Flower Face

We all think our children are the cutest things to ever grace the Earth, so of course it makes perfect sense that Mom and Grandma would love to have a flower with a child's face in the middle of it! 

Above is one Brayden made in Kindergarten. It has his face with do-a-dots used to make the petals. Then crayon for the rest of the picture. The poem reads:

Roses are red

Violets are blue

When you see this flower

You will know

I LOVE YOU!

This one is one Kaitlyn made in nursery at church last year. It is a flower shape that they had her color. They then put the picture in the middle and connected it to a green straw (strong) and a note that says "Happy Mother's Day! Thank you for helping me bloom and grow."

Simple but adorable! 

Wood Flowers

This is a fun idea for something to give to mom or grandma for Mother's Day. It is something a child can do well enough on their own so the item is uniquely theirs.

This is something my children gave to me last year under the direction of my husband. 

Buy some wooden flowers. Many craft stores will have these--especially Michaels. Then you can buy a "vase" of some sort. My husband made this vase from wood, but you could buy a real vase or buy a wooden box.

Let the children paint the flower(S) as they want to. Let dry and give to the mom in your life! I have mine sitting on my computer desk. 

Pom-Pom Spring Chick

This is a fun little craft Brayden brought home from school at the end of his egg unit. It is simple and something you can use to decorate for spring with!

AGE RANGE

You could adapt this as young as a toddler, but the most rounded learning will come for the preschoolers and up.

SUPPLIES

• Yellow pom-poms--one small and one large
• Styrofoam egg carton
• Orange paper
• Black marker
• Glue

ACTVITY

1. Before you begin, gather supplies. Cut egg carton up so each section is individual.
2. Have your child cut the edges of the egg carton section to look like a cracked egg shell edge.
3. Have your child glue the large pom-pom in the egg.
4. Have your child glue the small pom-pom on top of the large one.
5. Have your child cut out an orange diamond shape for the beak and glue it on.
6. Have your child make two eyes with the black marker.
7. Let glue dry and then display it somewhere!

Pussy Willows

This activity is quite common in preschool and Kindergarten classes. It is simple, but involves paint and children love paint!

SUPPLIES

• White paper
• Brown crayon
• Gray paint
• Optional: Paint shirt and tablecloth. Paper towels also help keep painted fingers off of clothes :)

ACTIVITY

• You might want to start by showing your child either an actual pussy willow if you have them by your or by showing them a picture of a pussy willow so they know what they are making.
• Have your child draw three stems with the brown crayon.
• Have your child dip his finger in the gray paint and dot the stems with it. 
• Let dry!

POEM

You might add this poem to your activity:

Pussy Willow

Close your eyes

And do not peek

And I'll rub Spring

Across your cheek.

Smooth as satin,

Soft and sleek.

Close your eyes

And do not peek.

-Aileen Fisher-

Healthy Cookies...yes, you read that right!

When you have kiddos, the temptation (at least for me) to make fun treats all the time is overwhelming. I love any kind of cooking with my kids, but baking without always making something that'll end up calling my name to finish once the kids are in bed...is really tough.

So I ran across this cookie recipe on a great website where the only questionable item in the recipe is dark chocolate (70%), I jumped on it! No sugar, no eggs, no white flour (no flour at all)!

Ingredients:
*3 large ripe bananas

*1 tsp vanilla

*1/4 cup coconut oil, warmed so it isn't solid (or substitute olive oil)

*2 cups rolled oats

*2/3 cup almond meal (I get this at Trader Joe's. Or you can make your own by pulsing almonds in the food processor until it's a sandy texture. Just don't over process, or you'll get almond butter)

*1/3 cup unsweetened coconut, shredded

*1/2 tsp cinnamon

*1/2 tsp salt

*1 tsp baking powder

*6-7 oz. chocolate chips or chopped dark chocolate bar

Oven to 350*

Combine bananas, coconut oil, and vanilla in large bowl. In another bowl, mix almond meal, oats, coconut, cinnamon, salt, baking powder. Add dry ingredients to the wet and combine. Fold in chocolate. The dough is looser than regular cookie dough...it's fine!!! Drop spoonfuls on to parchment, Silpat, or baking stone. Bake 12-14 minutes. The recipe said that just shy of 15 minutes was perfect for them. I got the same results...perfect at almost 15 minutes. Just don't burn the bottoms.

I prefer them warm, but they are good any way you serve them! Enjoy! A fun one to make with the kids!

Dye Eggs

I know most people will have dying Easter eggs in their heads as possible activities around Easter time, but I wanted to make sure it was on everyone's radar.

There are lots of kits to dye eggs you can buy at the store. There are kits with glitter, stickers, even outfits! (see below) You can also do some home-made dyes. The first thing you want to do is either blow out eggs or hard-boil eggs. You want to do the boiling with plenty of time before you dye so they can cool completely. 

This is a fun time to talk about colors--all things colors. Tint, shades, color mixing, etc. Have lots of fun!

