Travel Toys!

This is another one of those posts that I never actually got around to posting last month...  

This is a travel toy inspired by this post. It is SOOOO easy to make with lots of possibility.  If you are a crafter or a sewer, then you probably have tons of scrap fabric lying around.  To make this toy, you simply tie or sew long pieces of fabric together end to end and stuff them in a container or bag with a small opening just large enough to pull the length of attached fabrics out slowly.   

I used lots of bright colored fabric and textures (felt, satin, netting, etc.) to make this toy more fascinating and fun!  I love how it turned out!  :)

To make my travel toy, I sewed the ends of my fabric together really quickly and then also folded a piece of felt over and sewed along the edges to create a bag.  I left one small opening along one edge for the fabric to come out.  I also sewed the end of the long string of fabrics into the green felt bag so that when my child finished pulling the entire length out, it did not separate from the bag and would be easy to stuff back inside.

Important:  Do NOT leave your child alone with a toy like this as it could pose a strangulation hazard.

Would you like to know what other things we took on our trip to keep the kids occupied and happy?

Well, this for one....  See how to make these here.

Some other things we also took:

** our trusty travel DVD player with an ample supply of dvds

**aqua doodle pen and pad (see the link below if you are not sure what this is)

**play magnetic boards and pieces (make sure the pieces are large enough that your child won't swallow them)

**WASHABLE markers and drawing pad or coloring book

**Little toys (miniature dolls, animals, etc.) that are trip-only-toys so they don't just get to play with them every day like their other toys (makes the toys more attractive when they are new or rarely played with until the occasion of a family trip)

**small books with flaps to open

**snack trap (see below) - these are AWESOME for helping to contain the mess of snacks!

**thermos stainless steel sip containers

Linking up to:
www.cleanandscentsible.blogspot.com
www.gingersnapcrafts.com
www.momontimeout.com
www.houseofhepworths.com
www.livinglifeintentionally.blogspot.com/
www.whipperberry.com
www.toysinthedryer.com

Travel Toy: Velcro Story Blocks

We won't be starting up our homeschooling again for a few more days as we are still in the process of moving and settling into a temporary spot until we are able to find a new home to purchase.  In the meantime, this is something I wanted to post weeks ago for people who might be traveling over the holidays - but, due to illnesses in the family and Christmas craziness, it just didn't happen.  

SOOOO, for those planning a family trip soon (with toddlers in tow), here is something I came up with for one of our own car trips:  Velcro Story Blocks!  The idea for these came after seeing some velcro blocks.  I liked the concept but thought they would be much cuter if they were colored.  Then I thought they might be even more fun if some of the sides had pictures so they could be used to make up stories as well.  We had an empty laptop box that looked like the perfect fit for said blocks, and I decided to jazz it up with some color and a little scene of its own to enhance the story making capabilities of the blocks!  :)  

Voila!   A new car toy!  :)  And the beauty of it is that the velcro helps to keep the pieces together instead of having them all over the car, so your little construction worker can build towers IN THE CAR without them toppling at every little bump.

BTW: I am participating in a blog contest for the top 25 creative mom blogs and would LOVE it if you would cast a vote for me!  :)  The button is on the sidebar and you don't have to be a member or sign up or anything to vote - just click the button which takes you to the site and cast your vote.  You can vote once a day so if you feel extra generous and want to cast a vote on another day - I would LOOOOVVVVEEEE it if you would!  Thanks so much!

If you would like to make your own, these are pretty easy to make.  

IMPORTANT:  Examine your blocks each time to make sure the velcro is not detaching from frequent use.  Do not give these to your children if you suspect they will try to put them in their mouths or try to eat the velcro.

Materials:  Velcro (I used colored as well as black), large wood blocks, paint (non-toxic), glue (super glue or hot glue).

HOW TO MAKE YOUR OWN BLOCKS:

1.  Paint your blocks (solid or with pictures on two sides).  Allow blocks to dry.

2.  Measure the amount of velcro you will need to wrap around each block once.  Cut two pieces of velcro (you will want one with hooks and one without so that the velcro sides of each will be able to stick to all the other blocks.  If you only used one side of the velcro such as the hooks side, it could only attach to a block with the other side of velcro such as the loop side.  However, by using one strip of each per block, they can all stick together).

3.  Glue both pieces of velcro around each block.  

4.  Find a container in which to store your blocks, then PLAY!!!!!  :)

Linking up to:

www.houseofhepworths.com

www.momontimeout.com

www.handsonaswegrow.com

www.bearrabbitbear.com

www.tatertotsandjello.com

www.fingerprintsonthefridge.com

www.whipperberry.com

http://www.livinglifeintentionally.blogspot.com

www.makingtheworldcuter.com

www.delicateconstruction.blogspot.com

www.diyhshp.blogspot.com

www.letkidscreate.blogspot.com

www.polkadotsonparade.blogspot.com

www.gingersnapcrafts.com

www.cleanandscentsible.blogspot.com

More Christmas....

