easy Christmas crafts

These easy crafts are simple enough for a one,  two, and three year old to make!  I had the joy of doing this with my kiddos and one of our favorite neighbor and friend.

Materials needed for Santa face:

Santa face template ( got mine from DLTK kids)

cotton balls

glue

Basically you glue cotton balls to the beard,  I remember doing this in elementary school myself.  I put the glue in small bowls and had the children "dip it, dip it, then stick it" to their pages.  It is amazing that something this simple is so fun for all kids.
Materials for Christmas letter picture:

Paper

Marker

Christmas themed stickers

Write the first letter of the child's name on a sheet of paper.  Let them "trace" their letter with the stickers.  Older kids could do their whole name and write it themselves.

thanksgiving turkey

Thanks to my mom for making this very cute turkey with Zander last weekend!

pilgrim faces

This is an easy, quick, fun Thanksgiving activity!

Materials:

template of pilgrims

googly eyes

pom-poms

glitter glue

glue dots(if you want to make it really quick and easy) or glue

Print out the templates.  Let your child make a face on his or her pilgrim using materials provided.  They LOVE the google eyes and pom-poms.  You could also use markers,  crayons, paints or the medium of your choice.  We then made glitter mouths.  Once everything was dry, I taped their pilgrims to the wall....they have loved looking at them!

leafy art

I'm finally back to posting kid's projects. We've had a lot of fun doing Thanksgiving/Fall art lately!

Yesterday we enjoyed making leafy art. This is very messy.....We crunched up our leaves and decorated our paper out in the garage. That made the cleanup much easier. The kids LOVED doing this. This is an easy project you can do with all ages.

Materials needed:
Dried leaves
Bowl
Paper
Squeeze Glue

Directions:
Collect leaves and let completely dry if needed. Crumble up leaves over a bowl or container. Squirt a "glue design" on paper. Shake the dried leaves over the design (similar to shaking glitter). Shake off excess leaves and let dry.

be back later

Hi all!

I will post more lessons and activities in a month or so. I have decided I will take a break as I get ready for and recover from my surgery.

I can't wait to start planning activities again soon to share with you. I hope to feel great so the lesson should be even better.

green eggs and ham

Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Suess is one of our favorite books in this house. The kids love it. We have read it so often that they can recite the words on almost every page.




So I decided to make a fun breakfast for us......green eggs and ham!

Materials:
-the book Green Eggs and Ham
-eggs
-ham
-green food coloring

I just dropped a couple of drops of food coloring in the eggs as I scrambled them and put a few on the ham as I warmed it up.



While the kids ate, I read the story to them. It was a hit!!!

apples and bananas song

This is such a fun song for preschoolers. The kids love singing it. I made some apples and bananas labeled with each of the vowels for Z and K to hold while singing. Just repeat each verse with a different vowel sound.

journaling

Lines, scribbles, and drawings are the first steps of the writing process. You can help young children develop these writing skills through journaling. I started it this week with my son and daughter even though they are not yet writing letters. But they feel they are "writing" stories through journaling. I let them draw and/or scribble and talk to them about what they are doing. This is great for communication skills also! My husband has come home from work the past two days and looked at their journals first thing. They are thrilled to share and he loves knowing what they were drawing at the time (since I have written out their "stories" below or beside the pictures).
This is an inexpensive but wonderful thing to do with your kids. I bet it will be a favorite learning/sharing activity in your house. It is in ours!

Materials:
3 ring binder
journaling paper, very easy to make or find templates on line. I used activity village.
crayons
pencil


I let them decorate the cover to get them excited about the journal.


Here is one of Z's first entries.

This is Lightning McQueen. He has black wheels.

Sparkly S

The letter we are focusing on this week is S. So we decided to make our S's sparkly!

Materials:
Paper
Glue (squeeze not a glue stick)
Glitter




Draw an uppercase and lowercase S on the paper with your glue. Let the children shake their favorite glitter on top of the s. Shake the glitter where it spreads evenly. Let dry overnight.....tada.....a sparkly S!!!

t is for tissue

Materials needed:
construction paper
different colored tissue paper
glue marker

On your sheet of Construction paper draw an upper-case and lower case T. Trace the t's with glue, then attach crumpled tissue paper to the Ts. A fun and easy activity!

sensory caterpillars

This activity took us a while to complete but the kids loved doing it and were (surprisingly) very patient. This is a good sensory activity for preschoolers that I found in The Mailbox magazine.

