Valentine Round-Up 2012

It is almost "that heart time" as Brayden refers to it. Here are our Valentine posts from last year!

Clay Hearts

A fun craft activity you can give as gifts. This is great for baby on up.









Heart Hands

A cute craft to say "I Love You" to someone. Framed, in a card, or just a paper are all special!






Sensory Activities

This activity was so popular that my kids have hardly left it alone for the last year! I think it will be a hit with your children too!





"V" is for Valentine

Decorate your V for Valentines day.










Valentine Candy Sort

This is a great sorting activity.









Valentines Day Snacks
Raegan compiled a list of snack ideas for you to make!

Valentine Dump Truck Card

A cute valentine that will especially appeal to the boys!






Valentines Galore!

Since we were in our infant year last year, we had no archive of Valentine activities. I searched the web and created a list of fun ideas to do for Valentines Day!









Valentine Magnets

Do this activity to add to your precious Valentines decor!

Top 5 Pinterest Winter Finds

Puffy Paint Snowflake Painting
by Frugal Family Fun Blog
Great For: Art

Shredded Snowman

by Babycenter

Great For: Sensory, Art

Borax Crystal Snowflakes

by Delia Creates

Great For: Science

Build A Snowman Sensory Tub

by Our Cup of Tea

Great For: Sensory, Fine Motor

Number Snowman

by Kindergarten Hoppenings

Great For: Numbers

You can see more learning activities I have found and pinned or repinned here: http://pinterest.com/valplowman/learning-ideas/

Egg Carton Snowman

I had extra egg cartons (cardboard) from the grocery store and I was convinced that something fun could be done with them. I had an idea, but when Val posted the Puffy Paint snowman ( http://learningdevelopmentactivities.blogspot.com/2012/01/puffy-paint-snowman.html ), I knew that my idea just got a new twist!

Prep: Cut cardboard egg carton compartments out. They will stand up on their own, and they don't need to be pretty. :)
Make puffy paint (equal parts glue and shaving cream). I used 1/4 cup of each and it was WAY too much for 3 snowmen. Maybe try 1/8 cup (2 T) of each to start. I felt like I wasted a whole bunch of glue.
Gather supplies: paintbrushes, cut out carrot nose (construction paper), buttons, beads, wiggly eyes (or cut out of paper), small squares or circles for the mouth, ribbon for scarf, glitter. The decorations are optional, so go wild with what you have on hand. Oh, and you'll need toilet paper.

Directions:
I put down a coffee filter for them to paint on so it didn't get on the table. It's easy to clean up, so that part is not necessary.
Stuff one carton w/ toilet paper for stability. Paint with puffy paint.
Stuff 2nd carton with toilet paper (this allows for stacking like a snowman is built). Either paint in hand or while on the 1st carton.
Stuff 3rd carton (head). Paint. Decorate!! Allow to dry before moving. Should take about 12-24 hours to dry, depending on the amount of paint used.

Puffy Paint Snowman

My daughter made this in preschool and has been ever in love with it since.

This is made from puffy paint, which is simply equal parts shaving cream and white glue. You mix the two together and then paint with it, or glob it to make a nice snowman. 

She also used pieces of construction paper to create the eyes, noses, mouth, hat, and arms. Lay flat to dry. Once it is dry, you can touch it and feel is puffiness! Now she just wants it to have feet so it can walk around like Frosty :)

Surviving Winter: Story Time at the Library

image source

I think a huge secret to making it through the winter months and still being sane, happy, and even a bit improved is to get a change of scenery every so often. One way to do this is story time at your local library. How awesome is the local library? All that free stuff? 

Every library does story time differently. For some, it is a "come one, come all" thing where you just show up and get some stories read. My library requires you sign up ahead of time, but they do really neat things for the children with fun crafts, handouts, and treats. 

And not all storytimes are at the library. We have a non-profit center close to our home that focuses on the history of the American West. They do a free storytime weekly that is full of stories, games, crafts, and food, and it is come one, come all, no sign ups required. Learn about the resources you have around you by asking moms with older children, reading the papers, and checking websites. 

