Super Quick Puppet Stage

When I woke up yesterday, Aidman was standing next to me. The first words out of his mouth were "Can we make a puppet show Mom?", as a non-morning person I rubbed my eyes while agreeing that yes we could make a puppet show. Then he said "we need a big box, do we have one?" and I answered that no we did not. "Well, how can we make a puppet show then? We really need one" he said. That's when Mommy Genius came upon my sleepy body "we can use a sheet and tie it to two chairs", I said. That set Aidman in motion to get everything he needed.

I ate breakfast while watching an awesome puppet show! I am one lucky mama!!


Once the puppet show was over the puppet show quickly became a tent. The kiddos all had a fun morning playing together.

MTM with our cousin!

On Monday my sister Sherryberry and my niece Laneybug came over to help me make more aprons. Good thing too because I have been fighting with my sewing machine and needed some help, as it turned out, I fought with her sewing machine too. So, I'm starting to wonder if it's just me... hmmm, no it's gotta be the machines! hahaha.

Anyway, Laneybug kept my kiddos GREAT company while the grown ups were busy. They even got to have a yummy Muffin Tin Monday floor picnic together while watching a movie.

They ate ham, cheese, roll, pears, coleslaw, and airheads that Laneybug bought with her own money to share with her cousins. Isn't she sweet?

Thank GOODNESS, we got ALL 20 aprons completed! Lyssy is wearing her very special Birthday Girl apron, it is the only one that got pockets and is glittery!

Each of the other aprons have doubles or triples that look like them. Laneybug decided that she wanted this one with hearts all over it.

I think AB has a BEAUTIFUL smile!

This is one of my favorite fabrics! I think I just love the brightness of it because we bought the same design in blue and pink and I didn't like it at all.

Laneybug has to pose for EVERY single picture! I think this fabric is super cute on, but it feels super thin.

Of course, we will have a few boys in attendance so we had to make a few boy aprons. Aidman insisted that I make a Yankees apron for him, he is OBSESSED!

This fabric would make a cute shirt!

Such a handsome guy!

Sewing Aprons

This week my sister SherryBerry came over and helped me to start making aprons for Lyssy's upcoming Birthday Party (it's an In The Kitchen/Cooking theme at my work). We have to make 20 aprons!! On this day we figured out a pattern, cut all 20 aprons, and sewed 8 of them, NOT too shabby!

Of course the kiddos had to see what was going on! Plus they love spending time with Aunt SherryBerry, who we don't get to see as often as we'd like since she lives an hour and a half away.

It was a fun morning together and we made some stinkin cute aprons!

I have a sewing machine, but am not great at it, I can manage a pretty straight line though. SherryBerry just got her sewing machine this Christmas and has been having a GREAT time learing how to use it, so she was pretty excited to help me with this project!

Penguins

This week we made some really cute penguins during our Arctic Animals Unit. I cut a black piece of paper into an oval and then cut a smaller oval out of the middle of large oval with creative memories oval cutters. Then I attached some contact paper onto the back of the paper (did you know that those oval cutters can cut contact paper?!?!?!!!). Aidman could have cut the large oval and I should have had him do that...

Then we raided out craft cabinet for everything white for his tummy. We used buttons, shredded paper, cotton balls, yarn, feathers, and cornstarch in a small shaker. Use very LAST to take away any stickiness of the contact paper so that you do not have to add on another piece of contact paper.

Very cute little penguins and a fun tactile activity!

This would be a GREAT activity to do with very young children and while learning about the color white.

Kids Helping Haiti

With all of the media about the earthquake in Haiti right now, it is hard to keep the kiddos from seeing or hearing about what is going on over there and it is a scary sight.

When the subject came up I wanted to be as gentle as possible and I wanted to give them a way to help also. Here is my conversation with my kiddos, it's not perfect, but it is a start.

Mom: there was a really big earthquake in Haiti. An earthquake makes the ground shake really bad and in Haiti it shook so badly that the houses got broken and the trees fell to the ground and the cars crashed. It hurt alot of people.

Aidman: Did the police officers go help them?

Mom: Yes they did.

Aidman: did the ambulance go help?

Mom: yes, the Army did too.

Aidman: Did the rescue copter go too? All the way over there?

Mom: Yes the Rescue helicopter went there too, alot of people are trying to help. Ya, know we could help too. They need to pay money to help fix things and get medicine to help the hurt people, so maybe we can collect money to send to Haiti. We can make money jars to collect our money in.

Aidman: how can the money get there?

Mom: we can send it in the mail.

Aidman: the mailman will go all the way over there? Will he drive his car?

Mom: A different mailman will put it in a plane and fly it there.

Aidman: Do we have to give them our money jars?

Mom: No, we can keep our jars and just give them the money.

I LOVE the way little minds think!!! So, we got to making money jars.


Get a jar (it can be any kind, we used 1 salsa, 1 olive, 1 jelly, and 3 baby food jars) and paint either 1 part water and 1 part glue or modge podge on it.

Stick on tissue paper squares. You can also use streamer paper if you have it.

