My New Craft

Look what Youtube taught me how to do!!! LOOM KNIT!

I have been eyeing these looms at WalMart every time I go into the craft section (which is often). I finally bought the smallest and cheapest one possible about 2 weeks ago. I wanted to see how I liked it before I spent alot of money on it. Well, my hubby says this is just one more thing added to the list that makes me nerdy, but I LOVE it! And on the plus side, I think that if I do this while watching movies, it will help me to not bit my nails.

These are 2 tube scarves I have made so far. The black and white one was my first and therefore has tons of mistakes!

I can't wait to get some bigger looms so I can make more things!

Math Playdate

The other day we went to a Math Playdate. All the toys that were out had something to do with math and all the moms went to each math station with their children to help, it was alot of fun. We started out the playdate by reading Ten Apples Up on Top by Dr Suess.

There was a tangram station, great for matching shapes and shape recognition.

Counting beans station, great for counting practice, fine motor skills, and number recognition.

Sorting bears station, great for color recognition and matching.

A number writing station, great for number recognition, fine motor skills, and early writing practice. There was alittle paint inside large ziplock bags and the kids wrote on it with q-tips! This was a SUPER FUN station!


Sticker counting station, great for fine motor skills, number recognition, and counting practice.

Number game station, great for large motor skills, hand eye coordination, and number recognition, some of the older kids also used this for beginning addition practice.

MTM- Dice Game

A LONG time ago a MTM participator shared this awesome dice game. I have been wanting to do this dice game with my kiddos ever since and FINALLY did it today since there was no theme for Muffin Tin Monday.

This is how you play the game. The green dice tells which number tin to eat out of and the blue dice tells how many items to eat. Roll the dice and enjoy! (PS, I wrote on my tins with an expo marker and it came right off.)

1 raisins
2 honey roasted peanuts
3 oyster crackers
4 marshmallows
5 honeycomb cereal
6 chocolate chips

This was a very fun way to do math and eat snack at the same time.

Aidman LOVED this game!

It was a little difficult for my 4 year old to keep track of which dice told what to do, she did much better with just one dice and just picked which tin she wanted to eat out of and counted out however many the dice told her to.

My Budding Entrepreneur

The other day I woke up with a dollar in my face. Aidman has had this dollar for about a year now and wanted to know if he could buy something.

Me: "sure, what do you want to buy?"
Aidman: "a turtle"
M: "oh, well Aidman, I think you are going to need more than one dollar to buy a turtle."
A: "how many dollars?"
M: "I don't really know, we'll have to go to the pet store to find out, but it will be at least 20 dollars."
A: "well, Daddy has a lot of dollars so he can give them to me."
M: "no Aidman. Daddy needs his money to buy the groceries and pay for our house. You will have to earn your own money if you want to buy a turtle."
A: "what's earn?"
M: "you know how Daddy fixes computers and peolple give him money when he does that. And mommy teaches kids and I get money for doing that. You can do something to get money. Maybe you can do some stuff around the house for mommy and I will give you some money for it. We can make you a chore chart today."
A: "well, how about I paint paintings and people can buy them from me?"
M: " I guess you could try that too. Who is going to buy your paintings?
A: " my grandmas and grandpas"

HAHAHAHA the boy is a GENIUS!!!

So the boy spent most of the morning calling relatives and then painting pictures for them. He charged a dollar per painting. So far he has made 19 paintings/drawings.

Orange MTM

Can you believe that just over a year ago I started blogging, mainly to participate in Muffin Tin Monday (along with a few other reasons). When I first joined Muffin Tin Monday, the theme was the color series. Since my kiddos are old pros at this stuff now, I plan on making them make their own muffin tin meals during this years color series.

So when they came to me this morning saying that they wanted their muffin tin for breakfast, I told them that they needed to go find (in our kitchen) orange breakfast foods to put in the tin. They listed LOTS of orange foods, but then decided that many wouldn't be good for breakfast. They did pretty well on the first five items (cheese, dried apricots, orange, orange juice, cantaloupe), and had to get creative on the sixth item (graham cracker with cream cheese and orange sprinkles).

