Archive for May 2009
I have had the idea to do this craft for at least a year, I don’t know why but other things keep being done instead. When I bought these doilies for a fancy flower garland I did on Crafitivity Corner I knew they would be perfect for this craft and I finally got my act in gear and made it!
- Gather your materials. You will need 2 pieces of construction paper(one should be green), a doily for each flower, water colors, a dish for water, glue, scissors, photos of your family and a circle paper punch if you want.
- Start by painting your doilies with the water colors.
- While your little one is painting, cut out the faces of your family. We just did Mom, Dad and Kiddo but extended family or friends can be included. Let your child decide, it’s interesting to see who they include.
- Cut out stems and leaves for the flowers
- Set the flowers aside and let dry.
- Add glue to your paper for the stems and leaves, I added it as a guide for my son. He’s been rather free with the glue lately! We’ll have to channel that into a more open ended activity later this week.
- Add the stems and leaves
- Add more glue for the flowers- this time I gave it to him , this is about 2% of the glue that made it onto the paper and is still drying 5 hours later ! He didn’t eat it though so it’s progress.
- Add the flowers
- Glue the pictures in the middle ( I should have cut the pictures in larger circles)
- Let dry and watch your family bloom!
Books!
“Stella The Star” by Mark Shulman is a tale about a little girl who is a very important star. Stella is in her school play and when her teachers sends home a note saying she is the star her parents assume she has the leading role. They are proud as peacocks even when they discover she is not the star of the show exactly. What I like about this book is that the parents seem as proud and loving after discovering their daughter has a small part . It’s a lesson to everyone that what’s important is doing your job, or role with all your heart and not whether you are in the spotlight that’s important.
“Jazz Baby” by Lisa Wheeler had my son clapping and be bopping in his jammies before bed. This book is so fun to read, the musical words are impossible not to dance to. My son loves jazz, and his only disappointment was that there were no trumpets in the book. He didn’t understand that the family in the book , which included grandparents, aunts , uncles and cousins were listening to a record. I tried to tell him it was like a cd but the illustration was clearly a record player and he wasn’t buying it. Still we loved this book , the family was loving and I loved that the older brother was holding the baby, not common in kids books to see a boy holding a baby. Great book even without a trumpet.
I am totally honored to be mentioned as the website of the week on Family Anatomy. If you aren’t familiar with this site, you should be. It’s a treasure trove of information about issues facing families with kids. The men behind this site and the podcast are both clinical psychologists who are also dads. I thought the discussion about self-esteem was bang on and didn’t want to miss sharing this with all of you! Click on the image above to be linked to FamilyAnatomy.com .
Kids love to imitate adults, I will be the first to admit my son has said a “bad” word or two ( or three) and that always serves s a reminder that we need to watch what we do because they are. It also serves as a great opportunity to play, pretend and create. When I saw these letter stickers I knew I had to do something with them, this is what evolved.
- Gather your materials. You will need a cereal box, some letter stickers, markers, glue , scissors and a piece of white foam or paper.
- Start by cutting your cereal box so that it’s two main panels and one side panel only.
- Have your child color their lap top how they please. My son was all into gray when we made this and I admit to coaxing him into using some purple so you all could see he did some coloring.
- Next start adding the “keyboard” We had fun doing this, even though my son’s 2 year old fingers couldn’t get the tricky stickers off we sat down next to each other, he pointed to a letter or number, identified it and I peeled it off for him. Then he decided where it should go. With older kids you could make a space bar, and enter key etc… I kept it simple so my son could do it as independently as possible.
- Next hand your child the foam sheet or paper and have them color it. I couldn’t resist writing No Time For Flash Cards on ours.
- Glue it on.
- Let dry.
- Play!
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I thought it appropriate to do something in honor of Memorial Day. This requires some prep but the added bonus of a simple patterning lesson was the best part.
- Gather your materials. You will need 4 pieces of construction paper ( 2 whites, red and blue), scissors, glue, a star paper punch and a marker.
- Draw a large upper case F on your blue paper.
- Layer your red and one sheet of white paper with your f and cut out. You only need to cut 2/3 of the way up on the red and white. Save the rest for scrap. This is just a trick to make sure the strips fit the blue f without any trimming.
- Punch some stars out of the white scrap.
- Cut the red and white paper into stripes.
- Glue the F on the 2nd piece of white paper
- Add your glue!
- Start adding your stripes, when we did we chanted “Red , white, red , white…” and soon I was able to ask what next and the pattern had stuck . Obviously older children would be able to do this sans the chants!
- Add more glue at the top of the f.
- Add the stars. Let dry.
Books
“M is for Music” by Kathleen Krull is a wonderful book, however it’s style and illustrations by Stacy Innerst while funky aren’t as literal as I had hoped. This isn’t an issue for older children at all, and I really enjoyed the book but the nuanced illustrations were just too hard for a toddler to make the connections . My son still liked many of the pages especially the G is for guitar one. I would use this book for teaching about music more so than as an alphabet book teaching letters.
“A is for Zebra” by Mark Shulman is a fun and unique alphabet book. Perfect for children who have mastered letter recognition and are up for a fun challenge. The trick is that each letter is represented by the last letter of the coordinating picture . A is for zebra ! You will have fun finding the letter on each page as well as items in the adorable illustrations by Tamara Petrosino.
I have spotlighted some of the awesome and always too cute for words crafts that Jennifer over at Ramblings of a Crazy Woman does with her kids before. But it is time to share her whole blog with you! Summer is right around the corner and you are going to need as many ideas as possible. I have joked with Jennifer that we must drink the same coffee because I can’t tell you how many times I have thought of a craft only to find she’d posted the same thing a few days earlier! I always love what she does for holidays so make sure you check her out for good Father’s Day ideas, I bet she will have a bunch!
