"Gingerbread" Houses

We have been quite snowed-in lately and it has been very fun, although the little ones are suffering from "cabin fever". I had intended on having a "gingerbread house party" with one of Ana's little friends, but unfortunately Bel had croup, and Anastasia has had a persistant cough, so I didn't want to spread any germs right before Christmas. So, we made the houses on our own. It was easy and fun and yummy.

What you will need:

1. graham crackers

2. candy

3. milk cartons (small cream ones are perfect)

4. plates or cardboard covered in tin foil

5. frosting: 3 cups powdered sugar + 3 T butter + 4 T milk = mixed together I added a little sugar, and a little milk to make it nice and thick, but not too hard.

6. zip locks for frosting: cut small hole in a corner for squeezing out.

Here was our candy layout:

I pre-assembled the houses by sticking the graham crackers to the creamer cartons with frosting and white school glue (meaning, the graham part is not for eating). Then I spread a thick layer of frosting on for sticking the candy to. For Bel, I just gave her an iced graham cracker and candy, she ate some, but most of it she threw on the floor:

And then, just go to town and *try* to limit the sugar intake (but don't plan on being successful). :) This was the one I made (because mama has to have some fun too!):

And Ana's turned out very yummy as well!:

Leafy Wild Things

Last week we made these monsters or "wild things" our of leaf rubbings. They required a lot of help for a 2 1/2 year old. She helped with a few of the rubbings, and pieced them together on a cereal box, but I did the faces and cutting out of the rubbings. It really was a fun project to do together.

We cut them out to give out to family for the fall festivities!

Wild Things

This week we are reading Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak. Awesome book. I read it over, and over, and over and never tire of the greatness of this book! It is so imaginative and fun, and I keep using the phrase "I'll eat you up, I love you so" as I pretend to eat my children alive! They find it histarical! Yesterday we made crowns from leaves from the tutorial here by Maya of Mayamade: So we got to be the King of the wild things for the afternoon while playing in the freshly raked leaves. This was a GREAT toddler craft as Ana could stick the leaves to the crown herself. Bel was very wild and ripped hers to shreds after she immediately pulled it off her head:

More wild, fall and Halloweenie crafts to come!!!

Halloween Tickities

Sorry I have been delinquent in posting lately! We had a week of catch-up in other areas of our life after the grandparents came for a visit. Hopefully we are back to normal! Ana calls our activity trays "tickities" and this week I had a few new Halloween themed ones to share: I found the above sensory tub at Chasing Cheerios who found it at No Time for Flashcards. So it isn't mine, but I think it is an AWESOME idea. I am already coming up with ideas for Thanksgiving and Christmas! Woohoo! And below is a pom-pom tonging tray. She tonged the pom-poms into the pumpkin ice cube tray, green on one side and purple on the other:

It was a huge hit despite the fact she hasn't really been too into her trays. We also did a spider tweezing activity and she can sort the spiders into orange and black (the two bowls are stacked and this activity is pictured backwards!):

I also painted some lima beans like pumpkins and ghosts for Ana to spoon:

Like I said though, she really hasn't been much into her trays. But I did put some creepy crawlies in her jars which she opened, retrieved and played with for a while:

The jars and specimins would probably go well with the sensory tub as well, just as an added element of interest! We are also reading Where the Wild Things Are this week for our book! Hopefully I will have more to post on that soon!

Some Bats!

I got this idea from Family Fun a while ago, but instead of making finger puppets, I tied string to them so we could hang them. I didn't have black pompoms on hand, and couldn't find any locally (there is such a lack of craft stores around here!) so I made some out of yarn. There is a popo tutorial here. I actually planned on making these with our playgroup the other day, but the kids were playing so nicely we didn't want to interupt them for a craft. So Ana and I made all the leftover bats together. I did most of the glueing and she did everything else!

PS- I changed Anastasia's name to Ana for this blog to make it simpler and calling the kids A and I was just too confusing! So Ana is Anastasia and Bel is Isabel.

Decorating Pumpkins

Toddler style... I don't really like markers much, but they do have their uses. I saw this activity on A Bit Of This and A Bit Of That last fall and Ana loved it! We just colored on the pumpkin with WASHABLE markers. And, she can wash it off with a sponge and start all over! Brilliant. Just brilliant!

Happy Columbus Day!

In the year of 1492... Columbus Sailed the ocean blue.

