C is for Cruising Car

We made this Cruising Car using:

Chipboard cut from cereal box for letter base

Black and yellow construction paper and scissors

Matchbox car

Glue: stick and hot glue to adhere car

A car book we like is:

If I Built a Car by Chris Van Dusen. In this book a little boy describes to his dad all the things his car would do if he had the opportunity to design his own vehicle. The young boy has quite an imagination as his car comes equipped with things like a robot to act as driver, a snack bar and swimming pool just to name a few amenities. The car can also transform into other useful vehicles like an aircraft and submarine. This is a rhyming book with great illustrations. In fact, we have checked out all the Chris Van Dusen books our library offers and we have enjoyed them all.

(More about Project A-B-C)

B is for Buzzing Bee

We made this Bumbling B using:

Chipboard cut from a cereal box stock as letter base

Yellow construction paper and scissors

Glue: stick and hot glue for eyes

Black embossing powder (with embossing ink and heat source) for stripes on bee

Vellum paper for the wings

Googly eyes

Yellow pip cleaner and black felt for the antennae

Bee books we like:

Bee Wigged by Cece Bell is a sweet book about a giant bee that has trouble making friends because; although he is friendly and kind he is, well, a giant bee. One day he thinks his problems may be solved when he finds a wig lying on the street which he is able to use as a disguise to make friends but what happens when the wig falls off during the town parade? You’ll have to read and find out. Cute story about kindness and acceptance.

Another Bee book we love is called The Bee Tree by the wonderful Patricia Polacco. This story is about a young girl who is growing tired of her reading lessons. Her grandfather decides to give her a break while taking her on a bee tree hunt to find the bees honey. The bee chase and the scoring of honey provide the grandfather an opportunity to teach his granddaughter the value of reading as it is also a way to seek adventure and “sweetness.”  My 4 year old is able to appreciate the moral of the story (as well as the length) much more than does my 2 year old so I'd say it's best for ages 4 plus. As for me, I loved each and every illustration as usual with Polacco’s books.


(More about Project A-B-C)

A is for Antsy Ants

We made this Antsy Ants Capitol A using:

Chipboard cut from a cereal box for letter base

Vinyl table cloth (from dollar store)

Black felt and scissors to create ants

Glue: stick and Elmer’s white

Felt tip marker and pens for drawing legs on ant

Ant books we like:

Our favorite book about ants is one we actually own called, Hey little Ant by Phillip M. Hoose, Hannah Hoose and illustrated by Debbie Tilley. In this story a little boy comes close to ending the life of an ant by squishing him with his shoe. The story gets good when the ant trys to persuade the boy to preserve his life, comparing how similar his life is to the boy’s life. In the end of the book the readers are left to make the decision themselves whether the boy should save or squish the insect. It’s fun to see the kids respond to this question and to hear their justification for either answer as it’s not always the same. The words in the book are actually lyrics to a song that is preformed by the Hooses and you can find the melody to the song in the back of the book.

Speaking of songs about Ants, The Ants go Marching is a classic ditty for musical ant discussion and you can find a lot of books that correspond with the song. We own this one.

(More about Project A-B-C)

Project A-B-C

About this time last year I decided I wanted to create some type of alphabet art as décor for H’s playroom walls. On other blogs, I had seen parents crafting a “letter of the week” with their children, decorating the letter in a way that relates to the sound the letter makes. I thought decorating individual letters with H while talking about the shape and sound of a letter might be a good way to accomplish my goal and also provide a super simple learning opportunity for H. So that is exactly what we did.

Because I wanted the letters to become permanent fixtures to our walls—or at least at long as they lasted, we spent a good 20 minutes on many of our letters. Typically I would ask H what he could think of that started with the letter of the day and then we would create that thing within the shape of the letter using various supplies we already had at home.

We've spent most of the season outdoors this year and therefore I have unintentionally taken a summer vacation from blogging but since summer is officially over I thought it might be fun to make up for the lack of posting by sharing one of our letters here each day, describing the materials we used to create each letter as well as include a corresponding (choice) book we have checked out from the library.

Please come back each day to meet one of our capital letters.

Chalk Board Wall

For the past couple summers I have been neglecting my aspiration to make the kids an outdoor, moveable chalkboard wall but this summer I was finally able to scratch the task off the to-do list. Yay!

I did a little blog research to find out how others accomplished this same pursuit. I was mostly taking note on what type of wood people were using but once I was at the home improvement store I ended up leaving with a bedroom door as a canvas for my soon-to-be chalk board. This actually worked out really well because unlike the wood planks I was considering, the door was already primed, the inside was hollow so although it was somewhat heavy it was hardly impossible to move and the price was well within my budget.

