Gingerbread Playdough!

This will be a quick post today, I just wanted to share a link to a few fun festive Christmas playdough recipes. We made the gingerbread one today and holy moly it smells amazing! Check it out here.

Ginger Bread Man Pre-writting Activity

I try to stay away from things like worksheets, but sometimes you just have to do what you have to do. Erik doesn't have much interest in coloring or really any fine motor activity, but I know how critical it is for him to build those skills so he can learn to write. So, since he has been reading the story of the Ginger Bread Man lately, I thought maybe I could get him to do a bit of tracing. I found this idea here, but don't have a printer to take advantage of her handy printable so I made my own worksheet. 

I handed it to Erik and told him these ginger bread men need his help getting home. I told him he needed to draw a road for them to take to get to their houses. He was thrilled and did the worksheet over and over, each time using a different color of crayon. He didn't follow the dotted lines perfectly, but I was impressed at how well he did, as this was the first time we've done anything like this.

Candy Cane Can Stilts

So you remember our candy cane striped tape resist art? 

Remember I said I wanted it for another project? Well, today is the day you get to see my favorite of all our Christmas activities. We made can stilts! I was sitting looking at the growing stack of infant formula cans that was piling up in my kitchen and all the sudden I remembered this activity and knew these would be perfect. I used a nail to poke two holes in each can (one hole on each side of the can) then ran a length of string through the holes. Tie the ends of the strings together to make loops and there you go!

 Now, to be honest, this may have been a bit above Erik's ability level, but he has been determined to figure these things out. I've never seen him work so hard at something before! It's been impressive to watch his tenacity as he figures out how to balance, coordinate hand and foot movements, and just have fun.

I do think I got the strings a bit too short, they probably should come up to about his waist, but they work well enough for us.

Jingle Bell Magnet Exploration and Discovery Bottle

I saw this idea on Pinterest, and just couldn't resist the allure of a two-for-one activity that required less than a minute of prep time and was totally free. What could be better than that?!

I grabbed an empty bottle we'd been saving for just such an occasion, and filled it with a handful of different sizes and colors of jingle bells, red and green stuff, and some little plastic Christmas light-bulb beads.

 And that was all it took to make a really fun Christmas discovery bottle for Sharli to play with. To make this fun and perpetually interesting for Erik, all I had to do was hand him his magnet wand (which was nowhere to be found the day I was taking these pictures). He spent a lot of time exploring the effect of the magnets on the contents of the bottle.

Since I couldn't find the magnet wand the day I took  these, I put a strong magnet on the lid of the bottle just to show you how fun the magnets are when they interact with the bells. You definitely want to give this one a try!

*Diedre Mower is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com. This post contains affiliate links.

Pine Branch Painting

After I saw this idea on teachpreschool.org I knew it had to part of our Christmas activity list. We got a free permit from our local Ranger Station and cut our own tree this year, so I had plenty of pine boughs to work with. I grabbed a few pieces and taped them together to make a brush and turned Erik loose. I decided to use tape to make some resist art for another project (which you'll get to see in a day or two), so at first I only gave Erik red paint to make it look like candy cane stripes.

 After a while we broke out the rest of the colors and (as always happens) Erik ditched the brush and went for finger painting. He had a marvelous time though, no matter what he was using to paint with.

 I decided that it was high time for Sharli to get some painting experience, so I mixed up a batch of edible finger paint and set her up with some tape resist art as well. It took her a moment to figure out what to do...

 ...but then she LOVED it! She had a grand time smearing and splashing paint all over the place.

 In the end we wound up with some fun candy cane striped paper to decorate with, and some fun memories as well.

Festive Christmas Playdoughs

We LOVE playdough! It's such a great way to create, build hand muscles, and just have fun! This year we tried out two festive playdough recipes (really just adding special ingredients to our usual recipe) that made playing with play dough even more fun! We used them with our little play group, as well as giving them as gifts to some of Erik's friends at church. 

The first dough we made was Ginger Bread dough, and let me tell you this smells AMAZING! 