Today we made little boats from egg cartons, Columbus style via a tutorial from Kaboose. I had to glue the sails to the toothpicks, but A did everything else including decorating the sails, painting the boats, putting in playdough, and putting up the masts! As you can see from the picture some of her little animals even went for a sail across the Atlantic! And here is a funny vintage cartoon we watched on YouTube.



I know Columbus is quite a controversial individual, but you have to admire his courage and adventurous spirit.

Water Transfer

I picked up these cute Halloween pails in the dollar section at target for sponging water from one pail to another. Cute idea, but the cheapy, tin pails leaked! So I switched to little cups instead. A did this one time and then wanted to play in the water.

Jars and Lids

I have been meaning to do this activity with A for a long time. Its really easy, just get several jars of varying sizes (I used some plastic and some glass) with lids and place in a basket. This kept A occupied for atleast 20 minutes! She would fit smaller jars, in bigger jars and try to stuff all the lids in 1 jar. Then she ended up stacking several jars on top of each other.

For older kids you could put a rock or small animal in each jar, have them pull the lid off, and even turn it into some sort of matching game (like each jar have a different habitat/food/etc on the lid.) Just some ideas. As is, it was fun for A, but adding more interest as she gets older would be a lot of fun too.

More Mice

Because of our cats death, and I's party and all the other insanity in our lives last week, school fell to the wayside. So I am picking up where I left off and doing "If You Give A Mouse A Cookie" crafts this week. Today we made mouse puppets from a paper bag: I cut out the mouse face, arms and overalls from cardstock and used yarn for whiskars, and black beans for eyes and chocolate chips to add some texture. Anastasia really LOVED this craft! It was really torture for her to wait for the glue to dry! We printed the "If You Give A Mouse A Cookie" shadow matching game and the cookie matching game from the Homeschool Share Page. We don't really know our numbers, but this is a fun way to learn. Cookies make everything fun don't they?

If You Give A Mouse A Cookie

Our book this week is If You Give A Mouse A Cookie by Laura Joffe Numeron. I remember loving this book as a kid, so it is pretty great reading it to my kids. Unfortunately we had a rough time of "school" today, as both girls, and myself were quite cranky. We did do the obvious though, and baked some chocolate chip cookies.

Even I did her part in the clean-up:

Look at how determined she is! Haha. Actually, I wasn't going to do school at all this week just because I's first birthday is coming up on Saturday and I have so much cleaning, decorating and prepping to do... so I hope having a line-up of activities will buy me a little time to get some tasks completed. Here are a couple resources for If You Give A Mouse A Cookie activities:

Hubbards Cupboard
Homeschool Share Lapbook

I also added a few activity trays that I will hopefully share with you all later this week! For now I leave you with a coloring page. Happy Monday!

Blue's Clues

Anastasia really loves watching "Blue's Clues" on Netflix. I like everything I have read about the show and how it relates to the preschool psychology and how simple and intellegent it is. I don't like the cheesy animation but A doesn't really care, and gets completely involved in the show, shouting out answers and saying goodbye to the characters. So I made our own home-version of "Blue's Clues" using 3-hand drawn paw prints, a handy-dandy notebook and a little beanie baby Blue. The Blue toy is an added bonus I picked up on clearance at Big Lots, but works great with our little game.

For "Ask Mr. Bear" each day I have put out clues for a different "gift". Yesterday we played Blue's Clues to find out what Mommy wanted to drink. I put clues on a toy cow, a jar that our milk comes in, and the white-themed page of a color book. Today we went with the sheep's gift of a blanket in the book and so the clues were a sheep toy, a pile of wool and a bed. Tomorrow we will probably go with the egg and the clues will be a chicken toy, an egg carton and probably a whisk or a nest. Then we will have "pillow" with the clues, goose toy, a feather, and a bed. And last of all will be the "goat cheese" with a toy goat, some maceroni, and a knife and cutting board or something. After the child finds the clue, they are supposed to draw it in their "Handy-dandy notebook" and after they find all the clues they get to sit in their "thinking chair" to figure out the answer.

This game was a HUGE hit with A. You could easily play this without Blue or the "Blue's Clues" theme, and just have some special symbol (like a star) designate a clue and add more clues if you want. I just went the easy route and used someone else's idea. We will definately be playing this a lot!

Ask Mr. Bear

Today we started week 2 of school and we read "Ask Mr. Bear" by Marjorie Flack. We also read a few books about bears as well. This is such a simple and sweet book about a boy looking for a perfect gift for his mother for her birthday. I thought it would be perfect since Isabel's birthday is in 2 weeks. I really like how the book focuses on gifts that one can give that don't have to be bought.