It has been CRAZY around here!  Not only is Christmas only a few days away, we are in the process of moving AND have kids sick, sick, sick including one with an allergic reaction to the antibiotic he was on.  SOOO, needless to say, blogging has not been a top priority for me the past couple of weeks.  However, the kids are now asleep for a few minutes, so I thought I would hop on and post some things we had done before a bunch of the chaos descended once more.  :)  Enjoy!

A fun and festive snack for the holidays!  :)

Snack Details:

Christmas tree:  slices of green pepper and pear with a pretzel trunk and a cheese star.

Muffin cups #1 and #3 (sides of tree):  apple and pear circle ornaments for the Christmas tree and green/red M&M's to be used for ornaments as well.

Muffin cups #2 and #4 (top and bottom):  mini marshmallows and string cheese circles for snow under the tree (or more ornaments for the tree).

Garnishes:  gingerbread men marshmallows and winter edible confetti.

Originally I had intended to post this fun little book as a freebie on my Teacher Pay Teacher site, but unfortunately I made it on a program that apparently does not change over well to the format supported by Teacher Pay Teacher.  I would have spent more time trying to figure out an alternate method to post it or remake this in pdf but alas, the craziness and sickness in our house has not allowed me much time for that sort of thing so perhaps it will be available in time for the holidays next year.  

I love this picture of how my daughter helped the elves find the missing presents - that is her finger pointing to them off to the side (barely visible).  Ah, if only the elves had thought to look by the Christmas tree...

This was what my daughter drew under the gift flap on the last page of the book - notice there was not sufficient room for the head of the mermaid doll at the top so she improvised.

We call this "Sweet Spelling" - I gave my daughter a jar full of different types of festive candy or sweets and allowed her to use them to form her spelling words.  If she did it correctly, she would get to pick one of the pieces from the word to eat.  I must say, it was not hard to get her to practice her spelling when this jar was part of the process!  :)

I'd love to post more, but I must be off to work on some more moving stuff before the kids are up and about.  

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!!!  :)

Linking to:

www.momontimeout.com

Homeschool Theme of the Week: Christmas Anticipation!

The month of December is stacking up to be a busy one for us!  We have family flying in for the holidays - yippeee (parents just arrived stateside today)!  AND we just found out we are going to be moving almost immediately after Christmas (a good kind of move that we are happy about)!  :)  

So things are going to be a little crazy around here for a while - but we still plan to find time for some schooling and fun!  Take this past week for instance - full of Christmas anticipation....

Our pink Advent calendar forest - idea courtesy of www.familyfun.com.  Their forest wasn't pink - but if you know my daughter...well, let's just say pink is a very important part of her life.  :)

This was a miniature snowman ornament I found that somehow seemed like he belonged in our forest.  He doesn't have a name...yet.

In addition to some normal schoolwork - we made another pattern block book - this one for Christmas.  For those of you who have scrapbook paper you need to use up, this might be a good idea for you.  Just trace your pattern blocks and make up some Christmas designs with your kiddos!  

(P.S.  For anyone interested, I have made my pattern block book available here for $1.50.)  

This was great practice for not only pattern block designs, but positional words as well.  Most of the pages use positional words to describe where something is or where it was being placed.

This was the final (bonus) page where my daughter was challenged to draw a complete picture showing where all the objects should be (by the way - the cookies are on top of the stool).  I love her picture - she did such a great job!  :)

This had to have been one of the yummier parts of our week!  Chocolate chip candy cane pancakes!  Just add some chocolate chips and crushed candy cane pieces to your pancake batter, stir, and make just like you would normally.  Serve with whip cream, candy cane pieces and chocolate chips for garnish!  

We ate these for breakfast today and then burned some of the calories (not enough, I'm sure) by decorating our Christmas tree and hanging some Christmas decorations outside.   All in all, I would say a great start to the Christmas festivities!  :)  I hope your season's beginnings are rich with memorable times together as well!  :)

Linking to:
www.singingthreelittlebirds.blogspot.com
www.diyhshp.blogspot.com
www.letkidscreate.blogspot.com
http://www.delicateconstruction.com/
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www.craftyconfessions.com
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www.gingersnapcrafts.com
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www.handsonaswegrow.com
www.houseofhepworths.com
www.bearrabbitbear.blogspot.com
http://hammockhomeschool.blogspot.com/2011/12/1.html

A First "Bear"thday Celebration!

Several weeks ago I mentioned I would be posting some pictures from the first "bear"thday we celebrated a while ago, but it never seemed like I had the time to get said post together.  However, because this is Thanksgiving vacation for us and thus a break from school, I decided it was the right time to pull up the pictures and share them!  Enjoy!

These were the invitations made by the talented Andrea from "The Green Grass Grows" - an Etsy shop!  Ginger"bear" cookies were also given out with invitations.  :)

This was the hat I made for the birthday boy and one of his favorite bears holding it.  The mini banner in the background is another item I purchased from Andrea and it says "I'm GRRRowing Up!"

Upon entering the house, the guests were greeted by some stuffed bears on a table.  One was draped over this quote I love from Winnie the Pooh which I wanted to incorporate with the bear theme.

