More car wash and cone and tube people

Good clean fun.
Travis using a tiny straw to blow off the foam soap.
Demi decided to wash cars, table, hands, arms, and tummy.

I wrote about our cone people the other day on the homeschool group. That got me thinking about how we haven't made any lately so we (Travis and Demi) made a bunch up. I took pictures but now I can't find them so I will post them another day. Here is a picture of some cone and tube people we made a long time ago. Now that Travis is older and a little better with fine motor skills we add construction paper clothing, yarn hair, ribbons, buttons and such to decorate them. I am sure you get the idea. I will find the pictures soon I hope. I guess if I don't find the pictures we will just have to make more.

Car wash.

Demi got tired of school today but she didn't want to play alone. Zehira was fussy and Travis needed a lot of help with most of his school work. Demi kept yelling to go potty. I would take her then 2 minutes later she yelled to go again. I couldn't stop this crazy cycle of I don't understand this question mommy, cries from baby, and potty please! This went on for about 30 minutes. It was as if my children thought making mommy run in circles was a fun game to play. I got tired of the game and I told Demi that she was a good girl and all done with potty for now. Two minutes later I heard mommy take me potty please! I asked her to please wait a minute so I could help Travis with a problem and she said NO my car is dirty and needs to be cleaned now. Only after hearing her saying that was I able to figure out what she was up to. She was finding all the little toy cars in the playroom and taking one at a time to the bathroom so after she went potty she could wash them. I was so busy with all the children I never noticed we had a different car every trip to the bathroom. I have always let her take a small toy to wash when I take her to the bathroom and I let her wash the toys when she washes her hands. I look at it as good way to kill germs on the favorite toys and remind Demi to go to the potty every few hours. I realized she wasn't trying to make me run around she was trying to wash all her cars. I helped Travis with his question then I tossed this activity for Demi. I told her it was a car wash so she could clean her dirty cars.

I knew a tiny tray with some foam soap on it would not keep her busy for long so I picked up a couple cotton balls and Q-tips I had in a mitten kit on the table and added a small wash cloth. I took the lid from an almost empty bottle of apple juice and put some water in it. She was playing earlier with some thin craft straws so I added a few of them on the tray. I then poured her a cup of juice in a sippy cup to empty the bottle.

Demi was excited with her new activity. Travis could hear the excitement in her voice that made him look over to see what she had. He started immediately correcting the way she was washing her cars. I could see that he was VERY interested in this activity. I calmly reminded him that this is his sisters car wash and that she can wash the cars however she wants. I told him once he finished his school I would give him a car wash to wash cars if he wanted. I didn't think he would be interested in playing with a little car wash but I guess he was very interested in it. He didn't say anything but he did all of the sudden seem to understand the grammar lesson he was having so much trouble with before the carwash was set up. LOL! He finished the lesson very fast and smiled when he saw I had a tray ready for him. He took the tray over to the play table Demi was at and had fun washing his cars. Both children came up with ways to use the car wash themselves. Demi used Q-tips to add the soap on her cars. She then wet the cotton ball to wipe off the soap. The straws she used for the cars to drive along like a road or a track to an automatic car wash. Travis came up with another way to use his car wash. Travis drove his cars into the pile of foam soap on his tray. He then used the tiny straws to blow off the soap. Then he used the Q-tips to get any spots of soap that was left. I guess I put enough things on the trays because neither of them asked for anything else. Well, Demi did need a little more water but that was the only thing she asked for. They played car wash for over an hour! I was able to get the baby to sleep and because the children played quietly for so long the baby got a good nap. Life is good!

Mitten madness part 5

Mitten kit #41
In/out sight word activity.


I plan not to point at the words or even say anything about the words. Travis learned to read the words in and out without me having to "teach". I think he must have seen the words so often with games like this he just picked it up. I will say lets see what is IN this mitten. Then ask Demi to take them OUT and set them on the paper near the word out. We will talk about the surprises we found IN the mitten. We will chat about IN and OUT. I will try to sound very excited as we take turns finding new stuff in the mitten. I will let you all know if it works as well as it did with Travis.

Mitten kit #42
Right and left mittens.

If the mittens go on the wrong hands the fingers show and they will get cold (I will shiver until we get it right).


Mitten kit #43
Mitten left right games.
I cut out about 20 mittens and wrote left and right on them. If you flip the left hand mitten over it says right on the other side.

First game I came up with is mitten stomp. I call it mitten stomp so it sounds fun enough for my 7 year old to join in on something he might not want to. LOL! I set all the cards out on the table and as I said right or left they would slap hands down on the correct mittens as fast as they could. Travis felt like he was playing on a game show and the hands are like a button to hit hard and fast. We laughed when we made a mistake. Each round they did correctly they would hand me that mitten so we had one less on the table. It isn't really a game because you have no winner but my children didn't seem to notice. LOL! They are having fun with it so I know they will want to do it again. I noticed Demi quickly learned her right hand from playing the game tonight but she doesn't seem to understand the other hand is her left. LOL! Second game I came up with was right and left hand mitten "twister". Demi tried to join in but she didn't understand that she should keep her hands and feet on the cards until I called out a new move to make. We all had fun and laughed. I know she will quickly get the idea if she watches her brother play another time or two.