We first played a homemade version of "Blue's Clues" to find what Mommy wanted to drink (milk) which I will hopefully touch more on later this week. Then A colored the animal and product cards from this page at Homeschool Share. I really had to help her with the matching and explain how a sheep could give a blanket, etc. We also practiced some of the animal gaits in the book and made cupcake birthday cards for Isabel:

It really turned out cute, and I just punched holes for the sprinkles. A is on a HUGE cupcake kick these days. And now for our new trays this week...

Animal Mommy and Babies Puzzle:

This was the only activity she completed more than once! She loved it. I think it was 25 cents at the thrift store.

Marble Spooning:
The spooning part was easy enough, but placing it in the holes of the anti-slip butterfly was more difficult. I let her do it by hand instead to complete the task. I will set up a better marble spooning activity in the future I think.

Tonging Pom-Poms:

I finally found some tiny tongs at a kitchen store! Pom-poms are really easy to tong too. She sorted the pom-poms with the tongs into the proper colored bowls. It wasn't too easy but not difficult either.

Stringing Beads Snake:

I picked this Ryan's Room snake up at the thrift store for $1. The needle is broken so I had to duct tape it... a little ghetto but really fun! She spent a long time making this snake "just so".

Tan Gram Puzzle:

This is a little Melissa and Doug shape puzzle that has been sitting on her toy and puzzle shelf since Christmas and she has never played with it more than a couple times. I decided to break it down into one puzzle and all the pieces for that one puzzle. She concentrated really hard, and actually did it.

So that was our day. We usually do our Montessori trays during I's nap because otherwise I is in the middle of everything, and frustrates A, ruining any hope of concentration. I also purchased the little basket-trays at Walmart for $1 for 2 I think. I like the high sides because they contain things well for small hands and I also like that they are so uniform. Happy Monday!

Fruit Pizza Tutorial

Demonstrated by A. I imagine anyone can figure this out, and you don't have to use bagels, you could use cookie dough (just google fruit pizza) or english muffins or even plain old toast. We used bagels because they are very easy for small hands to spread onto. They don't bunch up or crumble like bread. And hey, We just like bagels!

Ingredients: Bagels, red jam, cream cheese and thinly sliced fruit.

Step 1: Set out ingredients. I put the spreading condiments on the left like most activies we do. This is supposed to prepare them for reading, but as far as this activity was concerned, it was actually easier for her to reach across with her right hand, and scoop and bring back than to have to move her arm out to scoop. I also warmed the cream cheese in the microwave (20 seconds) to make it soft and easy to spread.

Step 2: Scoop and spread on jam (sauce) with a spoon.

Step 3: Spread on cream cheese. (I helped with some of the scooping up of the cream cheese, but A did the spreading.)

Step 4: Decorate with fruit! See her little tongue sticking out as she placed each piece just so? She is such a little chef! I think our next project will be carving swans out of watermelon... lol.

Step 5: Dig in! Make sure to get a nice cream cheese mustache. They are all the rage right now!

I actually made myself a pizza along with her, and showed her how to do each step before she tried. Then she gave me her first pizza, and made another one all on her own to eat! Yum!

More Fruit Activities

Today we re-read Each Peach, Pear Plum and played "I SPY". Then we made a fruit collage. I had the fruit cut out already, and just let A pick the color of construction paper, and gave her a stick of glue. She named all the fruits as she glued them to the page. I also started a journal for A using a composition book. I really just record what she says about something, and write it in and let her draw. She can't draw much more than circles, but I just like having a record of the cute things she says and we can watch the progression of her art. I also put the collage in the journal, along with a pocket for our Jack and Jill puppets. And I added some new baskets to our shelves:

Cutting Work:I was inspired by My Montessori journey. It proved very difficult for Anastasia, but she actually tried several times. I am not sure whether or not to keep it out, or put it away for a few months.

Split-Pea Pouring:I put out the pouring activity but added a second cup to make it a little more challenging. This variation went over extremely well. She poured peas over, and over, and over again. I think next week we will do rice, and finally move onto water. I put these out with all the other trays from yesterday. 6 trays seem to be a good amount along with a couple of crafts and puzzles. Later on today, we made apple and pear prints. I used different sized apples that were rotting on the tree and cut off the bad part. I really hate wasting food, so this actually seemed like a way to use the not-so-good food for something fun.
Anastasia just painted the apples with tempura paint, and stamped it onto the paper. She enjoyed stamping and painting for a good hour, but needed a bath afterwards. I need to make her a new smock because her old one is too small and not very helpful. Topless is the way to go!