The other fun festive playdough we made was Candy Cane Playdough. It smelled nice (though I didn't have enough peppermint oil to really make it smell great), and was fun for the kiddos in our play group to play with. I gave them beads and pipe cleaners so they could decorate their creations and it kept them busy for nearly an hour. I didn't take any pictures, so you'll just have to go look at the ones on the original blog post and see what theirs looked like.
Play dough is a great sensory medium, especially when scented like these recipes. It does amazing things for fine motor strength, and lets a child explore and be creative.

Christmas Name Tree

 Here's the first of our Christmas activities for this year. I've been wanting to help Erik learn to recognize his name in print, and thought this would be a really fun way to make that happen.
I cut out the shapes for the tree out of foam sheets and wrote one letter on each piece...

...then we hung up a small piece of contact paper (sticky side out) on our window. Erik could build his name tree over and over as many times as he liked.

I loved that this worked on his fine motor skills while also helping him learn to spell his name!

Christmas Themed Preschool Activities

Hey there everyone!
Here's the outline for our Christmas themed activities. Hope there's something here you and your little ones will enjoy!

Language Arts:
      *Read LOTS of Christmas books
      *Christmas Tree Name Activity

Creative Arts:
      *Festive Playdoughs
      *Pine Branch Painting

Science:
      *Jingle Bell Magnet Exploration and Discovery Bottle

Physical Development:
      *Candy Cane Can Stilts
      *Ginger Bread Man Tracing Activity

Hand Print Turkey Card

I saw the idea for this cute card on pinterest, and the best part is that the link takes you to a bunch more fun Thanksgiving learning activities so be sure to check it out!
This was pretty easy (or could've been if I'd been smart enough to only let one kid get all covered in paint at a time, and had NOT done it on a night when Hubby was out of town), and the only supplies you need are paper, finger paint, and a pen.

My plan was to have Erik make the card and then walk to the Post Office with it, where he would be given a handful of dimes and have to count the right number to buy the stamps. In the end I just stuck some stamps on them that I already had at home and dropped them in the outgoing mail box on my way to a doctor's appointment. Oh well, it's the thought that counts, right?

A Family Home Evening lesson on Gratitude

Since we are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, we participate in a weekly event called Family Home Evening (FHE) or Family Night. This is a designated time once a week (traditionally on a Monday) when the whole family gathers together to enjoy time together and learn more about Christ. Since this particular FHE lesson fits in so well with our theme, I decided to go ahead and include it in here with the rest of the things we did for Thanksgiving.
Using the FHE Resource Guide as a base, we talked about what gratitude is and how important it is. We talked about how happy it makes us feel to say "thank you", as well as when people say it to us. We love using the Mormon Messages videos as part of our Family Nights whenever we can, so we watched this video about gratitude.

After watching the video, we made a commitment as a family to try harder to live in thanksgiving daily and to cultivate an "attitude of gratitude". To help us accomplish this goal, we made a Gratitude Tree. Using brown construction paper I made a tree trunk with a few branches and taped them to the wall, high enough that Sharli wouldn't pull them down.

 We took turns thinking of things we were grateful for and wrote them on leaves cut out of different colors of construction paper. I just googled leaf clip-art and traced a few I liked onto the paper before cutting.

It was really fun to listen to the things Erik came up with that he was thankful for, he really put a lot of thought into it. Some of my favorites that he came up with were: "My right hand and my left hand", "oatmeal", "hot air balloons", and "going to Explora".

Every night for the rest of the month, before we left the dinner table (or at least that was the plan, it didn't always happen), we would each write another thing we were thankful for and hang it on our tree. It was fun to watch the tree fill up and to try to always come up with new things.

Autumn/Thanksgiving Preschool Theme

Hey there!

So, I had a whole list of fun things to do for the week and a half before Thanksgiving, and grand plans to have all the posts go up the week of Thanksgiving, but then life took over. Between a trip to the ER and several follow up doctor's appointments, plus the hustle and bustle of the holiday, we only did a small portion of the planned activities and they aren't getting posted until a week and a half before Christmas. Oh well. Maybe if you're lucky you'll get to see our Christmas stuff by Valentines day.
Since I wasn't able to do many of the activities I had planned, I will show you what we DID do, and link to examples of some of the things I had planned but didn't get to do. So here it is, our Thanksgiving/Autumn activities list.