Game three is a "treasure hunt". We lay the cards out and turn right and left following the pattern on the floor to find a treasure tonight was a small pack of m&m's hid at the end of the mitten trail.
Game 4 for right and left mittens looks like the treasure hunt but we march and call out the hands we find. Like left left to the left, right right lets go right, right right right again, left left it say left. Children like it when I do silly chants and lead the march.



Mitten kit #43
Sight word mittens.
Once Demi gets good with in and out I will add Up, down, on, and off. I will read the cards and then ask Demi to help me find a place to put them. I remember having so much fun with Travis playing games like this. With him I didn't use paper mittens I used plastic Easter eggs for the first game, but it is the same idea. Below is an example of how I will introduce them with a toy house. If the first mitten is up I will tell her it says up and let her put it someplace up. If/when we mess up we will giggle. I will be sure to make mistakes and show them to her when we play. Then she can fix my mitten that is in the wrong place.
If you are thinking you might like to do this but don't have a toy house or castle to play you can make one with a box. If you don't like that idea below is the same game only using cars.

Car on the mitten and mitten on a car.
Car off the mitten and mitten off the car.

Mitten in a car (this car opens up).
Car goes up and down a block ramp.

With Travis I also remember I used a lot of trains for doing things like this because he loved Trains. I used cars for the pictures above only because it was the first toy I saw. They are small so I can toss cars and cards all in a small bag and add them to our box of kits to play whenever we want.

A sight word game Travis LOVED playing with me was taking a sight word card set like the ones above and using our bodies and the furniture to go with it. He would call out a noun like the couch and then I would pick a card to use with it. If the card said IN I would have to try and climb IN the couch. Seeing mommy getting under the cushions on the sofa cracked him up. I would get UNDER or ON the table, pretend to climb UP the rug, and other silly things like that. He never did know he was learning he always thought it was just silly play. I will play this with Demi soon. I am getting excited about it now that I am remembering all the fun we had with this. Children don't need to read to play this game this is a game you can play with a baby to learn the words in and on. When I do this I will read the cards and maybe Demi will like it so much she might learn the words on the cards when we play together just from playing so much and I won't have to "teach" her. I will let you know how it goes.


Mitten kit #45
Mitten bowling.
Toss a snowball at the mittens.


I took a large soda pop box and cut out 10 rectangles
I used children's scissors to make a score line one inch from the bottom.

I made a fold on the line so they would stand up.
For me the way above is very quick so I picked that one but if you don't like making folds for the stands you could cut little strips and add a slit to stand them up (like the old paper dolls stands).Adding a strip with a staple and a bend also works (picture frame style).

I stapled mittens on the front and added a ball we had. You can make them with normal looking pins or any other thing you can think of. I put numbers on my pins for us to put back in number order but you could put words, letters, shapes, or other things on it them. For an older child you can put the hard to learn multiplication facts on the pins and only have him answer the ones he doesn't knock down. Put the answers on the back for him to check. I find with Travis games like this can make memory work fun and he doesn't notice that school can be hard.

Guess I am not the best bowler. I left 3 pins standing. At least I know it works. LOL!
Later tonight Travis took a roll of newsprint paper (it's like a roll of wrapping paper) and rolled it out to make a lane for his game. LOL! He drew a square at the end for all the pins to set inside of. I should have taken a picture but I didn't notice what he was doing. Before I noticed what was going on Demi drew on his paper and tore it some. After that Travis didn't want to play anymore.

Snow day!

We had fun playing in the snow today. I tried to get pictures of Zehira outside in the snow but I couldn't do it. to be honest she didn't seem to even notice the snow. LOL! I did take some pictures of the other two. I gave them a sled ride. I was trying to hold the baby, take pictures of them and pull the sled all at the same time. The pictures are not as good as the ones my hubby took yesterday but it was the best I could do.
Baby Z. turned 2 months old today!

Mitten madness part 4

SPECIAL NOTE. I hope you are not getting sick of seeing mittens. I hope you all understand I am using mittens because 1. They are quick to draw. 2. They are OK for boys and girls. 3. They fit into the season we are approaching. 4. They do not go with a religious holiday so anyone can use them. 5. Sticking with one thing can keep me focused better so I can share more with you of how I do things. Please don't feel you need to do things in this way. I know what works well for one child or family might not work with another.

I hope this list of stuff gives a mom ideas of things to do on a snow day. Maybe this list of mitten kits will give a mom new to homeschooling some ideas on a place to start with teaching a child or better yet maybe seeing the kits a mom will not be so tempted to spend a lot of money on teaching materials for little children. When Travis was small we spent a ton of money on educational stuff. Most of the purchases we regretted. I felt that I had to make up my own stuff to change around the thing we bought so they would work for us. After all that changing and tweaking the store bought stuff I would find myself thinking how if I would have made it all up myself in the beginning it would have been quicker and a lot cheaper than trying to get the things I bought to work for Travis . I feel that the only reading, writing and math program that will fit a child perfectly when they are little is one a parent makes up for the child. But that is just my opinion from my experience.

Many of my kits have made up have small parts. My daughter does not put things in her mouth and I am always with her. Our house has an open floor plan so she is not out of my view except for when she is sleeping. I don't want anyone to look at my daughters age and think it must be OK to give a child the stuff I do. If I had a house with walls and my child was out of my view I would not let her the things I do now. I ask her if I can wear her pretty string necklaces she makes for a few minutes if I have to leave the room to go to the bathroom or do a load of laundry. I don't want her to know this but I do it because I am worried that she is such a monkey she might get caught on something and choke.

