Gobble Gobble

Happy, Early Thanksgiving!!  I am thankful for my beautiful kids and loving husband.  For our health, happiness, and the roof over our head.  I am thankful for so many things this year!

.. I wanted to share some of the fun that we've been crafting around in our house lately.  We've made hair bows, decorations, and have gone on nature walks to collect pine cones and rocks.

Simple Turkey Hair bow:  Ribbon, cheap $1.00 clips, hot glue gun, and some sequins.  :)  I've since made more to wear to Thanksgiving and NOT to the school playground ...

Fun Fall Wreath:  Harmony did this in school, but it's fun none-the-less!  Simple supplies are leaves, real or fake, ribbon, and a paper plate.

 This little festive guy is adorable!  Definitely one of my favorite crafts by far! 

 Hand Turkey's!  All you need is paper, crayons, and your little one's hand! 

This is a picture of our family.  :o)

 We made this cornucopia craft last year out of torn up construction paper.  Harmony really enjoyed tearing it and pasting it together.

 This turkey is our newest addition and was made with dollar store clothespins, paint, crayons, glitter, googly eyes, and lots of scrapbook paper.  Harmony is on a mission to find the perfect "girly" accessory to clip on her. 



I am looking forward to attempting more Thanksgiving themed activities over the weekend that I can't wait to share with you! 

Candice S

Linking to...

Fall Garland

I don't have a lot of space for Fall/Autumn inspired decorations so I have been very selective with what we have been creating and hanging around our home's living area.  I am so often inspired by awesome garlands of all shapes, themes, and sizes, and decided that it was time to grab my little Harmony helper and get to work!

We made Ghosts, Spiders, Pumpkins, Leaves, and used a shaving cream painting technique for our Fall Leaves.  I did most of the cutting.  Harmony is still learning to plunge into what she calls, "Snipping".. Everything turned out so unique and with an elegant appearance. 

Look at how we did...  My other helper was my glue gun and hole punch.  I used scrapbook paper for each fall creature and then hung each on up on fishing line.  Our spider was made out of a bottle cap, felt fitted and then glued on top.

 

Shaving Cream Painting:  Combine paint and shaving cream and then swirl with a toothpick.  Dip cardstock into paint (and you can remove shaving cream if there's excess..)  Wawwwllaaaaa.. Beautiful, Fall Leaves!

What Fall activities have you enjoyed doing?

Happy Fall!

Candice S

Autumn Apple Wreath

Did I mention, that I am utterly in love and completely addicted to Pinterest?  Well, I cannot help but find an amazing array of inspiration everywhere I click...Starting with this awesome Autumn Apple Wreath pictured below from The Crafty Crow.

Source: thecraftycrow.net via Candice on Pinterest

 I saw it and couldn't help but think that it was completely age appropriate for my 18 month old and my five year old to do together!  .. Let me tell you, it was a huge hit in our house this morning! 

Here's what you need:

Two Cereal Boxes

Red Paint for Apple Stamp

Green Paint for Thumb Prints

(I'm glad that I decided to go with our homemade finger paint recipe because Baby Brother enjoyed taking in between work breaks to munch on his apple)

Scissors to cutout the apple's after they dry.  I did Mark Jr.'s and Harmony dd her own.

Hot Glue Gun for Parent (Tacky glue did not hold)

Plate

Have fun making your Autumn Apple Wreath!

During the "drying process" we decided to have some story time.  The following is our Fall theme books that we selected from the library and we've enjoyed every one of them!

Enjoy!

Candice S

Pine-Cone Turkey

What isn't fun about this turkey?  We cut shapes and had fun gluing the paper feather's (although we had to hold them on for a few seconds to insure they stayed in place).  

You can use them as a center piece, for setting place holder's, or for great gifts!!  

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Candice S.

I shared this idea on....

11/15/10 Preschool Planner and Resources

11-15-10PreschoolPlanner

Theme:  Thanksgiving

I've decided to stay strictly with our Giving Thanks/Thanksgiving, Fall Theme for November.  There's just so much fun to be had with it.. plus, it provides a general need of thankfulness that must be taught to children.  I must say that it opens the eyes of the teacher, as well.  :)

Letter of the week:  "G"

Activities include fine motor activities and coordination promotion of writing, worksheets, arts and crafts, etc.  I decided that we are not going to do the mini book from First-School this week, as I noticed Harmony was getting a little bored.

Math Lessons:
Adding and Subtracting, Recognition, Sorting, and Measurements

Tools for Math Lesson: Beans, lids, jars, and bottle caps

Every morning we write down one thing in our lives that we are thankful for.  We write this on the back of our thumbprint turkey cards.

Books:
Will post on library book selection.  Any good idea's for good Thanksgiving and Christmas books?

Crafts:  
Cornucopia Mosaic (didn't get to it last week), Turkey Pinecones, and Thanksgiving Hand Print Tree

Have a great week and don't forget to give thanks!

Candice S.

Paperbag Scarecrow

This craft was apart of our fall themed preschool week.  Oh how we love festive and adorable decorations to place around the home... and Harmony enjoyed coloring the scarecrow pieces for his/her face, cutting them, and pasting them on the paper bag.  

Tidbit* Helping your child learn how to control the hands, thumbs, and pointer finger movements through activities such as cutting and pasting allows for better writing skills and hand control.

Go here for: Scarecrow Face Template

When Harmony glued all of her decorations on for the Scarecrow's face..Stuff the bag with newspaper or magazine pages.  We opted for the magazine pages.  

Sometimes I do not grasp the clearest concept of a simple craft project, like this one.  I decided to use pipe-cleaners to seal the top of the bag- but you should fold the top of your bag and staple it.  

On every Thanksgiving Craft that we do, we are writing somewhere on it what we are thankful for.  This one states, "I'm thankful for my Mommy, Daddy, Unicorns, and my Baby Brother."

