SNOW GLOBES

My kids have been fascinated by snow globes this holiday season so I decided it was a perfect opportunity to make our own.  This project was fairly easy but did fall into the trial and error category because our first attempt had some leaks so we had to start over.
The supplies we used were:
Hot glue
Hot glue gun
water
food color
figurines (we got at the dollar tree)
fake snow (seasonal dept of walmart)
fabric
baby food jars

 1st we chose figures and hot glued them to the cap of the jar. We filled the jars with water and fake snow. and then screwed the covers back on as tight as we could.

After they were secure we used a bunch of hot clue around the outside to seal the cover to the jar.....and then hot glued fabric to the cover to cover up our hot glue mess!

Shake and ENJOY!

Play-doh sensory christmas tree docorating

Yesterday we used these awesome appetizer trays that I got at the dollar tree for the first time! Best 3 dollars spent in a while. I made green home made playdoh the other day. I molded cones in the middle of the tray to act as their xmas trees and gave them an assortment of items to decorate the tree with. This ended up being so loved that I put all the items into a busy box and my daughter has had it out 3 times already today!!! I think we will end up using these trays a lot!!!!

I HATE play-doh

Between the awful smell and most children's obsession with creating tiny little balls that find themselves on my carpet which then get stepped on and permanently ground into my rug drives me nuts. I should probably admit that I am a bit OCD and some things drives me straight to the nut house, however after nearly 5 years of being a parent I decided that play-doh is a must have. The kids love it and it keeps them occupied for hours. So every time you see a post that involves play-doh please know that before inviting my kids to play with it I most likely thought about how jumping off a cliff actually sounded more appealing to me.

Ok with all the being said let me share with you how we make our own play-doh. I've tried so many recipes and this one is by far the best and the most wonderful!!! I also choose to scent the play-doh with either Kool-Aid or essential oils because I HATE the smell of play-doh even more then any other annoying thing about it. My kids are high energy most of the time. So I usually use something calming. I have a new addiction with scenting the play-doh for the season like right now we have some sparkling peppermint play-doh which is pretty awesome because it's cool to the touch!!!

Recipe:
2 cups flour
1/2 C salt
2tbs cream of tartar
2tbs corn starch
4tbs vegetable oil
2 c water
(you may add a pack of Kool-Aid or oils for scent at this point as well as food coloring for color if you choose)

mix dry ingredients together in a sauce pan, then add wet ingredients. put over med heat stir very frequently. when play-doh starts to form a ball it's done. I immediately take it off heat and knead it. It keeps very well in an air tight container or ziplock bag!!!!

NEW busy box

After having the first parent teacher conference of the year yesterday I started to work on some ideas on how to help kids reach the next steps of education. We spoke about introducing lower case letters, letter sounds, and simple words......This is what I came up with after a trip to the dollar tree of coarse and breaking out my beloved laminator.  This project could be done a number of ways but I thought this would be fun.

There are white spoons with all the upper case letters on them and clear spoons with all of the lower case letters on them. The idea is that they can match the upper case letters to the lower case and stack them. The second activity within this busy box is simple words in which they can match the letters. some are only upper case and others are both. I'm excited to see how well they do with this. I will be introducing it tomorrow at Friday circle time. I'm thinking if they are having difficulties with matching the upper and lowercase letters I will laminate a sheet with all the pairs on it and put it in the box for them to use for reference!

Car Wash

Today the invitation was a car wash. My kids love anything that involves water and this invitation had a dual purpose....cleaning toys and playing!!! I loved watching the kids be creative with this.

All items were either pre-owned or found at the dollar tree!

The invitation:

I would love to do this again outside this summer with a mud pit to dirty up the cars first.

"All the cars are getting squeaky clean mama"

Our current busy boxes

Here is a photo display of our current busy boxes. These are all stored at our children's reach in the activity center. It is always a yes zone.  When they want to use an activity they grab a box and a cookie sheet (also bought at dollar tree) The only rules are to keep items in box or on cookie sheet, they may only use on box at a time, and they must pick it up before they move on to something else. Most items were acquired from the dollar tree or where made from items we already had. If you have any ? about how a box was made or where I got items please feel free to ask......and share ideas about what busy boxes you have.

