Wednesday, July 12, 2006

Space lapbook

Ds is making a lapbook on outer space. I will post the pictures as he does it. If you want to see it you can look at http://tinyurl.com/ecvjd I have always made his lapbooks in the past. This is a big first for him. Keep in mind he is only 6 years old. His printing is sloppy. He has always had a hard time with print. On the other hand his cursive is beautiful. I never figured out why he writes so well in cursive but not in manuscript.

Monday, July 10, 2006

Baby Play...Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?

A red bird.


A yellow duck.
A blue horse. A green frog.
A purple cat.

a white dog and a goldfish that's what I see.

This project was a big first for me. It was a make due with what you have project. In the past in order to make a craft or new toy it has required a trip to the store for supplies. This time I made due with what I had. The first ones I made yellow duck, purple cat, green frog and white dog all came out of my fabric box to make diapers. They are MM micro fleece, Alova suede, and sherpa. I didn't have all the colors needed to make all the animals so after looking around the house I found DS had several red shirts and DH had a blue shirt. YUP they are now a red bird and blue horse. I found an old black hand towel for the black sheep. My goldfish was one of our holiday cloth napkins. I am now one napkin short of having a large Christmas dinner. It had a red juice spot on the corner of it so it was no longer good for a nice dinner anyway. I am still searching the house for a brown bear. I stuffed them with rice because I had a bag already. I used a sharpie marker to draw on them. You could stuff with cotton balls, pillow fluff, old fabric, socks, beans, or whatever you have. I used the coloring pages on www.dltk-teach.com for my outlines on most of them. I don't care for the dog but he will be OK for right now. I would like the yellow duck to be a darker shade of yellow but he's done for now. I will add in the black sheep, Teacher, children, and brown bear soon as I get them done.

I did get a chance to get some more done. This is my black sheep. It didn't show up good in the picture.This is my teacher. Please don't laugh! I never said I could draw. I didn't sew it or stuff it with rice yet because I thought it would show up better in a picture flat on the table. I used fabric pens to draw her.

This is the children. I know they are not the best looking but they will work. I don't have them full of rice yet. I plan on doing that later today.

This is our brown bear for now. We already had him so I am using him until I have the time to sew one up. I will add a picture of my brown bear soon as I get one done.
I have to say that I never would have been happy with this set when my son was little. I would have wanted one to be exactly like the book. I would have spent tons of time and money making them up the way I thought they should be. I don't look at things the same way now. I don't have the time or money to do things the way I once thought things needed to be. This set didn't cost any money to make. I didn't spend much time on it. It is a great sensory toy for DD. She can touch so many different fabrics this way. I will get around to making up a brown bear. I doubt I will waste my time making them look more like the book. We have lots of favorite books in our house. I would rather spend my free time adding toys for some of them.

Thursday, July 06, 2006

Baby library is done!

I finished the baby library. I still need to make up my sons library. Both of my children have spent hours in the books today. I was shocked to see my DS reading all the baby books. I do want to make up some toys to go with some of the books. For now I will make due with what I have. I am sending out a huge thank you to Ellen for this great idea and her advise in getting it done. I look forward to getting a larger one done up for my son in the next day or two. I would like to have one set up for DH before next week. Our house isn't big enough for me to have a library so maybe I can sneak in a shelf of DH's.

Monday, July 03, 2006

This week

I don't have a lot of plans for the week because of the holiday. My friend Ellen from Texas had this great idea. She set up her child's bookshelf in an attractive library style. I think this is something I need to do. My only problem with doing this that my children are not close in age. My one year old is very careful with her books but I don't want her to get at her brothers books. If I put a big bookcase up in the living room my DD would climb it and hurt herself. I have a spot in our TV stand that I use for DD's books. I already line them up by size but after hearing Ellen's idea I know I can do better than that. For my son I think I will take a small bookshelf we have but aren't using and maybe set it up in his room. I will let everyone know how it turns out when I get it done.

Baby Play this week.

I felt that DD should have something new so after a week of thinking I finally came up with it. A new book. DD LOVES books. She will sit and pretend to read to herself for a very long time. She now brings us books and reads them to us. The way she reads is opens book to picture of dog and says DOG! DOG! She will then turn the page and say gizzard and points to the lizard. I had some old wallpaper books and once I looked into them I noticed that they will make GREAT books for a baby. The paper is thick. They have nice texture. Many even have pictures of animals. I started cutting and this is what I came up with. http://tinyurl.com/qwk56 I will add words to the book soon. I think our next one is going to be a shape book.