Bottle Top Snowmen Creativity

I have an idea in my head when I start a project. My boys have their own ideas! I love that. Yes, it does mean that my craft ideas don't always come to fruition, but I choose to see my ideas as "prompts" for their wonderful creativity. 

So when I glued these bottle tops together, I envisioned bottle top snowmen ornaments, like you see in the photo at the top. Yip, that's my attempt. (I used a glue gun to glue these tops together by the way.)

But, when my boys saw bottle top snowmen, they saw this...

 

 

and this... Little One's creation below. Little One often takes the lead from big brother. :)

This activity kept them busy for more than an hour. A great success in my book. I'm sure you love your kiddos' ideas too... have they ever "bettered" your idea? 

This will be my last post for the year. We will be returning to my home town for Christmas and the New Year. I do wish you a blessed and beautiful Christmas time with your families and friends. If you are traveling, be safe. Take care, till next time.

Georgia x

Christmas Cards 2014

 

 

I love the idea that we make our own cards. The boys aren't always as keen as I am. :)

This year we went for something more arty looking. 

Long time ago, we made our own Eric Carle style paper. To see what I mean, you can read this post. There was still lots left over over in the craft cupboard and it came in very handy for the idea I had.

    So to make these, we used our own handmade paper. We cut out the background scene and the trees. We then used a punch (Little One loved doing this) to make the decorations and the snow. We had a small production line going on the dining room table, with each of us doing a different "job". 

I love how they turned out. 

Till next time, enjoy this wonderful season. 

Back to School Giveaway and Shaving Cream Fun

I don't often do product endorsements on the blog, but when I recommend something, do know that it's a great product. Today I want to share an alphabet product with you that I'm using to help Little One learn how to read and write. 

Created by none other than my Mom, there are in my opinion, no other local alphabet products on the market that can compare to the quality and versatility of this one. Why is it so great? Oooh many reasons... for starters the letters are made from a very durable material; they don't easily bend and cannot break and I must add they have a nice feel to them. The fonts used are correct for the South African Curriculum and the alphabet comes in black or white (not multicoloured as many others do). One of the best things about the alphabet is that a child can touch and feel each letter, giving them a three-dimensional experience of what each letter is about. Needless to say, the letters can be used in a variety of games that make letter recognition and word building fun both in the classroom and at home. And that's not all (hehe, I sound like one of those infomercials), there is a magnetic and non-magnetic version available, as well as a variety of different sets, including a numeracy set, and alphabet "bottle top" stickers.

There are so many ways to incorporate this product into alphabet teaching, but today I'm sharing a shaving cream activity Little One and I did about a month ago. If you haven't given your little person shaving cream to play with yet, do give it a go. My little guy lights up when he knows shaving cream is involved!

To play, I placed the letters in a random order on our bricks outside. I gave Little One the shaving cream and I called out letters one at a time. He had to correctly identify them and when he had, he was allowed to cream them... his favourite part. After he had creamed all the letters, I gave him a squirt bottle with water in and once again called out the letters and he could squirt them clean. This activity took much longer than expected and in the end I got quite tired (not him) before all the cleaning up was done. :)

An additional idea is to ask your child to think of a word starting with the letter, when they correctly identify the letter.   

 

 

So now the best part, would you like to win a 26 piece Learners Alphabet (non-magnetic)? The set used above is an 83 piece and is perfect for word building, but with a 26 piece many games can be played. The prize will also include two sheets of alphabet "bottle top" stickers.

Here's how you can win: Visit the  Little People's Products website and come back here and tell me what your favourite product is in the comments section OR pop on over to my Love and Lollipops Facebook Page and share the competition via the link there. Leave a comment there saying that you shared it. If you do both, you will get two entries.

The competition is open to all South African residents. (Apologies to my other readers.) Entries will close on Sunday the 27th of July and a winner will be announced on Monday the 28th. Good luck!

Till next time.  

(And the winner is... Loandi Kok. Congratulations! I will be in touch with you via the Love and Lollipops Facebook Page.)

