Making Our Own Snowman

We haven't gotten a good snow yet this Winter. We have snow on the ground now, but not much. The other day the weather people said we were going to get around 4 inches. We got ourselves pumped up to spend the day watching the snow fall outside. I love the snow, as long as I don't have to go anywhere. Anyway, over the course of 24 hours that changed from 4 inches to 1/2 inch. We ended up getting just a dusting.

So since we didn't get a chance to watch it snow outside we decided to make it snow inside. Drew and I spent the morning making a winter scene on our living room wall. We spent lots of time cutting out snowflakes. And to make our winter scene complete, we built a giant snowman.

Scrapbooking

I scrapbooked for the first time in 3+ years the other night. It was awesome! Will took all FIVE children out of the house for almost 4 hours, so I could have some quiet time with my friend. She commented that it was strange to have the house so quiet! It was strange.

In those 4 hours I got 10 pages done! I haven't journaled on them yet. I am hoping to get that done this weekend. Tony wanted to see the pages as soon as he got home. Once he looked at them he said "you still got it Mom". Love that kid!

We have finally got some crafting in. The kids haven't been in the mood to craft for awhile. Right now they are more into army guys, star wars guys, playing dogs and cars. Every once in a while if it involves scissors and glue Drew is willing to participate.

We made these snowmen scenes the other day. We used chalk and glitter to make the snow. We read the book Snowmen at Night. I like to do crafts that go along with a book.
Brodie's picture is on the left and Drew's is on the right. We have gotten a few Valentine's crafts in. I never did get my Valentine decorations out of the bin downstairs. I figured there is no point now. Maybe the St. Patricks day decorations will get up.

Monster Puppets

These cool puppets came from Aunt Jenny for Christmas. You can make your own. It comes with blank mittens and about 50 different attachments. They are so fun. The kids love them and have put on a few puppet shows for me. I must admit I have a good time with them too!

Letter C

Here are a few of the crafts and projects we did with the letter C. I cut out large letter C's and glued them onto construction paper. The kids then got to pick a couple colors of paint and run their cars through the paint and onto the paper. (Not sure why Blogger is now rotating my pictures).We read "Who Took the Cookies from the Cookie Jar" and made these cute cookies. The kids painted the circles, cut them out and then glued on the "chips". We also baked homemade cookies that day.This was my favorite craft. We read "If you Give a Cat a Cupcake". I printed off these cats and then made my own construction paper cupcakes. The kids colored their cats and then glued the cupcakes together and got to add sprinkles on top.We also did our counting cupcakes file folder game. Again with the rotation of the pictures!

Brown Bear, Brown Bear

For our letter B week I had lots of activities planned but we didn't get to alot of them. I am figuring with the way Drew is participating lately we will be revisiting all these letters again anyway so I might as well save a few ideas for later. We have moved some of our learning time to the mornings so Brodie can participate too. I think he was starting to feel a little left out and he really loves reading and doing crafts.

Our main theme for the week was Brown Bear, Brown Bear. The kids have always loved this book and it is picked frequently to read. I planned alot of our activities around this book. I made this great Tot book last year. You can find all the downloads for it here. Drew really enjoyed this. He is very much a hands on kid.We did sequencing with these bears.We painted an upper case B on the easel. Another favorite activity we did was this. I placed number cards on the floor in front of him. He would tell me the number and then place the appropriate amount of bear cookies on each card. At the end he got to eat them. He loved it.We made these cute teddy bears. I used a brad to attach the head so that it could move. Drew's is on the left, Brodie's on the right. Drew was really insistent on cutting out his own bear. And he is always wanting me to help him color, so I colored the head.

Homemade Flower Pot

It is Earth Week and we are learning lots of new things this week about how to take care of our planet. Today we made these earthy flower pots using milk jugs. We glued green and blue felt on them to show our land and water. I cut small holes in the bottom and lined it with rock. Then we filled it up with potting soil and planted our flowers. I let the boys pick out what flowers they wanted from the store today and they came home with purple Pansies (Brodie, he thought they looked kinda blue) and yellow Pansies for Drew (Everything for this boy is yellow, see the new yellow sandles?)

Tony joined us when he got home and made one too. I am not sure how long the felt will last, I am keeping them under the awning outside. For now they look pretty good!Linked to Showcase Friday at Ramblings of a Crazy Woman.

