Candy Heart Art Project

 

 

Valentine's Day is a funny holiday. I have never been a big fan of it.  It always seemed so commercialized, but now that I have the kids I love finding fun projects to do with them and fun ways to celebrate Valentine's Day with them. Scott and I have never been Valentine's Day people. We don't go out, we don't do gifts, etc.  We're very exciting lol!

This project, however, is very exciting and very cute!  You only need 3 things and it's not messy!  The kids had a great time and while it was created as an art project for Valentine's Day, we were working on lots of skills in the process (fine motor skills, shapes, patterns, colors, letter recognition, etc).


What you need:
~ Small candy conversation hearts in a small bowl
~ Glitter glue (silver would work best)
~ Construction paper (pink or red)

What to do:

Let your child pick what color paper he/she would like. All of mine picked pink.  Start by tracing a large heart on the construction paper for your child.

Once the heart is on the paper have your child trace the heart using their bottle of glue. If you have a younger child you may need to help them with this. I would suggest tracing half the heart with glue at a time.

 

Next, have your child start putting the hearts on the glue. Encourage them to put the word side facing up.  Once half is filled, repeat the glue step and finish with the remaining hearts.

We talk about patterns often in our house and I was so impressed that Dylan used every color heart and repeated the pattern perfectly along his whole heart!  Jake chose to do various patterns throughout based on how many color hearts he had and Emma just made a rainbow of colors.  They were all beautiful and they were all so focused throughout the project. And no we didn't eat one single heart because just ask mommy, “Those candies taste gross, they are just for art projects!”

For the final step we wrote the letters "XO" in the middle of our conversation hearts so that they resemble the actual candy we were using and it gave it the extra Valentine's Day touch. You can either do this step for them or I traced the letters and had them use a silver glitter glue pen to trace over it. If you didn't have glitter glue you could use regular glue and then dust some glitter on top or you could just use a marker.

I hope you try this simple project with your kiddies and have as much fun as we did!

Dylan's Final Project

Jake's Final Project

Emma's Final Project

Happy Valentine’s Day!

XO

Hanukkah Pasta Menorahs

 

 

 Materials:

·        Lasagna noodle

·        (10) Rigatoni noodles (straight pieces with open, flat ends)

·        Other small pasta shapes or even Hanukkah pasta

·        Glue (we used Elmer's glitter glue and it worked well)

·        Spray paint (optional)

 When deciding on a Hanukkah project to do with the kids, I decided I really wanted to make menorahs with them. I came across this idea for pasta menorahs on Pinterest and thought this would be fun and inexpensive. I wasn't sure how they would turn out, but wow was I surprised!  These look amazing!  I found Hanukkah pasta at Bed, bath & Beyond that we used to decorate the menorahs giving it that extra fun touch and to make them look extra special I spray painted them with silver spray paint!

 These were fun and the perfect craft for my 4.5 year olds to make. Alternatively, if you didn't want to spray paint your menorah you could always dye some of the pasta pieces blue ahead of time and use blue or silver glitter glue to make them more "hanukkah-ish". You could also alternate blue and the natural yellow of the pasta to create patterns.

Emma was excited to get started!

 

 Start by handing out 1 lasagna noodle flat side down, 10 rigatoni pieces (make sure these stand up straight) and a bottle of glue. We did this activity on our craft tray to minimize mess. We started by making the Shamash candle (the helper candle) and to do this we glued two pieces of rigatoni together and then glued that to our lasagna noodle. We talked about the placement of the Shamash candle, which could be placed in the middle or at one end. They each had their own opinion on where there's should go.

 

 After trial and error, we found out that the best way to glue the rigatoni onto the lasagna noodle was by making dots of glue and then sticking the noodles on.  Dylan decided to make an entire line of glue which also worked.  Using either the dot method or the line of glue, glue the eight candle holders, aka rigatoni noodles, onto your lasagna sheet. Once all the rigatoni pieces are glued on allow 15 minutes for them to dry before gluing on the decorative pasta pieces. Definitely wait those few minutes or else the rigatoni pieces will get knocked over while decorating.  Alternatively, you could stop now, but it is fun and festive to decorate it!

