Our latest adventures

Charlotte made a sun using yellow paint and construction paper!  We used the same technique as with the moon (cutting out a circle for Charlotte to paint, allowing her to form a circle!  The construction paper was used for the rays.  I helped her cut and glue those.

We also did a coloring project where Charlotte colored over a sillouete of a dolphin using crayons.  It was really cute! (picture to come soon)


Charlottehad fun digging for letters in a tub of sand!  I have these small foam puzzle pieces, and I burried the letters in the sand.  Then, we went outside, and Charlotte used a spoon (and then decided her hands were way more fun!) to find the letters!  She wasn't able to put them where they belong, but it was still a fun activity and we will definitely do this one again.



and then we just started playing in the sand- hehe!

We also did a fine motor activity using the same tub and spoon, and poms!  The idea is to use the spoon to transfer the poms from the tub to the other containers.  She loves this activity and has wanted to play it everyday since we tried it!



And can you believe it - Charlotte is very close to knowing all her letter names!  She can sing the alphabet, and she can look at letter flash cards out of order and tell me the name of each one.  Now, if we can only get her to transfer that letter recognition to other fonts/places, then she will have that down!  So, I started working on her letter sounds, too.  She has the leap frog letter factory DVD, but doesn't like watching it yet. 

We talk about animal sounds all the time, so I present it like this:

the A says /a/ /a/ /a/! (I then open the flashcard to show her the picture of the aligator and say, 'aligator!'  Charlotte repeats after me and LOVES it!  She currently can name the 'H' sound and the 'D' sound if I ask.

I really am blown away by how much she is learning.

Just for fun, this is a picture of my husband at a restaurant, after getting whipped cream smashed in his face while wearing a sombrero :).  happy birthday to him!  I will never admit it's my birthday in that restaurant- ha!

Charlotte got to wear the hat too :)

What have we been up to lately?

Wow- what a busy time it has been!  Here are a few pictures and words on our activities!

We started creating this activity, using popsicle sticks and toilet paper rolls!  So far, we have painted our popsicle sticks.  Once we get our containers ready, we'll be able to play this fun color sorting game!  Charlotte already knows all her colors but has not yet mastered sorting.  What a creative and inexpensive learning activity!



from theprincessandthetot.blogspot.com/

I am starting this project tonight  - alphabet and number bean bags!  Charlotte knows her numbers 1 - 10 and some of the alphabet, but I want to make sure we have other activities to try other than flash cards.  I was thinking of making uppercase letters on one side and lowercase letters on the other side- not sure yet if i'll do this.  Also, i'll be making numbers 1 - 20 for the numbered bean bags!  I'll try to make color ones too.  particularly for Weston and Michaela (the little girl i'll be taking care of soon!)  I can't wait to see how these turn out!



from chezbeeperbebe.blogspot.com



I made a few appliqued onesies for Weston!  I am very proud of how these turned out.  I'll add the pictures to this post soon!  Next I will be trying the burp cloths, pictured below:



from diaryofaquilter.com

 We started making a counting game similar to this one!  I have painted the egg carton and now I just need to give it a second coat and add the stickers and numbers.  I can't wait to play this game with Charlotte!



from lakeshorelearning.com 

We made a 'mommy and me' handprint craft similar to the one pictured below!  I'll add our picture soon.




from millybee.com


We also did a painting activity where Charlotte used acryllic paint over masking tape.  It turned out really cute! (picture coming soon)  Next time we will use a canvas instead of paper, due to issues with our paper ripping a little when we took the tape off.  It would also be fun to let Charlotte place the tape on the page, or to make the tape in the shape of a tree or animal!



idea from readymade.com

 We also went on a nature walk around our block, collecting items along the way.  It was fun to talk about what we saw during our walk.  Next we will create art from these items!

Finally, we went for a bike ride and created a 2 colored pom pom!  Charlotte hasn't quite mastered the pedaling yet, but we're having fun learning!

