post here!



I may just have gone a little off the deep end making my home made shrinky things with recycled #6 plastic.  I think my husband is tired of feigning excitement when I say to him, "And look at this one!  Awesome!"  After my initial test runs making these, I started dreaming up all the things I could do with them.  First, I decided to make zipper pulls for the kids and a book mark for myself.  
Please excuse the non-uniformity of the photos... when I get going with these things, I don't always remember to stop for a photo at each step so there are multiple projects pictured here.  Hopefully you'll get the point with the photos that are here.  

Letters He Wrote

One day I put out chalk on the chalk table, a marker and small white board on the floor, and a pencil and paper on the table.  I invited Mini Me to come work with me.  

Wordless Wednesday - SAHM

A good chuckle floating around the web... click on the image to see it larger.

A Year of ABCs: C with art, literacy, math

Our C pail:
cars
cotton
corn
letter C

C is for cotton clouds.
I cut out some clear contact paper in the shape of a cloud and taped it sticky side up to our train table.  We took a handful of cotton balls and had a great time pulling them apart, sticking them on, and squeezing them.  Little Lady really, really concentrated on her task.  It was fun to see what happened when we stuck the cotton ball to the cloud, and then pulled it back off.  
After she tired of this activity, I taped the cloud low on the wall so she could work on it later, and she did!  (And so did Mini Me.... we added a lot of cotton to make a soft, fluffy cloud!)
After they got tired of that, we pulled some cotton off the cloud and blew the pieces along the floor with straws.  We were the wind blowing the clouds along!  This was the most fun for Mini Me as Mommy got a headache doing it, and Little Lady chewed her straw closed.  

Why I don't love Valentine's Day

I am a Valentine's Day Scrooge and I'm okay with that. 


If you love the day of love, don't let me bring you down and don't think that I'm telling you you're silly for indulging in the love-fest.  Have at it!  I've been called a fun-hater and even "weird" (by a former high school student) for not liking Valentine's Day.  I've never been a girl jilted or a woman scorned, I simply do not like this holiday and I don't remember ever really enjoying it.  Here's why:

DIY shrinky dinks

When I discovered that I could make my very own Shrinky Dinks out of recycled plastic I was insanely giddy.  I remember Shrinky Dinks from my childhood but I think part of my giddiness is being able to create something so versatile, inexpensive, and personalized out of recycled material.  Does it get better than that?!?  


You can make your very own shrinky things out of recycled #6 plastic.  This is the plastic from fast food containers or bakery containers.  For this to work, it has to be #6 plastic.

You will need:  

#6 plastic cut to size

permanent markers

aluminum foil

a hole punch

lanyard hooks, jump rings, elastic cording, and anything else you want to make a personalized piece

Indoor obstacle course

To get through the long days of winter (and sometimes, even those too-hot days of summer), we like to do obstacle courses in the house.  Mini Me could do them last year but this year he can do more tasks, and more complex tasks.  


An indoor obstacle course can include anything you think is safe for indoors.  When we design our courses I like to include some physical things and some thinking things.  

In this course, we had to:

Put the coffee on to boil

Jump five times across the rug

Draw a circle on the train table

Vrroooom the cars across the floor

Spin in the Bilibo

Jump from one tape line to the next

Match the animal pairs

Little Lady even made it through this course with her big brother's help but her video is about five minutes long because of all the coaxing and because of her

A Year of ABCs: B with movement, music, science, Spanish

B is for ball roll.
I found this activity idea here and it was kind of a bust as a skeeball activity.  Maybe I did it wrong.  
I used various cups from the kitchen, cut holes in an old wipes box, and stuck the cups in with the point numbers taped to the bottom of the cup.  We got out a variety of balls to roll up into the box but I could not get the angle right for the ball to do a skeeball-like roll-hop into the cups.  

Home made no-skid socks

I debated posting about this since I did a fairly plain-Jane job at making these gripper socks... no fancy colors or patterns.  But, I guess that's just "me": functional, not fancy. 
Running children in our house of hardwood floors often slip and slide, so no-skid (or gripper) socks are important.  It's simple to make your own with puffy paint and clean socks!  It's easy to do and the socks wash well.  

Pretzel marshmallow structures

A handful of pretzel sticks and some jumbo marshmallows allow a creative little guy to build, poke, balance, and plan to his heart's content.