letter A

WATCH OUT! The letter A ants are hungry!

I left the room to give Travis a quick grammar lesson this morning. When I came back in the living room I saw this!

WOW! Our ants are BIG eaters! Demi has such a good imagination! She went into her playroom and gathered a bunch of her play food and staged her ants to be eating the food. Travis and I both laughed when we saw this,


Here is something else I wanted to share. Last night I gave Travis a wallpaper book. I told him it was his and he could use it however he wanted. He spent an hour or so before bed cutting, pasting, creating, and painting. Below is one of his creations. In the last 24 hours I think he has made around 10 pieces of art. He told me today that he likes creating crafts with wallpaper books. He made up a bunch of cute cards with the golf theme wallpaper pages (for his poppy who plays golf) but I am too lazy to go take pictures of them right now. I just wanted to share with you all that Travis is starting to like "crafts".

Letter A

What do we say when we see two BIG SCARY "A" MONSTERS???


AHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!! Ahhhh! AHHHHHHHHHH! Run away from the two, big, and scary "A" monsters!

Working on the letter A I came up with the idea to make a letter A monster mask. I thought Demi would have fun remembering the A sound by scarring me into saying "ah" (a sound) with her "A" monster mask.

I took an empty cereal box and I cut it into a square (Demi wanted her monster to have a square face). I like to find fun ways to reuse our food boxes once we empty them.


I cut out eyes and put a letter a in the center for a nose (an A monster needed to have an A on it). I gave her some triangles (wallpaper scraps), yarn pieces, cap of glue, and a paintbrush. I let her decorate her A monster however she wanted.



Travis didn't like the idea of making a silly mask or a letter A. After all, an eight year old boy would never want to join in with that kind of baby stuff. Once he heard Demi and I talking about making a scary furry monster Travis came running and said he might want to make his own monster. He didn't think Demi was making hers look scary enough. At first he said he might need to make one to show her how to make a real scary mask. He said 2 year olds don't know how to make things scary like 8 year olds do. He then pointed out how he HAD to make one but it was ONLY so his sister could see that a monster with a big A nose makes the same sound as one with a little a nose (my children are so cute).
This is a close up of Demi's before she got it finished. Look at the sharp triangle teeth!

Here is a close up of Travis's before he finished. LOOK at all the scary fur on this monster!
Travis put a big A nose on his mask. Then we put jumbo pop sticks on the bottom to finish them.
Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! They scared me again!! Aren't they very scary?

More yarn.

Ugh! Now my camera battery needs to be charged so I will have to try to take pictures later. I am not having a good day! The picture below is the only picture Demi didn't delete. I made the red one. Demi was able to do them sitting on my lap. She can't remember what way to wrap them so I had to point showing her how to move the yarn. I had to give hers a few tugs to pull the yarn snug a few times. Travis had a lot of fun making them. He didn't need any help. He said he liked making them so much he is going to make 100 of them. I wonder what he will do with 100 of them? I had to look up online how to make them because I couldn't remember how to wrap them so they turned out right. I had wood showing the first 3 tries. It feels like just yesterday I learned to make them but I guess it was about 25 years ago.


I don't know if I will have a chance to post any more of our yarn crafts today. I am happy to say it looks like my computer is working again but it has been a long day!

More paper crafts

We made a bunch of birds for out Christmas tree. They are VERY simple to make my son has no problem making them. Even a toddler can glue on the head and tail if you cut it and glue the head together first.

The same site has some tubbies.



You can find the cute little critter below here.


Science/history
If you are learning about Dino's you can build some paper ones.

Boy dolls?
Need some football player paper dolls?How about a dancing monkey?And if you still need something (like I often do) to keep the children busy so you can wrap gifts, feed the baby, make dinner, or just a moment of peace. This site has everything from Santa to the Great Pyramid to build. School age children can build them but I doubt a preschooler could. An adult can build then have a toddler or preschooler paint and play with them. I have my school age son builds them. My toddler and him paint, color, and decorate. Then my toddler can play with them as toys.

If you click on the Santa it should take you right to the printable Santa page.

Printable Nativity, giving ideas, and update on future plans

LOOK! I found this printable cone doll Nativity set! I am so excited!! It reminds me of my childhood. We are coloring our set up and I can't wait to play with it. I am letting Demi color the animals. Travis and I are coloring the people.

The same site has this Christmas village. If you didn't want a Christmas village you could use this as a winter town or tiny doll houses. I can think of many ways to make this a learning set for a preschooler. I am thinking making tiny paper dolls and using them to teach jobs and people in the community. Teaching words like in, out, on, off, cold, warm, and so many other things. Even manners by having people greet each other and welcome them to come visit in each others houses. All of that might have to wait until Jan when I have more free time.


The same site has small printable gift boxes.

