Salt Dough Ornaments

 Today was Kenna's first time using Acrylic Paint. I was feeling stupid brave, and the babies were sleeping, so we got to work painting our Salt Dough Ornaments. Could have sworn I took pictures of us baking them, but they are nowhere to be found. We made a big batch of dough, rolled it out ,and used cookie cutters to make festive shapes. I used a skewer to poke holes in the ornaments before we baked them, so we can string them and hang them.  We ended up with a TON of ornaments- like 30 or more. We are going to be gifting these well into the new year. Happy Easter- Have a Gingerbread Man. :)

 

 Needless to say, there were plenty for me to paint as well. I am not artisic, and can't paint, but I had fun with this.

 To say Kenna enjoyed painting is a bit of an understatement. The girl focused on this activity for almost an hour. And then after nap, painted some more. She LOVED having access to 6 colors at one time. She loved dipping her brush in the water, swirling it around, and wiping it on the towel. She loved this.  She also loved mixing the colors to come up with new ones.

 It wasn't as messy as I feared. She didn't paint herself (I explained the rules) and she didn't splatter paint everwhere. Phew. I hate it when a fun project turns into a nightmare!

 What really cracked me up about this was that she was alternating between just two ornaments, but they dried quickly, and then she would completly change their color! That circle was blue, then white, then purple, then red and green.

 Aren't they lovely? Oh, I have to point out that this Gingerbread man was rolled and cut by Kenna. Then she requested that the hole to string it be on his foot. She thinks," it's silly to hang by your head- he should hang by his foot." Wise child.

Here are a few that I did for the grandparents.  Quinn's little hand fit perfectly on the circle. Little Man's palm is so chunky it cracks me up. Daddy calls it "meaty." Kenna's big girl hand didn't fit at all, so I just did her fingers. I loved this idea I found on Pinterest to make each finger a little snowman.
*Note- I was being stubborn and wanted all the circles to be the same size. In retrospect, I should have just started with a bigger circle.

When the paint was dry, I hit the ornaments with a light coat of clear sealant. Now they will hopefully last for years to come!

Light Box- Snowy fun

 I got a great idea from Play at Home Mom- put some polyfil pellets in a clear bucket, set it on the light table, and watch the fun begin!!  We started out with a shoebox sized container, because that's what I had on hand at the moment.

 With the flash on, you can see the awesomeness that is polyfil pellets!! :) If your kids hands are clean, the pellets roll right off. If they are dirty/sticky/slimy, the pellets will coat their hands. Then the sticky child will try and shake their hands to get the pellets off, spraying pellets everywhere.
You've been warned.

 Our buddy who comes to play on Wednesdays liked the tub, too. He's 22 months, and tried to eat the pellets at first, but got the idea by the end that we were playing, not snacking.

 I used too small a tub the first time I set the pellets out- Kenna seemed intent on swimming in them but could only get her elbows in, so I got a larger rubbermaid tub the second day. I also added some Christmas erasers and a couple glass jars for scooping.

 Aglow on the light table.

 So, of course, she wanted to sit in it! She explored the texture with her hands, her feet, her knees, and her bottom. She spun in circles and she tried to bury her feet. She LOVED this!

 Quinn is 6 months old now, and of course wanted a turn in the texture tub!

 She was fascinated by the texture, and did a lot of splashing in it, like the gestures she does in the tub.

Pellets were everywhere. It was awesome. (a sheet under the bin made for quick clean-up.)

 Baby fun! And she never once tried to eat them. I was surprised. Little Man (15 months) got a turn after he woke up from nap, and the first thing he did was eat a handful.  Awesome. (Yes, they are non-toxic. And yes, I strongly encouraged him not to do that again. And yes, he did it again.)

 A closeup of the erasers (From Oriental Trading) that I threw into the tub to make it merry and bright.

Kenna loved this. The beads are a smooth and soft texture, and they plink in a lovely way when they fall. The light box just makes it more fun and magical.  We love our lightbox.
We made ours for $7.00!

Linking up to:

December- What's on the Tray, week 2 and 3

Lots of fun on the trays this week, gearing up to Christmas!

