Monday, March 23, 2015

Potato Stamping Easter Eggs

This afternoon we did an art activity for our Easter cards. We used potatoes designed like Easter eggs and stamped them on construction paper. 

Supplies: potato, knife, forks, paint, construction paper


I cut the designs into the potatoes with some input from Monkey. He suggested the stripes! Then we mixed some pretty pastel colours and got to work. 

Monkey really, really, really wanted to use paint brushes so we ended up painting onto the potatoes and then stamping them. Originally I was going to just have him dunk them into one colour... this was way better! After we both struggled a little to keep a good grip on the potatoes, I stuck a fork into each one which made them super easy to hold. 



I am so happy with how they turned out. 


It's definitely a messier activity though, Monkey needed a bath right away!! 

Mar

Friday, March 20, 2015

Baking Soda and Vinegar

This is a top ten science activity with my Kinders. It's super easy and there are lots of options and variations you can do with it. 

Supplies: vinegar, baking soda, food colouring, eye droppers, small containers, large tray or dish


First, pour the baking soda into the dish. You want to have a good layer of it, 3-4 cm at least. Next, put vinegar in the small containers and add a few drops of food colouring. Monkey chose blue and green. 


Now the fun part! Use the eye droppers to drop some vinegar into the dish of baking soda. The chemical reaction makes a fizzy noise and lots of bubbles! (It's actually forming carbonic acid which immediately breaks apart into water and carbon dioxide.)


Monkey loved this, but he needed a lot of help with the eye droppers. They are tiny even for his little hands and require a lot of concentration. Great fine motor practice! But it was easy to keep him at it because of the awesome reaction once he dropped the vinegar into the dish. 

Here is our final product, I love how it turned out - it reminds me of the Earth!


This is another great activity that can be thrown together in just a few minutes. We'll be pulling it out again for sure. 

Mar

Thursday, March 19, 2015

Magical Alphabet Letters

Ooooh March Break... Obviously as a teacher it is one of my favourite times of the year, but right now at home with my boys it is a little bit frustrating! All our playgroups and drop-in activities have been cancelled for the week, so we are feeling a bit cooped up and it is making Monkey and I go a little stir crazy. 

Today we did an alphabet/painting combo activity. I had already cut all the card stock a few nights ago when I was prepping another craft so there wasn't much to do this morning. 

Supplies: water colours, foam brush, cup of water, cardstock or white paper, white crayon


On the white cardstock I wrote the letters of the alphabet in white crayon. I only gave Monkey five random cards to start with because I wasn't sure how long his attention span would be. 

I knew it would be easier for him to just dip his brush in the cup instead of all over the watercolor tray so I just chipped off a little piece of the water colour and dissolved it in the cup of water. (You can also do this with regular paint using a very small drop.) 


I gave Monkey the first card and he could tell that there was something written on it... He got straight to work and it didn't take him long to see the letter. After finishing the first one he knew the rest of the cards would have letters on them too and he loved guessing which one before he painted. He finished all five cards that I gave him and asked to do more so I mixed up a different colour of paint for some variety and he finished a few more cards. 


It will be nice that we can pull this out again over the next week and finish all the letters in a few different colours. After they're all done I will bind them together into a book that he can look at. 

Mar

Tuesday, March 17, 2015

St. Patrick's Day Cards

We sent out some awesome St. Patrick's Day cards to a few lucky family members. Did you get one?? I knew I had to pick something that would keep Monkey's attention and also be very easy. 

Supplies: paint chips cut into squares, green marker, shamrock tracer, white card stock or construction paper, glue, envelopes 


With the help of my better half, I cut paint chips in various shades of green into small squares (...because our shamrock wasn't very big - if you want a bigger shamrock you could cut the squares larger). Then I made a shamrock tracer out of card stock and traced it onto the card stock I had trimmed up for the cards. 

Then it was Monkey's turn to get crafty! He loves using the glue stick. He smeared the glue all over the shamrock and then started gluing on the paint chip squares. 



He did a great job! After the glue dried I used a green marker to outline the shamrocks. Then I folded the cards and wrote a St. Patrick's Day message inside. 


Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Mar

Monday, March 16, 2015

St. Patrick's Day Craft

Today we had some friends over for a play date and I thought we should make this fun and easy St. Patrick's Day rainbow and pot of gold craft. I found the idea here: 
http://www.craftymorning.com/rainbow-chain-craft-st-patricks-day/

I prepped everything last night since Monkey is not quite ready to be cutting things out yet... although he loves using the training scissors I bought him to practice this tricky skill. 

