Stacking tree

Here is a simple project that we did involving plastic cups.  It did require adult help since I used a glue gun to get the stuff to stick better.  We stacked the cups in tree formation and used pom poms, glitter glue and yarn as decorations.  I glued the cups together with the glue gun.  It was a nice time filler when the girls started to get antsy.

Advent calendar

I just wanted to share our version of the Advent calendar.  I blew up balloons and wrote numbers on each one.  I put a slip of paper inside with various activities for us to do.  Some examples:  write a letter to Santa, go see Santa, Zoo Lights, bake cookies, etc.  I was going to put 2 kisses in each one but I forgot.  Every day we pop the correct balloon and do the activity.  Sophia surprised me by not wanting to pop the balloon with Lila.  Lila is loving the countdown and now actually understands when Christmas will be here.  Between this and our elf, Silly, I might go crazy.   It is a little off center, which truthfully, makes me slightly crazy but not enough to start the balloon tree all over again.  We will see how the balloons look by the end of the month-ha!  Hopefully they last until Christmas!

More water fun

My girls love to play with plastic sea animals-I got a large container from Target for about 10 dollars.  Great deal.  We also have their dinosaurs and jungle animals.  I decided to create another "messy box" to put the sea animals in.  I bought aquarium gravel and put it in a plastic container-the under the bed kind.  They stack and store easily.  I have few others that I will share at a later date.  The girls love this right now.  Lila not only plays hide the animals, she also practices transferring the rocks from one container to another.  I won't lie, the rocks are more than annoying to hear hitting the floor but I have learned to let it go and clean later.  It makes a nice mess.

Oops!  Apparently you are supposed to wash the rocks before using them.  Ok, I will......someday.

Fishing for sight words

I actually made this game for their birthday party but we didn't really get to play it.  Lila asked to play it today.  Very simple and fun game.  Lila played for nearly 45 minutes today.  I made the poles by getting a dowel rod, heavy magnets and string.  I then used fish cut outs, punched a hole by the mouth and inserted a paper clip for the magnet to catch.  The teacher in me saw it as an opportunity to work on sight words so I wrote kindergarten dolch sight words from herehttp://www.kidzone.ws/dolch/kindergarten.htm http://www.kidzone.ws/dolch/kindergarten.htm.  Lila loves to work on reading words.  We play this game different ways.  Sometimes just for the fun of catching the fish.  Today I said a word and she would "catch" it.  She also would just catch any word and read it to me.  Notice that our cat, Oreo, make no effort to get out of the way and actually makes catching the fish harder for the girls. 

Frosty the Snowman

On this day we decided to make snowmen.  If you have children that do not like to get their hands dirty, this project is not for you.  It was a simple project that they were mostly able to do themselves.  Sophia doesn't care much for getting her hands dirty so she was at the sink probably 10 times washing and rewashing her hands.  I gave both girls dixie cups of glue and shaving cream-one cup of glue and 2 cups of shaving cream to be exact.  They dumped and mixed the two things.  They then drew 3 circles for the bodies in the shaving cream mixture.  We used felt that I had to make clothing for the snowmen.  Lila pointed out over and over again that Sophia's wasn't right.  I tried to explain to her that art can look lots of different ways-she wasn't buying it:)

Oh joy

I thought this project would turn out so cute and we would have it to keep for years to come.....  Well, they are cute but you know when you have an idea in your head of how you want something to look?  My kids did not share my same view.  Cute designs and shapes quickly became nothing but solid colors.  I guess I should be grateful that they did not end up being all brown:)  I got cardboard letters from the craft store.  Since they were brown, we first painted them white so that the colors would show up brighter-well that was my vision any way.  After the white dried, we each took a letter and made dots, lines, shapes, etc.  Then the next thing I know they were all covered up and we had solid colored letters:)  I guess next year we can elaborate and recycle this project and maybe do something more with them but for now they look great on our small, side windows. 

See the trouble maker standing on things she shouldn't be?  lol

Santa hats

Here is another project using styrofoam cones.  We decided to make Santa hats.  At first we were going to wrap fabric or ribbon around the hats.  That quickly became super annoying so we ditched that and decided to just paint instead.  Both girls enjoy painting any way!  We painted the cones red.  Once they dried, we glued cotton balls on to finish off the hats.  They turned out cute but the project wasn't nearly as fun as the trees!  Here are some pics.  Sorry,  I know I need to rotate the pictures.....