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.

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.

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.