Have fun teaching your child about scarecrows and what their purpose is.


Scarecrow, Scarecrow

Scarecrow, scarecrow,
How scary can you be? You scared (Baby Brother)
But you didn't scare me!

Happy Fun Fall Crafting and Happy Thanksgiving!

Candice S.

Sensory Trays

Get excited!  Come on.. My excitement is radiating all over me right now as I'm looking for excellent idea's to create a sensory tub/work table for Harmony.  I have seen so many amazing, AMAZING idea's for sensory tubs and how they apply to your child.

Ok.  So what is it?  A sensory tub is an array of learning objects (think I-Spy) thrown into a tub.  You can do this with little thought or pick a theme and go with it.  For instance, you feel that you want a fall theme, then you collect fall leaves, acorns, add in a small bucket or cup for pouring, and let your child go at it!  The point is this.  You want your child, from ages 2-5 (as long as they don't eat anything) to utilize the tools that you have provided for him/her by using their five senses. 


The best thing about sensory tubs is that you are promoting learning and development in the following areas:

• "Fine motor skills (eye-hand coordination)
• Creativity (artistic skills)
• Creativity in play (deciding how to use the materials)
• Social skills (sharing, cooperating)
• Emotional development (tension releasing, soothing, failure proof, and confidence building)
• Knowledge of science (experimentation, evaporation, gravity, physics, construction, and engineering)
• Knowledge of math (1:1 correspondence, counting, and concepts like grouping, sequencing, weight, volume, and measurement."

Preschool Education Articles. (2010). Sensory Materials. Retrieved on November 8, 2010, from http://www.preschooleducation.com/art30.shtml

Colored Rice

I finally found an idea that would be perfect for our fall themed preschool week.  We made a sensory bowl and then put it into a tray for better access!  First, we started by coloring our white rice to stand for our red and yellow fall leaves.  After, we even added pipe cleaner's that are converted into apples and oranges to use for our pinecone/tree's.  Harmony has played with this every single day since last Monday.  She has added objects to it to fit to her liking.

Enjoy!

Candice S.

Salt Dough Fall Leaves

Harmony and I made decorations for fall.  They came out beautifully.  We first made Salt Dough.

Salt Dough Recipe:

4 Cups Flour

1-2 Cups Water

1 Teaspoon Salt

and knead, knead, knead!  

Little Brother rolling around like a little nut and Harmony attempting a smile..  :) haha.

Set oven at 200 and cook for about 1-2 hours or until dough is hard.

 Harmony and I kneaded the dough and it was PERFECT.  I love this recipe.. I have tried so many other recipes that required cooking on the stove, etc. and they were always a big fat flop!  HA!  I then added in food coloring so I wouldn't have to paint the leaves or our final finished product.  You can leave out the food coloring and use acrylic paint for decorating the salt dough when you take them out of the oven.

I used a butter knife to create the leaf look and then used a pen to poke a hole so we could thread the leaves.  Don't you just love the hand-prints?  The hand prints are beautiful and so unique.  I just love how they came out!  I love, love, LOVE IT!  .. Harmony wanted to use a cookie cutter for the little muffin man and then wanted to make a snake.. so we did.  :)  Overall, I'd score this craft idea as an A+! 

Have a great fall day if you aren't experiencing warm fall weather, as we are! 

Happy Crafting.

Candice S.

It's Fall Baby.. Even Though It's 85 Degrees Outside!

We have had a busy week, yet again.  This week we had so much fun!!  We crafted our heart's out, baked cupcakes (which are gone..), homemade pancakes, I started my next round of classes, picked our pumpkin, had doctor's appointments, and did some fun Fall inspired crafts!

Remember this post about this fall tree craft from last Monday's Craft Share??  I love how these recycled TP rolls converted into pretty fall trees.  Those are our finger prints!  The brown tree to the right has Harmony's handprint.  :o)

Love the Apple Stamping.  All you is cut an apple in half and put some paint on it and stamp it down on paper.  Pretty, right?  .. Oh and I NEVER EVER EVER buy paint.  I make my own that is safe for consumption, just in case, and it is oh-so-easy to clean up or off of anything.

Homemade Paint and Finger Paint:

1 Tablespoon Flour
1 Tablespoon Water (or less up to you)
Add in food coloring

Harmony learned the letter "D" in school and is working on some fun fall projects.  One of her questions have been, "Mommy, why doesn't it feel like fall?  If it were Fall then the leaves would change color, right?"  ..Of course, I reply with something like..we don't live in Massachusetts anymore honey, this IS SW Florida.

Mark Jr. also had his doctor's appointment this week, which has led me to pursue some research on a variety of topics for my, "The Intuitive Parent" series.  Mark Jr. is healthy, active.. and weighs a whopping 20 pounds and is 27 inches in length!  My boy is growing up so big!  He's six month's old by the way, and so very active that we are now in the pursuit of baby proofing our home.

Recipe for yummy pancakes, thanks to My Wooden Spoon:

1 Cup of Flour
1 Tablespoon of Sugar
3 Teaspoons of Baking Powder
1/2 Teaspoon of Salt
1 Egg
3/4 Cup of Milk (but I actually used around 1 cup or more, you be the judge of thickened consistency)
2 Tablespoons of Vegetable Oil

I added 1 teaspoon of Vanilla and banana's!

::Blog Share::  I Can Teach My Child's Blog

I Can Teach My Child's Blog has a TON of awesome learning and developing idea's, crafts, and activities that you can do with your kids so please go take a peek.  :)  Here are two really adorable idea's to do for with and for your child that I was really rather impressed with.

My Body Book
Apple Garland- Fruits of the Spirit

Enjoy and Happy Crafting!

Candice S.