Two year old Brayden happy after dying eggs

Capital and Lower Case Sort

Have you ever been out and about with your child(ren) and noticed that letters you thought they knew, they were unable to recognize on signs, books, and other places? Most of the time when we are teaching our kids letters, they learn to recognize the letters in something close to Times New Roman font. When presented with other forms of the letters, like other fonts, they hit a road block.

This activity is easy to do, and a great way to practice recognition of letters in multiple forms. Just open whatever type of Word program you have (or something of the like) and type a letter about 10 times for capital and 10 times for lower case. Then change the font for 9 of them and ta-da!

I cut them out and had the girls sort them, then glue. Check to make sure they are getting it before they glue, FYI.

Once they get the concept, it's something you can have them do independently. For me, it's something they can do while I work with another sibling with minimal interruptions.

Earth Day Painting

This is a simple activity that your children will love for Earth Day (this Friday). Your children will love it because children love painting.

AGE RANGE

This is something children of all ages can do. If you have a baby, you can help your baby do this, and I would suggest finger paints.

SUPPLIES

• Earth coloring page print out. I used this one: http://parenting.leehansen.com/downloads/coloring/MISC/earth-color.gif
• Paint of choice. You can do finger paints, tempera paints, water colors...whatever you want to. The photo above was done with water colors (by Brayden--age 5). Kaitlyn (3 going on 4) did both finger paints and tempera paints. McKenna (just turned 2) did finger paints.
• Paper plate for holding paint. If doing water colors, you will need a small cup of water.
• Paintbrushes if needed.
• Optional: Tablecloth and paint shirts :). Also, a paper towel for each child will help keep things cleaner.

SET-UP

Set up table cloth, set papers out, and prep paint by pouring onto paper plates. Put paint shirts on children.

ACTIVITY

1. Tell your children you will be painting the Earth today. You can either direct or let them choose their paint of choice. I let the older two choose, but chose for McKenna. 
2. Talk about what parts are water and what parts are land, then talk about what colors each part are. 
3. For the older children, I suggest you require they paint the land and water the correct colors. Kaitlyn is my ever-artistic child, and she wanted to do some unique colors, but this was an activity to learn about the Earth. There are times to do creativity with your own imagination taking over, but it is also important for children to be able to identify reality, too. For older children you could even take this a step further and add in the other colors of browns and reds you can see on the Earth and put them in the right place. This would add a nice geography aspect to the activity.

Here are the finished products. From left to right, McKenna's (2), Kaitlyn's (almost 4), Brayden's (5).

Easter Cupcakes

Here is a simple, fun treat to make with your children at Easter. If you let your children help with the whole process, you will work on math skills, cooking skills, colors, and fine motor skills.

Supplies

• Cupcakes (either make from box or mix your own)
• Cupcake paper cups
• White frosting (buy made or make your own)
• Optional: coconut
• Green food coloring
• Candy eggs (robin eggs, jelly beans, etc.)
• Optional: licorice for a basket handle

Method

1. Make the cupcakes. Be sure to let your children help add ingredients and mix the batter. Also, be sure to talk about the math involved on your child's level, whether on simple counting (one egg, two cups of flour, etc.), addition (we need three eggs. I have one, how many more do we need?), subtraction (we need three eggs, I added two, now how many more do we need?), or fractions (focus on the 1/4 cup of oil and such). 
2. Bake cupcakes and let cool completely. You might want to bake one day and then decorate the next, or bake in the morning and decorate after dinner.
3. After making the cupcakes, make your frosting. If you are making your own, you can add the math benefits here, too. You can also point out the changes that come to your frosting as you add liquids and as you add solids (it is thick, let's add some more milk. Ooohhh, look what happens! OR It is runny, we better add some more powdered sugar).
   
   Once the frosting is made, it is time to add your green food coloring and see what happens.
4. OPTIONAL: You can dye coconut green to give more of a grass texture (or dye it other colors if you want to). My children don't like coconut, so we didn't do this.
5. Next, you decorate your cupcakes! Let your children use a butter knife to spread the frosting on their cupcake. Then let them decorate with coconut and eggs. This creates a cupcake that looks like eggs in grass. You can also add a licorice stick from one side to the other to be a handle and you suddenly have an Easter basket with eggs instead! I plan do this version this year (photos are from last year), so I will post pics as I get them.

Easter Round-Up

Here are the Easter ideas we shared with you last year!

Color Matching--Easter Style

A great activity for teaching colors while using those Easter Eggs and cartons.



















Counting With Eggs

Using Easter Eggs to do some counting activities!

















Easter Basket Sensory Activity

Sensory activities are always a hit. Easter grass is a great texture you don't often find other times of year.

Recycled Earth Crayons

Last year for Earth Day, an activity we did was these Recycled Earth Crayons. I found the idea at Babycenter.com. 

The kids really loved this; they still talk about it every so often a year later! It is for ages 2-8. For instructions, go here. You will also see linked on that page other great Earth Day activities!

Paper Plate Elephant

Kaitlyn made this in playgroup. I thought it was super cute!

