Fun with Dinosaurs {Dinosaur Fossil Pasta Pictures}

I quite like a theme. Okay. That's an understatement. :) It's been awhile since we've had a theme over here.

It's also three weeks Winter holidays. Whoohoo! Great time for a theme or two.

Dinosaurs. I've wanted to have some dinosaur fun for f.o.r.e.v.e.r.

I don't have dinosaur boys just btw. I have boys who love lego and vehicles and characters, but dinosaurs - no biggie. However I figured, that if I present them with the activities, they'll bite. So we made these. So easy and Little One loved it. In fact he said: "This is the best day." :) That made me happy.

I found some fossil pictures over at this cool site and used them to help me draw/glue dinosaur outlines that actually looked like dinosaurs. I glued the outline and all over, in between, so that Little One could simply fill in all the bones/pasta. As simple as that... Dinosaur Fossil Pasta Pictures.

I have challenged myself to read at least three books a day to Little One, every day of the holidays. This week we have read all our dinosaur books, to get him in a real dinosaur mood. 

Some of the books we have read are:

If the Dinosaurs came back - Bernard Most

How do Dinosaurs Get Well Soon?  - Jane Yolen

Dinosaur Dig! - Penny Dale 

Do you have any favourite dinosaur books?

More dinosaur fun coming up. :)

PS. Big One called his a "Noodlesaurus". :) And, we are sharing this at The Weekly Kids Co-Op.

How to make an Aircraft Carrier

 

Inspired by a picture in Little One's all time favourite book, I thought it couldn't be too hard to make an Aircraft Carrier and I knew Little One would love the idea! This little man is C.R.A.Z.Y about all forms of military transportation.

I grabbed a big cardboard box (and cut off the lid), a big juice box and some smaller boxes we've been collecting. Using the book mentioned (My Big Book of Cars, Ships and Planes) as a guideline, I cut out the top of the aircraft carrier, after marking the lines in pencil.

That little hand you see in the picture was just there to help my camera focus on my blank cardboard canvas. :) If I had a bigger piece of cardboard available, I would have cut the Carrier a bit longer in shape. 

Then we got to decorating the top of the Ship, using a black marker, some white masking  tape (painter's tape) and a yellow highlighter.

Jerry Palotta's, The Boat Alphabet Book, is another one of Little One's favourites and this inspired our tower buildings.

I used my glue gun to glue it all together. Only thing to be aware of before you glue it, is that the top piece of board must be balanced correctly on top of the juice box, as the tower buildings make it heavier on one side.

And there you have it. Have fun!

S is for The Very Busy Spider

When I planned these "S" activities, I completely forgot about this post in my archives. Do go have a look if you want some more spider ideas. :)

Do you know the book The Very Busy Spider by Eric Carle? It's a great book with lovely illustrations.  In the hard cover version, the spider web is raised, so it's fun to feel how it gets bigger and bigger in the story. It's a very simple story line, so it's an ideal book for a young child. 

I've seen so many lollipop spiders on the internet and this inspired our very busy spider lollipop . For the head you need one green pipe cleaner. For the legs cut two orange pipe cleaners in half. Simply wrap the pipe cleaners around the lollipop stick to make the spider.  The eyes and mouth were cut out from felt and glued on.

Our very busy spider also got her own real life web. Little one punched some holes in a paper plate and was then supposed to thread the string through the holes to make the web. I was told, however,  quite emphatically, that he doesn't like threading, so I did end up doing it myself. If you can get your little one to do the threading, it's really a great fine motor activity. 

We also found some Very Busy Spider activities at Making Learning Fun.

I thought it would be fun to build a "S'" with little spiders. The "S" we used was printed from Confessions of a Homeschooler. If you go to this link and look for a-z lowercase worksheets, you will find all the letters of the alphabet ready to print. Thank you Heather!

Our last bit of spider fun was a small spider building station (Idea via Fantastic Fun and Learning). To make the play dough, I used my favourite recipe - no stove required! Here it is:

1 cup flour
2 Tbs cream of tarter
1 Tbs vegetable oil
1/2 cup of granulated salt

Add some essence for a nice aroma (orange, almond, peppermint)

Mix all the ingredients in a bowl and then add a cup of boiling water. Stir until combined and turn it out onto a floured board and knead until smooth. Colour can be added to the boiling water or at the kneading stage. Just a tip - wear gloves when kneading - the food colouring does stain your skin and it isn't very easy to clean off. Store your dough in an airtight container. 

To make black play dough, I combined blue, green and red food colouring. I kept adding and mixing it until I was happy with the colour. 