Materials needed:

Several cut circles from construction paper
popsicle sticks or pipecleaners (for antennas)
glue
Different "sensory" materials ( we used cotton, aluminum foil, uncooked macaroni shells, glitter glue, foam stickers, and feathers)

Glue a different sensory material on each circle. As we were gluing we talked about how each material felt. Was it soft, smooth, sticky, etc.? You can also talk about what each object looks like....hard, shiny, sparkly, dull, etc. You may need to help younger children with the squirting of the glue.
Finish your caterpillar with a face that has antennas attached to the top. You could also add legs if you are really ambitious.....we stopped with the antennas.

Let your project dry for most of the day or overnight before displaying on a wall. This was indeed one of my kids favorite activities!

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messy, mushy, mud

This activitiy is not for the neat-freak mom. It WILL make a mess! But the kids loved it. I told them they were scientists and we would mix all of these items together to see if we could make "mud".



Materials:
aluminum or plastic container with lid (to stir and put mud in)
spoon
wet paper towel or washcloth (to clean up)

Mix the following together (or for more fun, let the kids do it. My 3 year old and 22 month old did fine with it).
1/2 cup cold water
1 TBS oil
2 TBS brown paint (washable is best)
1/2 cup salt
1 TBS cornstarch
Gradually add 1 1/2 cups of flour. You can add more oil and paint if mixture ends up too dry.

My kids loved this "science" activity. We stored the mud in containers to play with later. Have fun!!

birthday collage

Ever wonder what to do with all of your birthday cards? Make a birthday collage!

Materials:
posterboard
cards
glue
scissors





This is a great way to practice cutting and pasting. My son loved the finished product and taped it to his closet door!

whiteboard fun

Materials needed:
Whiteboard
Dry Erase Markers

This is another great activity to keep kids busy and practice writing & drawing. My kids can stay entertained for several minutes with their dry-erase boards and markers. You can practice shapes, numbers, or just have fun drawing with these nifty markers!

music shakers

Materials:
Empty coffee can
beans
fabric
ribbon
thread
glue (I used a glue gun to make extra secure)



This is an easy way to make a music shaker and not worry about beans getting into little mouths!

Fill an empty coffee can with beans. Place lid back on can. Cut a large piece of fabric and roll around can, gluing down to secure the fabric. I secured each end with thread then tied large ribbons around the thread. This gives the children "handles" to hold while shaking their music makers!



Play some fun music and enjoy shaking to the beat!!!

cheap & easy disposable paint containers

My kids love to paint. The bad part is always the cleanup, though! Here is a great way to make paint holders to separate your paints.

Materials:
Cardboard egg carton
scissors

Just cut the carton into sections. I usually make four 3-color sections for the kids.



Just fill each section with desired amount of paint!

stamping fun

Materials:
Several large ink pads
Sheets of paper
Several patterns of stamps

This is a simple and fun activity that you can do anytime. The kids love it when I pull out the stamps!



You can buy the large stamps several places. My mom got this set with the inkpads from Oriental Trading Company. These are the beach theme stamps. I saw more fun ones in the catalog that I may order later!

fireworks

You can do this simple and MESSY activity to celebrate the 4th!

Materials:
* Dark construction paper
* Glitter glue sticks

Help the kids make the fireworks by squirting the glitter glue on the paper and showing them how to spread it out like a star or "fireworks". Then let them go at it and have fun. It takes about a day to dry so be sure to find a place to store it while it dries (out of reach of curious hands).

Tip: I let them do this with their shirts off.....so I had less glitter in the washing machine.

marshmallow mountain

Materials needed:
*marshmallows ( I found pink strawberry ones we used with the white.....made it even more fun!)
* plates
* plastic knife
*can of frosting
* card that says Marshmallow Mountain

While continuing to study the letter M, we made a snack that focused on that letter, Marshmallow Mountains!

This is such an easy and fun activity for the kids. And they actually remember that Marshmallows and Mountain start with M!

Place the marshmallows on a plate with a couple of spoonfuls of frosting. They can build their "mountains" on the other plate using the frosting as the glue to hold the marshmallows together. Just let them create, snack, and have fun!!!