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 2}

 Cowboy fun continues here...

 Cowboy pages from Making Learning Fun. (love this website!)

Desert Diamond Back Snake craft also from Making Learning Fun. This is a great fine motor activity - lots of cutting and sticking.

Found these customizable worksheets at twistynoodle.

And we read about the spiny giants of the desert (saguaros) and did this fun cactus craft  (Idea via Pinterest). Little One really enjoyed this activity.

For more Cowboy fun, here are some great links:

Cowboy cut-outs by made by joel
The windowsill desert from Spoonful

Tiny teepees from youaremyfave

Bottle Top Bats

Bats are mammals of the order Chiroptera whose forelimbs form webbed wings, making them the only mammals naturally capable of true and sustained flight. Wikipedia

I love that when we do a craft like this, we always learn something new and interesting. It's really one of the simplest and most effective ways to grab your child's attention about a new topic. Recently Little One and I made these bottle top bats, but at the same time we chatted about them. Of course this Mommy was prepared and I had done my homework before the time and could tell Little One about these creatures while we were crafting.

Big One inevitably overhears what we are getting up to and so also walks away with some new knowledge.

(On Little One's cupboard)

Here are some nice sites to visit to learn more about bats:

Animal Planet
Kidzone

This idea was inspired by a craft at The Mailbox Magazine. 

PS. Sharing this at Shine on Friday and The Sunday Showcase. 

S is for Spiders {and a Giveaway}

Where have I been this month of October you are wondering?

Well, I have had two tummy bugs - really awful!

Both boys have had it too - more of the awful.

Not a great month in the healthy department, but we have all survived and are better. And now, speaking of bugs...

S is for Spiders... and Spooky and Scary and... Sensory box! 

When I saw these plastic glow-in-the dark spiders in the store, I knew a sensory box was to be made - a scary spider sensory box. I dyed some rice with red and blue food colouring, added the spiders and presented it to the boys in the dark - before bedtime - I know, it doesn't sound right? Well thankfully, they loved it. I think the only one who was "scared" was me - I actually jumped (and gave a squeamish yelp) when one of the spiders landed on my hand. Really. Big One's response to the sensory box was "It's brilliant" - to get that reaction from a ten year old is pretty cool I think.

A few days later I took the box out again - in daylight this time. I added some string (pretend web), snakes and the letter "s" from my alphabet set. It was great to see the boys enjoying the box again. I also added tweezers and a magnifying glass. We compared sizes; we counted; we took the string and made "s" shapes - all in all a great activity :). 

 

Oh yeah, would you like to win a fabulous 26 piece lowercase alphabet (like the one I used here)? This fantastic product is South African born and bred and made by Little People's Products.

If you would like to win, this is what you must do: Please head on over to their website and come back and tell me which product you really like. For a second entry, pop on on over to their Facebook page and "like" them and then come back here and tell me you did. And for a third entry, share this competition on your Facebook page if you have one. Please leave a separate comment for each entry and some contact details. The competition is open world wide and the closing date is Monday the 5th of November. Good luck!

O is for Ostrich

Little One has been introduced to the alphabet via the Letterland program at his school this year - a super program that I like very much. I, on the other hand, haven't focused much on alphabet activities at home, but recently decided that we should. Added to that, Big One gets homework every day and Little One also wants to have homework, just like big brother. So I thought I'd prepare some things for him to do in the afternoon while Big One is busy. 

The first letter I chose to focus on was "o" - it's so easy to identify and it's a great first sound. 

Just by the way, here in South Africa we teach lower case letters first and we teach the phonetic sounds (as in "a" is for apple, not ape). 

I chose ostrich as our first "o" activity and we started with identifying the letter using our fantastic magnetic alphabet. (Available from Little People's Products)

I added some ostrich handouts from Carisa's  Tot School Printables @ 1+1+1+1. (If you don't know this site - it's amazing!) 

We did some colour recognition and colouring in.

