Sharing Saturday #31

Wow, last week was another amazing week full of creativity!! If you have not checked them all out, please visit them and leave some comments!! I am very inspired. Once again I had trouble choosing my favorites. Here is what I decided to do this week!

We had several that used LEGOs or DUPLOs so I thought I would feature them. I know we are just getting into LEGOs here and love different activities with them.

1) From A Happy Song: Animal Mixed Up Puzzles
2) From Mummy...Mummy...Mum!: 10 Fun Things to Do with DUPLO (pictured is painting with DUPLO)
3) From ourfeminist{play}school: DIY iPad Activities
4) From Little Wonders' Days: LEGO Rescue!
5) From Making Boys Men: Marble Maze (+a Bible Lesson)

And of course we need:

1) From Happy Whimsical Hearts: Melted Bead Bowl
2) From Ginx Craft: Plaiting and Braiding
3) From Repeat Crafter Me: This Little Piggy Sock
4) From Life on the Gravelly Road: Homemade Sidewalk Chalk Paint

Thank you to everyone who shared last week!! I hope you will join us and share again!! If you are featured here, please feel free to grab a featured button to display proudly on your blog.

Button Code:

<a href="http://craftymomsshare.blogspot.com/" target="_blank"><img alt="Photobucket" border="0" src="http://i1101.photobucket.com/albums/g424/cpericola/SharingSaturdayoption2-002.jpg" /></a>

From Your Host:   Butterfly Crafts and Books

  Now for This Week's Party  
A Few Simple Guidelines:
1)  Please follow both hosts via GFC (or one of the other ways that work for you).  

Hosts are Crafty Moms Share and Mama Mia's Heart2Heart. A reminder: Mia is taking a blogging break. Hopefully she will be back soon to host again!!

2)  Link any kid-friendly, child-centered post. Please no etsy shops or giveaways, etc.  Remember to link to your actual post.

3) Post the button on your sidebar or somewhere on your blog to help spread the word.

Button Code:

<a href="http://craftymomsshare.blogspot.com/" target="_blank"><img alt="Photobucket" border="0" src="http://i1101.photobucket.com/albums/g424/cpericola/SharingSaturdayoption2-001.jpg" /></a>

4. Optional: Like us on Facebook and Google+
Disclaimer: By sharing here, you are giving Crafty Moms Share and Mama Mia's Heart2Heart permission to use your photos for features and to pin your craft at Pinterest. 

All right everyone...This is a PARTY!! Have Fun!!

Butterflies

Butterflies are another sign of summer to me. Hazel and I have been seeing quite a few and learning about them as well. Between our adventures at Mass Audubon (in and out of scheduled programs) and just in our yard, we have been seeing them everywhere! This summer Hazel has learned to recognize a monarch butterfly and has learned to say monarch. Oh, and I saw the Butterfly Lifecycle pieces at Michaels as well as the frog one we looked at with our program! We have also found a few books to help us learn about them.

The first is The Butterfly by Anna Milbourne and Cathy Shimmen. We bought this one at the zoo. It goes through the life of a butterfly from caterpillar to butterfly's eggs hatching. The pictures are nice and colorful.

The second is What's the Difference Between a Butterfly and a Moth? by Robin Koontz. I saw this book on Relentlessly Fun, Deceptively Educational awhile ago and looked for it at the library. I have always wondered how you could tell the difference.

The third is A Butterfly Is Patient by Dianna Hutts Aston and Sylvia Long. This book goes into great detail about what characteristics a butterfly must have for its life cycle as well well labeled illustrations of the different species at all stages.

The fourth is my favorite. It is See How They Grow Butterfly photographed by Kim Taylor. This book starts with a photograph of an egg and its mother and takes you through every stage from hatching to pictures with exactly how many weeks it is old. The pictures are amazing!! I definitely recommend this one if you want to learn/teach more about the life cycle.

Today we did some butterfly crafts. First we borrowed an idea from One Artsy Mama and made beaded butterflies by putting beads on pipe cleaners. (I should add that she posted this the other day which is why I say she inspired it. Looking at my pins I see I had a similar one pinned and the original source is indietutes.) Now I did this from memory this morning and thought about using clothespins, but we didn't. We did it with pipe cleaners and beads. This probably made it easier, but not as great for use.

Next we took the idea from  Creative Play For Your Toddler: Steiner Waldorf Expertise and Toy Projects for 2-4s by Christopher Clouder and Janni Nicol. We used three squares of tissue paper and a pipe cleaner. We added on a wooden bead for the head. The book suggested making a mobile. We have not done that yet, but Hazel is enjoying playing with them.

Some of the other crafts I have done from this book can be found here and here.

We also did a similar one using tulle and a pipe cleaner.

The last thing I would like to share is a gift Hazel picked out for me awhile ago at Drumlin Farm Gift Shop.  (My birthday was this week, so I got to open them this week.)

We will be doing more butterfly crafts as well as dragonflies! Stay tuned!

This is where I share...

Book Clubs

Seeing how today is August 1st, I just wanted to remind you that the Virtual Book Club for Kids' August author is Kevin Henkes (one of our favorites!!). The blog hop/link party will open on August 20th!! Here are a few of his books that we own or have out of the library currently!

My sister sent Hazel Sheila Rae, The Brave for Easter, and Hazel recognized it from the back even though we had only taken out a hard cover (and her copy is paperback) from the library once. Yes, we love his books that much. The two without titles on them, no longer have their paper covers, they are The Little White Rabbit and My Garden. We had to buy The Little White Rabbit for Hazel because she wanted it read to her every night and she threw a tantrum when we talked about returning it to the library. It was our first introduction to Kevin Henkes. I hope you will join us for the blog hop/link party on the 20th!

Also July's link party is still open so if you have any activities/posts on Audrey and Don Wood books, please share them here.

Also we have finished our local library's summer reading program or at least have read enough to get the final prizes and certificate--we can still read more and vote for which animal to buy for Heifer.