Here are some more fun Spider crafts on the blog:

Bottle Top Crafts

Spider Party

Till next time, have fun.

PS. Linking to The Weekly Kids Co-Op, For the Kids Fridays @ Sun Scholars and Kids Activities Blog.

Cowboy Fun {Part 1}

Earlier this year, Little One was into cowboys, so I created some fun activities around the theme. Here are some of the things we got up to. 

Cowboy paper doll via MakingFriends.com.

 

Cowboy memory match game via Homeschool Creations.

A sequencing game. Spot the sequence and then continue it. 

A memory game. Show the items for 15/20 seconds, then cover. What can he remember?

Another fun idea with these little plastic toys is to hide duplicates around the room and send the kiddos to find them. This is a fun way to teach new words like wigwam/cactus/camp fire etc. 

And we made a WANTED poster-  although little one doesn't like being a baddie :)

Books we read:

Cowboy Small - Lois Lenski

The Big Golden Book of the Wild West - Gene Biggs

The Lone Ranger (Little Golden Book) - Steffi Fletcher 

B is for Buckaroo: A Cowboy Alphabet - Louise Doak Whitney

(This last one we haven't read ourselves, but it comes highly recommended.)

Part 2, coming soon.

Air Show

A nice way to spend an afternoon is to have your own "Air Show".  The boys (well Big One really) made a whole fleet of aeroplanes and they put on an Air Show for me and the Dad. We then had to rate each plane, based on design, flight etc. The winner was surprisingly this strange round-shaped plane...

Want to see a real Air Show? Last year August we took a visit to the Stellenbosch Flying Club,  where we watched small aeroplanes taking off and landing in the most beautiful setting. With snow-capped mountains in the far distance, we listened to air traffic control and had a yummy meal while doing it. It was  a super way to spend an afternoon.

 

Then more recently we took our US cousins to the airport (Cape Town International) and we spent the morning watching the aeroplanes arrive and depart - exciting stuff! I can highly recommend both of these outings if you have some aeroplane fans in your home.

Cool dude Little One watching an aeroplane being refueled.

Till next time...

Hermie, a common caterpillar by Max Lucado

I review for Booksneeze - have you heard of them? They offer books to bloggers for free and in return they ask that you review the book for them. Today I'm sharing the story of Hermie, a common caterpillar.

I must say that after reading my very first (and absolutely wonderful) Max Lucado book last year, I was really thrilled to hear that he is also the author of many children's books. So I jumped at the chance to read this one and also to share it with my boys.

The story is about Hermie, and Wormie his best friend,  who meet a number of other insect friends during the course of their day. All of these friends however, have some very special and attractive qualities and as a result these two rather ordinary caterpillars feel quite inadequate in comparison. Hermie and Wormie decide to take their feelings to God, who constantly assures them that he is not done with them yet and that patience is required. Now I don't know about you, but I think that comparing ourselves to others certainly robs us of our joy and this story shares this idea very nicely. There is a lovely (albeit predictable) and inspiring ending and the overriding message that we are all unique and that God has a special plan for each of us is delivered beautifully. I also love the fact that the caterpillars talk to God about their concerns - I think that's a great message for children to hear too.

This book was unfortunately only available as an e-book and I would certainly not recommend this version. Big One (aged 9 at the time) and I read it together and were very puzzled by the lay-out. The images do not always match the text on the page and as a result the book doesn't flow easily and we both found the story to be confusing. I was lucky enough to recently find a soft copy of the book at the library, so I did a little comparison. This copy was far easier to read, in that the illustrations are complimentary to the text, and the illustrations were nicer.  All in all a huge improvement from the e-book version. 

I would definitely keep this one on my bookshelf as a regular read to my children, as I think the message it delivers is fantastic.

Thank you Booksneeze for the opportunity to review Hermie!

PS. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed here are my own.

Silly Valentines

Oh I can be silly - it's one of those things I like about myself - I think my children like it too. 

So I had great fun and giggles thinking up silly Valentines. The kiddos joined me. Big One with his own ideas (as always) and Little One enjoyed punching out little hearts... everywhere... he loves my punches.

Big One's... 

My Inspiration:  

My Heart Is Like a Zoo

A delightful book by Michael Hall - twenty animals all made from heart shapes. And the best part, twenty different emotions and behaviours for you to chat about with your child. It's a super book that can easily be used in play therapy too. Do click on the link above and grab the kids for a super little trailer of the book. Really cute.

