Free Play : DIY Road Map

Not sure why it took me so long to realize that I can draw on our play table.

But now that I have, Henry and I have created many road maps!

Roads are the biggest hit.
And since Henry can't reach across the table, the road always goes around the table.
[Its a 4x8 piece of plywood, and for some reason is a smooth white on one side.]


[Any white board would work for this, too. 
Or even just a sheet of paper, just tape it down on a table!]

Read more »

11 Preschooler Clean Ups

Cleaning is a part of life, unfortunately.

Why not start at a young age?

I like to include clean up as part of the activity we're doing. 

Making it fun makes it seem more like something we get to do, rather than have to.

Henry usually goes with my ideas and generally loves the clean up better than the activity itself.

I think it makes him feel important and that's he's doing hard work.

All the better!

A life lesson and my preschooler feels good about himself, all while having a good time!

[and plus the house gets cleaned!]

You may be impressed, but Henry can help out a lot around here.

1. Cleaning Windows is one of my least favorite jobs, and frankly, it rarely gets done. 

Henry to the rescue.

Read more »

Art : Window Paint Creations

Paint on a large window, outside? 

It doesn't get much better than that!

We've finally had some nice weather lately, and getting outside has been much needed!

I quickly made up some window paint.

I googled the recipe for window paint and ran across a recipe that included dish soap. 

I looked under my sink, no dish soap? So, I substituted with hand soap.

Without really measuring, I mixed together:

Read more »

Henry's First Egg Decorating

This is Henry's first year of actually trying to do some egg decorating.

We tried some new [to me] techniques this year.

I got inspired by the 26 Ideas and Techniques for Egg Decorating list 

that I put together earlier this week.

Henry, my mom and I tried 4 techniques.

-------------------------

Vibrant Egg Dye

Aren't these eggs vibrant?

We created our own egg dye this year 

Read more »

Yarn Circle Garland

I'm not really sure what to call this craft,

because the craft got adjusted many times during the process.

But this is the beautiful result:

Remember last week when I had two failed crafts 

before having a success with the vehicle tracks painting?

Well, this is one of the failures.

Turned out to not be a failure after all.

What did Henry and I do to make this?

Read more »

Building a Bird's Nest : Outdoors in April

Henry and I have been talking about making a bird's nest for a couple weeks now.

This week it finally got warm enough to spend the entire morning or afternoon (or both!) outdoors.

To make our bird's nest,

Henry and I headed outside to gather our materials for the nest:

small sticks, leaves, dead grass

I also used a couple small boxes (from our gigantic baby food order).

Henry spent the majority of our nest building day, digging dirt.

[This could not have been done without the help of the blue tractor or the dump truck...]

Read more »

Shaving Cream Eggs for Easter Tree

A messy messy activity

ending with a beautiful craft for Easter

Start by adding shaving cream to a pan.

[Henry had troubles pushing it hard enough to make it come out.]

Add food coloring.

Swirl the colors around.

Read more »

Toddler Talk : Helping

The one thing that lets me have some sort of order in this house, and keeps me sane, is that
Henry loves to help me clean and do my regular household work.

Dust mopping the wood floors has become a weekly necessity and this is Henry's favorite! I shortened a Swiffer mop by taking out a couple of the sections, so now its just his height.



When doing laundry, Henry always jumps at the chance to help. He brings all the hampers to the laundry room for me. And then returns them to their place. He does try to help with rotating the laundry, but usually gets stuck when pulling stuff out of the washer.Read more »

Shamrock Window Decor

It could have been a creative green place mat for Henry.

Instead, 

we made it into a shamrock for St Patty's Day.

Here's how Henry and I made our Shamrock.

Read more »

KoolAid Paint with Fun Cleanup

Some crafts don't turn out exactly how you plan... 

[isn't that the cardinal rule of crafting with toddlers and preschoolers?]

but the process of doing it is still just as fun and educational.

Henry painted with ice cubes and KoolAid.

He sprinkled a couple packages of KoolAid on paper in a tupperware.

Added some ice cubes and shook it around.

[FYI: ahead of time set the ice cubes out earlier so they are already slimy]

The ice cubes didn't melt fast enough, so I eventually gave him a syringe of water.

He had lots of fun with the syringe. 

Learning to aim where the water went

was most of the battle.

Read more »

Flour Free Play & Self Portraits

Flour Drawing : Free Play with Flour

I set out a jelly roll pan with a layer of flour spread along the bottom.I intended this to be practice for drawing/writing with his fingers. 
Henry made a circle and that was the extent of it.

Henry soon got his backhoe, loader, semi and went to town 

plowing snow and clearing the path.

Read more »

Shaken, not stirred, Painted Hearts

We're kicking off Valentine's Day with some Shaken Painted Hearts.

Idea from Toddler Approved!

This was such a fun no-mess craft to do - with crazy pretty results!

Use some sort of container that you can close up tightly - we just used a box we had lying around.

Cut some paper hearts out of construction/scrapbook paper - we used purple, pink, bright pink and red. I double-sided taped them to the inside bottom of the box.

Read more »