Each Peach Pear Plum- 1

Today was our first day of "school". I feel really lame referring to doing "school" with a 2 1/2 year old, but it is our own little version of school I suppose. Anyhow, we read Each Peach Pear Plum which was in our Peak With Books book, and it was a lot of fun to read with Anastasia. It is a short read, with "I Spy" picture riddles on each page. Some are harder than others but with a little help we had lots of fun! We had fun seeing some of our favorite fairy tale characters in some of the pages... like Jack and Jill, Old Mother Hubbard, Cinderella and the Three Bears. I liked a lot of the questions listed in PWB (Peak With Books) and skipped the ones that were really complex.

While she was playing this morning, I hid A's animals in the kitchen and made little rhymes in the same manner as Each Peach Pear Plum for her to find them. Here they are:

Banana, Apple, Pot of Honey, I spy a furry bunny!

Shiny grapes, pretty sequin, I SPY a snuggly penguin!

Strawberry, Peach, Yogurt Swirl, I SPY a nutty squirrel!

Plum, Pear, Applesauce canned-a, I SPY a cozy panda!

Blueberry, Raspberry, a tub of butter, I SPY a silly otter!

Cherry, Apple, Vanilla Pear, I SPY a teddy bear!

This game was a definate hit! I asked her to go hide her animals for me to "Spy" but she didn't quite get the concept but I think it would make a great adaptation for an older child. A school-age child could even make up their own rhymes as well. I also made a shadow matching game that she did really well with:I just put fruit images into Microsoft Publisher and did 2 for each fruit. Then I darkened one of the two images for each fruit and printed them out. If I can figure out how to do it, I would love to have one uploadable to share. We aslo made a fruit salad and compared peaches, pears and plums... sizes, textures and shapes. And this afternoon I set up some montessori-style baskets and taught her how to do each one:

Spooning Apples:

This was a huge hit! I thought it would be too easy, but Anastasia loved it. She has done this basket over-and-over again!

Apple Tweezing:

I found this activity at My Montessori Journey where I was overall inspired to do seasonal Montessori-inspired activity trays. I thought this would prove too difficult, but A adapted it by picking up the apple to get the tweezers around the stem. Since she has never used tweezers before, I thought this was an acceptable way to learn.

Animal Sorting:

I thought A would enjoy sorting animals. She enjoyed playing with them. It would be great if I had tiny tongs for moving them into the sorting spots. I hope to find some, somewhere soon!

Fruit Puzzle:

I found this puzzle at the thrift store for 95 cents last week and a matching Vegetable one. I thought it went along with the "fruit" theme we seem to have going this week. The puzzle seemed easy, but actually proved a little difficult for A as some of the more round fruits only fit one way.

I also did a split-pea pouring tray and a lacing card tray. The pouring was too easy and the lacing very uninteresting apparently. Tonight I am going to try and have A help me make some Apple Pie filling to freeze for a friday pie party! We will also be making scones to go with applesauce we made last night to accompany our Butternut harvest soup! Mmmm. Tune in for more fruit-ful activities!

Here are some fruity coloring pages:

Elmo and Grover Fruitstand and Fruits of the Spirit

Activity Mat

In preperations for school, I made a little activity mat and tutorial for it. I was inspired by the rugs used for floorwork in a traditional Montessori Classroom. It seemed like a novel idea for keeping activities involving small pieces (like knobbed puzzles that hurt to step on) in one place. I started thinking she should use it for ALL her toys for easy clean up, but I think that infringes slightly on the aspect of imagination.

That is my only problem with the Montessori method of education. I often feel that in some of its rigidity it looses an aspect of whimsy essential to the development of imagination. I know that Maria Montessori believed that a clean, organized and functional space gave children a stronger sense of self which would then give them a better foundation for building their imagination and creative spirit. I personally feel that they need a certain level of freedom in order to let their creativity guide them. I especially believe this at a young age when the lines between real and make-believe are less defined and the possibilities have much fewer boundaries. That is why I think putting even small boundaries on play are really not helpful. I believe we must take advantage of this age for giving them the freedom to believe in the things that we no longer remember exist.

"I do believe in fairies, I do! I do!"