Then paint the glue mixture or modge podge over the tissue paper.

Mom can make a slit in the top for the change.

Aidman made his all yellow like a banana, AB made hers like a rainbow, and Lyssy made hers all pink because pink is her favorite color.

If you don't have the materials for the above jars you could always make ones like this.... Color jar with sharpie markers (look how intent they are).

And cover with stickers. Aidman loved his Batman stickers!

How appropriate for Lyssy to put these stickers on her money jar!

As soon as Daddy walked in the door the kiddos asked him if he had any money. I promised that I would give them any change I get from the store. I even caught Lyssy trying to open up her piggy bank to put her money in the money jar. My children have truly touched my heart today with their sweetness!

To top it all off, our Bible Devotion (The One Year Devotions for Preschoolers by Little Blessings) read...
"Parker and Jack like doing things together. God created us so that we need each other. God is happy when people help each other and are kind to one another. God wants us to be kind to play nicely with our friends. God wants us to be kind to people in our neighborhood. And God especially wants us to love everyone who loves him. Can you think of something kind you can do for someone today?"
BTW, it just happened that this was the January 14 passage!! Aidman said "Mom, we did something kind today! We made money jars for the hurt people in Haiti!"

The Mitten

This week we are learning about arctic animals, so of course we had to read The Mitten by Jan Brett.

We thought it would be fun to see how many animals we could fit in our white glove.

We fit a quail, an elephant, a peacock, a tiger, a lioness, a giraffe, a cat, a dog, and a flamingo. That is 9 animals total! The kiddos had a BLAST doing this. My glove was pretty stretched out afterwards.

Jasper Johns Art

Today we learned alittle about the Artist Jasper Johns. We looked at and admired several of his pieces, like the Figure 4 above.

Then we got to recreating some of his work. I gave each of the kiddos a black number 4 and had them glue it to white construction paper. Then, we used the same color paints that Jasper Johns used, orange, red, yellow, and blue.

I LOVE the way these turned out!

Aidman's

Lyssy LOVES to paint!

Lyssy's

AB's, I like that she completely covered the black paper.

After the kiddos finished their Figure 4's, Aidman said "ok Mom, now I want to make the Flag like Jasper Johns. I need red and blue paint and some white paper." Naturally, I gave it to him (and to Lyssy too) and let them create.

I love his face here.

Tomorrow I will give them some star stickers to finish the flags.

I don't think we can ever paint just one picture!

Good job Lyssy!

Muffin Tin Monday ~ Learning

Today's Muffin Tin Monday theme is Back to School or Learning!


My kiddos LOVE LOVE LOVE circle time. The funny thing is that we do not do an extensive circle time, but they love it any way. Every day after quiet/nap time (about 3 pm ish) we sit down and do our calendar, and talk about the theme, shape, color, letter, and number of the week. We also read books and poems to go along with the theme, play educational games, do some type of large motor skill, and go on a hunt of something in the house that goes along with the letter, shape, or color of the week. Aferwards, we normally do an art, math, or science project. I like doing this stuff in the afternoons because it leaves are mornings free for playdates, park trips, and I work 3 mornings a week but am home by the end of quiet time.


Today our muffin tin went along with our circle time. We had Square cracker with White cheese on it, 7 peanuts, Square shaped mango, and beets, broccoli cheese soup, and bread for the letter Bb.

Happy faces all around! It was yummy!

I LOVE "borrowing" ideas!

We've decided to home school the kiddos for the rest of this preschool year. With me now working (part time) and so much going on, it is sometimes nice for me to not have to think on my own to come up with GREAT ideas for kids activities! I can not thank all you other mommy bloggers enough for all the inspiration I get from you!

This could NOT have been a better Florida week to learn about Winter! Today, in central FL, it is 35 degrees with snow flurries and sleet! The kiddos even got to play in the sleet for a few minutes! Some activities we did this week were...

Painting with "snow".

Actually, it was 1 part glue to 1 part shaving cream. We got this AWESOME idea from Funny Days with Maddy and Mommy.

The cool part is that is dried like soft puffy paint.

We made snowflakes by putting tape on paper and painting over it.

We got this idea from Frugal Family Fun Blog.

We took it one step further by adding glitter. Tomorrow, we will remove the tape to revel beautiful snowflakes!

We have talked ALOT this week about the different season so this idea from Ten Kids and a Dog was the perfect art tree for winter.


They LOVED shaking salt on the papers!

See the 2 dots of salt up top? We used a glue stick for those and it worked! I was experimenting to see if it would to see if I could use this idea in my baby art class (they are not quite ready for glue bottles).

Beautiful!

This week we also.... tweezed and counted "snowballs" (cotton balls),

had a snowball fight and threw "snowballs" (crumbled up paper) at Daddy,

cut snowflakes, made shape snowmen, played "Don't Break the Ice", melted ice, had a race dressing and undressing in winter clothes, ice skated on paper towels throughout the house,read LOTS of Winter books, played in fake Sno, and did Letter Ss activities.