Homemade Nativity Blocks

I first saw this idea here. There are few things that hold the attention of children more than a plain set of blocks, unless you add the Nativity characters to the blocks.
This opens up a whole new world of Christmas fun....and the kids can't break this Nativity scene. All that you need are blocks, Nativity stickers (I found our sticker books at Michael's Craft store) and Modge Podge....or you could use watered down white glue.

Apply the stickers to the blocks and then liberally paint on a layer of Modge Podge.
This will make the stickers remain in place for a very long time.

Gracie's beautiful angel.

The whole set of block drying....while eager hands wait their turn to play, play, play.

I hope everyone, young and old, is having a very meaningful and prayerful Advent.

Felt Heart Cookies

I found these very cute felt cookies over at Chasing Cheerios and just had to make some for the kids to use in their toy kitchen. They came out sooo cute, and I have the felt cut out and ready to make 4 more during the Superbowl tomorrow. Gracie even helped sew the "sprinkles" on the brown and red cookie. Great job, Grace!

Homemade African Ankle Bells

I have actually decided to try and teach some music this year at our school. We are concentrating on folk music from around the world. I received help from that ladies at the 4Real Forum. They directed me to this amazing site: Putumayo World Music. This site, and our well stocked local library is all I will need for the entire school year.

Our first stop on the globe is Africa. We have been having a wonderful time learning about music from all over this large continent.

I also wanted to add musical instruments to our studies, but everything out there is soooo expensive, so I decided to make some ankle bells for the kids to enjoy from our trip to Africa.

I found a single string of bells online for $20.00, but for $4.00 and one hour of time I made a strand of bells for each of the little learners.

Wal-mart had everything I needed. I bought Christmas jingle bells, fringed edging, and red rick-rack

I strung the bells onto the fringe, folded it over and pinned it.

Then it was quite easy to sew this into place. I moved my needle over to the left to make room for the bells as I sewed.

Lastly, I sewed on the rick-rack. This added color and provided the ties for the bells.

Here is the finished, blurry, product. Children DO NOT stand still while wearing these, as you can see in the video below.

Goin' fishin'-Tot Style

We are going fishing, fishing for letters, shapes and numbers.
First I cut different color fish out of foam sheets, and then inserted a brass brad fastener to make a fish eyeball. This fastener is also what is attracted to the magnet on the fishpole.

For the fishing poles, we used a 7/16"- three foot dowel, cut in half to make two poles. These are very sturdy. Daddy drilled a hole in the end of each "pole" to tie the fishing line on to. I used a circle magnet for the "hook" and embroidery floss for the line. The kids have since broke this line, so I am going to try regular yarn next. Luke enjoys "reeling" his line in. This takes a lot of patience on his part, but he takes his time and succeeds.

Everyone has been having fun with this. Above, Gracie appears to be helping someone catch a fish.

I have added the letters of Luke's and Kim's names to the fish, along with the numbers we are learning (1-3) and some different shapes.
I have all sorts of ideas for other "fish" we could make. Basically anything we are learning about could be made into "fish" to help in learning, such are little felt animals, or we could even make pictures of stories in sequential order that the kids could catch in the proper order. I'm thinking it would be simple to laminate small pictures and just stick a paperclip on them to catch the magnet.
I am sure there will be updates about this activity as I add to it.

Homemade Halloween Bowling

My big girl's needed to supply a game for the annual All-Saints party at church tonight, and I saw a neat idea somewhere about making a bowling game from empty soda bottles.

I didn't make that,

instead I used a bowling set we had (milk bottles and a "mooing" cow ball) and transformed that into bowling fit for Halloween.

First, I just wrapped the original bowling pins in a full sheet of black and "orange" construction paper. (We have used up all our orange paper this halloween season, so we colored some yellow paper orange.)

Ta-dah!

Next was the fun part, I decorated each pin. I made some pumpkins and some ghosts. The ghosts were made with white paper face shapes glued on, and the pumpkins were made with a black sharpie for the face, and a handmade stem.

I bought a bag of artifical gourds and pumkins at Joann's Fabrics for 60% off, so I think the cost was about 2 dollars for 6. We used these for the "bowling ball". This set held up very well. About 20 kids played with them for an hour and they were still in great shape. The artificial gourds became chipped and cracked though. (They are styrofoam inside and a hard layer on the outside.) I thought about using a real gourd but I am afraid that it would end up as mush-so we will be sticking with artificial.

Happy Halloween!!