I hope you all can see how when making this stuff it doesn't need to be a mitten. It could be a train, car, gingerbread man, stocking, doll, hearts, animals, or anything else you can think of.

I am not going to post many pictures of my children's projects because in the past I have wanted my children's crafts be done the same way other children did them. I don't want someone else to be stuck thinking that way. I think by not sharing many of my children's finished crafts you and your children can come up with your own perfect way to do them. To be honest many of ours come out crooked with upside down faces. LOL!

Last thing I wanted to say is I hope you all understand my writing. Please forgive my spelling and writing mistakes. I do have 3 children most of the time one sometimes even two are in my lap when I am typing this stuff. I am doing a lot of this very late at night and I am very tired. If I waited to share stuff until I was well rested, with no child in my arms, 2 hands free to type, and time to read over what I write to make sure it makes sense, I know I would never be able to share anything at all until my children grow up. I hope this explains my choppy, confusing, and often poorly written sentences. I am aware of how bad they are, my husband often points them out to me. I am sure that someone like my husband will come across this and be annoyed with my writing. Please either try to understand or just look at pictures and not read my words. I tried to put enough pictures up my words are not even needed. If anyone is confused with how I did something please feel free to write me my email address is schoolnsuch@aol.com


Mitten kit #31
Grammar/Geography cards
Noun mittens.
This activity is fun for younger children.
The noun cards (or even a noun list) can be used with a baby by Mommy touching the objects in a room and telling the baby what it is. Touching table and saying table, floor and saying floor, and so on. My son liked doing this with Demi when she was little. Now Demi does this with Zehira. I carry Z around the house following Demi's lead so she can "teach" her baby sister the nouns in our house (didn't want you thinking the 2 year old carries the baby lol).

By 18 months old my children LOVED noun cards. I would read the noun off a card and my children would run and touch the noun I read. We use words like table, chairs, window, floor, rug, ball, telephone and such. I call it the noun game so they learned without me teaching that things they touched all are nouns. My children thought adding words like hands, feet, arms, and such made it silly so we giggle a lot when we play this.

Around age 2 the children started picking out nouns from sentences in our story books. Asking them what words in the sentence are things they could touch helped them find them. I would make up more cards using the nouns they found in our books to add to this game. My children loved knowing they made up part of the game. We added in people and a photo album for them to touch the people when the name was read. We later added places to touch with maps.

The cards can be used for reading practice when the child is learning to read. The child can read the card and mommy runs to the object to touch.

Geography
This card set is an easy way to add geography/map work into the mix. Use a map to find places that you have on noun cards. For little ones you can take pictures of places you travel to often and make your own map (with crayons on cardboard) then put the pictures in the right places or point to them when you read the noun card. My children liked things like streets, towns, and stores for this activity. For an older child they can locate things like states, rivers, lakes, counties and such by using different maps. BTW I LOVE printing out these maps. For maps of places in my area we use websites like map quest or yahoo maps. Google Earth is another map resource we love. An atlas would also work. My son liked picking out and adding places to the list. An older child can read places on the map and write out ones he likes on a set of cards for little sister to learn about and find (works well for us).

This is a small set on regular paper cut into mittens. Our real set of noun cards are not on paper mittens. They are on thicker paper because they are something we like to use a lot. A set like the mitten one above would be perfect for people to try out and see if they like doing this type of activity.

Mitten kit #32
Tick tack toe mittens.
A simple game board made of construction paper and red and yellow mittens for game pieces.

Mitten kit #33
Writing practice mitten.
I had some dry erase writing strips (I bought a bunch back when Travis was little). You could write on card stock and cover it with clear contact paper it will work the same way. If you do that you might want to make sure it gets washed off good when the are done with it. Sometimes my children don't wipe off the marker well on contact paper then it is very hard for me to clean. When that happens I find it easier to make up a new writing set.

This kit is a mitten shape with dots to form the name on lines with a washable marker and a cotton ball to wipe off. I use a cloth for our dry erase boards most of the time but because a cotton ball was right in front of me I added it in so I didn't have to get up and get the cloths.
Mitten Kit #34
Grammar cards/Gym class
Verb mittens.

My children have always LOVED this game! It is a set of action verbs. I read them to non readers and they do the action on the card. My children add more to the list as they think of them. They LOVE seeing mommy do the silly things on the list. It is good reading practice for children who are starting to read. Just like noun cards they find new words in story books to add to the set. When you add enough cards and do it for 30+ minutes it fills in for PE.

here is a short list to get you started.
skip, hop, cry, swim, run, jump, laugh, giggle, sneeze, cough, hug, smile, bend, sit, twist, wiggle, dance, gallop ,and squirm.

My children like seeing me swim in our living room and do other silly things with this game.

