Fall Sticky Tree

I found the original idea for this from Teaching Mama and thought it looked like an easy to assemble "art project" I could throw together at the last minute when I needed something to occupy the kids.  To my surprise Bea loved it and played for around 45 minutes with it and then went back to it the next morning and continued to add some of the fall stickers I had set out for them.  Charlie liked it for a few minutes but I think became frustrated when he couldn't reach the top of the tree (my fault) and I think for the next one I'll make them each a tree (or whatever, this has a ton of potential variations).

I drew the tree on contact paper and also set out the fall images and a packet of fall felt leaf stickers that I actually had from last year.

We'll definitely do another fall one, plus maybe a turkey for Thanksgiving, a Christmas tree, etc.  the options are endless!

Heather

Bea's Art Corner

Every once in awhile Bea will do or say something and I'm reminded just how much she pays attention to everything we do and say.  Monday night after dinner she wanted us to come into her playroom and color.  She gave us both pieces of paper and crayons and then sat with us at the table and worked on her own coloring.

After a few minutes, when T and I had stopped coloring she grabbed one of our pictures and said she wanted to hang it up and then took it over to her "kitchen" and put it up on the wall.

I do this with everything she paints (or draws, etc) so of course she wanted to do it with our pictures.

As you can tell, we're quite the artistic group.

Heather

Sugar and Spice

A few months ago I stumbled across a blog through Pinterest called Play At Home Mom.  It's a blog devoted to play based learning and they have a TON of great ideas of things you can do with you kids or that your child can do alone.  I've been slowly assembling a list of all of the projects I want to try out with Bea and I've also been making another list of items to get for her for this type of play.

Today after her nap I decided to try out the first one.  This one was titled Sugar and Spice and basically it was allowing your child to use glue to make pictures with spices.  I chose marjoram, peppercorns, cinnamon sticks, and bay leaves but you could really use anything.

This was the first time Bea had used glue and at first it was a little tricky for her.  Pretty soon she figured it out and then the fun began.  She literally played with this until we ran out of spices, which was about 30 minutes.  I think if I would've had more she would have definitely played longer.  She told me halfway through the project that she was "makin dada picture".  And here it is

As we start exploring other projects I'll make sure and write about each of them.

Heather