 Same and Different tray- Kenna has been really interested in this concept. She is comparing things, and making amazing connections. I am stunned by some of the things she has been noticing. I found a winter themed same/diff game, and we have played a bunch. I added a control of error with an S or a D on the back of each card. Kenna knows she can flip her pile of "same" and make sure they all have S. 

 PreWriting skills- Dry erase marker and lots of fun Candy Cane prewriting pages. She is more interested in this than she has been in a while.

 She was circling the circle- she didn't understand she had to trace it ON the line!

 Roll the Dice, match the pictures, and decorate the tree.

 Extention- Last week our tray with bows focused on tweezing. This week, Kenna is encouraged to think of two different patterns (ABAB and AABB is what she came up with) and line up the bows. This was a huge hit.

 Count and Clip- This was not really fun for her at all. The snowflakes were too small and kind of mixed up, so she couldn't easily count them.  I deliberately only printed off 11-20 cards, because that is what she needs to work with, but they are really hard still.

 She does love the clipping though! ( I wanted to share that after this tray sat unused, I added a dry erase crayon. I modeled crossing off snowflakes as you count them, and BOOM! She was sucessful and really happy!)

 Skip Counting. Kenna is way beyond 1-10, so these cute ornament cards needed to be extended... I sorted them into two groups and we used our beloved "pointer" to count by twos. She really loved it. We used the terms "odd and even" and then we watched a couple funny youtube songs about even and odd. She totally grasps the concept and has all the even numbers memorized. I taught 3rd grade for 7 years, and this was so hard for those poor kids... I am excited to be starting early with skip counting!

This wasn't a tray, per se, but we did take time to bake sugar cookies for Santa. ( I am not a cook. I don't bake, I barely make edible toast.)  We used Grammie's secret recipe, and the cookies (Shockingly) came out so delicious! (This is despite the fact that we made them vegan and replaced the egg, butter and milk!)

 Quinn, wearing her new apron from Grammie. She helped by being underfoot and getting into the flour Kenna spilled.

 Little Man, watching the cookies bake, and wearing his apron from Grammie like a cape. (His apron is denim, made from recycled jeans, and I am in love with it! I'm going to beg my mom to make a few to sell on my etsy!)

 Kenna, helping wash dishes. This Practical Life activity is one of her favorites at the moment. She loves our scrub brush, she loves the running water, and she really likes squirting soap.  She's also wearing her apron from Grammie... and not much else!

 While the cookies were cooling, we stirred food coloring into the special almond icing.  (Another grammie reicpe)

Kenna iced all the cookies, and carefully cleaned up our spatulas and cups. She has become a great little helper. I love that she loves all aspects of the kitchen- even though I am terrible at cooking.

  We're getting close to the 25th! Please Christmas don't be late!

December- What's on the Tray, week 1

Here are some Winter/Christmas activities we have on our shelves this week.  We are having a good time doing our themed tray work and also completing a special Christmas craft each day. (Kenna finds a note describing our daily craft in our advent calendar each morning! She thinks Santa is leaving the notes- so exciting!) I'll post some of our more exciting crafts later this week.

 Spooning glittery pom poms into an artist palette. I was encouraging a red/green pattern, or big/small, but my kid has a mind of her own.

 This tray has a sweet red box with a toggle lock on it- Kenna loves to open and close it!

 Tonging red and silver gift bows.  I provided a pair of tongs, the bows, and a two sided sorter. Kenna chose not to use the tongs the first couple days, but then she started using them avidly. She likes squishing the bows with the tongs before sorting them.

 Cute wintry box to store the bows. Thank you, Dollar Tree!

 Reaching in to grab some bows.

 Taking a break to build a fort and crawl around. We threw around a bean bag and used words "under, over, in, out and through." It was fun! The fort is actually Quinn's blanket, handmade by Grammie. I need to start a post documenting all of the amazing handmade quilts and blankets we have been given by my mom and Bill's mom. They are works of art!

 December Texture Tub- snowy cotton balls, reindeer, presents, christmas lights, candy canes and a tree.  The snowman suitcase has a nifty latch, and provides Kenna an outlet for her favorite activity- stuffing stuff in containers. 

