Caterpillar & Geometry Cube

So today we headed to Lakeshore Learning for their free Saturday craft. I had a burst of energy so Hazel and I went. I stopped at Starbucks first for my chai. The craft today was a really cute caterpillar. I may use this idea for our butterfly party. It was just a rolled strip of green paper (which they had prepared), a brown piece of construction paper and another strip of green and glue, eyes and decorations. The antennae are just a pipe cleaner poked through the head. Isn't it cute?

While there we did some shopping. As always, we never buy things that are not on sale or clearance. On our way out, however, I found this great cube. As a former math teacher it really intrigued me, so I bought it. Getting it home I realized it would be easy to make one. So I made one as well. I made it from milkshake straws and stretchy string. You need six pieces of string and 12 pieces of straw (I cut them in half).

Step 1 is to string four of the straws and make a square. Tie the string tight (tighter than you think you need to since I went back and tightened mine up). Next using one of the straws on your first square make another square with three additional straws. Now you should have two attached squares. Using a straw from each of those (in other words stick another string through each one) and two more  straws make the third square. Keep making squares using the sides you have until you have the complete cube. The final straw should have two strings running through it (actually all of them will).

Now for some of the neat things you can do. Hazel enjoyed playing with this. She needed some help, but had fun moving it around. The little tag on the one I bought showed each of these being made.

Two-dimensional shapes are square, triangle, rectangle, trapezoid, and hexagon. The three-dimensional shapes are a cube (or square prism), tetrahedron (or triangular pyramid), and a square pyramid. It also showed how to make A, b, c, and d and discussed it as a game. Any letter that can be recognized by others works.

So much fun and so many things you can teach with it. Plus it is relatively easy to make and not too expensive to buy already made. Enjoy!

Tomorrow there will not be a Multicultural Monday since it is the first day of the Virtual Book Club for Kids Link Party. This month's author is Kevin Henkes. Stay tuned this week for lots of fun with this!

Pond, Nature, Teddy Bear Picnic and Museum

We had a very busy day today. We had our Nature Adventures with Picture Books at the Mass Audubon Ipswich River Wildlife Sanctuary this morning. It is hard to believe there is only one more of them this summer. This week's theme was ponds! She read us a book about a walk around a pond and seeing animals and signs of animals. Then she showed us pictures of the animals we may see and off we went. Since it was hot and sunny when we started out, our instructor chose the pond in the Rockery, so we would be in the shade for the most part. Along the way we saw many dragonflies and damselflies. I did not take any pictures of them this week since we had so many last week. There were many steps to make the hill easier to get down and up, however one of the moms had her youngest in a stroller so she required some help getting back up.

We stopped along the way to look at scat (at least that is the official term for it--in house it is poop) and discuss which animals may have left it. She also pointed out a beaver boundary mound. Then we saw the water and the water lilies. We also saw a frog, but my pictures did not come out well of it. We saw a blue heron but we saw it when it was flying away from us.

Then we went over a bridge and our instructor took some water samples for us to explore. The first find was a snail. Then we found a baby dragonfly. It was hard to believe this ugly water bug turns into the beautiful dragonflies we were seeing everywhere.

We also found some baby damselflies. It was hard to believe how different they look from the baby dragonflies when they look so much alike as adults. (To tell the difference, damselflies land with their wings folded and dragonflies land with them open.)

Then we found an even smaller baby damselfly!! This was my find, so I'm proud!

Here are all of our finds or at least the ones we could get to stay in something. Several of the waterbugs took off on us when we put them into the ice cube tray. Apparently the whirliwig bugs or whatever they are have wings.

Then she showed us a rana slyvatica (a wooden frog that you rub with a wooden stick to make frog sounds). The kids all tried it out.

She also showed us models of the stages of a frog's life. The kids got to hold each one.

On the way back up the hill, I went with the kids who were walking to get them to stop every once in awhile to wait for the other adults who were helping with the stroller. At one point we stopped and the kids pointed out an animal down the road. The deer was kind enough to wait until everyone joined us and got a good look at it before running off.

After getting back to the nature center I realized we needed to get going so we could meet Hazel's friend at the Wenham Museum for a Teddy Bear Picnic. We got there late. Hazel went over to our friends while I went in to check in and pay for us. It was a little chaotic and the kids did not stay focused too well. I did get some pictures of Hazel doing the Teddy bear, teddy bear dance.

Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear Touch the Ground.

Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear Show Your Shoes.

Then they pretended to be bears with one child the mama bear to lead them in their behavior. Then Hazel wanted to go inside. The museum is on a main street/state highway so it was loud. They had read some books while the kids ate their lunches and had coloring sheets, but it was too large of a group and too spread out to keep them all focused with the noise from the road. So we took our teddy bears and picnic stuff back to the car and went inside to the museum.

I had only been to the museum once before. I know they have some old house as part of the museum with certain times to tour it, but we have not done that part. The rest of the museum is very kid friendly. It has toys, exhibits of life in the U.S. during the 17th-19th century and clothes for them to try on, toys that can be played with and then their are the dollhouses, dolls, and the trains with the buttons you can push to get them all moving. Needless to say the kids had a lot of fun. I did not bring my camera inside thinking a museum doesn't allow pictures to be taken. Our friend however did and sent me some.

Hazel is wearing a dress fashioned after the 19th century and a 17th century style bonnet. Downstairs where the model trains are there is also an interactive room for the kids to play. It includes a large model train engine you can sit in.

First they sold tickets since other kids were on the train.

Then Hazel loved pulling the suitcase around.

Then they got in the train. After this we each went our own way. Hazel was obsessed with a model house they could play in. She put Ducky to sleep in the bed and then took a basket to go to the market or churned butter. It was really cute!!

Overall a wonderful busy day!! We are going to plan a teddy bear picnic for the near future and invite a few friends.

This is where I share...

Owl Graduation Gift

Reminders:

There is still plenty of time to share at Sharing Saturday! Please stop by and check out all the wonderful ideas already shared and share your child-oriented crafts and/or activities. I am also collecting ideas for teacher gift ideas. Please stop by the link party to share any and all that you have!

Special Announcement: 

I'm so excited to be a part of this. Fifteen + wonderful bloggers/blogs are getting together to host a Virtual Summer Book Club. Each month an author will be chosen and all you have to do to participate is read one book by the author and do a craft tied to the book. Then come back here the third Monday of the month and link your post about it to our link party. The author for June is Mo Willems. (I know we are having trouble choosing just one book!)

Now back to our normal post...

Today we were suppose to go to a graduation party for the main person who runs the nursery at my church. She and her sister also babysit for us, and often Hazel is one of the only children in the nursery at church so she loves getting the attention of the high school girls. Since we went to the doctor yesterday and found out Hazel does have a bug that is going around and is still contagious we did not get to go to the party. However, we do have a gift for her. While on Pinterest, I saw something that was an owl and it said "Owl miss you." (The pin came from Lisa Storms Blog.)It hit me that we would do something owl related and make a card from Hazel with that on it. I thought of making one of the toilet paper roll owls and filling it with candy hugs and kisses (like this one on Clean & Sensible), but wanted to do something more.

I went looking for a good owl pattern or picture that I could make a pattern from and somehow came to We All Sew and this pattern by Ashley Johnston. Now that said, I found this pattern through another blogger, but for some reason I did not save the link and cannot find it again. She had made a smaller version of Ashley Johnston's pattern. I saved the pattern but it does not have a source on it. If you are the blogger, please let me know! I did add buttons to the inner eyes as well and made the front a pocket. figuring it might be a good place for a college student to hide something she doesn't want anyone else to find.

Next we made a card. I used Printshop and made this. I had Hazel color the front. Here is the card in pdf form in case you would like to use it (I changed the fonts a bit, but it is basically the same). Sorry the front of it is so blurry. You can see it a bit better in the next picture. I also picked up an owl necklace at one of the craft stores for $1 and helped Hazel make it. We punched a hole in the card an attached it.

I will bring it to church tomorrow to give to her since we couldn't go to the party. Today it poured so I was kind of happy to have a stay-at-home day. How was your Saturday?

This is where I link up...

Rapunzel's Tower and other indoor play

The past couple of days Hazel has been complaining that her stomach hurts. The first day I had to run errands before going to work and Steve was working from home so we let her watch television while I was out (and he was working). I think her stomach still hurt in hopes of watching television today. I'm not sure though since she has been sleeping more than usual. Her appetite is not down though, so I'm not too worried. Anyway, we took it easy and stayed home. We missed our last class at Ipswich River Wildlife Sanctuary yesterday which was disappointing, but not really a big deal. We pulled out Hazel's zoo mat that I made her and all the animals we could find for it. We used some of the animals from the Noah's ark that my sister gave her awhile ago. She decided that Joseph and Mary were the people on the ark and they were in charge of feeding the animals. All of the animals that belonged on the ark had to return to the ark each night to sleep. The Rainbow Princess that I needle felted for her was the zookeeper (and is laying down in the middle of the zoo).