Supplies:

• paper plate
• construction paper
• scissors
• goggly eyes (or you could draw eyes)
• glue

Method:

1. If desired, have your child color the paper plate (gray if you want to stick to "reality," a color of your child's choice if you want to do "imaginative").
2. Depending on child's age and ability, either you cut out or draw and let your child cut out the elephant's ears. 
3. Cut out a circle on the plate for the "nose" (I would say this is an adult step)
4. Have your child decorate the plate further if desired. Add eyes.
5. Glue ears on plate.
6. Play with your elephant! Stick your arm through to be the elephant's nose.

Making Work Fun

Cleaning and other work doesn't need to be boring in order to be an effective teaching tool for children. There is nothing wrong with making cleaning an enjoyable experience for the family. Here are some ideas to make cleaning fun:

1. Music: Turn on some music to keep you moving! Sing and dance as you clean.
2. Adventure: Turn it into an adventure. Dress up in your adventure clothes, find the messes, and attack them with your sponges and cleaners. We like to go on "treasure hunts" after a holiday. For example, we will go on a treasure hunt for our all of our Christmas decorations after Christmas is over. We find the decorations and bring them back to a designated spot. If something is too high to reach, the kids tell us where it is. This helps cut back on those missed decorations you find the day after you put the boxes away!
3. Cinderella: My friend shared this. She and her girls pretend they are Cinderella and clean the house. When they are done cleaning, they dress up in their princess dresses and have a princess party.
4. Chore Incentives: You can do chore cards, chore jars, sticker charts, lists...whatever keeps everyone motivated. Mix it up from time to time. Nothing will stay motivational forever--you need to change what you do every so often.
5. Focus on the Serving: "Thank you for cleaning that! That is such nice service you are doing!" Use positive talk to thank your child for helping with the family chores. Even if something is "your job," it is nice to be thanked for it.

Doing chores around the house does so much more for a child than simply teaching a child how to work. Honestly, if all my child learned from chores was work ethic, that would be enough for me. People I admire in life are hard workers and learned how to work hard in youth. There is so much value in work ethic.

It will help your child be better citizens and most importantly better spouses and parents. I have in the back of my head a great gift I want to give to my future daughter-in-law--I want to give her the gift of a husband who is helpful in the home and is a hard worker. My mother-in-law gave that to me and I love it!

Work helps our mental development. It helps our character development. One of the best ways for me to get my five year old boy talking about his feelings is to work beside him for an extended period of time. At first, he talks about surface topics, but as time passes, he is soon talking about matters of his heart.

And on a more simple level, chores help children develop fine and gross motor skills. They help with colors (like when sorting laundry). You can work in shapes and counting. 

There is so much value to work! But remember that it is okay to keep work fun.

So, how do you make work fun around your house?

Sticker Sorting

We do a lot of sticker sorting in this house. It is a great way for J to practice categories and also helps him with fine motor skills (getting the stickers off really works those pincher muscles).  It requires little prep on my part and the only supplies necessary are paper and stickers! These activities also work really well on airplanes (easy to pack and keeps them occupied for a long time!).  We travel a lot and I always have some type of sticker sorting included in our carry-on bag.

Prep: I printed out pictures of a road, the water and the sky. You could definitely just draw these as part of the activity on the plane.  I then cut out stickers of things that were found in each location.  I placed the stickers in a zip-up pencil bag.  J pulled out one sticker at a time and decided which setting it should be placed in.  This worked really well and kept him occupied for awhile (he had a lot of stickers to place).

 

We’ve also done a similar activity in a hotel room.  I drew a train track, road and lake on some paper and he found stickers to place on each.  He was then quite content to drive his cars around the tiny road for quite awhile!

Finally we’ve done something similar at a restaurant.  I have a random assortment of items in my purse at any given moment.  In this case stickers and index cards.  We drew a setting on each one and he sorted the stickers.

These type of activities would also work well for long doctor appointments and car rides too or at home of course.

Here are a couple other examples I’ve posted on in the past:
Sorting Colors with Stickers
Counting with Stickers

We’ve also done shapes, seasons, letters and animal homes.  The possibilities are limited only by your sticker collection.

Weekend Craft Workshops

I wanted to tell you all about a fabulous, free, fun craft activity you can do each month. They happen and Lowe's and also at Home Depot. The photo above is from Lowe's (made by Kaitlyn). I haven't taken a photo of Brayden's latest creation at Home Depot, but it is a wood car that he painted and put together. It looks like this:

These happen on different Saturdays of the month, so you can do both stores if you want to. They provide the items, you provide the child :). You get an apron at each store (though Home Depots is honestly a better apron). At Home Depot, you get a pin to put on your apron for each project completed. At Lowe's, you get a patch to sew on your apron for each project completed. 

Home Depot Information

• Home Depot Kid Workshops.
• Designed for kids 5-12 (but we have taken Brayden off and on since he was about 18 months)
• Free
• First Saturday of the month
• 9-12 AM (open house style)
• No reservations required (at least at my store)

April's Project: 

Lowe's Information

• Lowe's Build and Grow
• Ages vary based on project
• Free
• 2nd and 4th Saturdays of each month (I believe)
• 10 AM
• Sign-up recommended--see linked website above--some places would need a sign up depending on how many people go.

April's Project (April 9)

April's Project (April 23)