Mod Podge Christmas Trees

I saw these on another blog and thought they were adorable. What you do is cut triangles of out cardboard and wrap foil around it. Then we covered the foil with mod Podge, put Christmas colored tissue paper on it, and added another layer of mod Podge. After letting them dry for a few hours, I hot glued buttons all over the trees. Then I punched a hole in the tops, added string, and they were done :o) Here are some pictures of our trees:

Christmas Sticky Paper Collage

After cutting out our lightbulbs, we had lots of leftover scrap paper. Rather than throwing it in the recycle box, the toddlers had fun ripping it up into smaller pieces.

I put the scraps in a couple of cups, and added some other festive pieces like foam gingerbread men.

Then they stuck all the materials to some contact paper that I attached to both sides of the easel.

This simple, easy activity was great for teamwork! It kept them interested for a good half hour, and I will definitely do it again.

Toodles :o)

Glitter Lights

I saw this idea from another blog, and decided to do it with my toddlers. I drew the shape of a lightbulb on green and red construction paper.

I let each child choose which color they wanted. Then I demonstrated how to 'squeeze' the glue bottle and 'move' it around. (Most of them could do both on their own, others needed assistance.)

Next, we shook glitter all over! I have large bottle of glitter, which were perfect for these little guys to shake with both hands :o) (Picture coming soon.)

Next, we shook the glitter back into the bottle and let it dry for a day.

Then I cut them out... And decorated our hallway!

Toodles :o)

Hand print/ Footprint Calendars

This year, I wanted to make a special Christmas present from the children to their families. We usually take pictures of the kids and attach it to an ornament that they decorate, and send that home. I heard about hand print calendars from a coworker, did some research, and ended up putting this together :)


If I do these again, I would like to add more to them, such as die cut letters for each month, or putting a small background behind the poems. Overall, this was a very time consuming project, but I think they turned out super cute!


To make 11 calendars, it took 300+ pieces of paper, 7 gluesticks, 1 roll of double sided tape, 70 something feet of laminate, 3 weeks of random amounts of spare time, and the total cost was around $40.

January: (ABC tune)

Little penguins black and white
On the ice, what a sight!
See them waddle, see them glide.
Watch them as they slip and slide.
Little penguins black and white
On the ice, what a sight!

February:
I love you; I love you.
That’s what Valentine’s say.
I love you. I love you.
On Valentine’s Day!

March: (I'm a Little Teapot tune)
I’m a little leprechaun!
Can’t you see?
I’m as tiny as I can be.
I only come around
Just once a year.
That’s when
St Patrick’s Day is here!

April: (Up on the Rooftop tune)
First comes a butterfly and lays an egg.
Out comes a caterpillar with many legs.
Oh see the caterpillar spin and spin,
A little chrysalis to sleep in.

Oh, oh ,oh wait and see!
Oh, oh, oh wait and see!
Out of the chrysalis, my oh my,
Out comes a beautiful butterfly!

May:
I hold my fingers
Like a fish,
And wave them
As I go.
See them swimming
With a swish,
So swiftly
To and fro.

June: (Farmer and the Dell tune)
The lobsters live in the sea.
The lobsters live in the sea.
Heigh-ho, they scurry so.
The lobsters live in the sea.

July: (Frere Jacques tune)
Flags are flying, flags are flying
Oh, so high; oh, so high.
Flying for our country,
Red and white and blue,
Flying high, in the sky.

August:
The pitter patter of little feet
Leave behind something dear and sweet
A precious treasure for you to keep
The memories of my little feet.

September:
Down, down, yellow and brown,
Fall the leaves over the ground.
Rake them up in a pile so high,
Until they reach up to the sky.

October:
All around the town tonight,
The ghosts chased their friends.
Everyone had lots of fun,
Boo! It’s pretend!

November:

This isn't just a turkey,
As anyone can see.
I made it with my hand,
Which is part of me.
It comes with lots of love.
Especially to say,
I hope you have a very
Happy Thanksgiving Day!

