The trees are up in the kids bedrooms and they are ornament obsessed! They decorate their bedrooms trees with homemade ornaments each year and have been asking to make more ornaments since we made our angel ornaments last week. So yesterday we made popsicle stick snowflake ornaments! We started by gluing three craft sticks on top of each other (above) to form the snowflake shape. We used these funky shaped ones we had leftover from making mini … [Read more...]
DIY Spooky Spider Lawn Decor
Oooooooh! Spooooooky spider! That's what my kids say every time they see the spider my husband made last year for Halloween. We were re-landscaping our yard right before Halloween last year and we didn't get our outside decor up until the last minute. Our neighbors go crazy with decorations and the kids did not think out house was spooky enough so my husband made this cool DIY spider lawn decor inspired by one we saw on the old Family … [Read more...]
Pumpkin Face Puppet and Halloween Finger Play
We have been having so much fun with our pumpkin face puppets! My two year old is very excited that she knows all her shapes so we made our faces out of different shapes. The puppets couldn't be easier to make. All you need are a bunch of paper shapes, orange paper plates, and craft sticks. Here was her favorite one--she is a big fan of the oval mouth! Then the older kids and I taught her the Pumpkin Face song and finger play. And she … [Read more...]
Handprint Kid Crafts for Halloween
This morning we were pulling out our Halloween decorations and came across these adorable handprint crafts the kids have made over the years. They are easy to make and fun to decorate with. Plus you get to reminisce each year about how tiny their little hands were! Handprint Bat The spider is simple to do, my 6 year old made this one when she was 20 months old! Just paint the palm and fingers with black paint and press on paper. Then reapply … [Read more...]
Hunger Heroes: A Food Drive Play Date
Last week we went orange for No Kid Hungry by inviting our friends to the park for a Hunger Heroes play date! Everyone was asked to bring food donations for our local food bank and we were so excited that over 30 of our little friends showed up with enough food to fill 3 large boxes. Each of the Hunger Heroes received a "today I helped end childhood hunger" sticker and an orange super hero cape to signify their good deed. The kids also drew … [Read more...]
Back to School Muffin Tin Meal
Monday nights are busy at our house so a couple months ago we started doing muffin tin dinners. Muffin tin meals are usually just a fancy way to serve leftovers, but this week I made a back to school muffin tin meal to celebrate the first day of school! It was very simple to do. I used kitchen scissors to cut out the sandwiches in the shape of a notebook and wrote ABC on the top with an icing pen. I saw the super cute idea for the cheese pencil … [Read more...]
Activities for Birds by Kevin Henkes
The author for this month's Summer Virtual Book Club for Kids is Kevin Henkes! (amazon affiliate link) We read lots of Kevin Henkes books this month and especially enjoyed the book Birds, which is beautifully illustrated by Laura Dronzek. The book may be simple, but it packed full of fun learning opportunities. In the story Henkes talks about what birds look like, what they do and what they could do. In the story Henkes talks about what … [Read more...]
Fizzy Dinosaur Egg Fossils
This summer we had lots of fun doing summer camp at home with a neighbor family. The other mom and I took turns hosting all of the kids for a day of activity themed fun and we all had a blast! I planned camping themed activities for the first camp day at my house and decided dinosaurs would be perfect for the second. One of the coolest things we did was dissolve dinosaur egg fossils. We started by reading the book Dinosaur Eggs by Susan H. Gray. … [Read more...]
