Fun with Humpty Dumpty

There are a lot of eggs around at the moment - have you noticed ;) - which got me thinking, who's the coolest EGG around? 

Humpty Dumpty of course. 

With that in mind we have been having some Humpty Dumpty fun over here...

 A bottle top Humpty.

Build a wall by matching the number to the dots. 

Little One loved this activity.

Our favourite Book about the famous Egg. 

All the King's horses and all the King's men...

(Peg craft inspired by the amazingly creative lilla a)

Shortbread Soldiers.

(Plain biscuits from Woolworths)

Capital H activity from Making Learning Fun.

Finger Puppet Humptys.

I have plans for these - you will have to wait and see. :)

More Easter fun to come. Till next time.

Heart Pencil Toppers and Finger Puppets

Valentine's day is no biggie in our home. But,  I do love hearts and I do love red and I also love I-love-you ideas, so this day always get's my attention.

I was thinking of a simple craft for kids to do...a little gift to give a teacher, or friend...something sweet. Isn't Valentine's day just a perfect reason to tell someone you like them, or love them. I think so. Pencil toppers came to mind, inspired by some heart finger puppets I saw many years ago (in the nineties!) in an American Parent's magazine. 

  

To make pencil toppers, cut out two identical felt hearts. I drew the heart onto a piece of felt and then folded it double, so that I could cut out two hearts simultaneously. Draw a line to indicate where you need to put your glue (see top photo), leaving a gap for the pencil. Glue the two pieces together and wait for it to dry. If you want the heart to stick to the pencil (and not slip off), put some glue on end of the pencil, before you pop the heart on.

Or you could make a heart finger puppet family...

Easy craft and a sweet gift.

Till next time.

PS. Shared this at Show and Tell @ ABC and 123

Three Little Pigs

When Little One was in hospital recently, this became his favourite "new" book. We read it over and over!

When we were back home, I made these houses from some big juice boxes, added the finger puppets (bought at a local craft market) and we played out the story. As you can tell, it's fun being the wolf and huffing and puffing!

I really like this particular version of the traditional story and highly recommend this book, if you can get hold of it - It's part of a Walt Disney collection of story books.

Do you have a favourite book of this classic story? I'd love to hear about it.

"Who's afraid of the big bad wolf, the big bad wolf, the big bad wolf?

Who's afraid of the big bad wolf?

Not I, not I, not I!"

PS.  Linking this to:

Fun For Kids Friday 
Show and Tell 

Cats {Nursery Rhyme Fun}

 

I recently shared about a terrific book, Origami for children, by Mari and Roshin Ono, so I was very excited to find Origami Club, a fantastic website, with lots and lots of ideas and great instructions. You can print the instructions, or watch a video if the printed version is to tricky to understand. All ideas are also rated, so you know the difficulty level before you start.

As part of our cat theme, I focused on some popular cat nursery rhymes...

 The Three Little Kittens

For some fun related to this nursery rhyme, we traced around Little One's hand and then created three sets of mittens. He loved sticking on the cotton balls. Little One loves glue, and calls it "gloopy glue", like Mr Maker does.  He gave this bottle of glue a good squeeze (great for those little fingers), but in the end I needed to help squeeze the glue out. We then played a game of hide and seek with the mittens. Just like in the nursery rhyme, we "lost" the mittens and had to find them. He really enjoyed this! (The mittens and the kittens are great for counting practice too.)

For some more fun, I made origami puppets (see above) to act out the nursery rhyme and we once again used our mittens as part of the play. I made a happy and a cross face for the Mommy cat, which I stuck back-to-back to a craft stick, so that the face could easily be flipped over during the story. This was also a great success!

Pussy Cat, Pussy Cat, Where have you been?

Acting out this nursery rhyme also turned into a great learning activity, with me focusing on prepositions. In my version, the pussy cat frightened and chased the mouse under, over, and onto the chair.  

PS. I'm linking this to...

Tot Tuesdays @ My Delicious Ambiguity 

Show and Tell @ ABC and 123 

High Paw @ the best toys for toddlers

For the Kids Friday @ Sun Scholars
We Play @ childhood101 

I was featured at Fantastic Find!

Last month I was very tickled and touched to be featured at Fantastic Find, a super blog, where Chels (Mommy of two) loves to share good things. Chels wrote a really lovely post about Love and Lollipops and if you would like to see what she had to say, you can read all about it here.

Here are some of my favourite finds at Fantastic Find:
10 Black-and-White Printable Paper Dolls
10 Cute Printable Paper Dolls
A Big Box Is Fun!
More Fun with a Big Box
Stick Puzzles
Stick Card Puzzles
Puppet Theatre and Crafty Puppets
Kiddie Records Weekly (free audio stories to download)
More Free Audio Stories for Kids

Be sure to go and visit.

Thanks again Chels!

Adam's Art Spot : Glove Puppets

Adam's Art Spot is Big One's space to share his wonderful art and craft ideas. This idea was inspired by Eric Carle's book, "Little Cloud" and by some wonderful Beleduc puppets that he saw at a toy exhibition we attended. 

After reading the book, Big One suggested that we make a cloud puppet using a hand glove and some cotton wool. So I purchased blue gloves (I was very pleased to find blue ones) and cotton balls. He then stuck the balls onto the glove using craft glue and allowed it to dry. As you can see, it made a very sweet cloud puppet, which he modeled so nicely. I then decided to make a little one for little brother, using a blue baby sock. Unfortunately he would not oblige by modeling his.

This idea has inspired some more hand puppets in our house, which I'll share with you in an up-and-coming post.

PS. I have linked this to StArt @ A Mommy's Adventures.

Wonderful Websites

Isn't it just wonderful to stumble across a terrific website. It must be one of my favourite things. It was quite a few years ago that I happened to find www.makingfriends.com and it is a website that I have returned to many times over. I recall that I was looking for paper dolls to help my son with cutting skills and was blown away by this find.

The website offers a wonderful selection of paper dolls and outfits. These can be printed in colour or you can print the outlines, so that your little one can colour them in. You can choose outfits from a variety of categories, such as Career friends, Athletic friends and Multi-Cultural friends. There is even a doll in a wheelchair, one with spectacles and one with freckles. The dolls are also available in different ethnic colours, allowing friends to be created from different countries and cultures.

There are so many fun things that one can do with them. The dolls can easily be turned into puppets by sticking them onto popsicle sticks or tongue depressors (available from your local pharmacy). They can be used to make up new stories, have little puppet shows, or  put them on cards and party invites. A nice idea is to glue a photograph of your child's face over the paper doll's face and turn them into a "little friend".

My son loved these dolls and was very motivated to cut out the dolls and clothing. Needless to say his cutting skills are fantastic. With the Easter holidays coming up, these are a great way to keep the kids busy for awhile.

In addition to the dolls, the website also offers wonderful craft ideas, so I hope that you will enjoy visiting them as much as I do. Should you have any other ideas for these sweet little dolls, please leave a comment below. I would love to hear from you.