Giving ideas for children
I like to keep my personal giving a secret but I have to say I have had a hard time finding giving ideas for little children so I feel that sharing children giving ideas is something I should do in case someone else also has a hard time finding ways teaching little ones to give to others. This year I am printing up a bunch of tiny gift boxes. Travis is putting them together. Demi and Travis together will be filling them with candy (Hershey kisses). Travis picks out what he wants them to say and I print out a page full of the sayings for him to cut out and stick inside the boxes. Sayings we like are Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, or even a Bible verse. I let Travis choose because it is his project. We will take a bag with many boxes in it with us every trip out we make and Travis can hand them out to whomever he wants (strangers in the parking lot and such). Most of the time he picks cashiers. He hands them out and says this is for you have a nice day, Merry Christmas, or something else. I wish I could remember some of the things he said when he was little and gave out beaded ornaments I should have wrote it down because I remember laughing as some of the words he chose to say to people.

One year we went door to door with plates of Christmas cookies. I was new to the area and I didn't know anyone on my road. Travis made a Christmas cards (with hand prints he was a baby) and I stuck the card in the plastic wrap with the plate of cookies. We made up small coco gift packs one year with a mug from the dollar store a plastic spoon covered with chocolate and a pack of coco all tucked in the cup and wrapped with plastic and a red bow at the top. A very young child can stick a pack of coco in a mug and dip the spoons in the chocolate. The melted chocolate stays melted even after it cools some so he couldn't burn himself. He was little and I did have to wrap the spoons he couldn't wrap them in plastic wrap or tie a ribbon on the spoon. One year Travis made candy canes with pony beads (red and white) on a pipe cleaner. We punched holes with a paper punch on the message strips that year and stuck the tag with the saying right on the ornament between the beads. They all are inexpensive child friendly gifts that went over well. I don't know that people LOVED the gifts. LOL! I don't know if they all even celebrate Christmas. I do know that they all seemed to enjoy having a little child hand them a small gift they didn't expect. I am thinking that Travis is now 7 so in the next few years some people might not think it is cute if he handed them a pony bead ornament with a bible verse on it. BUT I think for many more years most people with think him giving a tiny box of chocolates a nice thing even if they don't celebrate Christmas. Demi is very young and cute (like all 2 year olds are) I think she is able to pass out her beaded ornaments she makes to people and nobody will be offended. People find it cute. They could always say to her no thank you if they wanted but I doubt anyone will.

update on some things.
I want to let you all know I didn't forget to post my last 5 mitten ideas. I just took a little break. I will try to post them in the next few days. I will post a new theme in Jan to teach and keep little ones busy. I also wanted to say that I am going to try to post some simple science kits and experiments once a week also starting in Jan. I would start it now but I don't have the time. I have had it on my list of things to do for all of this school year but I haven't got around to doing it yet. I have been doing a lot of thinking back to when Travis was little and I remember having a lot of fun in the little co-op/playgroup I had at my house. I would like to give that same thing to Demi. I am thinking if I post a weekly learning/craft idea for toddlers and a Science kit/experiment for children (my son age but add in how to do it with toddlers) maybe by spring I will be able to have a preschool or toddler group and do a Science co-op once a week a week at my home. I have done preschool and toddler groups several times before at my house and I had lots of luck with that (but that was back when Travis was little). I did kind of try to set up a Science Co-op this year with my son but that did not work out at all. I think if I set it up and present it as a co-op to join I might not have problems with getting it going. I have met several mom's in my county, whenever I go into the library I run into several homeschool moms each time. I love our library. They do special projects for homeschoolers, they have homeschool services (part of that lets you keep books for 1 month at a time), and other wonderful things that are all set up to help homeschool students. I think if I post a note in the library I will get a lot of calls from people who are interested because a few have told me they are looking for something like this. We do have a co-0p in our area but the last time I checked into it the lady who runs it is from NY and nobody had any info on it to give me. I should look around again and see if I can find more out about it. I can't start a co-0p now because things are so busy at my house and I will need to wait until my hubby finishes our bathroom and puts up our ceiling blocks in the living room. He will have all of that (and I hope even more) done by spring so if I start trying out projects and putting them on this blog starting in Jan. I should have enough stuff prepared to start doing things with a group of children by spring. That is what I am going to try for anyway. We will have to see how it goes.

Paper plate and coffee filter angels

We went paper angel crazy this week. I didn't plan on doing angles all week but because the baby was so fussy and I was so tired I just did the same craft over and over. I did add new things to change it a bit every day but it is still kind of the same thing every day. We took our cone people and turned them into paper plate people. Then I decided to make wings to turn them into angles for the tree. We made them cone shaped and with and without faces and heads. We made them flat and round then large and small. We decorated them with paint, glue, glitter, yarn, coffee filters, and tissue paper squares with sparkles on it. Below are some random pictures from this project. Zee is very fussy today so I don't have time to even put the pictures in order.

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.