Heart Zoo (from Katherine Marie's Happy Hearts Theme of the Week)

My dear friend Katherine inspires me so and makes me look at every piece of pretty or interesting paper in a new fun visually creative light. If you do go visit over there, I know I've probably lost you for now, but that's okay - I won't blame you. :)

Happy Valentine's day!

Mom's Big Book of Things to Make

Author and creator, Melanie Bosman, kindly sent me a copy of her book Mom's Big Book of Things to Make to check out. I'm such a fan of books like these...books with art and crafts that inspire you to get creative with your kiddo's. The book offers over fifty fairly easy projects with clear photographs and good instructions.

I decided to try the coffee filter project with the children and both enjoyed the process of colouring the filters (with cokies) and then spraying them with water. The effects achieved were very pretty  and in the spirit of Christmas I decided to cut them out and make some trees.

To order a copy of the book or to see other titles, you can visit the website here.

Thank you again Melanie!

PS. Sharing at 
Show and Tell @ ABC and 123

Christmas {Bits and Bobs}

   

Oh dear me, it's the seventh and this is my first post of the month. The computer has been calling and if I could, I would create and write and share everyday. I absolutely love this (unpaid) job. But, I don't know what it's like where you are in the world, but over here it's not only the festive season...it's also the end of our school year. It's a busy busy time. I have lots to share though, so I'll get cracking!

First up, if you haven't yet visited the Portable North Pole and organized a personal message from Santa to your little ones, do hurry. You will not be disappointed, I promise. You have to share some details, like your child's name and age and answer some questions to make the video message more personal, but it's really worth it. This particular Santa is the best I've seen and his voice is wonderful! I would love to meet him :).

Since we are on the Santa subject - Do you believe in Santa?  Amanda over at NotJustCute shares a lovely post about her view and how she will share Santa's generous spirit with her boys. A nice read - do pop over.

Another nice find are these printable Christmas jokes over at Nurturestore. Big One loves telling jokes, so I printed these out and put them on the fridge. These would also be fun to add to homemade crackers, an advent calender or simply to be told at the Christmas table.

One of my favourite blogs, simple as that, shares a wonderful post of Christmas inspiration, including a Holiday photo checklist (great idea), free Christmas tags and word art (just beautiful), and a printable Christmas memory match game (mmm, I have some ideas for this one).

For lots more Christmas inspiration, pop on over to my Christmas Fun page on Pinterest. I have pinned lots of fantastic ideas...so many I want to do...how many days till Christmas?

And last, but not least, the top image is of a much-loved Santa book for little ones. Santa's Suit is all about Santa who decides that his red suit is, well, unsuitable. But after trying out many different colours, Mrs Santa suggests that his red suit is the most suitable. I'm really not surprised that it was Mrs. Santa's suggestion ;). This rhyming book has the most delightful illustrations, teaches colours and has touch-and-feel elements on every page. I can recommend it!

Have you found any amazing Christmassy articles, ideas or freebies? I'd love to know. 

Till next time...

Truth in the Tinsel

I am so excited to share this awesome e-book just released by Amanda at impress your kids. I love the idea of celebrating Advent, the four weeks (Sundays) leading up to Christmas. This year I really want to impress the true meaning of Christmas on my children, as I feel it is so easily lost in the commercialism and busyness of the season. Celebrating Advent provides a special opportunity to stop and focus on the importance of this time of year. 

In this book you have a daily plan...a Bible reading, a craft activity and a few extra ideas...all prepared for you to simply put into action. The whole idea is very much up my alley , but yes, I realize that many of my readers may not be as crafty as me :). What I can say, is that all the activities are so easy to duplicate and one really doesn't have to do a craft everyday...in fact, that would pretty much be impossible in my book.

I have a copy and I'm all set to start on December the first. Hop on over to the Truth in the Tinsel (the website) to read more and to buy it at the wonderful price of only $4.99 (That's less that R40 for my South African readers).

Till next time...

Fingerprint Fun

                                                                                  

 I remember seeing an Ed Emberley Fingerprint Drawing Book a number of years ago and it immediately piqued my interest. I looked high and low for these locally, but couldn't find any in stores or at the library. So I was very excited to find out that Ed has a terrific website and that I could easily order his books (at great prices too) online.

In the spirit of our Doctor Doctor fun and checking out the human skeleton, I was tickled to find a cute fingerprint tutorial of  
Mr. Boney Parts on the website.

Big One's version...

Using the super Melissa and Doug Ink Pad, Big one and I spent some time creating fingerprint art. I won't tell you who made what, but I will say this -  my creations are definitely "cute", whereas Big One's are "cool".

