Archive for December 2009
This week I had the chance to pop into the Seattle offices of Cozi and check out how they do what they do and chat with Robbie the CEO all about social media, family life and how both of our sites fit in to both. If you don’t know what Cozi is , it’s a free online family organizer that has saved my butt more than a few times. My favorite feature is that it emails me reminders about appointments, duties at my son’s preschool and more. That’s just the tip of the iceberg as far as the organizer goes. The site itself has great resources of all families and wonderfully written blogs. A recent blog post The Truth About Santa by Martha Brockenbourgh made me tear up , I was so pleased to hear the New York Times had picked it up! So if you haven’t checked out Cozi.com you should, it really does simplify family life!
Holiday Style
I love doing spin art and my $5 salad spinner is perfect for it. To give it a Holiday twist we drew holiday shapes on our paper first then did the spinning. My son begged to turn these into ornaments but they would be just perfect as is. Smaller bits of paint would make a a cool effect but when a 3 year old is the artist you go with the flow.
- Gather your materials. You will need a salad spinner, some paint( thin it a little if you want), glitter glue if you wish, a marker and card stock or my favorite recplacement for cardstock plain paper plates. They are already round so it’s easy to trim for the spinner.
- Start by drawing some holiday shapes, whatever you wish!
- Trim the paper and place in your spinner.
- Add paint.
- Pop on the top and spin!
- Keep going until all the shapes have had a turn.
- Let dry.
- Cut out
- Punch a hole in the top and add ribbon if you are making it into an ornament.
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My original idea for this was to have it closed and have jingle bells inside , but I was concerned that if it broke the jingle bells could be a safety hazard. So I went back to the chalk board and decided to cut one side open and make a home for one of my favorite little bird ornaments that is getting old and needs a comfy place to rest. This is not nearly as hard as it looks but it’s finiky and would frustrate young kids, which is why it’s a naptime creation for older kids or adults to do while preschoolers snooze!
- Gather your materials. You will need yarn, glue, a dish, water, a balloon, some cotton balls , scissors , ribbon and your ornament of choice.
- Start by blowing up your balloon a little, and tie it.
- Mix your glue in a dish with some water. It’s about 4/5th glue 1/5th water.
- Cut your yarn into manageable pieces.
- Drench your yarn in the glue and wrap it around your balloon.
- Let dry- I clip it to a wire hanger and hang it over my utility sink. I dried mine for a few days.
- Pop the balloon and pull it from the yarn .
- Cut an opening in the yarn.
- Add cotton balls.
- Glue your ornament on.
- Add ribbon.
- Hang on your tree.
Books
One Little Chicken: A Counting Book
Birds
by Martin Waddell was an instant hit with my son. I knew it would be, much like little Bill the smallest of the three baby owls my son is fond of saying “I want my mommy”. The three birds are distraught when they discover mama owl is not there. I love how they huddle together, and think a lot before mama Owl returns non- challant about the fact that she’d returned. The illustrations of the owls are so expressive , which with very few facial features is impressive. Patrick Benson did a wonderful job bringing all three owl’s personalities out visually as well as making the setting ominous without being frightening to young readers. Great book!5 Comments »
I had the great pleasure of being interviewed for Raising Playful Tots a podcast and my whole interview was posted today ! We were chatting about keeping kids busy while we are so busy during the holidays. Check it out!
Also like in 2008 this year we are going to feature the top 7 posts of 2009 in our Best of 2009 series that will go live December 26th- January 1st! So if you have a fave you can leave a comment here or on our Facebook Fan Page ! Get your vote in !
My son loves “sprinkles” also known as glitter, and I love them when they are being used correctly. The other day it was “snowing” in our kitchen aka my son was dumping large quantities of glitter on the floor while running away from me. I haven’t been able to completely de-glitter my kitchen since so I thought what the heck it’s already a mess let’s make these snowflakes. I love using cupcake liners for snowflake crafts because for the life of me I can’t make pretty circle snowflakes any other way. This is a great winter craft but you can also use clothes pins between the snowflakes to clip holiday card on!
- Gather your materials. You will need some cupcake liners, scissors, blue ribbon, glue, glitter and a good dustbuster.
- Start by folding your liners into triangles.
- Make cuts into them to make snowflakes. My son got the hang of this after a few tries, one liner he simply demolished but he made 3 really cool ones, I made the rest.
- Lay your snowflakes out and add glue.
- Add your glitter. I love the flexible plastic place mats I have for this because I can bed them and pour the extra glitter back into the jar easy peasy.
- Let dry .
- Thread your ribbon through the cuts. The paper is so light that they will stay in place on your ribbon without slipping.
- Thread the rest of the snowflakes on and hang up!
Books
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Un-Brella
Stella, Queen of the Snow
