Library Visit

I realize that most moms and dads probably take their kids to the library, so this is no big news to anyone. But I truly enjoy taking my kids on a library visit. Usually, when we go, I count it as our preschool activity for the day because:

1). it pretty much takes us all morning just to get everyone dressed, fed, out the door with matching shoes, and in the car, so we don't have time for much else in our day anyway.  And...

2). we always end up learning a lot while we're there.  Things like, what it means to "borrow," what categorization is all about, how to look up and find the book you want, how to use our quiet voices (which is something my rowdy family really could use LOTS of practice on), fiction vs. non-fiction, big people books vs. picture books, and why running away from your mom to play hide and seek behind the bookcases is NOT ok. Also, why jumping on the library furniture is not acceptable. And also, how to ask the librarian for help and how to check out. It's true that the checkout counter is pretty much the most eventful time at the library for us. I think the boys think it's magic. Plus, our library has a self-checkout counter which means that the kids get to experience the magic first hand. We like that.

The boys, though, would tell you the most wonderful thing about the library is taking turns pushing that little button on the wall that makes the door open up all by itself.

Anyhow, I think the benefits of a trip to the library are pretty obvious. But my favorite part is bringing home lots and lots of books that we get to read and we didn't have to buy and they don't have to clutter up my house. I'm a big fan of that part.

Ugly Wreath

Sometimes you win and sometimes you don't. This wreath idea was more of a "don't." Well, as far as looks go. Ok, it's pretty hideous. But we DID have a fun time making it/them. Sadly, I can't blame anyone but myself, because this ugly wreath is what happens when you leave me to come up with an idea all on my own. I just needed a pattern or a picture to follow or something.

But hey, I'm trying to look at the positives here. And well, there aren't many, but it really WAS fun to make. So I'm sticking with that one.

Here's what we did. We each got a 6" paper plate and cut out the middle. I mixed up some school glue with some water and cut up tissue paper into small squares. Then the kids painted the glue onto the remaining circle that was their paper plate. We attached the tissue paper squares to the glue wherever and however we liked them. Honestly, if I had left the wreaths at this point, it probably would have all turned out pretty good.  But no, I had this silly idea of putting stickers on over the tissue paper layer. So we waited all morning for the glue to dry and by mid-afternoon I sat the kids back up to the table to put on stickers. We had some foam stickers left over from our "heart pot" activity, and some other cheap stickers that I just let the kids go to town with. When we were done, I had three very ugly, far to gaudy, overly colorful "wreaths" to try and figure out how to hang up. I thought I'd hang them in a row on a big ribbon. It sounded like something Martha Stewart would do. But don't worry, however Martha would do it is apparently not how I did it because mine ended up entirely ridiculous. My boys, with their collective artistic eye insisted what it needed was "bows," like the kind you put on a birthday present. So the poor creation went from bad to worser. I had to put my foot down when the kids suggested hanging some of their dinosaurs from the bottom of the ribbon, as though that, in any way, would make things improve. Or even fit in. Poor us.

So that was our attempt at a wreath(s). It will probably be a few years, at the least, before I gain back sufficient courage to try another.

With good reason.

Obviously.

Story Strips

I have a son who is obsessed with polar bears. He has a plethora of other animals he is obsessed with as well, but for today we focused on the polar bears. I had found a resource on the Sylvan Dell Publishing website with many activities based on the book, In Arctic Waters, so I printed out a few. Most of the "teaching activities" they've come up with are way too advanced for my kids, but they provided a jumping off point from which I could come up with some interesting things for us to do.

The thing my kids ended up liking the best was a little thing I called "Polar Bear Story Strips." I had printed out a sequencing activity from the In Arctic Waters resource page, and we used it to make up our own stories. I cut up all the little strips the website provided and set them out, randomly, on the floor. Then I chose one strip to be the first strip and used the picture on it to start telling a story that I would make up as I went along. After a few sentences, I would chose another strip and continue my story utilizing the picture on the second strip. I continued in this way until all the strips were placed in order, in a column, and I had told a story that included all the pictures in that order.

Now it was the boys' turn. We mixed up all the strips and my oldest followed my example. He chose his own first strip, second strip and so forth and as he chose them he told a story to follow the pictures. It was great! Sometimes he would get stuck with two pictures that didn't really go together very well and look to me for help. No problem, I would just prompt him with a few creative ways to get around it and he would take one of my ideas and run with it. For my younger son, who is also a great story teller, I would just have to offer a little more support. For example, I would ask him, "What do you want to go first?" and he would pick something out and after watching the rest of us do it, he knew that he was expected to come up with a sentence or phrase to accompany the picture. Then he would look at me and I would have to say, "What do you want to go next?" and we would continue in this manner until he had used up all the story strips and told a whole story. After a few times around, both boys could create all their own stories with absolutely no help from me. AND, the best part is, that they LOVED it!