Language Arts:
      Five Little Turkeys Poem
Math:
      Turkey Clothes Pin Counting
      Classifying Leaves
            -I just planned on sorting a bunch of fall leaves by color, size, shape, or whatever else Erik was interested in.
Creative Arts:
      Hand print turkey cards for Grandparents
      Leaf Resist Art
Social Studies:
      Make a Gratitude Tree
      Mail turkey letters to family
            -This one isn't going to get it's own post, we were just going to talk about who to send our turkey cards to and then let Erik count out the money (with LOTS of help) at the Post Office to pay for the stamps. We ended up just slapping some stamps on them and dropping them in the box and didn't make a big deal over it. The grandparents still got the cards we made, but I took care of the mailing part.
Physical Development/Health:
      Go for a walk and collect fall leaves for some of the other activities we had planned

Snow Paint

Our last activity for our Weather Theme was Snow Painting. Now, while there is snow in some part of the country right now, here in Southern New Mexico it's pretty scarce. So we were forced to come up with our own snow to play in, and this is what we found.

We got out some blue paper, whipped up a batch of snow paint, and had some fun painting our snow pictures. These are now on display in Erik's room. Once dry, the paint does have a tendency to crack if the papers get bent, but they do have a really neat texture.

Gingerbread Men!

 I've been thinking for a while that it would be really fun to make and decorate gingerbread men with Erik. It occurred to me that it would be even more fun if we invited some friends to do this with us, so we invited our play group over to our house a few days ago and had a marvelous time decorating our gingerbread men. We used this recipe and it seemed to be a big hit with the kids and moms alike.

Now, I won’t pretend to have set up a tablescape worthy of Pinterest, but just in case you want to do something like this too, here’s the set up:

I made the frosting and the cookie dough the night before the activity so I wouldn't be so rushed in the morning. I waited until about an hour before the guests started arriving to actually bake the cookies so that when they arrived they were greeted by the smell of fresh warm gingerbread wafting out the front door. Yes, it would have been easier to have them baked a day in advance, but I knew that they would smell SO yummy and wanted to share that with our friends.

I covered my kitchen table with some craft paper to keep the mess somewhat contained. I put out a bowl of frosting, as well as a few squeeze bottles of frosting so that the kids had the option of either covering their whole cookie or just using the frosting as glue (I tripled the frosting recipe that came with the cookies so that there would be plenty to go around, and boy was I glad I did). Next I set out plates of candies and other goodies to use as decorations (gum drops, marshmallows, m&m’s, chocolate chips, sprinkles, etc). Each child got a paper plate and a plastic butter knife at his seat, and I had plenty of cold milk on hand for those who wanted something to wash down all the sugar. I had planned on putting any cookies the kids wanted to take home on a paper plate with their name on it and then sliding those inside a plastic bag with a twist tie for easy transportation, but for the most part all the cookies got gobbled up LONG before everyone headed for home.

We had so much fun with this and the kids LOVED it! It was fun to see the different approaches the different age groups took to the creative process. Basically, the youngest ones didn't care what it looked like; they just wanted to shovel the cookies into their mouths as fast as mom would let them. Then there were the kids (Erik was in this group) who wanted to decorate their cookies, but not as much as they wanted to just chow down on the candies. The oldest actually took some time and thought about how to make their gingerbread men look nice before gobbling them up. 

No-Sew Nativity Hand Puppets

I found these adorable NO SEW puppets on Pinterest last year and fell in love with them (original website and free pattern here). I made a set for myself and then attended a Relief Society meeting where all the ladies got to make a set for their own families. It was a lot of fun, and the puppets are so stinkin’ cute! In the hustle and bustle of the holidays though, I never did share these on here so you just barely get to see them now. Don’t worry though, there’s still time to make a set for your family before Christmas gets here!

When I made mine I used a hot glue gun to hold together the front and back pieces and to glue on the chunkier embellishments such as ribbons and beads, but I used Tacky Glue to put on everything else. If I were to make these again, I would definitely use the hot glue for everything as I've had to re-glue several of the smaller felt pieces this year as Erik plays with them.

