Felt Party

One evening back in August, I had some fellow homeschool mothers over to make some things for our kids with felt. We had so much fun, we did it again at another mom's house a few weeks later!

My craftsmanship isn't quite where I'd like it to be....but hey - I'm okay with that.  My kids love my creations. And I had a blast making them. Sewing is surprisingly therapeutic!

Felt is such a breeze to work with. It's easy to feel successful making things with felt.....even if you are craft-challenged like me. 

It was wonderful to hang out with my fellow homeschool moms. My pals at Autism and Salvation and Sunrise Learning Lab were there, among others. We got lots of creative inspiration from Counting Coconuts, and we felt like this bloggy-friend was there in spirit.  

I've always loved hanging out with teachers, and I especially love homeschool teachers.  I learned so much at our felt parties, and I left feeling inspired and energized.

Here are some of the things I made....

The button turkey (from Counting Coconuts) and the button spider shown above are great ways for kids to learn how to button. It helps develop dexterity and fine motor strength. Plus, that little turkey face just makes my heart happy when I look at it!

Fraction circles (also from Counting Coconuts) provide a great multi-sensory way for kids to learn about fractions. I'm not crazy about how the fabric paint numbers look.

We made some very inexpensive Montessori-inspired "puzzles" using felt. I will be using these along with some three-part cards to help my kids learn about the parts of a tree, a flower, and a leaf.

Here's the felt continent map I posted about a while back.

Feeling inspired to make something with felt?
Give it a try....it's a lot easier than you might think!

A Model Father's Day With a Little Help From The Berenstain Bears

Holidays like Father's Day and Mother's Day can make mamas and papas a little tense. We want to make sure we properly honor our spouse and help our children do the same, but we're not always sure exactly how to go about it.

As with many of life's sticky situations, the Berenstain Bears books can be genuinely helpful - for both kids and adults.

For example, The Berenstain Bears and the Mama's Day Surprise turned out to be quite instructive this past Mother's Day. This has been a favorite book in our house for a couple years now, even when it's nowhere close to May.

Once Mother's Day drew near this year, the boys found new meaning in the book. Although they are old enough (age 5 and 3) to take an active role in preparing for these kinds of holidays, they still need ideas and direction. This book provided a realistic model for what kids (and dads) might do to make the mother of the house feel special.

So, with the Berenstain Bears as their guide, and their father as their leader, my sweet boys reenacted this story on Mother's Day. It was the best one I've ever had, and it turned out to be a meaningful day for all of us. ♥♥♥

With Father's Day approaching, I thought perhaps our beloved bears could work their magic again with The Berenstain Bears and the Papa's Day Surprise. I think we are well on our way. Big Brother is already working on his poem for his father, as modeled by Brother Bear and Sister Bear. I just hope he doesn't insist on getting him a "bearcalounger"!

If you haven't gotten into the Berenstain Bears books, give them a try. There's a book for just about any sort of problem you can imagine. One of the reasons I love these books is because they're focused on the whole family, not just the children. Mama Bear and Papa Bear usually have some sort of issue they have to work through, too. What a wonderful message to send kids... that we (hopefully) continue to grow and evolve into adulthood.  I also love all the positive messages about minimalism and healthy living, as I discussed in this article I wrote for Healthy Green and Frugal.

To find out what books other families are reading to their children, check out the link-up on Mouse Grows, Mouse Learns.

Homemade Pinata: Easy, Fun and Frugal

Both boys have a birthday coming up soon, and they want a pinata at their party. I thought it might be fun to make one. I found a great little how-to video on About.com.

It was surprisingly easy to make our pinata. Watch the video to learn how to make one for yourself.  There are so many reasons to love this project.

• It cost practically nothing. Seriously. The only expenses would be for the balloon, crepe paper, and flour. I had all this on hand anyway. A pinata at the store cost around $10.
• Appropriate level of difficulty. I was surprised at how much Big Brother (almost 5) was able to successfully contribute to this craft. Little Brother (almost 3) wasn't interested. Oh well.
• Small bursts of activity over several days. Although the entire project took several days to complete, the actual time spent working came in spurts of about 20 minutes, which was perfect for my son's attention span. Plus, the anticipation surrounding each new phase of the project was loads of fun!
• Fine Motor. Lots of ripping (which didn't come as easily as I expected), stirring, and other fun fine motor work.
• Tactile Sensory Input. The act of putting the newspaper in the flour/water mixture was awesome ooey-gooey fun!
• Practice with step-by-step directions. Big Brother watched the how-to video dozens and dozens of times. He was so interested in absorbing every detail of the process. When we were executing the craft, it was clear that he had absorbed the process, and a few new vocabulary words as well!
  