Eventually, we decided to jointly create a story that we had to agree on being our most favorite way to have the strips put together. When we finally got it JUST right, we glued it to paper and hung it on the wall to come back and read whenever we felt the urge.

Heart Pots

Honestly, with all these crafts I've been attempting, I can't remember which ones come from where. Crafts are SO not my forte, as will become obvious to anyone looking at anything I have ever created. My theory about crafts with kids is this: if the kids can't do most of it on their own, then it's not a good craft. Unfortunately, this theory has led to a lot of trial and error for me in the choosing of which crafts we're going to do. We've started many a craft idea, only to decide that it's way too hard for us and scrapped the whole thing. The point is, I've printed out a ton of ideas and tried even more, and morphed 2 or 3 together so often that I'm not really sure who I should give the credit to for some of these ideas. But I know I read somewhere about an idea like this one that ended up working for us.

Here's what we did. On Sunday, we painted 4" pots with acrylic paints in valentine's day-ish colors. On Monday, when they were dry, we filled them up with "sweet soil" aka heart-shaped candies (and some Hershey's kisses). We stuck heart-shaped foam stickers to the ends of wood craft sticks and planted our "flowers of love" anywhere the kids liked them best. We curled sparkly green pipe cleaners around our fingers and added them to the pots as foliage. The end.

I consider these heart pots to be a great success because, as I mentioned, any craft the kids can do mostly by themselves is a success to me. The only thing I think I had to help with was the pipe cleaners. Pretty dang good! Not to mention the fact that we have a new funny joke @ our house that goes like this:

          Kid: "Hey mom, can I eat some of that yummy dirt from my pot?"

          Me: "Sure. You go eat some of that yummy dirt!" 

and then we laugh and laugh and laugh some more 'cause we think we are SO funny!

Left Overs

Sometimes I have a bunch of leftover activities hanging around my house--usually cluttering up my kitchen countertops. When this happens, I have to have a day where we revisit these activities "one last time" before I throw them out or dismantle them. Today we revisited the pot of name soup stuff that's been sitting on my counter for the last week or so, and the bowl of sugar cubes for making "ice sculptures" that has probably been attracting every ant in the country to our house. We also played with some old salt play dough that has been sitting around getting crusty.

It's nice to have these days now and then because they mean little to no prep work for me. I like that. Also, they are pretty casual and the boys get to have some repetition of learning, which I support.

Bad Magic

So a few days ago we had an Ice Day, but I didn't have time to do the accompanying ice "magic trick" that I had totally talked up to the kids. Since it so happened that we were having a "Mom, I'm bored" event in our house today, I decided that it was time to bring out the magic trick.

Sadly, the magic trick was a dud. The website, FamilyFun.com, sure made it look cool, with a picture of a fascinated and amazed child to accompany the directions.

But when we tried it, I could not get it to be fascinating and amazing to save my soul. In fact, I could barely get it to work at all.

What you're supposed to do is float an ice cube in water, lay a string across the top, sprinkle a little salt on the string, wait 5 seconds, and the ice cube-theoretically-will pull right up out of the water stuck on your string (because it has "magically" refrozen there). If you're me, you try at least 15 times with all different amounts of salt, sizes of ice cubes, waiting more or less time, even using different types of string, and you only get it to work once. Then, if you're me, the other kid (who it didn't work for, no matter how hard you try to recreate the victory) throws a fit and is upset for a half an hour. Sigh.

Unsurprisingly, I wouldn't recommend this activity. Just in case anyone wonders. The only magic that was happening in our house, was that I actually captured a picture of our one and only success.

Valentine's Rev-Up

It is the 1st day of February; time to get our decorating on. We don't have many decorations for Valentine's day. Out in the ol' garage I keep individual boxes for every major holiday, and into these boxes go the decorations we have accumulated over the years. For Christmas, we have more than one box, but for poor Valentine's day, we have only a little smattering in the bottom of a single, rather small box. Therefore, I've dedicated the next couple of weeks to Valentine's Craftiness, in which we will make things to adorn our unadorned casa.

First, we pulled out what we've already got, turned on a little "Hot, hot, hot" by Buster Poindexter and His Banshees of Blue (which I consider to be appropriate valentine's music, although I also consider it to be appropriate halloween music...so, who knows?).  Anyway. Poindexter accompanies us while we dance around and hang cupid-shaped window clings and the like.

Then, it was on to the crafting. Today we made a garland. Or maybe it's a banner. I'm not sure. I cut out hearts of red, pink, and purple construction paper. The boys wrote on them and decorated them with their markers. We set them out on the floor and created a lovely pattern. We taped our pattern to some white yarn. Lastly, we hung the yarn across the mantel.

Now it was time to stand back and admire our handiwork. Not bad for us non-crafters. A half an hour of serious crafting and we're left with a nice bit of homey handmade-ness. After Valentine's is over, I may just have to include it in our meager pile within the Valentine's box. We could bring it out again next year, and the next year, and the next, and the next, and the next. Things are looking up!