The door I picked out was 3 feet wide and we had one of the workers cut off a couple feet in the length of the door making it about 4 and a half feet long. This means, even though I am just over 5 ft tall, I can carry the board around lengthwise without too much difficulty.

When I brought home the supplies for the project, I figured the kids would be breaking out the chalk after lunch the next day but I didn’t consider the 4 hour time gap required between coats (I think I painted 3 coats just to be safe) and I really didn’t expect the 3 day time gap required before conditioning and writing on it but maybe that was just the brand of paint I bought which I purchased at Home Depot. For a finishing touch I painted the edges of the board with pink acrylic paint. I quite like the way it came out. (These photos aren’t the greatest but you get the idea. And don't worry, chalkboard writing is not as dangers as the pictures make it appear, my kids like to alternate chalk board writing with their skateboard riding—hence the helmets.)

Although I originally wanted this to be for outdoor use, we’ve enjoyed it indoors just as much and it does make a pretty sweet photo back drop as a bonus. 

Noodle Ice Cream

The kids' Grammy was in town recently and like most of her visits, this meant the craft bin would be restocked with some type of to-do project. I always know when a crafty activity is about to take place when my mom begins to pull random objects out of her bag like Mary Poppins. The project for this weekend was pasta coloring.

I’m pretty sure the last time I colored food was over two years ago so we were in major need of a pasta rainbow growing on our counter top.

[Few things are as nice to look at as a beaming pasta rainbow]

A couple weeks after the visit from Grammy we pulled out the multi-colored pasta and enjoyed a make with the neighborhood children. To stay true to the season, we made “noodle ice cream.” To do this we needed white round cardstock circles to mimic scoops of ice cream (I used a 2 inch circle paper punch), brown triangle shapes to mimic ice cream cones (cut with scissors from craft paper), white school glue, cardstock folded into cards to glue our creations to and of course the colored noodles to symbolize various flavors of ice cream.

The older kids had fun inventing their own new ice cream flavors and some of the little ones had fun digging their little mitts into the noodles while mixing colors.

Yum! The final creations looked good enough to eat; we didn’t however, the combination of paper, glue and rubbing alcohol was sweet on the eyes but probably not so much on the tummy.

To color your own pasta or rice you will need:

Uncooked pasta or rice

Rubbing alcohol

Food coloring

Zip lock bags and

Paper towels or old rags

Fill zip lock bags with rubbing alcohol and food coloring, one bag per color of course. (The amount of rubbing alcohol you add will depend on how much pasta/rice you are coloring. I like the liquid to just cover the solid, the solid will soak up much of the alcohol while it’s “marinating” if you use this technique.)

After giving the filled bag a good shaking you may decide to add more coloring if you want a more saturated look (especially with the purple if you are coloring yellow pasta). After shaking the noodles around for a bit, let them soak in the liquid while moving on to your next color. When your pasta is reaching the desired color, lay the pasta flat on your rags or paper towels to dry.

Drying time typically takes a few hours. Once the (now inedible) food is completely dry you can begin a colorful pasta collage or bag it up for the next rainy day.

Wooden Worry Dolls

One night when Hendrix was having bedtime woes I told him we’d have to get him a set of worry dolls, (those miniature hand assembled dolls that have a knack for vanishing worries while tucked under your pillow as you doze off to dreamland). It was the first he had ever heard of such a tale. He was beyond astonished at this fact and requested he become the owner of a pack of these dolls immediately.

Later I pulled out my own pouch of childhood worry dolls and I remembered how teeny-tiny they were, each doll no larger than a plump raisin. I became worried a certain 2 year old hand might think of his 4 year old brother's worry dolls as a snack should he receive a set. So instead we decided to fashion a non-choking hazard alternative; we made our worry dolls from wooden pegs and acrylic paint.

I purchased two sizes of pegs at the craft store to suggest age variation among the dolls. Hendrix and I each painted a family of 5 (or two adults and three kids) and little Avi (the 2 year old) painted three child-sized pegs. We drew faces on the peg people with sharpie markers.

Although Hendrix occasionally buries the dolls under his pillow at night after expressing a worry or two, both my kids especially LOVE playing with them during the day. To be honest, this neighborhood of peg people is probably their new favorite toy, at least for the time being.

Any craft that can actually provides a use when it’s completed qualifies for gold stars in my opinion. I highly recommend this project. If you paint these dolls with the intent of using them as toys I would recommend adding a coat of spray varnish after the paint dries (either glossy or matte), just to keep them in better shape. Oh and just as a P.S., I am in no way claiming these dolls all 100% choke proof. In fact, probably only the larger sized pegs would pass the choke tube test. Still, the size does very much decease the opportunity to mistake the toy for, say, a tasty looking M&M.