Mitten kit #35
Mitten puzzle.
I like to make puzzles for my children. For Demi I always start out very simple just a few pieces. This way she can hear YAY! You did it right away. I then cut more and more pieces to make it a little harder. When it gets so hard she needs a little help putting the puzzle together I help and then she glues it on paper and decorates it. Doing it this way gives her several days of activities with just a simple puzzle.
Mitten kit #36
What happened next card set.
I think you can see it took me under a minute to draw this set. It will work just as well as the expensive card sets. The wonderful part of this set is if she destroys it I am not out any money. We also can add to it if she wants. Once she places them in order she can draw on them to add to the story.
Mitten kit #37
Just in case someone sees the kit above and can't think of any other ideas to make more simple what happened next cards here is another one I made.Mitten kit #38
A third idea for what happened next. If you look I am sure you can see that my cards could be in several different orders depending on how you tell the story. I like this set up better. Demi can tell me a story using the cards and her story might not go in the order I made the cards it will be fun for me to hear her tell them. For an extra activity I will put all the cards from all 3 sets together and have her make up a big story with them . I will also take a turn at this.
Mitten kit #39
Mittens with feelings.
It is OK to laugh! I know I am not the best artist. I will admit I didn't even try to do a good job on them. My daughter will not care. We can get a lot of use out of this silly set. I will use it with our books we have on feelings. We will use them to discuss feelings and use the cards as a game to act out feelings and talk about what makes us happy, sad, and such. My son had a hard time with understanding feelings when he was young. My daughter seems to understand them very well so that might be why I feel OK with making her a quick set like this. I think Demi will have a fun time with them.


Mitten Kit #40
Book mark mitten.
Just a piece of ribbon, a mitten, some markers to decorate and glue.



Making those 40 kits took me around 2 hours. I know they are not all pretty but they will keep my children happy, busy, learning and well behaved for a lot longer than 2 hours. I will not be sad if Demi doesn't like one of the activities. I will not even try to get her to do it. I might set it out in a place she can pick it up and check it out but I don't feel the need for her to learn or do everything I have made. She can let me know what she likes and what she doesn't. I did say this was a two hour project BUT it has taken me a way longer than 2 hours to take pictures, upload them on blogger, and write some instructions. I guess that is why I don't post a lot of things that we do. I hope to someday have a faster computer. I dream of getting a laptop and high speed Internet someday. I do have more kits made up, some others started and lots more (around 100) on paper as ideas to make up when I get more free time. I will post more soon.

Mitten madness part 3

Mitten kit #21
Paint and sticker mittens.
I made up a large bunch of kits just like this one because my daughter LOVES stickers and we have lots of stickers around. They are so quick to put together and keep her busy for a long time. I did have to add a page of construction paper to each of the kits because she wanted to glue her mittens on something after she painted and put stickers on them. The stickers came in a large box that had many strips of stickers inside. Bought it several months ago in the dollar section at the grocery store.

I am running a bit low on paper lunch bags. I am reusing them but I have so many kits made up that need to go in bags I know I will run out with just bagging up what I have done already. Remember I promised not to buy anything so I needed to find a new idea to store them. This was I have started doing. It's just 2 sheets of paper folded a small amount around 3 sides and then added a few staples. The top is left open. The paint strip had to be folded for it to fit inside. The next set of paints I will make on shorter strips. Paint dots that run in 2 rows will fit better inside the envelopes.
Mitten kit #22
cutting practice mitten (2 year old level).
I found a mitten stamp in my son's craft box. I had to find a way to use it!
Stamped out a page of mitten rows.

Cut them into strips so my 2 year old can use her little scissors to cut them apart.
She is still using the spring loaded scissors most of the time. They open back up so she only has to squeeze to cut with them. I did see her using regular scissors to cut play dough last week so she might be able to use regular kid scissors soon. I like giving her small cuts because then she doesn't have to struggle with it.

Below is the kit. It is a paper with the lines on it, the mitten strips, scissors, and glue. I put one on the glue page so you can see the mittens hanging.

I will give her the strip of mittens and her scissors and have her cut them on the purple lines. The strips are about 1 inch across so she will only have to make 2 maybe 3 snips to cut out the mitten. A simple clothes line is on another page for her to glue her mittens on.


Mitten kit #23

I stamped out a bunch of mittens in several colors and cut some small pieces of string. Demi will match the pairs of mittens and glue them on strings

Mitten kit #24
Because I had the stamper right in front of me I put it with some 1/2 sheets of paper and a plate. All it needs is a little paint on the plate and she can stamp mittens on the papers. I like using 1/2 sheets of paper for crafts because they take up less room and work well for little ones.
Mitten kit #25
Remember how I made kit16? When I was making the circles for the snowball outline I was thinking how the cap worked well for pincher grip/fine motor skills. I had to find a way to add it into a kit for Demi. After a little thinking, I came up with a snowball stamper. I glued a cotton ball to the bottom of the cap then put it with a 1/2 sheet of blue construction paper and a paper plate. All I will need to do is give her some white paint on the plate and she can paint snowballs with it.
Mitten kit #26

I was making a bit of a large mess on the table. I needed to pick stuff up so I could keep going. when picking up I came up with this kit. He is just cotton balls, 2 tiny mittens, a Q-tip, and paper punch dots. It is all stuff that was on the table in my way.
Here is another way I made due with what I had, the stapler was not on the table but I had a roll of masking tape within reach. I used a little tape to make little envelopes for the paper dots (I tossed the little mittens in with the dots).
Mitten kit #27
Cutting practice mittens.
Another cutting exercise. Cut out mittens and strips of paper the same width of the mittens. Demi will make fringe for the mittens by cutting simple slits and using glue to attach them. I will show her how to roll them but last time I showed her that she wasn't ready to do it. Travis likes this kind of craft. If he does this on he most likely will cover all the mitten with curly cut tabs.
Mitten kit #28
You are going to know I am crazy when you look at this one. LOL! I often do crafts of this sort but I don't often share them because I feel silly. I tell people how I grab odd things from the kitchen to use for crafts so I guess this one is not all that odd. I was tossing out some of our fall stuff to make room for more winter things (school stuff). I had a set of counting cards shaped like pumpkins and a bag of pumpkin seeds for Demi to put on the cards. I don't think that is odd but I do think not being able to toss them out is! I couldn't toss them because I knew Demi loved using them. That is why I had to come up with a winter craft to use our pumpkin seeds. After a bit of thinking I came up with a pumpkin seed snowflake. You can use buttons, beads, rice, beans,or even paper punch dots.
For my 2 year old I drew 3 lines to mark the 6 points. I will have her glue the seeds on the lines. My older child he can draw his own lines or do it without lines. I had to use the ugly brown paper for this kit because I am very low on blue and I don't want to run out.



