Tub Fun Tuesday-Foam Shapes In The Bathtub

Today's idea involves a package of craft foam, some scissors, and a little creativity.  My tub fun idea today is all about making foam shapes that your child can wet and then hang on the bath or shower wall.  My favorite things to make are clothing outfits (pants and shirts, skirts and blouses, dresses) and flowers/landscape scenes.  However, the possibilities are endless....ABC's, numbers, shapes, rainbows......Your kids can hang the shapes on the tub wall and then use bath tub crayons to complete their wall art.  You don't have to be an artist to create these fun foam scenes either.  Kids have fun regardless of your Picasso quotient.  Older children enjoy creating their own shapes as well.  It is also fun to hang your foam shapes on windows.  I can see this being a fun activity for my preschoolers when it is nasty outside!

Use Up Those Easter Jelly Beans With Jelly Bean Math

All kids need to learn how to add, subtract, multiply, and divide.  Knowing these skills is essential for moving on to higher math, and these basic math skills will be used daily for their entire lives.  However, some kids find learning math to be a chore rather than a fun learning experience.  I have one of those kids so I am always on the lookout for ways to make learning math appealing, and when I came across using jelly beans for math equations I was sold.  Jelly beans are tasty, economical, and usually plentiful after Easter.  This makes using jelly beans fun for kids and practical for their teachers.   I am including links to pages that have great jelly bean ideas for beginning math problems. Thank you to the blogs Feels Like Home and Kids Activities Blog for some great ideas.   Enjoy!

Simple Math Using Jelly Beans

and 

Multiplying And Dividing With Jelly Beans

Thar's Gold In Them Thar Hills.....OK Sandbox!

I had some "gems" (floral arrangement beads) and "gold" (rocks from our yard that we spray painted gold) left over from a library program.  I decided to add them to our sandbox and let the kids discover the treasure while they were playing.  They loved panning for gold in the sandbox and the two youngest each gathered quite a collection.  After a while, my oldest daughter asked her younger siblings if they wanted to play store and purchase some items that she had available (rocks, leaves, sticks, etc.) They said YES!  This proves to me that even
imitation money can burn a hole in your pocket and further proves to me that my oldest is going to be in sales some how, some way,  some day!

Cloud Dough

Cloud dough is silky, moldable, and all ages find it fun to play with.  You can make pretend cakes, build castles, play with toy figurines in it, make a snow village out of it, and I could go on and on as the pretend play is limitless.  Two ingredients make up this recipe so it couldn't be simpler to create!  You can make an edible version for younger children that may still be putting things in their mouths....just replace the baby oil with vegetable oil.   Thank you to my friend Sherri for sharing this recipe from Happy Hooligans with me.  My oldest daughter made this recipe yesterday as part of her "real life" school work and my two youngest played with it non stop for a good hour.  Very fun!  Here is the link to find the recipe.  http://happyhooligans.ca/cloud-dough/

Felt Pictures...A Quiet Activity Perfect For Little Hands!

I am always on the look out for quiet and fun activities for my little guy.  I made felt pictures for him when he was one and was desperate for something (anything lol) to quietly keep his attention at church.  At the time, these felt pictures were way to advanced for him and he wanted nothing to do with them.  Fast forward 3 years and he loves them.  He pulled them out of my church bag the other day and started to play with them.  He was so excited to be able to put the pictures together himself with no help from anyone.  I have 3 sets made (a snowman, a Christmas tree, and a turkey) but I am making more now that I see how much he likes them.  I am guessing our 5 year old will like them as well!

Making these felt pictures is simple.  You need one piece of felt that will be your base (a piece that is about 8 1/2 x 11) and pieces of felt in different colors that you cut out to form shapes for your pictures.  For my snowman felt picture, I simply cut out 3 circles of white felt and laid them on a blue background.  I cut out white cloud shapes.  Then I added arms made out of brown felt, and a green tree.  For my Christmas tree, I cut out a large green triangle, a small rectangle out of brown, and several small circles out of a variety of colors for decorations.  I then cut out a yellow star for the top of my tree.  I laid all of these on piece of blue felt.  For my turkey, I cut several feather shapes out of a variety of colors, a larger brown circle for the body, and a smaller brown circle for the head.  Then I cut out a yellow beak, a red waddle, and yellow legs.  I laid all of these down on a tan piece of felt.

These pictures are great for hand/eye work and really inspire creativity.  Kids will come up with lots of different ways that the pictures can be put together.  They are quiet activities that will keep a little one's attention at church or at restaurants.  I am not sure what my next felt pictures will be....but I will be making more soon.