 I also threw in some jingle bells, a santa figurine, and some glitter at Kenna's request. She likes playing with the cotton balls- stacking them, smooshing them, and pulling them apart. I may switch out the cotton balls for something else like polyfil beads or white pompoms in a week or so, when I get tired of picking fuzz from between the baby's fingers.

Stringing popcorn.  Yes, I let Kenna have a real needle and thread. (She's 34 months old.) We have done some "sewing" with a real needle before, and she can handle it. She is very careful, and I remain very alert to prevent her from losing focus and hurting herself. This round, she got about 10 pieces of popcorn strung before she lost interest.  She was really proud of herself and thoroughly enjoyed hanging that tiny strand on our tree.  (She also really liked cooking popcorn on the stove. We watched and waited for the first kernel to pop, poured in 1/2 cup, and listened while the kernels merrily clinked against the metal lid. It was fun and kind of magical for her to see the white fluffy popcorn pour out of a pan that started out full of yellow kernels! We read a picture book called Countdown to Christmas, and the girl in the story strings popcorn and cranberries- so now I have been instructed to find "cwanbewies" to string. 

 This tray is stolen inspired byThe Adventures of Bear.  By the way, all of her trays and activities are awesome. Her tray used pompoms, but I was using our pom poms somewhere else, so we tweezed jingle bells instead. These shapes come from a truck shape sorter that we have had for years.We used them to do some stamping a few months ago, so they look a bit icky now- but it's just white paint.  And I would have set out all red shapes, but I have NO clue where they are. I could swear I had every piece just last week...

 Christmas tree stamping with a giant ink pad. I provided about 8 small sheets of paper and we'll see how long that lasts Miss Stamps-a-Lot. (she's highly interested in stamping right now. She chooses stamping several times a day, and works on it for long periods of time. This is a great time to nurture her sensitive period and do more stamping! I have letter stamps, number stamps, coin and bill stamps, shape stamps, and more! Bring on the inkpads!)

Decorate a Christmas tree cone. This tray was linked up on LivingMontessoriNow, from Blissfully Domestic. Her trees are lovely. Can't guarantee ours will be as nice, but they will be as much fun!

I made a cone shape out of cardstock, and set out a tray which includes:
green cardstock
a 1 inch hole punch
a bowl with some already punched circles, in various shades of green.
Glue to afix the circles to the cone.

My hope is that Kenna will use the punch to cut circles, but also that she will take time to glue the circles. I'd like to see it completely covered so that we can use it on our Nature table. 
I will update at the end of next week and share a pic of our Christmas tree. I plan to leave the tray out for Kenna to do in spurts- she doesn't have the attention span to cover a whole tree in one sitting.
UPDATE 12/21/11:
Kenna loved this. She loved using the punch, and she loved gluing on the circles. We did just use one cone for two weeks. There are a lot more punched circles loose than glued on- she really liked the punch. Kenna discovered that she could make moons and half-circles with the punch- Exciting.

 Side with a "Moon" glued at the top.

 Can you see the little "light" she jammed into the top of the tree?  A little star, mommy. A red star.

 Hope you are having a merry start to the Christmas season!

Advent Calendar

After a bit of a scramble, I finished our family's Advent Calendar late on November 30th! I decided to hand-cut and hand-sew everything, which definately slowed me down! Add to that Thanksgiving craziness, two sick kids, and "finals week" for my husband, and we can officially declare the completion of this project a MIRACLE!

It's completely made out of felt, plus 25 small white buttons. Each pocket will soon contain a small felt ornament- one to hang on each button (thanks, Grammie!)!  In the meantime, I cut up some felt circles and we are buttoning those to the tree each day, and they sorta look like Christmas lights. (that's how I'm selling it to my kids, and they LOVE it!)

The calendar is suspended with a tree branch, and some ribbon. I love it so much! I handcut each number, handsewed everything down, and came up with the tree design on my own.

Kenna is so thrilled with it. Each morning, we button on a "christmas light", read the note telling us about our craft for the day and any special activities we will be doing (Christmas parade, visit Santa, go to train show, take holiday pictures, etc), and I have also put in some stickers, a couple m&ms, and tomorrow there will be a mini candycane.

  Here it is with all of the simple little "lights" I hastily made once I realized making tiny felt ornaments in time was not gonna happen. Wait until you see the ornaments we are sewing up for next year!