Mitten kit #29
Q-tip snowflake. OK, not very exciting but it will keep my toddler busy for a bit. I will give her 3 Q-tips and show her how to break them by bending them a few times. I then will show her this one and ask her to glue her Q-tips on a sheet of paper to make a snowflake. I doubt hers will not be even but it will keep her busy for a bit.




Mitten kit #30
Musical mittens.
I am sure you have all made the paper plate shakers before. The only thing different I did was add a string for a handle on the back and I cut out a mitten for my daughter to glue on the front. I still have pumpkin seeds in a bag so we will be putting some of them on the inside.

This is the front.
The inside.
The back side sorry it is a little dark I guess I didn't have the flash on.

We will staple all around the outside when it is done. I will tell her to put her hand palm side on the plate with string over the back of her hand and we will wave and dance to make music.

Some of our weekend

My children tried out the mitten kits this weekend. I was so surprised to see how much fun Travis had with them. He doesn't always like doing crafts. I think he liked them this time ONLY because he didn't feel left out.LOL!




My hubby took the children out to play in the snow.




This one cracks me up 2 heavy children in a little sled with very little snow on the ground. LOL! My hubby pulled them around the yard for a while and made them very happy.Oh! this is a funny Demi... I gave her stickers to play with so I could have time to change and feed the baby. She decorated her hands and toes! LOL! We all laughed when we saw what she did.

Mitten madness part 2

Part 2 of mitten madness

Kit #11
Mitten puppets.
I added a envelope of construction paper strips to make striped mittens.
Kit #12

Another set of mitten puppets. This one has feathers to glue on. Hmm... I don't see my Q-tip paint brushes in this picture I will have to go back and look to make sure I put some in the bag. If you are wondering why so many of them are so much alike it is because my goal is to have lots of stuff to keep her busy. Stripes one day and feathers the next or later in the same day are enough to keep her busy and happy. For her they are puppets that are a lot different. LOL!
Kit #13

Another book only this one was made after I found my paper punch I used ribbon to tie the book.
Kit #14
A mitten set with dots I cut out of foam. Foam is wonderful for little fingers. When Demi was 1 year old I would cut things out of foam and give them to her. I would then put dots of colored glue on papers for her to stick the foamies on. She is old enough now that she can pick up the tiniest of papers but we still like to use foam to glue on things.
Kit #15
Weaving mittens. I used the ugly construction paper for this because this is a craft that will get torn when she is doing it. I made up the traditional weave mats (the kind we all made tons of home when we went to school). I cut the strips thin and made sure they would fit LOOSE. Demi will try to do this project but most likely she will only put 2 strips in the mitten and she will not go over under all the way. Hers go under, over,over, over, under, under, over. LOL! She will most likely tear it in a few places and we will tape it when she is done and tell her she did a great job. LOL! When Travis was little I would do things like this hand over hand with him. With Demi I let her do it her way and offer to tape the broken spots when she is done. I don't care if she goes over and under with each one. If Travis does one he will cut his own mitten, fold it in 1/2, cut the slits in the mitten,cut the strips, and do the weaving all on his own. He will go over under all the way but he is 7.

Kit #16
This is a snowball mitten set. I made circles to mark the amount of snowballs to match the number on the mitten. I added cotton balls for the snowballs.

I had to search for something to trace around to make my circles. I was going to use a coin then I thought of a bottle cap. I grabbed this cap and I was going to trace around it to make circles but i hate tracing little circles. I then thought how dipping it in paint might work. It did work a lot better than drawing them. I was able to do each mitten in just a few seconds time.
Kit #17
Mitten number order. 2o mittens to sort out and line up in number order. I made them small like the ABC set.

Kit #18
Make a snowman. This is just a bunch of cotton balls, a piece of blue construction paper, a paint strip, and glue. I will tell her to glue the cotton balls to make snowmen.


Kit #19
Because I had blue paper and cotton balls in front of me. I thought paining with cotton balls might be fun for her and very quick for me to toss together.

This kit is just blue paper, white paint, a plate to put some paint on, and cotton balls to paint on the blue paper.I know the 2 snow kits above are not "mittens" and that does break a rule but because the stuff was on the table right in front of me from the other kits I was making I thought it would be silly not to stick it together, snap a picture, and toss it in a bags. By doing this I got 2 extra kits to keep her busy and they didn't take any time to make up.