  I think this focus on step-by-step processes is beneficial for so many reasons:
  
• Motor Planning. People with sensory issues often have difficulty planning out a course of action, even for simple tasks. Big Brother struggles with this sometimes.
• Reading Comprehension. To comprehend the whole, one must analyze the parts and how they relate to one another. 
• Metacognition. Another important element of comprehension is recognizing when you don't understand something, and revisiting it again and again until you do. When I saw Big Brother watching the video again and again, I knew he was filling in the gaps of understanding for himself. I was so pleased!
• Writing Composition. Although we are certainly in the early stages of this subject area, understanding step-by-step processes is a fundamental aspect of learning to write.
• When Is It Okay to Not Follow the Process? Big Brother was a little rigid about following the instructions exactly. For example, he felt we must use pink and green crepe paper just like the woman did in the video. Luckily, he was able to let these expectations go after some discussion. It was good practice for him. Being overly rigid can be a big issue for him at times. 

So....making the pinata was a big hit for us.
Let's hope it's also a big hit at the party!

Turns out ripping paper is a learned skill.

 

 

 

Big Brother did a great job on this phase.

Checking to see if the pinata had dried overnight.

Grandad popped the balloon. Lots of room inside.

Putting the crepe paper on exactly like the video.

Yunny Earth organic lollipops, in bulk from Amazon.

School Room Christmas Tree

My boys LOVE to decorate the Christmas tree. So, I set one up in their school room that they can decorate as often as they like!

The little tree was only $2.50 from the dollar section at Target.

Frosty on the Cork Board

Several months back, we started using the cork board to make art. We love it for two reasons:

1. Fine motor workout. The act of pushing the pins into the board requires some strength. 
2. Successful creativity. The children can create a beautiful display without having to pick up a writing utensil or paint brush. 

Last month we created a display of fall leaves. This month we used scraps of felt and foam to create snowflakes and Frosty the Snowman. It was fun to sing the song as we made the display, thinking about whether our snowman had all the correct parts...a corncob pipe, a button nose, two eyes made out of coal. 

Wrapping Christmas Presents

When I saw that our friends at Sunrise Learning Lab were learning to wrap presents during school time, I was inspired to try it myself.

I knew Big Brother would love it. Turns out he did love it! It wasn't coming easily, but he was very engaged and tried very hard. There are so many skills being practiced with this activity. Although Little Brother wasn't too interested in wrapping the presents, he loved opening them....even if they were empty! 

Be sure to check out Sunrise Learning Lab's post, On Our Shelves: December Activities. My Montessori Journey also had a great post about Gift Wrapping Work.

Our Gingerbread House Experience: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

I've always had a vision of making a gingerbread house with my children....from scratch. Well, I knew that wasn't going to happen this year.
I figured it was worth $10 and a little bit of compromising to buy a kit from Target and have some semblance of my original vision.

Overall, it was fun. However, I'm not sure my kids were quite ready for this project. Here are my thoughts on the good and the bad of our experience.

The gingerbread house itself....well, it was just plain ugly!!

Seriously, it was not structurally sound, and the house fell to pieces not long after we built it.

GOOD

• The children were beyond excited to make a house out of candy and cookies. That alone made the experience worth it.
• The directions said to squeeze the frosting around in the bag before using it. It was pretty thick, so it was a good hand-strengthening exercise.
• Putting all the candy on the house was a good fine-motor activity and was somewhat creative.
• We have a number of books that mention gingerbread houses. Now the boys have a concrete experience to fit together with these stories. 

BAD

• This kit was filled with filled with artificial flavors, artificial colors, and all sorts of other yucky stuff. Not to mention insane amounts of sugar.
• It was difficult for the children to control themselves. I'd say at least 25% of the candy never made it to the construction site. It's possible the house may have been licked a few times.
• Most of the project was too difficult for small children. I did most of it myself.
• It seemed wasteful. We certainly weren't going to eat the whole thing (it wouldn't have tasted good anyway). If we left it out, it would have attracted bugs. We ended up throwing it out the next day. 

I would definitely like to try this project again when the children are older and we have better quality building materials. Perhaps I can also get some advice from a structural engineer. ☺

Christmas Playdough

I made play dough for the first time. What a great experience!  I used the recipe from My Montessori Journey, and drew lots of inspiration from all the fabulous play dough ideas presented on Counting Coconuts.

It didn't take long to make the dough (about 10 minutes or so). I added glitter, lots of green food coloring, a little cinnamon and a lot of vanilla. The final result was soft, sparkly and aromatic....so much better than anything you could buy at the store.

I knew it was worth the extra effort to make it when, after playing with the dough in complete silence for several minutes, Big Brother said, "mmmmm....I love the way this smells! It smells like frosting!"

On the other hand, Big Brother has also said several times, "play dough is not suppose to be shiny." Sensory overload? Perhaps I'll leave out the glitter next time.

Here are some pictures from our play dough adventures. We made Christmas trees!

• Our "ornaments" were made by cutting apart old Mardi Gras beads. It was a great cutting exercise and fine motor activity.
• After we were done making Christmas trees, we hid the ornaments in the dough and made a game out of finding them. This is a great game for strengthening those hand muscles.
• Little Brother also had fun practicing his counting. How many ornaments did we hide? How many are still left?