Kid Made Ornaments: Reindeers

you need 3 clothes pins, one wooden spool, googly eyes and a red ball or bell.

We used hot glue on the cool setting, but you could use tacky glue or wood glue and be totally fine.

First, paint the wooden objects...

 Then glue them together

 Then hang on the tree!

Toddler Santa Advent Calendar

A repost from Dec 1, 2010

This is from my son's school but my daughter insisted on having one of her own.

First we played with the cotton balls. It was fun to feel them on our faces and eyes and throw them and just get our hands on them. I put the left overs in the sensory tub for winter. :)

 Once we were done playing we colored Santa faces.

Then we glued a basic hat on and I explained how the advent calendar works.

Every day (today is the 1st) you add a cotton ball to Santa's beard. Once the beard is filled its Christmas!

Everyone was so excited by this.  If you want the beard chart leave a comment HERE with your email address and I will send you the doc right away!

Easy Toddler Christmas idea... voile!

Quiet Activity - Sock-er Balls!

More Fuzzy Balls! I promise this is the last one for awhile!

I am just a fan of quiet non messy games while I am confined to the bed. Haha.

Fill the socks with balls, then tie the top like a knot.

Then give them to the kids to untie, and pull the balls out to sort.

It's great for little hands because it takes patience, concentration and small motor skills.

Its great for bigger hands because they can classify the balls.

We sorted, counted and then did it again. They switched socks the next time.

30 minutes of fun, quiet and ... no mess!

Quiet Activity - Fuzzy Balls 2!

Grab an empty formula can, a butter tub, an ice cream tub, anything with a lid.

With a sharp knife slice x's through the lid.  If you have a smaller kid cut complete o's.'

Give the kids some fuzzy balls and put them in the can.

 Then make it harder, open the lid and dump them out. Only the red ones! Only the green ones!

 Here is a closer look at the slits that were cut.

Super fun AND easy using recycled materials!

Quiet Activity - Fuzzy Balls!

My 8 month old is super interested in doing what everyone else is doing.

So I grabbed a mason jar and some fuzzy balls and showed her how to put them in and take them out.

She immediately tried to do it, every other one went in her mouth, BUT I would just take them out and point to the jar and she would put them in, and then take them out!

It was fun for her to do something and she loved the feeling of the balls and the jar.  

I had both items at home so this was free!

Ball Drop

3 cups, 3 different sizes and a chair.

I ended using 2 sized chairs.

We had everyone do the small cup, then the medium cup, then the large cup. Then we switched chairs and did it again. We kept score. How ever many balls made it in, that's how many jellybeans you got.  They played it over and over again and it has been requested a few times to play again.