Kit #20
Red Light Green Light mitten game.
I used red and green construction paper to make the stop and go mittens. I used the cardboard piece that was in my pack of construction paper pack for the middle layer. I glued them all together and in about 2 minutes time I have a game. We will play it just like red light green light only we will say stop and go. Sorry the colors don't look red and green in the pictures. Construction paper is hard to photograph plus the glue was still wet when I took the pictures. I can even see the wet glue on the green side.


I have many more kits already made up so I will post more soon. It takes me a long time to get the pictures uploaded. It is so funny that I can make up over 10 new kits in under an hour but it takes me over an hour to upload the pictures. I don't stay at the computer when it is loading them so it doesn't take that much of my time but I have to remember to keep coming back to upload more then I have to find time when my children don't need me to type up what they are.

Mitten madness part 1

I had to come back and edit this one because I just noticed I forgot to put the title on it.

I was in a rush to make up a bunch more craft kits to keep Demi busy for the next few weeks. My thinking went something like this...

I need to make up more things to keep her busy during the time I teach Travis.
I would like stuff that she will have fun with.
Of course it needs to be something educational.
Maybe a theme craft.
I could do a fall, Thanks giving, Christmas, or a New Years theme.
I love using themes but I never seem to have the time to post them on my blog. By the time I get some free time to take pictures of the final projects and find a bit more free time to sit at the computer to upload them the holiday is long over.
Maybe a theme that can last a long time and work for all my children.
Hmm... A theme that can work for anyone with children.
Lots of ideas start rolling around in my head but they all will take more time than I think I have.
I like to keep things simple and fast.
I don't want to spend a ton of time making things that my daughter will only use for a few minutes. I want things I can make up faster than she can do them.
Simple....
Maybe a winter theme. Hmmm... What goes with winter??? OH I KNOW! Mittens!!!! They are very simple! Hey I can draw mittens (or something that will resemble mittens) without searching for a pattern. Yes, I will start with mittens tonight.


That folks is the beginning of my mitten madness. I already have enough mitten kits made up to keep my children busy for the next month or two and enough more ideas to keep them busy until spring. I have pictures of most of them so now I need to do is post pictures here to share them with you.

I gave myself 3 rules before starting this.

Rule 1.
All my kits have to be mittens. LOL! I have a habit of getting off track with things like this. Often I start simple projects like this and it quickly goes from something like simple paper mittens into other things like dress up costumes or some other crazy thing. When I started this last night I thought I was only going to make up 2 or 3 mitten kits. Once I got started I couldn't seem to stop so what started as 2 or 3 kits is now 40 or 50. LOL! I guess things do go much better when I keep focused.


Rule 2.
I have to keep all my mitten kits simple and FAST to make up. I can not spend a lot of time on them. I will need keep focused on how short Demi's attention span is. It is silly for me to spend 1 hour making something she will only use for 5 minutes. That is the one thing that I always seem to forget when I make her things.


Rule 3. I will NOT buy anything to make my kits. I am going to use ONLY the things I have at home already to do this project. I do always have craft supplies around but now is the perfect time for this challenge because I am out of many of my normal craft supplies that I like to keep on hand so I will be in the perfect situation to show others how I make due with what I have on hand.

I am sure most of you are familiar with most of the projects they are the well known cut, paste, paint, count, match, lace, and such the normal craft learning projects for young children. I am just going to do them all with just mittens. In under an hour last night I made up a ton of simple kits. I seem to work best at 1 am. LOL!

I started by making up several paint sets for the kits. Below you can see I used a frozen waffle box to put my paints drops on. It is tempera paint just like I posted in my last post.



After my spots dried I cut the paints into strips. I then glued on bottle tops to use as water cups.

Mitten Kit #1

I drew free hand a simple mitten shape. I then used that mitten to trace others on a page so they would be close in size to each other. My printer is out of ink and I said I would NOT buy anything for this project so drawing all of my mittens is what I needed to do. I drew them very fast keeping in mind that my girl is 2 years old and will not care if my mittens are a little off. LOL!

I then cut off the bottom 2 mittens on the page. I cut all the way around them. I did draw a line for a cuff just because I thought they would look a bit more like mittens with the line. LOL!
I then added Q-tips for paint brushes and a glue stick for kit and it is done.

I put it all in a brown lunch bag to store until we plan on using it. I put a number 1. on the outside of the bag because I only have 4 glue sticks. When kit one is done I will move the glue stick from this kit to another bag. I will know that only the first 4 have glue in them. Doing that I hope will save me from having to look for glue when I am in a rush. In my house whenever the baby needs to be fed or when Travis needs help with school that is the same time Demi yells to glue and I can't find the glue sticks. I hope this system fixes this problem.

Directions.

I will add water to the bottle top on the paint strip and I will tell Demi to paint the cut mittens then match them up to the ones on the paper and glue them in place.

Mitten kit #2

Same kind of kit as kit one. It has 2 mittens on a half sheet of paper, 2 mittens cut out, and a paint set but this one I added in some tiny polka dots. Rule #2 was to make them up fast. I couldn't find my paper punch so I cut them out by hand. YES they are not perfect circles but I cut out a ton at a time and if my children say anything I will just point out how hand knit items are never perfect circles. LOL!


To put the dots neatly in the lunch bag I made up a simple envelope. I didn't waste time taping it shut. I figured just folding it would keep them from going all over inside the bag.