 

Could you tell who made who?..I'm sure you could :)
 

Doctor's Kit

When your little one is particularly interested in a certain activity, book or even TV character, it's a great opportunity to extend that interest and add some other fun and learning activities. So while my Little One was focused on playing "Doctor Doctor", I had the chance to squeeze some learning in there too.

Without a doubt, playing this game is a great opportunity to teach and reinforce body parts (remember to include the not so common parts - ankles, soles of feet, wrists, forehead, etc.). It's also a chance to talk about being a Doctor and what they do, as well as different types of medical professionals (Paediatricians, Dentists, Nurses, Veterinarians - it's up to you how far you stretch this and of course how long you can maintain their interest). And, it's a great chance to talk about all those Doctor's tools in their medical kit!

Does your little Doctor own a medical kit? These are readily available in most toy stores, but some real-life additions to their kit is sure to be a big hit...some"ouch" powder, real syringes, a plastic scissors, old x-rays, a Nebulizer mask and tubing, real plasters (band-aids) and bandages, a small notepad and pencil for writing scripts...all add to the fun.

I added a variety of plastic containers to our kit and then filled them with some matching coloured smarties. Little One was motivated to open them all because of the sweeties inside, but opening them required some problem solving. One lid had to be pushed off/popped up, another unscrewed, another flipped open and so on. Of course this all required some good fine motor work, so little fingers get a work-out too. (PS. I have to add this little note...I only played this once with Little One, as I didn't want him to think that real medicine containers contain sweeties. Please always keep medicine containers far-far out of reach from innovative little people, who know how to pull chairs to counters and climb up to reach things!)

A super addition to some "Doctor Doctor" fun is a terrific little book - a golden book called Doctor Dan by Helen Gaspard. This has been one of Little One's favourites for a long time :).

PS. Linking this to:
For the Kids Friday @ Sun Scholars

The Play Academy @ NurtureStore
Show and Tell @ ABC and 123

Let's Play "Doctor Doctor"

"For children to 'play out' their experiences and feelings is the most natural, dynamic and self-healing process in which children can engage." Garry Landreth

Little One has spent a fair amount of time around hospitals and Doctors in the past few months, having undergone two operations in the short space of three months. He has had blood drawn, injections, hep-locks in his hand - there have been a lot of needles involved!

After our first hospital stay, the impact of these events on his play was immediately evident. Suddenly he was playing "Doctor Doctor" every chance he got and the main story line of each little scenario was needles and injections - he and I swopping the patient/doctor role countless times. 

I share this because it's such a good example of the natural healing and therapeutic value that play has. We as adults can talk about our trauma and in so doing work through feelings like fear, anxiety and powerlessness, but children don't have these words, or ability to express them. These emotional experiences that are important to a child or have significantly impacted on them, will often show up as repeated behaviour in their play (Garry Landreth: Play Therapy. The Art of the Relationship). In play therapy, we refer to these as themes.

 (It's okay little dinosaur. It's all over. - Even a T-rex deserves top class medical care :))

After reading How Do Dinosaurs Get Well Soon? (Jane Yolen and Mark Teague), we added dinosaurs to the game and Little One has enjoyed treating the sick dinosaurs in hospital too. Recently I have noticed a marked decrease in his request for "Mommy, you're sick and I'm the Doctor". This probably means that he has sorted out some of his feelings about these experiences and is emotionally ready to move on. The healing power of play at work! :)

Stay tuned. Some more doctor-related fun coming up.

Love this Book : Alison Jay's ABC

oooh it's so nice to win something, especially if it's something you would LOVE to win. A few months back Two2Read had a competition to win an alphabet book of your choice...

I entered hoping, hoping...and I won :)!

What fun it was to choose an alphabet book of my choice! I had quite a few on my wishlist already, but winning this gave me a great excuse to go and check out some more and read as many reviews as possible. (Yip, I love reading book reviews). I eventually chose Alison Jay's ABC and must say that I am thrilled with it. This is a delightful book.

The art work is beautiful and the simplicity at first glance, deceiving. Look a little closer and you will see a wonderful story unfold, as each page connects to the others. Little surprises along the way truly bring smiles! I really loved exploring this book and sharing it with my kiddos. (To add to the fun, we read it with a magnifying glass.)

I have now also added Alison Jay's Counting book to that growing wishlist.

Thank you Alida for this lovely prize and for sending it all the way over the seas to South Africa. And here's some great news...Two2Read is having another great competition this month and you can win a Mem Fox book of your choice! Click here to enter.

Good luck and till next time...Happy reading!

(PS. I would love to know what your favourite ABC books are...please share in the comments.)