Storytime offers a love of reading along with a social outing that is low-pressure. This is a great winter, rainy day, or hot day activity!

Surviving Winter: Extra Book Reading

Part of combatting winter crazies is keeping the mind engaged. When you are stuck inside for longer hours than usual, reading extra books is a fun way to pass the time and engage the mind. Try adding an extra story session to your day at some point--maybe after breakfast or lunch or just before nap time. Chase the winter blues away with a pile of books.

Surviving Winter: Baking

My idea behind surviving through the winter months (with sanity, happiness, and fun) cooped up in the house is to find things that will keep my children so they don't feel the need to pull out every toy and game we own and to prevent bickering that can happen when people are bored. We have structured  days, but you need some free play. 

Baking is something that all three of my children love to do. The measuring, pouring, mixing...not only is there a lot to learn while baking (math, fine motor, life skills), there is a lot of time to talk. It is a great moment to bond and get to know your children a bit better. Plus, you get food made at the same time! Yum!

So do some baking this winter. Your tummy and your child will thank you for it.

Winter Books 2012

Time for some great winter books! These really are all must-haves in our home.

The Big Snow by Berta Hader and Elmer Hader

Caldecott winner of 1949. This is my four year old's favorite winter book right now. She is my major animal lover and this book is right up her lane as a story about the animals preparing for winter.




Snowmen at Night by Caralyn Buehner and Mark Buehner

This is a great story for sparking the imagination of children. What do snowmen do at night? Why do their shapes change over time? It must be that they are out playing with their friends.




The Snowman by Raymond Briggs

This is a total classic. It is a wordless picture book, which is great on so many levels. My two year old loves this for telling herself the story.




Here Comes Darrell by Leda Schubert

This has been a favorite of my six year old son's for several years. It is about Darrell and the various service he does for his neighbors. It isn't all about winter, but part of it is and it is definitely worth taking note of. Anyone who loves equipment like plows and tractors will love this book.


A Polar Bear Journey by Debbie S. Miller

This is another favorite of my animal-loving four year old. This book is factual and offers lots of information on polar bears told in a way that is interesting to children.

Feed The Penguins Update

I have been getting a whole lot of interest in the  Feed The Penguin  activity. I was looking at what I had and the document had been really changed by various editors, so I re-uploaded the document. Here are the links:

Fish
Penguins

I have updated links in the original post, also.

Winter Round-Up 2012

Winter 

• Winter Round-up 2011
• Feed The Penguin
• I for Igloo
• Icy Winter Scenes
• Slippery Roads--A Science Lesson
• Winter Books Recommendations
• Winter Games

Snow

• Cotton Ball Snowman
• Defrosty The Snowman
• Marshmallow Snowman
• Nutter Butter Snowman
• Paper Plate Snowman
• Snowbox
• Snow Painting
• Snowball Fight
• Snowmen Rice Krispie Treats

Surviving Winter

• Homemade Highways
• Surviving Winter: Bath Play
• Surviving Winter: Dancing
• Surviving Winter: Dress Up and Imaginative Play
• Surviving Winter: The Easel
• Surviving Winter: Go Outside Anyway
• Surviving Winter: Once There Was a Snowman
• Surviving Winter: Sledding
• Surviving Winter: Snow Sculptures
• Surviving Winter: Television Time (and other Technology)
• Surviving Winter: Winter Sports

Fingerprint Christmas Lights

Meet the Dubiens is one of my favorite blogs.  I loved this post where she created fingerprint lights and decided it was just perfect for our Christmas cards.  J could be fully involved and love every minute of it (he did... of course I don't often bring out the finger paints so he was just thrilled).
And the best yet is they were free!  Or at least we already had all the materials necessary: cardstock blank cards, black sharpie, finger paints.

I drew the wire and small black squares to signifiy each light.  The J took over the fun part.  I was a little worried that he would decide to mix all the paint together which would mean we'd have a bunch of brown Christmas lights (not very festive!).  So I just gave him one color at a time and let him paint a few cards with that color before moving on.  That was just way too tedious and unnecessary.  He ended up doing just fine when I gave him all the colors at once. 