Valentines Gifts

All of these ideas were found via The Crafty Crow. They were so cute that I just had to share! Aidman, Lyssy, AB, and I all worked very hard to make all of these Valentines for our friends.

Aidman gave the wood to friends.

Lyssy gave the heart crayons to friends.

AB gave the cherry Koolaid playdough to friends.

We also used liquid watercolor (I LOVE this stuff!) to paint hearts.

We wish you a LOVEly Valentines!

Cutting

This is what my kitchen table looks like every Wednesday afternoon. Junk mail COVERS the table. Kids sit around the table reading and looking at pictures, drawing on, and cutting junk mail. Lots of interesting talk goes on at this Wednesday afternoon table.

And other interesting things happen too, like the hand switch. Notice above Lyssy is cutting with her right hand.
And now she is cutting with her left hand. She cuts perfectly fine with either hand, but she writes best with her left hand. Funny thing is that I write with my left hand and cut with my right.

FUN times!

Light Box Tracing

One of the many AWESOME birthday gifts Lyssy received this year was this Fashion Designer.

It came with this GREAT light box! Only problem is that the people transparencies that it came with are alittle hard for Lyssy to make just yet. Luckly, mommy was VERY inspired by this AWESOME light box (I think I've been unconsciously wanting one of these because I can't get over how great it is). I got some transparency paper and started making things for her to trace.

This is GREAT for beginning writing practice!

I made a few things that she is ALWAYS asking me to draw for her, along with her first and last name, the alphabet letters, and some numbers.

Oh and don't worry, Lyssy loves the light box just as much as I do!!

I have a 4 year old!

Prissy Lyssy had her 4th Birthday yesterday! I am so very very blessed to have 2 beautiful, happy, and healthy children! Lyssy is a light in our world, she is full of laughter and sunshine! She is crafty and full of spunk! She is prissy, yet can keep up with her big brother. She is shy at first and then will talk your ear off. I love her so!

Valentines Decor

Yesterday we set up our February calendar and talked all about the month and the holidays in it. Aidman noticed that we had not decorated yet for Valentines Day and decided that we needed to make wreaths (they LOVE making wreaths for their bedroom doors), so we got to work and making our home look lovely!

Last year after Valentines Day I bought a bunch of heart foamies on clearance and they came in very handy!

I made this wreath, which I happen to like the least of them all. I should have just had the kids made it for me.

AB was very proud of her work!

I love how Aidman always wants to get close to his art when I take a picture.

Here is Lyssy's on her door, how pretty!

Then we decided to make a banner. I put a bunch of foam hearts on the craft table for them to color with markers. I figured it would take a couple days for them to do all 18 hearts. Boy, was I wrong! Come to find out, coloring on foam is SUPER FUN! They all sat there and colored all 18 hearts in one sitting!

I then wrote the letters on, hole punched, and tied them together.

Anyone coming to our house knows that kiddos live here!

We are still planning on making pretty suncatchers for our kitchen windows, but that will be another day.

Art

This is why I keep paper and writing materials available to my kiddos at ALL times! All of this art work was done last week, and there was no help from grown ups at all (most of the time the grown ups weren't even in the same room or were but were otherwise occupied).


Aidman drew a picture of Mommy and a sunflower (this was my Birthday card).

Here is another picture of me that Aidman drew.

Lyssy made this colorful picture. She didn't tell me what it was and I didn't ask (she would have if it were important).

Aidman drew a tent, a campfire, and Daddy.

Aidman drew this spaceship. See the flag? I did make the yellow dots for the stars and told him how to draw them, because he REALLY wanted stars.

This is a house and person that Aidman drew.

Lyssy made several suns and dots here.

Aidman made this Batman for Daddy.

I encourage you, if you don't have art materials at a hands reach for your children then get them out and set up an art area! You will be BLOWN away by their creativity and ability!