Ash of All Trades

Using the lid off a large container and some black paper. Trace the circle using chalk. Cut out the circle and trace a line from the edge up about 4 inches towards the center. Then cut along this line. Start making legs by marking off every 1 to 2 inches with chalk on another black paper. Do the same thing on the opposite side of paper. Connect the lines so that you have eight strips. Have your child cut each line to make a strip. Add google eyes using glue. Show your child how to accordion fold the leg strips. Using glue add four legs to each side of the spider. At the opening from the slit you cut - overlap the edges and staple together (it creates a three dimensional spider) Take an extra large rubber band.  This one was about 9 inches in diameter. Cut the rubber band. Attach each end to the side of the spider* We ended up thinking it was better to staple to the tooshie end or where you overlapped the slit and making it hang rather than having a handl...

This week (and next) we are working on bugs and insects.  Lots of Eric Carle inspiration here folks and the girls are loving it!  The books we read over and over and over are: For activities we started with: Playing with our caterpillar felts. The girls reenacted the Eric Carle Story using their kitchen food. Big C also had to order the pieces by "age" telling the story of transformation. And they just played with them making them talk and such. Then we did fingerprint ants.  These are Big C's she even drew the antennae and legs! (They are supposed to be in tunnels). Then we made a glue web.  Squeeze white glue in the shape of a web. Let dry and voila! Little C's fingerprint ant.  She did not like paint on her fingers. Played with our fly, spider, and web. Talked about how spiders trap flies and drink their blood. Again they made her talk and named her and made her friendly.  Made caterpillars out of playdoh.  Big C also made an egg on a leaf an...

Howdy Folks - Hope your week is treating you well - We sure are having fun over here!  Last week we worked on some nature based activities and again I just want to clear up that we don't spend 9 hours a day on this stuff nor do we focus on what nature is in a textbook way - we just sort of play with the theme as we remember it!  Our books for the week: We also read the Nutbrown Hare books Guess How Much I Love You and Colors Colors Everywhere. Next we: Played color match up on our felt board!  I made Tulips and Bees then practiced color matching. We did it several ways - once with the flowers up and matching the bees with no verbal instruction. Having Big C do the flower and Little C the bees. Tell them which color to locate and having them place both on there. The girls also had free time to just play with them and it was sooo cute to hear Little C saying "ellow bee ellow flower, blue bee blue flower as she put each piece up)! We also did this: Leaf Ru...

While the rest of the country is preparing for the end of the school year we are just beefing up some activities for the girls to enjoy these next few months - but more on that later.  For now I wanted to get working on a flannel board so we can use some felt cutouts for our upcoming themes. Without further ado: Materials: 24 x 30 Foam Board, and 30 x 34 Piece of Flannel in a solid color, hot glue gun. Step 1: Center the foam board on the fabric. (You may want to iron the fabric if it is wrinkled).  Then glue the edges down making sure it is tight. All done. Yep one step. Add some felt cutouts and voila - a perfect learning toy. Less than 10 minutes and less than 10 dollars later!

Happy Friday all!  Just wanted to end the week with a new feature - every Friday I will be posting activities we have done in the previous week - all related to a theme.  This is our newest "home school" adventure as we dive into helping Little C and her possible speech delays.  We are striving to enhance her learning by repeating many common words and working on basic concepts such as colors, numbers, shapes, etc.  Big C will also be way involved and so far is loving the play based nature of this schooling!  So without further ado our first theme: Bears. We started the week by reading Goldilocks and the Three Bears .  Then we reenacted the story too many times to count...seriously more than 20 times.  We had different sized bowls, spoons, Tupperware, they used different sized pillows for beds and we all took turns playing different characters (we actually played this everyday for the whole week).  So fun! Another day we had a teddy bear picni...