December:
It’s Christmas time,
Oh what joy.
Santa is coming
Bringing lots of toys.

Christmas trees
So green and tall,
Friends and family
Love for all!

Toodles! :o)

File Folder Games

File folder games are super easy to make, and a fun way to extend on basic skills. I made a few matching games to help the toddlers with the concept.

Here are examples of a shamrock match, a flower match, and colored pumpkins. (The last one was a good for colors too!)

Another file folder game that I made awhile ago was a dinosaur game board. I lightly drew a dinosaur shape and then glued on small pieces of paper. The goal for this game was to help with counting. The children roll a die, count the number of circles, and move that many spaces.

I used this activity with preschoolers and some had a hard time with the fact that they "didn't win." This opened an opportunity to discuss good sportsmanship :)

Toodles :o)

Counting Cards and Frogs

At a local dollar store, I found plastic frogs that I thought would be fun to use with the counting cards I recently made.

I bought two packs of the frogs. They can also be used for sorting colors, matching together, making patterns, etc.

I made the counting cards in MS Paint, simply by typing numbers and the word, making circles, and drawing a rectangle.

I only printed numbers one through five to use with the toddlers. They loved it!

Some things I would change would be to make more durable cards (such as printing on cardstock and using the heavy duty laminate) and also buying different plastic creatures to count with!

Toodles :o)

Homemade Crayons

One thing you will come to learn about me is that I LOVE shopping at thrift stores :o) This summer, one of the best things I have come across was a huge bag of Crayola brand crayons for only $3.

Of course I bought them, thinking I would make homemade crayons with them!

First, my mom, sister and I upwrapped all of the crayons. (We found it was easier to soak them in water first- the wrappers slide right off!)

Some of the crayons still had sticky residue on them, so we tried running them under hot water. Bad idea- the crayons started melting onto our hands 0:-) (Hint: Don't worry about the residue, it won't make a difference once you start making your crayon shapes.)

Once all the wrappers were off, I sorted them into basic color groups.

Then I broke the crayons into thirds and put them in silicon muffin tins. Shaped ice trays work too!

I put them in the oven. I turned it to a random temperature and just watched for the wax to melt into shape.

Once the wax was mostly to completely melted, I pulled them out and let them harden. Then I popped them out and had homemade crayons!

The kids at work had a ball with the different shapes and sizes. My toddlers (2yrs) could hold them easily and the preschoolers and school agers (3+), girls AND boys, were fascinated that it changed colors while drawing.

Here's a picture of my collection of molds- I got the majority of them from various thrift stores:

Silicon baking tins, silicon ice cube trays, jello molds, and candy molds. For the plastic ones, I've read that you can put your crayon pieces into a soup can and melt them that way, then pour them into the trays, let them melt, and pop them out. I still have to try these.

Toodles :o)

Homemade Bean Bag Toss Boards

This is my first blog post of hopefully many to come! I decided that I find a lot of great ideas and might as well share it with anybody who wishes to read about them.

Today, I went to the dollar store and bought two foam poster boards. (They were actually $1.29 each, but Dollar Tree has them for $1.)

I free hand outlined the designs that I wanted with a pencil. I decided to make one board be monsters, and you can toss the bean bags in their mouths. The other board will be for stacked pumpkins, also throwing the bean bags into their mouths. (Sorry the designs are hard to see.)

After drawing the designs out, I got my tools ready to cut the mouths out. I found a knife in the kitchen, as well as two pumpkin carving tool.

First I poked holes around a mouth like I would a pumpkin, and cut it out with the knife. It was hard work.

Tip: trace the outline of your shape with the pumpkin poker first, and gradually trace deeper until the shape pops out. Much easier and smoother this way!

After all the holes were cut out, I started painting with paints I bought from Lakeshore Learning.

 I bought the Super Bright Liquid Tempera, $1.99 each or 10 for $19.99.

Here's the finished monster board:

Here is the finished pumpkin board:

Perhaps I will make the actual bean bags soon and blog about it.

Toodles :o)