This was the "guestbook".  I had seen thumbprint guestbook ideas on Pinterest and loved how unique they were.  Thus I came up with a version for this little party - guests used brown ink to place their thumbprints on a mat around a copy of the birthday invitation (all to be framed later).  They then each drew a bear with their own thumbprints being the bear bodies and signed their names near their bears.  I love how it came out!

This was a moss covered number one on one of the tables with some balloons attached.  Just a bit of fun earthy decor!  

We had "bear"gers and other yummy bear themed food at the party!  These were some food signs.  :)

This is a picture of one of the "bear"gers!  :)

This is a photograph of the dessert table laden with cake and cupcakes of different flavors and colors set up on burlap cloth.  The frame behind them contains a collage of pictures showing the birthday boy when he was born (in between the letters spelling "THEN") and the birthday boy as he is now.

Here is another view of the table.  I swirled two flavors of cake together to make the wooded look you see for the stump.  The outside of the stump (dark part) was pure molded chocolate.   We also included some cupcakes made to look like toadstools and some made to look like two ponds with some fish jumping in and out (red swedish candy fish).

For favors, I made Hibernation Preparation bags for each family because visiting bears should never return home hungry, right?   The fun mix inside included honeycomb cereal (for honey), swedish candy fish (for fish),  and spiced gumdrops (for berries).

I'll leave you with one of my favorite parts of the birthday planning and decoration - the birthday boy's very own first "cub"cake (that was one of Andrea's brilliant ideas)!  :)  The cupcake container is one of the Wilton bear ones (I posted a link below if you are interested).  :)

Linking up to:
http://sunscholars.blogspot.com
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Thanksgiving FUN!

This week was a particularly light week in terms of schoolwork as our family was preparing for a vacation, and I was recovering from eye infections. However, we did manage to squeeze in a few fun activities....

My daughter enjoyed fingerpainting....with pumpkin pudding!!! Yep, if you have never tried it, you should. It is fun AND delicious! Although ours was a seasonal flavor, any variety will do! :)

I saw this idea on Pinterest or on a blog somewhere a while back and decided to try it. First we collected some colorful fall leaves. Then we glued and stapled them to a sentence strip creating our very own fall harvest crown!

This is our handsome little turkey! His tail feathers are made up of different things I had in my cupboard: flax seeds, lentils, etc. We then added his body on top and some fun accordian fold legs. Dashing, isn't he? ;)

And here is our melted crayon turkey!   I printed a coloring page from the internet, peeled the paper back from some old crayons, lit a small tea light and showed my daughter how to carefully melt the crayon and then color with it before it hardened up again (which seemed to be rather quickly). Once she got the hang of it, I think she enjoyed the experience. Please note that this is a CLOSE supervision activity if you are doing it with small children!!

And last, but not least, FEATHER PAINTING!  Yes, it is just what its name implies - you paint with a feather, and I was pleasantly surprised at how well it went!  Hey, we did a lot of turkey stuff so I figured this might be fun to try, and I love the colorful result.  :)

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!  :)

Linking to:
www.homeschoolcreations.blogspot.com
www.livinglifeintentionally.blogspot.com
http://diyhshp.blogspot.com
www.letkidscreate.blogspot.com
www.makingtheworldcuter.com
http://www.toysinthedryer.com/2011/11/introducing-fun-stuff-fridays.html
http://www.gingersnapcrafts.com

Homeschool Theme of the Week: Thanksgiving & Native Americans!

One of the positives of homeschooling is the amount of things I learn as I teach and prepare activities. :) This year, I have discovered so many interesting details and facts about Thanksgiving! We spent a good deal of time one week on the Pilgrims and now have spent some more time learning about the Native Americans involved in the story.

When reading about the Wampanoag indians, I learned they would make belt and headband designs from purple and white shells.  Thus, one of the first things we did was to make a purple and white headband.  Here is a picture of mine (top) and my daughter's headband (below).  If you would like to make one too, you can download the pattern for free here.



 I also decided this seemed like a wonderful unit for encouraging my daughter to learn how to perform simple hand weaving (only we used paper to make our indian basket). After some guidance from me, she just took off with this and did a terrific job!



To make our woven mat into a basket/purse, I simply folded one end up a bit, glued it in place, hole punched the edges and added some jute.  :)



I saw a cute activity on Pinterest involving bubble wrap and indian corn and thought we would try it as well. Unfortunately, I could not find some small bubble wrap, so I improvised and glued some cheerios to a piece of cardboard. We then painted the cheerios and stamped the paper. This seemed to work just fine for us and when they were done drying, my daughter cut out the corn shapes, and we glued the corn and leaf pieces together to make our very own indian corn!



What better place to store our indian corn than in our very own handmade indian bag/basket?  :)



Another of our activities was to make a real purse from suede.  I found a kit at our local hobby store and helped my daughter complete it!

Of course, good books are a must, and we learned SO much from reading some of the ones below!  :)



Linking up to:
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