Supplies: construction paper (strips of the colours of the rainbow, black pot of gold, black strip, yellow circles), gold glitter, glue


First we made the rainbow paper chain by gluing the strips into rings attached to each other one at a time.  


Then we glued the coins onto the pot of gold and covered them with glue and then glitter. 


Who doesn't love glitter?!


Then we attached the rainbow to the pot of gold with the black strip as the handle of the pot.

They turned out awesome, Way to go everyone!


Monkey wanted to hang rainbow and pot of gold in his room. 


Happy St. Patrick's Day!!

Mar





Friday, March 13, 2015

Balloon Rockets

Today we made a balloon rocket! This is a really easy science activity. You might even have all the materials you need in your house already. 

Supplies: balloon, string, tape, straw


Place two chairs across the room from each other. Measure a piece of string out to be long enough to tie to each of the chairs. Tie the string to one chair, slide the straw on the string, and then tie to the other chair. Put some tape on the straw. 


Blow up the balloon but don't tie it up, just hold it closed with your hand. Attach the tape to the top of the balloon. Yell "3, 2, 1, BLAST OFF!!!" as loud as you can and let go of the balloon (Okay, it will still work if you don't yell...). And enjoy!!


I wish I could have captured Monkey's excitement with this activity but I couldn't hold the camera and work with the balloon at the same time. But there were lots of giggles as we did it over and over and over again. 

The science part of this activity is the idea of thrust and forward motion and energy but obviously Monkey is a little too young for all those terms so we just talked about why the balloon goes so fast... "Because it goes woooooosh so fast!" 

We loved sharing this fun with Daddy and later we're going to make an even longer one that goes all the way from one end of the house to the other end. 

Mar

Thursday, March 12, 2015

Alphabet Sponges

Another alphabet activity... but Monkey is all about letters and letter sounds right now so I'm going to take full advantage. 

I found these alphabet sponges at Dollarama with the intention of using them for painting but we didn't have time for that today so I had to think of something with less prep and clean up. Using tongs is a great way for kids to practice some fine motor skills. 

Supplies: alphabet sponges, tongs, bucket


I didn't give Monkey any instructions and I was curious about what he would do. Well first he told me that the tongs I gave him were "too hard" and he went and put them away in the kitchen. Then he got the play tongs he has from his toy barbecue because "these are squishy Mommy". Then he started picking up the letters with one hand and putting them into the tongs and squishing them until they were as small as he could get them. I encouraged him to use only the tongs to pick up the letters but he kept going back to using his hands, so we'll have to keep practicing with them! 


Eventually Monkey started picking up the letters and saying their name and sound. I tried to play a little game with him... Can you find the __? ...but it was tricky! The letters were not all sitting the right way that he would recognize in the bucket - some we're on their sides, or upside down and backwards - and this definitely confused him. Regardless, he liked this activity and when I thought he was done with it and I was tidying up he asked me to leave it out and played again.


Mar

Thursday, March 05, 2015

Alphabet Stamping

So my poor boys have a teacher for a mom which means it's in my soul to force educational activities upon them. But there's nothing wrong with getting a head start!!

Monkey is very excited about learning his letters and their sounds lately. We have a Leap Frog video called The Letter Factory which I highly recommend. It's his current favourite - he has watched it more than I'd like to admit and is starting to recite it as he plays. It's adorable. 

I thought he might be interested in the set of alphabet stamps I have in my personal collection of supplies from school. I wrote out all the letters on a sheet of paper so he could find them and stamp on top. Looking back, I probably should have done them in order the first time... But he was a champ and did the whole page, quoting the movie the entire time. 

Supplies: paper, ink pad, alphabet stamps 




All done:


Mar

Monday, March 02, 2015

Painting Snow!

Since it's too cold for Peanut to get outside, I decided to bring some snow inside for Monkey to play with. He was so excited when I came inside with the bucket of snow - at first he didn't fully understand what it was! 

Supplies: water colours, paint brushes, dish of water, bucket of snow


He could barely wait to start! I was lucky to get a picture in first. It took him a little while to get the hang of it: first water, then paint, then snow. But he caught on!


Here is our finished masterpiece:


He asked me if we could do it again before I had even put it all away. I don't blame him, how often do we get to play with snow inside?

Mar