Abc/123 box. Each child has their own dry erase book to trace activities with letters numbers and color. There is also each child's name in this box incase they would like to write their name on an item they can use these for reference.

The flubber box. A mixture of glue, water, borax and food coloring.....

Magnetic tangrams

The light box....this is a favorite. It holds a small light table and an assortment of laminated shapes, designs, and letters for kiddos to trace and decorate.

puzzle box. There is always a puzzle in here. Right now it's an eraser puzzle I got last week at Dollar tree but sometimes they are more complex.

Self explanatory

Jenga blocks with a multi colored dice. I cannot tell you the numbers of ways the kids have come up to play with this one!

Stamping and stickers....This box is always a complete disaster.....but it is well loved!

Sorting box. It holds an ice cube tray and an assortment of items. I change out the items when I think about it so that it doesn't become boring.

Beading box......I have more necklaces and bracelets from this box then you can possibly imagine.

Play doh box. I change out the play doh which is usually scented with essential oils and decorated for the season. We also switch out the cookie cutters and items depending on the season/holiday.

They have yet to break into this one which is a huge surprise. It's little foam moldable beads....I'm sure it will be a huge mess but messes are fun!

Goo box. This is on a shelf that they have to ask for help. I give them a container of water and another one with cornstarch and let them explore.

Iron beading. I wish I had got the bigger set. My boys have a little trouble with this one but they love it all the same.

Cutting box. All our scrape paper goes in here....pretty simple but one of the most used!

 

 

 

 

 

Making Busy boxes that are good for different ages.

I have two 4 year olds and a 2 year old. I like boxes that everyone can use. This color sorting box is AWESOME for my 2 year old but after one use the 4 year olds hadn't touched it again. So I decided to take 5 minutes to re-amp it with a little more challenge for the boys.

This is the original. A laminated sheet with 4 colors matching meant to place foam squares of the same color on.

Supplies I used to revamp.....Whole project literally took 10 min.

She played with original while I added to it.

I drew shapes on a piece of paper that the kids can fill with foam squares.

I laminated of coarse.

I thought the concept would be too difficult for her however she put a shape on the color and proceeded to fill the shape with only that color.....Love watching their brains work all by themselves.

Excited to see if this makes this box more interesting to the older kiddos!

Is your house set up for play???

For the longest time I couldn't understand why "play" wasn't happening in my house.....we had AWESOME toys....all a kid could dream about.....However all my kids did was dump, smash, and bang them.....UNTIL I came across the term "play invitation". This term changed our life. I realized that my kids needed to LEARN how to play. They had been spoiled since birth from our amazing family and over stimulated by the amount of toys and honestly didn't really know what to do with any of them! SO, what is a play invitation? It's a station or set up that invites them to do an activity. I don't show them what to do or tell them how to play but allow their imaginations to take over. We removed all toys from our living space and I only have 3 stations set up at any given time. A reading area.....currently set up with Christmas and winter books. Our felt board is set up with a choice of snow man or Christmas tree. Today I also set up a vet station. Complete with a dr kit and a choice of stuffed animals. And our activity center with sensory activities and busy boxes is always available. With a limited amount of choices they no longer make a complete disaster and they actually PLAY with our toys instead of destroy them. They rarely ask for TV now because the stations change on a regular daily or weekly basis depending on how big of a hit it was. Sometimes the Play invitation is a sensory activity and other times it is a imagination based station. This has worked wonders and has also made clean up SOOOOOOO much easier for all..... These are the stations we had today.....

This is our activity center.....always open and ALWAYS a yes zone. The only exception is messier items are not allowed within an hour of meals.

This is our reading area set up under the Christmas tree....All these books are Christmas or winter realted and there is a basket of elf, Santa, and reindeer hats incase they choose to dress the part.

 

This is the home made felt board. Inside the container is the felt pieces.

Sorry this photo is sideways but this was the vet station mid play.

 

 

So if your frustrated with toy pick up and a jumbled mess at the end of the day give these invitations some thought and see what happens :)