September 2009

Patterned Leaves

I saw the Line Pattern Leaf project at Art Projects for Kids and thought the girls would enjoy it. They have been enjoying their new black drawing pens, so this activity was perfect! Supplies: white drawing paper, black pen, leaf tracers (optional – we used leaf shape templates cut from file folders) The girls and [...]

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Counting the House

One of the girls’ favorite math activities this week was counting the house. I gave them a list of various things around our home – windows, tables, chairs, bathtubs, etc. – and they had to go around the house counting and recording the numbers. They loved it! Somehow anything involving a clipboard is super-cool to [...]

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Tissue Paper Vases

Need a sweet and simple handmade gift? We love re-purposing glass bottles and jars into lovely little vases. All you need is Mod Podge (or watered-down white glue) and colored tissue paper. Paint an area of your jar or bottle with the Mod Podge and start sticking on tissue paper pieces – you can cut [...]

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Flowerpot Wind Chime

We celebrated my husband’s birthday last week. In addition to the veggie plants we bought him for the garden, the girls and I made him this fun flowerpot wind chime. I had seen pictures of wind chimes like this – they seemed pretty simple to make, so we gathered a few things and winged it! [...]

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Calling All Monsters!

I have been a reader of Marie’s blog, Make and Takes, for quite some time now. She always has great ideas for simple kids’ crafts, yummy recipes, and other helpful tips for family and home. Marie has a fun new ebook available for purchase, just in time for Halloween fun: Monster Mania! Not only is [...]

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Paper Plate Panda Puppets

The girls have been learning about pandas as part of our animal studies. We do a lot of open-ended art exploration, but they also love doing craft projects. I promised I would add a panda craft to our school work! We made these cute (and simple!) panda puppets using paper plates and construction paper. The [...]

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Faber-Castell Gel Sticks

Whenever we get new art supplies, the girls and I like to sit down and experiment. We had some new Faber-Castell Gel Sticks to play with, so I put out some white and black construction paper and some scraps of watercolor paper. The gel sticks are a creamy, pastel-like crayon in a plastic, twist-up tube. [...]

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Taking Dictation

There is really nothing like the imagination of a preschool-age child! Long before they can write their own stories, children are ready and eager to tell their own stories. It is wonderfully empowering for a child to see her words written down as a “real” story. So, what are you waiting for? Grab some paper [...]

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More Spinny Speller Fun

Delaney is still quite enamored with the Spinny Speller – I think she is still amazed that she can sound-out words! (Read my first post about Spinny Spellers here.) She wanted to write down all the words she was sounding out, so I made her this simple recording sheet. I put it inside a sheet [...]

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Homeschooling: Off & Running

We’re settling into our second week of homeschooling. The girls are eager every morning to get going with their work – most mornings we are starting around 7:45! Here’s a peek at a few things we did last week: M&M Graphing Watercoloring on wet paper: Making numbers and other creations with Wikki Stix: Playing Double [...]

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