Eric Carle

We LOVE Eric Carle. I read about 4 or 5 of his books a day. Today we just happened to read Brown Bear Brown Bear What Do You See? So I pulled out the paint and we made some animals. Today's project was inspired by this cute template and this one too.

I just wanted to let everyone know that my girl really does think she is a boy. When she sees her big bro shirtless and in undies, she now has to be like him. She wanted Choo-Choo's and he was already wearing his McQueen undies and so if his shirt was off so is hers.

at first, they wanted to be at the table, but then they decided on the floor was cool too...

Then it was so much fun we decided to paint with our feet, yes our feet!

They looked just what they were supposed to look like...for now. I looked at my paint covered kids and took them upstairs. Gosh my little boys are cute:

They love baths anyway but when I told them it was going to be a midday bubble bath they FREAKED OUT!It was like..."you are going to let us play with the bubbles?"

They soaked in the tub for about 15 minutes while I checked on the wee one (that is N's new name for her) She was chill as always, so then we got dressed and picked our animals. Here are the finished products to add to my Wall Art Gallery in the toy room...

they totally look like his animals don't they?

I have decided that I am going to start an Art Group. I am going to do it on Tuesdays and today was my first project. Not all of them will be messy, but since I only had my kids we did a super messy one today. Hehehe. I have a ton on ideas but would love others so email me if you have any cool art projects let me know! Happy Tuesday!

Original Post 3/24/09

Barrel Painting

Today for Art day we learned about Primary and Secondary Colors. We watched the Blue's Clues Episode because I think the song is catchy. We then did Barrel Painting. We were supposed to do this with C, but I was sick of the barrels being in my kitchen so we did it today.

This is what we used...
2 barrels (one cheese ball, one animal cracker)
2 Hot Wheels Cars
2 Bobby Pins
2 Arthurs (the Arthur figurines seem to be in every experiment)
2 Pennies
2 Q-tips
2 Legos
Washable Paint (I got this at Sam's and it had 15 packs of 6 paints for 11 dollars!)
Sketch Paper (not thick like cardstock, but not thin like computer paper)
Tape
Spoon
Wipes

We taped the paper inside and talked about the colors we were going to make. L of course wanted to make green. B is really into "Or-nch." The kids had fun shaking, rolling and kicking the barrels. This is what round one looked like.

We then had to do it again of course, so we did purple and orange and yellow. It was so neat to see the different objects in the paint. We could spot - Arthur in the green ones, the penny in the red one, the car in the purple one, and in the orange one the Q-Tip. It was so cool. We peeked periodically to see the changes that were happening. The kids seemed so into it! :)

Then we let them dry and the kids had a rock party in the backyard. They love to dig!

After they were dry I cut them into strips and we made father's day cards and and framed the ones for our Art Wall. They turned out GREAT!
I think we will be doing this again soon. If anyone wants to borrow the barrels let me know! :)

Original Post 6/16/09

Paint Chip Matching

This is two activites in one!
It helps small motor skills with the clothes pins, and helps with color development!
What you need: A handful of paint chips (these are free normally), I did 10 sets...you need 2 of each chip. Scissors, Clothes Pins, Glue and a Container (not pictured)

Cut the paint chips to desired size. and glue on the end of the clothes pin. I did 2 clothes pins per paint chip. I picked different ones each time.
For example...#1 Dark and #3 Medium on the yellow chip.
#2 Dark and #3 Medium on the pink chip.
This made it a little harder for when they are older.
My 20 month old daughter is not as good at pinching the clothes pin so I had her just match them up and I put them on the chip for her, after she insisted on doing it herself like 6 times.
After watching my son do this so quickly, it gave me an idea for harder way to do this you know more advanced. :) Store it in a pencil box and you now have a nice quiet game for any day.

Hoop Hopscotch Soccer

L (my son) finally got to have his buddy R over. For most of you who know me know that R is L's bestest friend. They have such a fun little time together and luckily R doesn't mind B (my daughter) tagging along.

R brought his basketball like he usually does and this time L noticed that on his ball was his name. So we wrote our name on our ball too!

We went out front and played a new game I made up. I am currently working out the rules and name of this game but here is how it looked...

I am so glad we have great grass and a nice big established Cottonwood tree in the front of our house, it is so nice and shady on hot days like today!

B was just trying to be involved. It was so funny.

This game is a cross between hopscotch and running crazy while catching the ball. They loved it. They threw the ball in and then hopped through the hoops to catch it. They tried kicking it in and rolling it in, running over them and then rolling through them. I wish I was 3 so I could have has much fun as they seemed to be having.

Thanks R for coming over and having a few good laughs!
I am sure I will be hearing about this day for the next few days...well at least until Sunday!

Original Post 6/19/09

Milk Jug Catch

Milk Jug Catch is a great game to play indoors or outdoors. It's especially fun for kids because they make the scoops themselves! Here is what you need...

Two milk jugs, paint, brushes, craft knife (not pictured for obvious reasons), soft foam or plastic ball (also not pictured.)

First Decorate the jugs, we did paint but permanent markers would be great too! Let them dry (10 minutes)

With an adult's help, cut the bottom off two clean plastic milk jugs as shown to make a scoop. (For an easy game, use gallon jugs. To make the game more challenging, use quart jugs.) You don't need the caps because the ball is bigger than the hole, but save the caps because we will use them next week!

To play the game, first pick a partner and each take a scoop. Toss a ball to your partner, who will catch it in the scoop. Then your partner throws the ball back to you to catch in your scoop. Since I have 2 kids who are independent, I let them throw the ball with the scoop, and catch it with the scoop. You could also just toss it to them and have them catch it.

Use a soft foam ball to play the game inside and a plastic ball to play outside.

This is such a fun game I hope you all try it!

Money Clense

Since my boy still has croup and pink eye I have us ALL on house arrest until Wednesday. So
we decided to count how many "monies" were in sister's piggy bank. After counting and figuring out that she can't afford college ($1.67) we decided to clean them.

My son suggested we use soap and water. "Not Erked" (not worked) she said.

I said what else could we use? He said the dishwasher! So we put them in the dishwasher.

"Not Erked" said my daughter.

I said I have an idea. First, we mixed a 1/2 cup of white vinegar and a tablespoon of salt and stirred it up. She usually holds the measuring apparatus while he pours in the ingredients,and then dumps it in the bowl. Then she stirs them in the bowl.

Dropping the pennies into the vinegar and salt mixture.

Drying the pennies and admiring their shininess.

Here are our clean and shiny pennies! They actually don't look that great in the picture, but they are MUCH prettier than they were before we started. We also dropped a few quarters, nickels, and dimes into the mixture and talked about how the chemical reaction that cleans them only works with copper. That's probably over the head of a 2 year old, and a 1 year old, but I thought it was good to expose them to new information :)

This is them recounting to make sure they were all there...
3 quarters, 6 dimes, 1 nickel, 27 pennies.

It was fun, quick, easy, and educational! If you do this activity with a child under age 3, please be very careful since pennies are choking hazards for kids who still put thing in their mouths.

Original Post 5/4/09