Mitten kit #3
This kit is a lacing set. I used a cracker box to make this. I traced around the outside wider than the mitten. I could have just made a larger mitten with holes on it and skipped the drawing on the inside but I plan on letting Demaris decorate the mitten and I thought the holes might get in the way with the decorating. In the past Demi has filled in lacing or brad holes (with glue, paint, paper, and such) on craft projects. Doing it this way I can tell her to decorate the mitten and leave the holes for the pretty ribbon. I used thin ribbon with a piece of tape on the end for the laces. Yarn, shoelaces, or string would work just as well. The ribbon was right next to me so it was quicker using this than going to get the laces or string that was in another room. I was able to stick with rule 2 and do it fast. I tied the ribbon to one of the holes so it wouldn't get lost.

I made up 2 of them. One has less holes than the other. Demi often looses interest with lots of holes.
Mitten Kit #4
Pattern mittens.
I cut out a bunch of mittens out of 2 colors of construction paper. I then cut strips of card stock and glued squares of the same colors in a pattern on them. Demi will copy the pattern on the cards with the mittens. I will add more colors and patterns if she still has an interest after doing this set. This thinking keeps me on track. I am keeping in mind that my toddler often looses interest fast with stuff like this.

Mitten Kit #5
story book mittens. This book I will just give her to use however she wants. A book shaped like a mitten will make her smile and even with nothing special to do with it but use a set of crayons on it will keep her busy for some time.

Mitten Kit #6
More storybook mittens.
This one is just like the other one (I made up a large stack of them). I will have her decorate the cover and then have her tell me a story about the mittens on the front and back cover. I will write the story on the pages on the right side and we will together make pictures to go with the story on the left sided pages.
Mitten Kit #7
ABC letter match mittens

I know I promised not to buy any supplies so for this so I had to shrink down my mittens. I did start this mitten project with almost a full pack of construction paper but I know with projects like this I run out of paper fast. I have many more things to make up with colored construction paper so I need to find ways to use less.

The picture below shows how much smaller my ABC mittens are than the other mittens I have made.
I am sure you can guess the object is to match the upper case letter to the lower case letter.


Mitten Kit #8
furry mittens
I cut out some red mittens sorry this set doesn't look the same shape as my other mittens. I told you I am not using a pattern. My daughter will not care I thing they still resemble mittens. Anyway, I am adding cotton balls to this kit. I plan on showing her how to pull apart a cotton ball to make fur for the cuff. She can then glue it into place. BTW the fur laying on the bottom of the right mitten is just one cotton ball pulled apart some.
Mitten Kit#9
sparkle mittens

I don't see any gems, sequences , or others sparkles in my craft box so I am using glitter paint, glitter glue, and shiny ribbons for this kit. Other things that would work is aluminum foil, foil wrapping paper, tubes of glitter, or shiny buttons.

Mitten Kit#10
peekaboo mittens
This one is my favorite so far! I must think better and be more creative when I am tired. I made this one up VERY late at night! I was so tired I could hardly keep my eyes open when I got the idea and made this one.
I cut mittens out of a cracker box so they would be stiff. I drew and cut out a simple set of eyes, nose and mouth for Demi to glue on (Travis can draw a face right on the plate if he makes one). I cut some yarn for hair. I am not wasting time digging out other colors of yarn so if Travis does one and wants brown hair he can paint the yarn or color it with markers. I will be teaching him to use what we have. LOL! I added in a set of paper mittens to cover the brown cardboard. I don't care if my children choose to cover up the brown but I thought I should stick a set in in case they said the brown was ugly. I didn't add a paint set in this bag. I did add some stickers and things to decorate the mittens and a small set of colored pencils. I added brads to make the hands play peekaboo. I have to thank Kate for inspiring me to use brads for children's crafts. She had a bunch of brad crafts on her blog a long time ago. I LOVED seeing her crafts with movable parts and I quickly became obsessed with making movable crafts with my children. My family has been big brad crafters from the day she shared hers. LOL! When I started my mitten theme I knew I needed to make a pair movable with brads my first thought was just hands waving hello and goodby. When I was trying to think of something to attach the moving hands to I thought of paper plates. I started thinking the plate was a bit small for hands unless I made them smaller. That is when I got the thought to use the plate upside down for a face and add mittens to play peekaboo. I was so excited when a paper plate face popped into my head! I hope my children like this craft as much as I think they will. Below is a picture of the stuff laying on the plate so you can get an idea of what it will look like.


I didn't bend the brads but I am sure you get the idea. The hands nose and mouth are all drawn quick free hand. I cut them out for Demi to glue on. The face might not look like this when finished because Demi puts mouths on upside down most of the time. LOL!
This kit I have stored in a brown lunch bag like the others only I had to bend the plate a bit for it to fit inside.



That is all for now. I have a lot more mittens to share when I get back to the computer.

What we have been up to.

OK, here is some of what we have been doing.


Demi yells to do school with Travis every day now. If I have enough stuff for her to do she will sit for all of Travis's school (several hours). I found a few old brighter vision workbooks in a box in the garage. They are a few that Travis never finished up when he was little. Demi LOVES them. She had lots of fun with them over the last week or so. I don't make her stay at the table with Travis but as long as she is happy doing school with us I let her stay and join in.

Travis is a wonderful student! He does so well with all his school. Most days he asks for extra work in all subjects.
The baby sleeps well in the morning if I have enough stuff to keep Demi busy/quiet.

