Fun Busy Activities

My husband was relocated a few months ago and is currently living 8 hours away from us, so we travel to see him about every couple of weeks. Since we spend a lot of time in the car (the trip is 8 hours for my husband to drive, but I have not been able to drive it in less than 9 1/2 hours with the kids- most trips are well over 10 hours). My children are 18 months, 3 1/2 and 5 so they cannot occupy themselves! I hate having them watch hours of movies on the trip so every time we travel I try to put together new busy activities for them (when we are finally moved down with him and do not have to make such frequent trips the activities will be homeschooling busy bags!) Here are our activity bags from our last trip:

All the bags neatly in a large storage bag (they did not look like this after we arrived!)

Two large superheroes from a garage sale

Barrette and hair band matching from My Montessori Journey

Markers, crayons, construction paper and foam stickers

Laminated paper dolls (they have velcro on the back of the clothes and on the front of the dolls), they also have magnets on the back of the dolls to stick to metal cookie sheets.

My little gnome dolls (you can see my post here)
Clip art pictures printed and lamintated with magnets on the back

Homemade lacing cards (you can find the printables here and here)

Pasta lacing on pipe cleaners

Easy reader books for my son

My children really enjoyed these acitivities, but I will admit whenever I bring them a bunch of activities in the car all they want to do is watch television but whenever I only bring a few they want more- I can never win!!

First Week of School

Here is the re-cap of our first week of school:

First I decided to start T, my 18 month old, with boxes of activities every day. His first box was a double stacking toy, a mirror, two books, plastic baby bead toy and plastic Easter eggs with pom poms in them (idea from
Fun & Engaging Activities for Toddlers)

Preschool:

My three year old little princess had four busy activities in her plastic bins every day. My son is learning to read and in order to keep her occupied I gave her activities to complete every day.

Day 1: Coloring and Cutting practice, Fruit Loop "beading" on pipe cleaners, Play Doh on a mat, Practicing her name.



Day 2: Number counting, puzzle, letter A items, spooning flat marbles


Day Three: Scooping colored balls into the matching colored cup, felt cupcake decorating (Unsolicited Advice), measuring flour with measuring spoons (by far this has been the favorite of the week for both of the older children), Leap Frog Magnets

We also learned our letter A this week. Each day we had a new activity for the letter. We glued construction paper apples onto the letter A (I cut our each of them by hand). We also read a book about apples and had an apple as our snack.

The second day we read Anansi and the Moss Covered Rock. We also made fingerprint ants and ants on a log snack.


We made popsicle stick A's and read Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day.


Kindergarden:
We are working on the numbers 7 and 8 in math, and are reviewing some of the basic sounds in reading along with some easy readers. J is also reviewing one letter a day in handwriting.
For Bible we started the story of creation. Our memory verse is Gen. 1:1: In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. I have found the best way that he learns his memory verse is to sing it. Each day we learned about one day of creation. I could not find an activity I really liked for the first day of creation, so I took the kids down to the basement and turned off the lights. We would say "and God said let there be light" and would take turns turning on and off the flashlight. Day Two we created the sky (blue construction paper with cotton ball clouds) and the third day I had them color a picture of what God created on that day.


Our mini unit is healthy eating. For the first day we talked about the food groups and glued pictures of food to the correct part of the food pyramid.
We watched the Reading Rainbow DVD: Gregory the Picky Eater and we sorted play food by food groups.
Overall we had a pretty good week and we were able to do everything we had planned. It did not always go as smoothly as I would have hoped but with three little kids I think we had a successful first week of school!

My Homemade I-Spy Bags

I discovered I-Spy bags almost a year ago. As soon as I saw them I knew my children would love them! I decided to make my three children and my two nephews and niece an I-Spy bag for Christmas. They are wonderful for car rides or doctors appointments to keep a child occupied.

Supplies:
Scraps of material (my bags are 4.5" x 4.5")
Poly Pellets (these can be purchased online or at Michaels)
Clear vinyl (you can purchase this at material stores or Wal-Mart)
Small findings (whatever you find around your house or Hobby Lobby sells a bag of "Grandmas Grab Bag" by Dress It Up in their scrapbooking section)


Cut your material (make sure you fold the material in half so- you will have two 4.5 x 4.5 squares, with one side shared for both squares, so you only have to sew three sides instead of four). Cut out a square piece of material of one of the squares (my window is 3.5" x 2.75"). Cut the vinyl about a quarter inch bigger than each side of the opening. Sew the vinyl into the window. Turn the fabric inside out and sew all the sides together, but leave a small hole so you can turn it to the right side and so you can fill it. Pull the fabric through the hole so it is right side out and then fill your bag with Poly Pellets and the findings (I have 20 findings in each of my bags). Sew the hole together. I am a novice when it comes to sewing (I know enough to be dangerous!). If you don't want to go to the trouble of making your own I-Spy bag, there are a lot of crafters selling them on Etsy!

Fun Easter Egg Tutorial

Mama's Felt Cafe has just released a new felt Easter egg tutorial on her blog. She has instructions on creating two different large Easter eggs out of felt. Click here to be directed to her blog and the instructions. If you are not into creating your own eggs she also sells them on her etsy site.

Fun Felt Crown Craft

Tomorrow is my little girl's birthday party and I just had to share the favors I am giving out. I had a hard time deciding on favors since we have an age range of 13 months to nearly six years old, both boys and girls and I did not want to spend a ton of money. My daughter loves princesses and so we decided to go with a princess theme and I made felt crowns for all of the kids. These were relatively easy and the only supplies you need are felt, ribbons, thread, elastic, small scrap of fabric and a sewing machine.

All I did was make a pattern and use the rotary cutter (you can also use scissors) to cut out two of the crown. I then attached the design to the front crown. Next I attached each side with elastic covered with fabric. I sewed all around the crown to join the front and back and then I was done! I will be making seven crowns (I only currently have two crowns completely finished) and the total cost of the crowns will be under five dollars!

Girl Crown

Boy Crown