Calendar introduction

Q got a calendar for Christmas and we started working with it a bit this month. Only as much as interested her and just in small doses. From our past calendar exercises (which never included an ACTUAL calendar--just the names of the months and days) she already knows the months and days of the week. So first I showed her where those were on the calendar. We pointed to the numbers and counted. Then we talked about what days she goes to preschool. We chose a bus icon to print and glue on school days. We drew a cross on days we go to church. We drew birthday cakes on days that are someone's bday. Sometimes we remember to cross off days after they occur. Sometimes we have to do some crossing in spurts. :) I am repeatidly showing her how a calendar works--it is a form of a graphic organizer that also helps understand how to read a simple graph, so it's an important skill. Of course not something a 3 year old should have mastered, but definitely something she is ready to be exposed to. She loves to use the calendar to count how many days until a specific event or to see what day "tomorrow" is.

Stick Snowflakes

This was an easy, fun project from last week.
First we painted popsicle sticks. If you don't have any on hand, use real sticks broken to the same length.
We mixed paint to get the colors of our choosing. I did a greenish blue and Q made purple.

After painting, we sprinkled glitter onto the wet paint. Once they were dried we glued 3 sticks crossing to make snowflakes. You can see Q's--some are a little uneven, but I love that about them! Then Daddy was called in with the drill press to make holes for hanging. You could also just tie the string around the stick.

They look so festive and pretty and wintery in our window above our snowflake garland!!

Don't our wax hearts look pretty?

Details HERE.

Collage Compartments

Here is some College Art I put out today in Q's playroom. She can bring the tray to the table when she wants to do a little art! I put the glue in a baby food jar and she can use a paint brush to apply.

The idea is from the Wonder Years blog. I love that it uses things I have in the house--you can put any objects in your muffin tin. I tried to go by color--two compartments of each color of the rainbow. I used (top to bottom, left to right): cut up red felt scraps, red tissue paper squares, orange Eifel Tower pastas, nutmeg, yellow pom poms, yellow popcorn kernels, green lentils, crushed and dried mint, blue pasta wheels, assorted feathers, white cotton balls, and brown mulling spices.

We made a college together today so I could teach her how to use the objects. I spread glue in a heart and she placed and chose the objects. We made this for her great grandparents, and she insisted in writing "Thank you for going to the doctor" on it. :) Cute.

Looking forward to seeing her creativity when she does some independent collaging this week!

Prayer Journal

Our church is going through a series on prayer right now. We were challenged Sunday to pray more deeply and regularly (and to focus in on all the elements of prayer--not just asking for stuff!) and were given a prayer journal to use throughout the next couple of months. Also, the children were given their own prayer journals, on a more simple level. LOVE these--and we'll be doing it with Quinn for sure! Wanted to share the link in case anyone wanted to download it or just take a look and use your own notebook to make one for your kiddos!

Cracking Peanuts

We have a basket of peanuts in their shells on our kitchen table. Q is really enjoying cracking some to snack on every day. This is GREAT fine motor practice for her, as well as practical life--she knows she has to get a little bowl for the shells, clean up the crumbs, and she is also learning to seperate the shells from the skin and the nut!

Wax shaving Hearts

This is a project we used to do as kids with my dad (except we didn't cut hearts...just plain ole rectangles....). He had an old iron used for waxing skis that he'd get out and I can still smell the warm wax smell in my nose right now as I think about it. Mmmmm. Makes me want to hit the slopes. :) Anyhow....

Quinn and I made some hearts this morning. She really enjoyed it and it was easy and fairly quick!

First we sharpened crayons (wonderful fine motor for older preschoolers!!!). I let her choose two crayons at a time so the colors melted together nicely. To many colors tends to turn black or brown. She tried the sharpener a bit, but it was hard for her to put enough pressure on the crayon while she turned, so I did most of the sharpening. You can also run a crayon over a cheese grater if you don't have a sharpener.

Then I cut hearts out out of wax paper--two of each heart for a top and bottom.

We stacked up about 8 sheets of paper from our scrap box, laid down one wax heart, sprinkled it with the shavings, topped it with the second heart and 2-3 more pieces of paper and ironed it!

We were left with these beauties!! Now to decide where they'll hang!

By the way, after all of this lovliness Q threw a big tantrum about some random thing, so she spent a cool down time in her room and heart-making came to an abrupt halt. :)