I love that this is a way for Erik to really get involved when we talk about or read the Christmas story. He loves the bright colors and the soft felt. My favorite is when he mimics the face the angel is making; I wish I had a picture to share because it’s pretty funny! 

Nativity Matching Game

This post contains affiliate links.

Last Christmas Erik was given an adorable Fisher Price Nativity set that is perfect for babies/toddlers. I just love it! I want the real reason behind Christmas to be as important to my children as it is to me, and this is a great way to really help a child learn to love the story of Christ's birth. 

 As I was looking for a solution to our Christmas tree dilemma, I found a set of wall stickers that make up a Nativity scene. I was so excited. I pulled them out and with a little bit of help Erik got to stick them up on the pantry door (okay, a lot of help, he wanted to stick them all in a pile so I came back later and rearranged the stickers so he could see them all). We've been talking about all the different characters trying to help him recognize them, and today we made a game out of it. We brought his Little People nativity over to the wall Nativity and started trying to match the 3D figures with the stickers. He loved it. Matching the toy in his hand with a picture or video of the same thing is one of his favorite things to do. We kept this up for a while until I made the mistake of trying to get him to match up the stars. As soon as he discovered how to make the one on the stable light up, that was it. All he wanted to do was sit and push the button over and over and listen to the song play. Oh well.

This was a really fun, festive way to help Erik practice sorting/matching skills, fine motor skills, and language development (we talked lots about the names of the kinds of animals, etc...). 

*Diedre Mower is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com. 

Christmas Tree!

This post contains affiliate links.

As we were debated about what to do about a Christmas tree this year, we were really stumped. Where would we put it in our tiny apartment? How on earth would we ever keep Erik from destroying it? We could decorate a mini one and just keep it up on our kitchen table, but could we stand to listen to the 24/7 whining that would go on because Erik would be able to see it but not reach it? We finally decided that we weren't going to do a tree this year, there was just no way humanly possible to make it work. And then, as I was digging around in my box of Christmas stuff, I came across the Perfect solution! Not only would it enable us to have a tree of sorts, but it would make a great activity for Erik. So, what is this little bit of Christmas magic I'm talking about? STICKERS!

Okay, so right before we got started Erik dumped a big cup of VERY cold water all over his shirt, which meant he got to go topless for the tree decorating. Oh well. 

 The main body of the tree was four stickers that had to be lined up perfectly to look right, so the grown-ups did that part, but Erik got to help put on all the individual decorations. He loves stickers and is getting pretty good with them. Now if we could just convince him that the ornaments go on the tree, not the wall...

 We love our little tree. It's perfect. It gives us that Christmastime feel we were looking for with none of the mess and it doesn't take up any of our limited floor space. And...

 ...Erik can even drive his tractors on it without me having to worry about a thing. It's perfect!

As you may remember (or already know) stickers are a great way for a child to have a little creative license while practicing their fine motor skills. Decorating a Christmas tree as a family (even a less traditional tree) gives your child a chance to interact socially with the members of his family, while helping to build his self esteem by making him feel like a valued member of the group. What a great way to learn build some memories!

*Diedre Mower is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com. 

Baby Friendly Halloween Craft

 Happy Halloween! I'm sure everyone has a fun day planned today. I thought I'd share the little craft we did yesterday in honor of Halloween. I really wanted something that we could do with both Erik and Paisley, and I found this idea online. I wish I'd had better paper to do it on than just printer paper, but oh well, it works.

Erik made his to send to his grandparents, and Paisley's is going to her mommy and daddy when they come to get her this afternoon.

These were super easy to make, although I will admit I wasn't willing to tackle 2 paint covered babies at once. I did one baby's hand prints while the other was asleep. I mixed up my red and yellow finger paints to make orange (word of warning it really only takes ONE drop of red to turn a huge pile of yellow orange. Don't over do the red) and then stripped the baby down to their diaper and went for it. I only did one hand at a time and rinsed it off before starting the next one to minimize paint getting everywhere. With Erik I kinda smeared his prints a little to help make them more pumpkiny. Let the paint dry over night, and then use a sharpie to draw on the faces and there you have it!