The Elf House

 The Elf House

So, if you have ever been on Pinterest you have probably seen super cute elf or fairy homes....made by adults. We decided to do this-but in true kid style. This activity TOOK OVER  A YEAR- but that is only because we grew our own gourds.

First we grew, waited, waited, and waited for our bird house gourds to dry out. After a year they were bone dry and although many were brittle or rotted, we had about 20 good ones. Ty picked out his favorite and painted it. First though I drilled a hole in it. We spray painted it white and then let him decorate it. Then I clear coated the outside, and the inside, to the best of my abilities.

 After painting we set it up in an empty pot and I let him add any decorations he wanted. That is a live plant we transplanted, Popsicle sticks, tongue depressors and marbles. We also planted flax in the left garden behind the house. Flax grows into a lovely plant with blue flowers. It also sprouts and grows a substantial amount in a few days.

 

The other fun part of this project is that the "elves" often move their marbles around-or rather grandma does when she visits ;) 

Monster Masks

Paper plates are CHEAP and plentiful

Our older son, 5yo, loves vampires. One day we were out of activities early so we decided to create MONSTER MASKS. Easy as pie on the fly-just cut eye holes, and color. This activity was quick, used their small motor skills and after is was finished we played monster tag and monster hide and seek!

Make Something Out of Trash????

I save EVERY empty container that is child friendly in our house (no glass, no sharp edges) to make temporary toys, crafts, or to re use (yogurt containers are great for scooping dog food!)

Here is the newest reuse of a container.

Empty chocolate milk powder container.
Cardboard (the top cracked)
Tape
Toothpicks


Poke holes in the top, show little guy how to put toothpicks in, and he is using his small motor skills for 20-30 min. He eventually pulled the top off and we will now reuse the container again!

A Word About Sensory Bottles

A Word About Sensory Bottles

As the former director of a childcare center and current stay at home mom I can not stress intentional teaching enough. Every activity should have a purpose. Even if it is sitting on the floor playing with cars, you are still teaching social skills, small motor, communication......

Many preschools/childcare centers require you to create different activities to add to your room. A great and easy way to do this is with Sensory Bottles. Basically used, clean, empty bottles with stuff in them.

But why? Why would your children want to play with these, what do they add to your child's learning?

Plenty.

Here is one example: My little guy loves to get into the beads. But he is 20 months, so pretty much.....no. So I filled a bottle with beads and water (with a drop of bleach), sealed the top and now he can play with

beads.

Does your child like to make noise?
Bottles filled with beans, beads

Does your child like to explore outside?
Leaves, mulch, flowers

Think outside the box-and think about what kind of bottles your child will enjoy!


It is on the way....100 sensory bottle ideas for INTENTIONAL teaching

Bug Math

Bug Math

Printing takes way to long. In addition finding exactly the worksheet, with the skill level I want, is almost impossible. Even as a teacher/curriculum coordinator/director, I would often make my own worksheets and copy them.

Here were some sheets from a few days ago.

For the little dude (20 months) this....He is starting to count!

For the big guy (5) this....he is working on writing numbers! The first part is adding legs, the second is adding wings.

Total Cost: .05? 2 sheets of paper-free if you use scrap paper!

Color Your Weeds

Color Your Weeds

I am a big fan of doing projects with barely any money, supplies, and using found objects. In fact, in 2 weeks I am teaching my first class on how to do small motor activities on a shoestring! (Check out our website....www.YourDynamicDirection.com).

Anyway, this activity is perfect. Science, outside time, pretty much no mess-and REALLY cool.

Most of us have seen the celery experiment with food coloring and water- this experiment is the same, except you use Queen Anne's Lace-a weed that covers our fields at this time of year.

First, we picked it. Then we snipped the ends and put it in vases with food coloring (a lot) and water.


Here are the results

What is interesting here is that all the flowers in the RED dye-DIED! We even switched some from the blue to red, hoping to make purple, and they wilted within 10 minutes!

Total Cost: Pennies-just the food coloring!

And...we are back!

Took some time off from the blog, but I am back. I have been working on a series of courses to teach to adults surrounding the issues of religious inclusion in the early childhood environment. But anyway, you are not here for that......

Today's post-

Exploring (a very small part of) the Art World

For each of the following activities we looked up different artists prior to creating our masterpieces. Many of them had short videos about them on the net. Here is a selection of our masterpieces

Picasso's faces: 

Materials: Construction paper, scissors, magazine clippings, glue sticks

 

Cubism:

Materials: Construction paper, clue, scissors, markers

(Little dude did not want to partake int his activity)

Pointalism 

Materials: Paint, ice cube trays, paper, q-tips

Pollock inspired painting

Materials: Sheet, paint, soap (mix with the paint for easy clean up), hose (for clean up), paper towels (dip in paint and throw!)