Chicken Birthday Party

My oldest daughter's 9th birthday was last weekend.  We do birthdays big around here and this year my daughter chose to throw a chicken themed birthday party.   This little girl has kept me hopping with the various themes she has chosen over the years.  We have done dinosaurs, butterflies, rubber duckies, horses, stuffed animals, and a Huss (her name for her blankie) themed party.  Truthfully, planning her parties always brings me a lot of joy and stretches my creative spirit.  I love celebrating the day of her birth with a party that characterizes her individual spirit.  This year's chicken themed party was a lot of fun to plan.  Below are the favor bags, treats, games, and decorations we used.

DECORATIONS:

1.  We decided to make a paper plate chicken face banner to hang on the mantle above our woodstove.  This project was very easy and ended up looking very cute.  We used white and yellow dessert plates, drew on eyes with a sharpie and taped on orange construction paper triangles for beaks and red construction paper for combs.  We taped these chicken faces along with yellow crepe paper to our mantle and voila'  our party's decorative focal point was born.

2.  We also decided to make chickens out of balloons.  We blew up yellow balloons and drew eyes on them with a sharpie, taped our construction paper beaks and combs on and added construction paper feet to the bottom of each balloon.  Then, we taped the balloon chickens above our wood stove and along our living room window sills.

FAVOR BAGS:

1.  We used brown paper lunch sacks and cut them down to about half size, then we drew on eyes and glued on our construction paper beaks and combs.  We filled them with plush rubber chickens,  chicken bouncy balls, candy corn, and baby chicks.


GAMES AND ACTIVITIES:

1.  Hatch The Egg:  We (and by we I mean my hubby) blew up white balloons and filled them with cute chicken domino markers and chicken/egg bracelets.

2.  Egg Toss:  We hard boiled eggs obtained from our backyard chickens and used those for the toss.  Some of the kids were amazed by the different colors and size of the different eggs. 

3.  Search For The Favor Bags:  We used candy corns to create a trail that led from our driveway to the kids' play house where the party favor bags were hidden. 

4.  Feeding Clover To Our Backyard Chickens:  My daughter took her friends down and showed them how to pick clover and feed it to our hens.  The kids loved this!


BIRTHDAY GOODIES:

1.  Brownie Bird Nests:   Make your brownie batter (from scratch or use a boxed mix).  Scoop the batter into well greased muffin tins and bake.  Cool the brownies in the pan for about 5 minutes.  Then take them out and gently press the middles down to make bird nest shapes.  After the brownies have cooled completely add jelly bean eggs.

2.  Donut Hole Chicks:  Coat donut holes with melted frosting and roll in yellow tinted coconut (combine  yellow gel food coloring in a plastic bag with shredded coconut and knead until the coconut is the desired yellow).  Dip mini chocolate chips into frosting and "glue" onto the donut holes for chick eyes, cut up orange jelly beans and do the same "gluing" procedure to add as beaks. 

This was a fun party to plan and my daughter, her siblings, and friends really enjoyed themselves!

Random Thoughts

As I go about my day, random thoughts flow in and out and today in celebration of the first day of Spring (WooHoo!), I thought I would share a few. Disclaimer:  These thoughts may or may not have anything to do with Spring!


1.  No matter how unsettled or grumpy I may feel,  seeing my little boy kick and spin his way across our living room always makes me smile.  He can make me laugh out loud when he says things like "Stand back everyone, I am training to be a ninja!"


2.  It is sunny, now it is cloudy, oooh sunny again, and..............cloudy!  I could do this all day LONG since I live on the Central Oregon Coast.  And uh-hum it is now Spring. 


3.  I should be folding the two loads of clothes on our bed (placed there so they get FOLDED before I can get into said bed), or sweeping the floors, or changing sheets on the  kids' beds, or making a dozen bracelets for my daughter's birthday party game, or getting library books ready to return, or......but no, I am writing this post about random thoughts because I would much rather be writing than doing any of the above! :)  The other stuff will all get done.....it always does!


4.  My oldest daughter is about to turn nine and I am amazed at how often she says something to me that really makes me stop and think!  When did she get so grown up and articulate????!?!?! 


5.  My seed order shipped today, my seed order shipped today, my seed order shipped today.....can't wait to plant!!!


6.  Wait!  My little girl is about to turn 9 which means she is halfway to 18 which means we are halfway through her growing up years here at home which means this mommy could potentially be a bit teary eyed for a minute!


7.  My daughter just proclaimed that a spider we saw on a walk was CUTE!!!  How can a daughter of mine think anything belonging to the arachnid species is cute!?!?!  One thing for sure, I have grown to know and even appreciate more about creepy crawlies in the last several years than I ever thought possible.  Thanks kids!


8.  How does my husband go to sleep the minute his head hits the pillow.  I need to learn how to do that! 


9.  I am really enjoying my daughter's Story of the World history curriculum.  Today if the weather holds we get to make a brick! 


10.  OK now I am laughing because of how excited I am to do a science experiment that involves us making a brick!  It is like I am in 3rd grade all over again!


Happy Spring everyone!