I was asked to attempt the pom pom by my sister, who is planning her wedding.  I think it turned out pretty well, considering I did not have flower wire and only had 4 sheets of each color ( hence the 2-colored pom pom and the use of bread twisty-ties to hold it together!)  It was really easy to make, taking only 5 minutes.  I followed the tutorial on marthastewart.com.  It is now hanging up in Charlotte's room :)

Here's how it turned out:

Whew!  we had more planned that we were unable to get to.  Partly because my body is requiring alot more rest lately with the pregnancy.  I'm okay with that though- I need to take care of myself and Weston, and I'd rather have too much planned than not enough!

What do you see in the sky?

I have been talking to Charlotte alot about the sky lately.  We have been looking at flash cards and pictures of the sky, as well as simply going outside and talking about what we see!  We tried a few art projects involving the sky, and they were a huge hit with her!

The first one was a raincloud. I got the idea from alittledelightful.blogspot.com.  Here are the materials we used:

• 1 piece of computer paper
• pen (to draw the cloud form)
• white rice
• hand sanitizer
• blue food coloring
• 1 sandwich bag
• tacky glue
• cotton balls

I drew a cloud and then spread glue all around the cloud shape.  Then I let Charlotte put cotton balls onto the glue.  This got a little messy :).   I put about 3 drops of  blue food coloring and 1 drop of hand hanitizer into the sandwich bag to dye the rice blue.  I spread glue all around the page and let Charlotte drop the rice on the page.  After the glue dried, I found that I still needed to put additional glue to get some of the rice to stick.



cloud form

dyed rice




placing cotton balls onto the glue!





adding the rain!





The finished product!

 We also created a rainbow using construction paper, glue, and cotton balls!  Charlotte tore up some construction paper and then I helped her glue them onto the pre-printed rainbow.  Then Charlotte added the cotton balls to complete the project!


I think we'll cut the cotton balls next time to make them a little smaller :).

I also love the idea of using colored pasta!  We will try a project involving colored pasta soon.

from dawnypoo.blogspot.com

We also created a painting of the moon!  I used a cereal bowl as a pattern to draw a circle onto construction paper.  Then, I cut out the circle and placed it on a really cool piece of glittery black scrapbook paper that I found at goodwill.  I held the orange paper down and let Charlotte paint using white acryllic paint.  Then I helped her create craters using the the cap of the pant bottle!  you could also use a water bottle. 


Finally, we had tons of fun making a sky of stars in Charlotte's room.  All we used was a black cardboard presentation board, christmas lights, an extension cord, and scissors to poke holes into the board.  This was so fun and easy to make!

My first sewing project!

I'm so excited about the new pillows I made for our front porch chairs!  I have a sewing machine but never really made the time to use it before.  After spending about an hour trying to figure out how to wind thread on the bobbin and to try to thread the needle, I made these pillows:



If you look closely, you'll see how I really messed up the 4th side on both pillows, lol.





but, i'm still very proud of my results!



Total cost of this project:  just 3 dollars!!!  I got an outdoor tablecloth on clearance from Walmart.  I already had 2 old pillows that I used for the inserts.  Plus, I still have plenty of leftover table cloth that I will use as a picnic blanket.

This project has inspired me to try other sewing projects!  Next on the list:  a shower curtain for the downstairs bathroom and numbered bean bags.

More summer fun

We finished our name art! (mentioned in a previous post)  I took one of Charlotte's art projects involving painting with q-tips and placed it behind the letters.  This one will get framed and given to her dad for his birthday!  It turned out really well!




Charlotte's beautiful painting




the name art, before framing!

This project would also be fun to do wich other names, or even cut out pictures of animals!


We also played with a special kind of sand today!  It starts out dry before you  put it in the water, but then it goes back to being dry when you take it out of the water! 

This was so simple, but sometimes it's the simple things can be the most fun!