And here's our final product (ugh. can't get the photo to turn!)

I later added "Light has come into the world" (John 3:19) to the front of the cards, printed a picture to go inside and sent them on their way. We loved them!
Don't forget to check out the original at Meet the Dubiens.


Becca also blogs at Fun and Engaging Activities for Toddlers.

Top 5 Pinterest Christmas Finds

Now this is a hard task. There is no shortage of fun Christmas ideas out there. Here are my current five favorite for Christmas to give you some more ideas!

Nativity Pre-K Pack
from Over the Big Moon

This is a free printable that has several activities to do with a Nativity theme. Love this! We have used several of these pages so far.

Gingerbread Reindeer Cookies
from CakeCentral

This is super cute. These are gingerbread cutouts that are upside down and decorated as Rudolf!

M&M Wreath

from Toddler Approved

This is on our list for this week. A great activity for working sorting, fine motor, and colors at the same time.

Footprint Christmas Tree

from Craft Rookie

Is this not adorable?

Play Felt Tree & Ornaments

by Johnny in a Dress

This is seriously an amazing idea. I love, love, love it. You could so easily make something similar for various holidays, too. Giant egg to decorate for Easter, Felt tree to decorate by season, turkey with various feathers...lots of possibilities.

You can find me on Pinterest here: https://pinterest.com/valplowman/

You can follow my Learning Ideas board here: https://pinterest.com/valplowman/learning-ideas/

And my Christmas board here: https://pinterest.com/valplowman/christmas/

Christmas Wreath Ornament

Kaitlyn brought this home from preschool last week and it was one of those things where I thought, "Why have I never thought of that?"

Supplies

• green foam
• red ribbon for bow
• string for hanging
• glue
• desired decorations
• scissors

Prep

1. Gather supplies
2. Cut out wreath (you can use straight scissors, but decorative scrapbooking scissors will add some character)

Activity

Have your child decorate as desired! A simple and cute ornament!

Gingerbread Number Activity

As I shared in my post on Monday, we just finished up a week on Gingerbread men. This was our number activity. I found this at this website also: http://www.pre-kpages.com/gingerbread/. 

I made this page by googling "Gingerbread man coloring page" and chose this simple gingerbread man. I then opened it in Photoshop and put numbers in it. You could do it in Word or other programs, also. Here is my copy you are free to use.

The activity is simple. You give your child a dice and something to mark with. You have your child roll and mark off each number as he gets it. My kids really enjoyed it!

For more of a challenge for older children, you could do larger numbers (7-12) and give them two die and have them add the numbers together.

Gingerbread Alphabet

We just finished up a fun week of Gingerbread activities. This was our alphabet activity. I got this idea from here: http://www.pre-kpages.com/gingerbread/. She had a free download of the pages, but it only had letters A-F, so I quickly made some of my own. You can download them here.

To prep this activity, I created the pages, printed them, then laminated pages and letters so they will hold up from year to year.

For my older children (4 and 6), I simply gave the child all of the gingerbread men pages and all of the letters (upper and lowercase) at the same time and told them to match them up. They put the upper and lowercase letters on the same man. This is something that helps them work on letter recognition and keeps them occupied for a good chunk of time. They don't need any assistance from you.

For my 2.5 year old, we did things differently. We did one sheet at a time. I gave her the upper and lowercase letters for the letters on that sheet. She could do the uppercase all by herself, so if you want a younger child to do this activity independently, you might want to just do uppercase letters. She needed help with the lowercase letters.

The way I helped her understand grouping the letters together even if they looked different is I told her the man on the page is the "daddy letter," the uppercase letter was the "mommy letter," and the lowercase letter was a "baby letter." This worked for her because she is obsessed with babies. It helped her grasp that the letters can go together even if they don't look the exact same.

I had her hold a letter up and tell me what letter it was, then match it. She could get all uppercase, and knew some lowercase, but didn't know them all. It was a great exercise in getting her to think about lowercase letters.

For younger toddlers, I would recommend doing just uppercase. For a pre-toddler or baby, you might hold the letter up and say what it is and then put it on the page or have your child put it on the page if possible.