I have been using a lot of the crafts on DLTK to keep Demi busy. She can't cut them out but she does a wonderful job with using glue to put them together. I print out some in black and white and I noticed she tries to color in the lines. Most of the time I give her some quick directions and let her do what she wants. I don't care if she does them correctly or not. I am very surprised to see she does them right almost all the time. Travis was reading at her age but he could not do glue crafts on his own. I remember doing them all hand over hand with him. Demi shows no interest in reading yet but she is terrific with glue . I try to give Demi the same subjects Travis is doing at the same time he does them. If he is doing math I give her things to count or numbers to play with. If he is doing writing I give her paper and pencils, for reading I give her books, and so on. Last Friday Travis was doing a spelling test. This was right after he had done writing so Demi still had a small tablet on her tray that she was writing on. Travis would say NEXT every time he finished writing his word so I would say the next word. After the 3rd word Demi YELLS out NEXT before Travis got his word on his page. I turn and looked to see her with her notebook and pencil pretending to write the spelling words. LOL! Anyway, I thought if I wrote this it might help a momma who has a school age child and a preschooler out with something to do during spelling time. Travis seems to love the idea that his little sis is trying to things the same way he does.


Zehira gets lots of love from her brother and sister. BTW the red mark on her head is not a bump. I am guessing it is a mark from how she was laying before her brother picked her up.


The children made Dino's this weekend. This is Travis's Dino eating off a playdough tree.


This is Demi's tree (that is what she told me it was).The bathroom remodel is going MUCH better! We have a tub and shower! We don't have the money to replace the rest of the room yet so this project will have to go on hold for a bit. I am happy we have no leaking pipes and everything is working. I don't like the missing floor blocks in front of the tub or the missing ceiling blocks in the shower but I will have to live with that for now.

Demi helping with the tools. Her favorite thing to do with Daddy nowadays.
Demi with more tools.

Travis holding up a large piece of the shower wall.

Demi being her funny self.

That is the HAPPY things we have been up to. The not so happy things in my house right now is when Demi is not doing school with brother she is pretending to be a baby. Today she climbed into the playpen and messed her pants. She told me she was a baby. UGH! That isn't the only not so happy parts of my day Zehira has reflux so she is upset for hours at a time EVERY night and a little bit during the day. I walk, sing, and cry with her for hours every night. I was starting to think my baby hated me! The doctor said it is just reflux. Good news is Zee has just hit 10 pounds and she is growing well. She does smile and is wonderful when she isn't in pain screaming at me. Having to be up late every night with her screaming and then getting up early every morning (Demi now gets up at 5-5:30 am) this has kept me away from the computer. A few nights I only got 2 hours of sleep. I hope to get more computer time when this phase passes by!

Painting idea.

I was cleaning up some Tempera paint off the kitchen table several weeks ago when I got this idea. I thought about how a wet cloth on dry Tempera paint makes the pant spread the same way it does when the paint is fresh. This gave me an idea on A cheap low mess toddler paint set!!! I put a few large drops of paint on a stiff paper paper, paper plate, card stock, or cereal/cracker boxes. I let them dry then store them with art supplies. When I don't have time to grab a bunch of paints for Demi to paint with (because I am helping Travis with school or caring for the baby) I can hand her the dry paint blobs and a few wet Q-tips and let her paint. She can't make much of a mess with them because it is a LOT less paint than I give her at our normal art or craft times. plus it is watered down it wipes up Very easy!

I wanted to take pictures of my new craft kits I made up for her using this idea but I can't seem to find time to take the pictures (I have a baby in my arms most of the time nowadays).

Below are the pictures I took when I first tried out this idea. I will try to get pictures of my craft kits soon as I find myself with a few free minutes with no children in my arms or lap (might be a long time before that happens).



I am sure others have thought of this idea before. I wish I would have known to do this years ago. About 4-5 years ago when Travis was little I use to have a group of children(1-4 years old) over once a week to have a craft/play time. This idea would have been perfect back then.

Just in case I don't get around to taking pictures of my craft kits I will write it out now to give you an idea. I took cereal and cracker boxes and put drops of paint on them. I put the paint in rows and once dry I cut the boxes into rectangles. Each rectangle has several colors on it. I left a space on the cardboard with no paint to glue a cap (milk jug cap, juice bottle cap, soda cap any cap works). I then draw or print out a page for her to paint. She loves using glue so I add something to glue on the page. I then put the stuff all together with a few Q-tips and a glue stick and it is all ready. It takes only a second to grab and add a few drops of water into the bottle cap and give it all to her. She is 28 months old and can do the activities alone without my help. It keeps her busy and quiet for15-30 minutes or even longer. It is enough time for me to give Travis a lesson (a long lesson might use 2 kits), feed or change the baby, take a phone call, start dinner, or fold a load of clothes. It is the perfect thing to give me a few minutes when ever I need it! I think this would be good for school time for many children. I think it would be perfect for the moms who don't like paints/paint messes. I am not ever worried about paint messes but I do struggle often with teaching Travis, caring for Zehira, and finding ways to keep Demaris busy. My 2 year old has more control of our day than the rest of us. She is often LOUD. She screams when she is mad and even when she is happy she is far from quiet. Travis can not learn or concentrate on school when his sister is being loud. Baby Zehira can not sleep when her sister is loud. I can not focus and keep things moving along hen Deimi is having a loud day. I guess what I am trying to say is little dry drops of dry paint have made my life easier and my house less noisy for right now. LOL!