Then she has been obsessed with the fairy tale, Rapunzel. I started telling it to her at night since lately she has wanted to hear stories after we read three books. Steve tells her a water-downed version of Cinderalla and Snow White (they are the only ones he remembers). I change it up a bit and have made some up like the Star Princess and the Rainbow Princess. (At some point I will have to share the Rainbow Princess story.) Lately she has been wanting to hear Rapunzel. I also have discovered some wonderful stories on CD told by Jim Weiss. Jim Weiss is an amazing story teller who changes is voice for the different characters and adds songs to the stories. I have gotten a few out of the library and the ones in the picture are her favorite two so far. I am going to purchase a bunch of them, but thought we would check them out first to see which she really likes. She loves to listen to these. Often she will get up in the morning and I will get to sleep another hour after getting her some milk and a snack while she listens to these. For awhile it was Tell Me a Story! all the time because she loves Goldilocks and the Three Bears, but now she often plays Fairytale Favorites to hear Rapunzel. Needless to say I highly recommend them and there are some educational ones for older children as well.

I took Crafts From Your Favorite Fairy Tales by Kathy Ross out of the library. The craft I liked the most was Rapunzel's tower. We tried making it the past few days. I took a wrapping paper tube and cut the top to look like a tower/castle tower and cut a window. Hazel then painted it. We then let the paint dry over night. This morning I cut a circle out of construction paper and drew a face and then Hazel glued on a few pieces of yarn to be her hair. I braided yarn to be the hair that gets let down. Then attached it to the tower with another piece of yarn so that it looped through the tower from the window to the bottom. The second piece of yarn is suppose to be the color of the tower. Since Hazel painted it, our tower is multicolor and mostly just the cardboard tube since she got board. Then we glued the head at the bottom of the window. Now the hair is adjustable to be let down or brought up.

Hazel had the best time reenacting the story. We pulled out a witch bendy doll I made her last Halloween. She changed the story...

Apparently the witch has some magic to survive the fall from the tower and to climb back up after falling! Oh, I love the imagination of my little one!

This is where I link up...

Outside Play & A Couple Princess Crafts

At last week's Sharing Saturday, I featured 2 Big, 2 Little's Playing with Water. I knew we had to try it and we did. Both Saturday and Sunday. Hazel loved it!! She has a water and sand table, but we found she always put the sand in the water so we made it a sand only table. We took some of the water toys from there and some from her bath for this though. We also used our colored water spray bottles that we used for snow painting this winter.

She insisted on bringing out her chair so she could sit while playing.

She had some of her kitchen toys out from her sandbox as well. She was whisking the color into the water.

Then when she got a color she didn't like anymore, she dumped the water and refilled it.

You know she enjoyed it since we had to do it again today when we played outside.

This time she got her wind-up duck working and checked to see what would float. I told her the duck wanted the water to be orange so she made him orange water.

We also had to make her a house on her swingset. The house we built at school this morning was taken down by the other kids as soon as she switched to another toy and she got really upset so I promised her we would make one outside today. I sewed the edges of these and bought large clothespins. You can see more here. We have also added her pillow pet and a blanket so she has a place to rest in her house.

She also could not wait to try out her new red chair. We had bought her one ages ago and last summer it broke, so she has been asking for a new one. We found one at Christmas Tree Shop and bought it. This is the first time I let her bring it out and opened it up for her. She was very excited about the drink holder even if her sippy cup didn't fit in it.

I know I shared this book before, The Paper Princess by Elisa Kleven. It is a cute story about the adventures of a paper princess a girl draws and cuts out and then the wind blows away. The princess wants to get back to her girl and this is the adventure of getting back home. Well since Hazel is still in the scribble stage of drawing, we found these people cut-outs and bought the girl ones at AC Moore for $1. We used watercolors on them. I tried to make the dress like the forest and the tights like the night sky and the feet like watermelons, but the colors ran. I still think they came out lovely though.

My Princess

Hazel's Princess

The other night I also needle felted Hazel a new princess. I used pipe cleaners in this one for stability. She loves her.

 This is where I link up...