Easter Egg Craft

The boys and I made these cute tissue paper Easter eggs last week. You can go here to see the link. Here is what you will need.tissue paper
construction paper
scissors
glue
contact paper

First I cut all the tissue paper into squares. Then I made 3 egg shapes out of construction paper and cut out the centers, this will be the frame. I cut off a section of contact paper for each of the kids and pealed back 1/2 of it. The boys filled the sticky side with the tissue paper. I then folded it over so that it stuck to itself. Glue on the egg frames, allow to dry and cut out! I glued all three eggs together and hung on the window!

G is for Garden

We are getting excited about the warmer weather and getting prepared for Spring. My seeds came in the mail the other day and the kids and I have spent lots of time going through seed catalogs drooling at all the delicious looking fruits and veggies.

Here is a craft we did this week for the letter G. We decided to make our own gardens on paper.

You will need construction paper, glue, coffee grounds, and an old magazine.We discussed growing plants in our garden and we read the book How Things Grow-A Book About Nature by Nancy Buss. For our craft I had the kids place glue all over the construction paper and then sprinkle the coffee grounds over it. The coffee grounds was our "dirt". Once this dried I had each of the boys go through the seed catalog I had and pick out what they would like to plant in our garden.

Here is what Drew picked. As you can see he chose all yellow flowers. Yellow is his favorite color! There is also one lone strawberry on there too!Brodie chose all berries and some purple flowers.

The Letter V

Over the course of the last week and a half we have been talking about the letter V. Vegetables has been our main topic. We have tasted veggies, painted with veggies, and talked about the different textures and colors of veggies. Here was the picture we did for our ABC book. I had the kids cut pictures out of magazines. We also made this craft that can be found here. Here was one of the funnest things we did this week (is funnest a word?). I think the kids thought I lost my mind when I suggested this activity. We painted with different vegetables to see what kind of shapes we would get on our paper. Drew's favorite veggie to paint with-broccoli.
Brodie's favorite veggie to paint with-carrots.
They also like swirling all the paints together to get different colors. Here is Brodie's letter practice. Our activities were quit sporadic this last couple weeks. Between sickness and broken bones! Here's to hoping next week is a little smoother!

Valentine's Craft

I loved how these turned out! I actually decorated my wall with them because I thought they looked so cool. All you need is white paint (I used washable and added a tiny bit of water to make it not so thick), heart cookie cutters and construction paper.Just dip the cookie cutters in the paint and stamp on the paper. So easy!

Hearts, Hearts, and More Hearts

We finished up the letter "H" and are now working on the letter "N". When we talked about "H" I put together this heart File Folder game. There are lots of great File Folder projects found here.We also made the Love hearts that you see above the mirror. For those I just cut out hearts from cardstock and the boys used watercolors to paint them. We have been trying to keep ourselves busy inside since the weather has been so lousy outside. I think we have done every puzzle in our house at least 25 times this last week.

Tissue Paper Heart Craft

I have found a new love...contact paper! Who knew all the fun things you could make with it! Here are some cute hearts we made to decorate our window. All you need is tissue paper, contact paper and scissors.

I had the boys rip up pieces of tissue paper (I think this was the best part). Cut off a piece of contact paper to the size you want. Then I peeled back one side of the paper and they placed the tissue on the sticky side. When the side was completely covered I peeled off the rest of the paper and folded it over.Cut out a heart shape. We hung these in the windows and they look awesome. The light shines through the tissue paper making them look really cool.Linked to ABC and 123 Sharing the Love.

Valentine Heart Craft

We are talking about the letter "H" this week and Brodie picked up on that right away. "Are we talking about h-h-h- hearts because it is almost v-v-v-Valentines Day?" he asked me. He has been sounding out everything lately.

For this craft you will need construction paper, foil, paint, scissors, glue and a Q-tip.Cut out a heart from the foil and glue onto your construction paper.I placed a dab of red and white paint on a dish and let the boys use a Q-tip to paint the heart. It turned out really pretty.

E is for Elephant

This week we worked on the letter E. We learned alot about elephants. Here is the project we did for our ABC book. I just cut the pieces from gray cardstock and the kids glued them together. Drew was really bothered that the elephant didn't have feet!Here is Brodie's handwriting. One morning I came out to the living room and he was in the chair writing his e's without me even prompting him. He also threw in a boat picture!Brodie has also been really into ABC dot-to-dots. I found a cute elephant one here.