Learning is Fun! Puzzles

I know, I know, the only thing I'm consistent in is being inconsistent!! I'm trying :-P

Puzzles are awesome for kids. Did you know that? They have to think (that certainly never hurts), they have to match, they have to use their fingers to work the pieces in correctly. I'm no teacher and I'm no doctor, but I am a mom and I can tell you that puzzles are a very good thing to work on with your children. There are all sorts of puzzles! Colors, numbers, animals, shapes, body parts, etc. Autumn is 23 months old and she is getting really good at (peg, not jigsaw) puzzles. I can't remember when we first started working on them, but I know that she wasn't very good in the beginning. I try to bust out our puzzles once a week and we always have two just out in the family room if she wants to do them. I know that not all kids love puzzles, but if your child is willing to sit down and work a puzzle, encourage that! I think they are awesome. Here's a pic of my precious girl doing a magnet puzzle and some other ones as well.

Learning is Fun! Hand Tree & Stringing Beads

Yes, I missed a food post.  I cooked some yummies, but I didn't take pictures and I just think a recipe post without a picture is not so helpful (like that sentence structure?).  So, check back next week.  


Moving on, here is something easy and fun to do with your toddler:  

It's a hand print tree!  Isn't it so cute?  Just trace hand/arm on brown paper, glue onto a different color sheet of paper and glue your leaves (cut out from yet another piece of paper) onto the fingers.  We used a glue stick and practiced taking turns gluing and placing leaves.  If I let Autumn have her way, she would spread glue on everything all day long...including her lips :)  This craft idea came from Green Kid Crafts.  You pay for a 3, 6, or 9 month (I think) subscription and they send you 3 age specific craft packs a month made from "non-toxic, natural, and sustainable supplies".  Pretty sweet deal.  So far, we have had fun with them.  This particular craft is cool because you can do whatever colors you want and it's a nice substitute if you don't have the time and/or energy and/or patience to do a paint hand print tree.  Ours is pretty plain, but you could do fall or spring colors.  A grandma or aunt would love it!

Something she's not quite ready for is stringing beads.  Her little fingers are deft, but not quite that deft :)  I strung her a bracelet and about 3 seconds later it was broken and beads spilled everywhere.  Le Sigh, mama's too ambitious sometimes...

*On another note, if your 22-month-old can string beads, be proud.  Be very proud :)

Learning is Fun! Craft Stick Bugs & Painting a pillowcase

I still haven't come up with anything cute to call our activities.  I was thinking of Flops & _____?? Finds?  Friends?  I don't really like either one of those.  I'll keep trying to think!  


So, one thing we did that was awesome and fun was we made Craft Stick Bugs.  You just take a craft stick and have your child color it (we used markers).  Then you wrap pipe cleaners around it for the legs and glue on googly (googley?) eyes.  Ta-da! You have just made a bug.  Here's a pic of our bugs: 

She's wearing antennae and therefore we called her "Autumn Bug" for the rest of the day which she, of course, loved :)  If I did this activity again, I would also glue on antennae to the bugs. 

For our activity flop, I tried to mix food coloring and water in a spray bottle & then spray a white pillowcase.  The food coloring did dye the water, but it was barely noticeable once we sprayed it on the pillowcase.  I get I need to figure out another way to put paint in a sprayable format (Maybe tempera paint mixed with water??).  So instead we just carefully dripped the food coloring onto the pillowcase.  We still had fun so it's not exactly a flop, but still.

Now, go have some fun with your child!!

Learning is Fun! Lion Mask & Shadow Seeking

It's 5:15pm and both of my kids are sleeping...what's going on?!?! 


One activity that me & Autumn did this past week that was a lot of fun was we made a lion mask.  These are so easy and so fun!  Just go to Google & type in "Lion Mask Template" (or any animal for that matter) & you will get plenty of options.  Some websites have the option to print them in color if you want to work on cutting or gluing.  Since Autumn is on the younger side of doing those activities (22 months) we printed out a plain mask & let her color in her lion with colored pencils (I try to let her use different art mediums...you could obviously use markers or crayons or paint or anything you wanted).  Before she colored in her mask, I glued it on cardboard (an old diaper box) & cut around the outline and also some eye holes.  After it's colored you just cut some slits and tie elastic to it and voila! You have your very own little lion.  Here a picture of my little lion: 

I wish you could see the video of her "roaring".  It is pee your pants funny, but I am challenged in the phone to computer to Internet department.  I must remember to take cute videos on my Bloggie so that I can actually watch them on my computer!  If we did this again, I would use a more dramatic medium (paint maybe) to see the colors better & use something softer than cardboard to make it stiff because her little nose got a bit red.  I bet a paper plate would work. 

Now, for an activity flop (I really need to come up with something catchy and cute for our successes and failures).  The one that comes to mind right away is the afternoon we spent outside looking for our shadow.  Not so much looking for it as trying to explain to Autumn what a shadow is and where to find it.  It was very obvious to me where my outline was on the grass, but she was not getting it.  At all :)  We'll try again down the road!  Maybe if we watched Peter Pan before we went outside...