Multicultural Monday #3--A Perfect Prize and Some Resources

So this week as I was trying to think what I wanted to share with you for Multicultural Monday, I got a very nice package in the mail. Around Earth Day, I entered the contests on Natural Kids Team. Well, I won one of their amazing giveaways (again). This time it was from The Enchanted Cupboard. It ties in perfectly with The Colors of Us project that we did last week! So I wanted to share it with you. It is called Dolls of the World and Earth Box. And I have to say that Hazel loves it and couldn't wait to start playing with it.

Some Felt and Felting Projects

Happy Mother's Day!! 

 

I found this wool felt bowl on clearance at Michaels awhile ago. I actually bought two--one brown and one blue. I thought the brown one would make a neat bird's nest. I finally got around to making Hazel some birds for it. I needle felted her a light blue one following the directions in Beginner's Guide to Needle Felting by Susanna Wallis. I haven't added the legs yet which they used metal and I wasn't sure I wanted to. Then I tried to copy one with wings out. He has a white stomach, but I didn't get good pictures of it. This bowl is one I picked up the other day and am thinking I will make some more birds and give it as a gift to Hazel's teacher for the end of the year.

I'm not sure why we were using plastic balls in there, but I figured they made good eggs until I get something to be the eggs.

We also found these wool felt purses and wool felt flowers on clearance. I sewed the flowers onto the purses. Hazel wants the blue one, but I figured the purple can be for a friend when we get invited somewhere and need a small gift.

Then you may remember a couple of weeks ago I featured a Felt Rainbow Sorting Game from One Perfect Day at Sharing Saturday. Well I cut one out for Hazel. I used the Eco felt since I didn't have all the colors in the wool felt.

I wish I had more time to make all the wonderful ideas I see at Sharing Saturday and on Pineterest and everywhere. Don't you?

This is where I link up...

The Star Princess

Lately Hazel has been afraid to sleep alone and is afraid of the dark. At bed time she likes me to read her three books (well I chose three as the number) then I sing her a song and tell her one story--sometimes one I made up or sometimes a shortened version of a fairy tale with much of the scary stuff softened up for her. The other night when she seemed really afraid, I made up this story and sewed her a doll as the Star Princess.

The Star Princess

 by Carrie @ http://craftymomsshare.blogspot.com/

Once upon a time there was a little Rosebud Fairy who was a bit afraid of the dark. She knew when darkness fell the adult fairies did their magic, so she was home alone at night. What she really feared is being alone in the dark. The other young fairies made fun of her for her fear. They could not understand how any fairy could possibly be afraid of the dark when it is the magical time for fairies.

One day she told her mother about her fear.  The Rose Fairy, her mother, knew exactly how to help her daughter. She told her about the Star Princess. 

The Star Princess lives in the night sky. Her job is to shine light on the earth so little ones (girls, boys or fairies) are not afraid to be alone during the night. When her light is shining on earth the little ones are not alone. She watches over all of them while they sleep and are alone.  Every night she always shines her light on earth so little ones are never alone.

After hearing the story the Rosebud Fairy asked her mother if she could meet the Star Princess. Being a fairy, the Rose Fairy arranged for them to meet at a party the next week. It would be the first party the little Rosebud Fairy would attend. 

At the party the little Rosebud Fairy wore her best rose petals. She was so excited for the party and even more excited that she would meet the Star Princess. When she arrived at the party she knew right away who the Star Princess was. There was a beautiful creature with silver sparkling hair dressed in golden color--star shaped, of course, with one of the arms of the star being her hat. And the light from her lit the whole room. She just simply glowed for there is no better way to describe it.

Little Rosebud Fairy asked her mother to take her over to meet the Star Princess right away. Her mother obliged. The Star Princess was one of the nicest people the little Rosebud Fairy had ever met. After spending the evening with the princess, the Rosebud Fairy knew she would never need to fear the dark or being alone again. Any time she feels alone she remembers that the Star Princess is always watching over all the little ones who are alone in the night and feels so much better to know her friend is there.

Click here for a pdf version with nice background 

jpeg version--feel free to download

Of course I couldn't find Hazel's pink rosebud fairy to make the story scene complete. Every other fairy was around except the rosebud. Oh, well. Enjoy!!

Happy Family Times is still open this week for your family time ideas and come back tomorrow night for Sharing Saturday, but feel free to go visit some of last week's incredible ideas!!

This is where I link up...