Little one then cut out each ostrich (Each ostrich is in a square, which makes this a nice cutting activity).  He helped me staple all the little squares together to make a small book - a nice reminder of the activity.  I also added in some maths language, by asking him which picture he wanted in the book first, second, third, etc, as I put the small pages together, before we stapled it. 

I also made a copy of the "shapes" page and asked him to "show me the ostrich in the oval, triangle etc." He used his dot markers for this one. These were very kindly sent to us awhile back by Donette from The Journey. They are a favourite during homework time. These ostriches can also be cut out to make a book... or flash cards.

There are lots more ostrich pages available from 1+1+1=1. 

And a  bottle top ostrich craft...

The boys and I visited the National Geographic website to get some extra information about the ostrich and we watched a You Tube video of an ostrich running - something they do rather well. (We actually ran around like ostriches - using our "wings" to steer and make sharp turns - this got some giggles). And we learned that an ostrich can cover up to 5 metres in a single stride - that got us measuring and estimating - it's about the length of our kitchen!

Little One calls it "fun homework". This must mean I'm doing something right ;). 

Till next time - happy learning :)  

PS. Little One is 4.2 years.
PPS. Sharing this at It's Playtime.

Squeezy Art {A repost}

I have never done a repost of an old post on Love and Lollipops before, but after 2 and a half years of blogging, I know that there are some oldies, but goodies, in my archives. So for those of you who happen to remember this post - firstly, thank you for still reading (!) -  and secondly, I hope you won't mind the repeat. With a short spring break coming up here in South Africa, this struck me as a super way to spend a rainy afternoon - spring may be here, but it's still raining  :).

This art activity has been one of Big One's favourites for a long time.

To do this activity, you need some squeezy bottles filled with different paint colours. I found these bottles at my local plastic shop and filled them with acrylic paint, using a vaccine syringe. It is a bit time-consuming, but well worth the effort.

 

Once done, all that is required is some squeezing , folding and fun! First squeeze and then squeeze some more. Use as many colours as you please. Fold your page in half and then carefully open your page to reveal a colour surprise!  My son enjoys this process so much, that getting him to stop is usually the only problem.

We are always left with a great number of these interesting paint surprises, so I decided to use them to make some greeting cards. To create these, I cut them into small squares and arranged them onto pre-cut coloured cardstock. I really like the end result.

Have fun :)

PS. Shared at the Weekly Kid's Co-op.

Body Parts and Stickers

heehee, no, this is not an episode of CSI. Body parts and stickers make for great fun and a great teaching opportunity. You can play this game with babies from about 9 months, but it's still fun when you're much older and need to know those more unusual parts, like ankles and heels and wrists and earlobes...

All age groups love it when you stick a sticker on your nose or anywhere and say, "I don't have a sticker on my nose? Do I?" Pulling off stickers from a silly Mommy will get great laughs. Or, put a sticker somewhere on toddler and say "Where did I put that sticker?" If they don't answer, say the wrong body part name (Is it on your _____?). That usually gets a giggle and if you're lucky, a correction. You can really have fun with this and follow your child's lead.

And for another sticker idea...lying on the table in front of Little One in the picture below is a piece of orange felt. He really enjoys sticking stickers onto felt - it has for some reason always held more appeal to him than sticking onto paper. I got this felt idea from The Imagination Tree, a wonderful blog filled with many baby and child activities. 

Little One is 2 years old in these pictures.  

Till next time, happy playing.

Play Dough Cookies (made with bottle tops)

You do know how I love bottle tops... :)

When we went away for a few days in the holidays, I knew it being Winter, that  we would possibly be spending a fair amount of time indoors. I packed the play dough (as I usually do), as I knew that this could entertain both kiddos if need be. I also packed an ocean themed bottle top memory match game I had made awhile back. 

Little One and I got stuck into the play dough one afternoon and I realized that we could stamp some sea creatures with our bottle tops. As we got stamping, the idea of cookies evolved. Make a small round ball (quite tricky for Little One to do and good for those hands) and then stamp it. Voila! A plate of sea creature cookies. They are pretty don't you think?

PS. Link to the bottle top memory match here and to the play dough recipe here.