 

 

 After the 15 minutes are up, hand out your smaller pieces of pasta. I found these great Hanukkah pasta shapes at Bed, Bath & Beyond that had dreidels and Stars of David (I found some online at cost plus).  I handed out a bunch of these and let them go to work. They amazed me when they each decided to create repeating patterns all on their own!  Math and art all in one activity!  They were having so much fun they even wanted to continue the pattern on the back of the menorahs!

 Once they were finished decorating we let them sit overnight to dry completely.  As I said before you can leave them as is at this point or continue on to spray paint them as we did.

 

 The next day, I brought them out into the garage, with the garage door open so I didn't suffocate from the fumes (NEVER spray paint inside!), and placed them onto old newspaper. I then sprayed them with silver spray paint until they were fully coated. They came out beautifully!

I set close together so I could spray them all at the same time.

Jake's Menorah Masterpiece
 

Emma's Menorah Masterpiece

 

 



Dylan's Menorah Masterpiece

These pasta menorahs are going to be a gorgeous addition to our Hanukkah décor this year!  We will proudly light them each night of Hanukkah as well.

The final product

 I hope you enjoyed this craft and I hope you try it with your little ones!

 Happy Hanukkah!

 

 

 

 

 

Flying with Toddlers... Tips and Tricks

 

As my golden tan lines begin to fade into a distant memory from our amazing family vacation to Hawaii, I figured it would be a good time to share my tips and tricks for flying with toddlers and young kids.  I know this list will come in handy for a lot of my friends flying with little ones this holiday season.

Our flight was a little over 5 hours and our 4 year olds did great. Some of these tips and tricks found below were also used when we flew to Hawaii when they were 2 years old. Both trips were a complete success and we were complemented on how well behaved they were.

The only pictures from our plane ride...

My best piece of advice, especially for the 2-3 year olds, is bringing the car seat on the plane. I know it may seem like one more thing to deal with in the airport, but trust me, your kids will be more comfortable, safer, and they will stay in their seats. Our kids even had them on our most recent trip and they were four years old!  They were comfortable and they understand that you don't get out of your seat in the car so you can't do it on the plane either. At the end of the day, every parent knows their own child, but this was a lifesaver for us and we had to schlep 3 car seats and I still think it was worth it! (Also it was a fortune to rent car seats in Hawaii and I didn't want to check them, but that's another story....)

I collected a bunch of these tips before I went and came up with a few of my own. You will see I linked where to purchase/find out more info on most items (click on the item), but some things you can either make or you have already at home. Enjoy and feel free to comment with your favorite tips and tricks!

 

 Tips and tricks for plane rides with young kids:

·        Wrap toys up to make it exciting... This can even be in a brown paper bag with colorful tape. Kids don't care :)

·       Put snacks in individual baggies (Bring new interesting snacks that take awhile to eat... Cheerios, cut up grapes, goldfish pretzels, veggie sticks, alphabet cookies, etc)

·        Lollipops for take off and landing (not ones they can bite, find solid thick ones)

·        Headphones (We used these...)

·        Lots of wipes

·        Change of clothes for you and child

·        Extra ziplocs

 **When settling in on the plane stick a jacket or blanket in between window and seat so toys don't fall in between

 Toy ideas:

·        Post it's and crayons/pencils/pens

·        Foam stickers with sticky back and paper to out it on

·        Stickers and notepads

·        Colored cotton balls in a small container for sorting

·        Washi tape

·        Lightweight books (Heavy books are going to make your carry on too heavy to carry)

·        Hidden picture books or highlights magazines

·        Silly putty

·        Bring a string a make a Cheerios necklace

·        Cheerios stacking (use play doh and coffee stir straw) *see my previous post here and modify it using silly putty and a coffee stirrer

·        Foam/floam (99 cent store sells it... Doesn't dry out and is not messy)

·        Gel window clings... They can stick them onto the tray or window or back on the clear paper (99 cent store)

·        Mini magna doodles

·        Pretend cellphone ($3-$5 bins at target or Toys'r'us always have these and my kids play with them non stop)

·        Tegu Magnetic blocks (worth every penny IMO)

·        Boogie board writingtablet (the new version of a manga doodle, highly recommend!)

·        For older kids we just got the Leap Frog Leap Readers and head phones for our birthday and these were amazing. The kids were so engaged and interested in them. I would highly recommend them especially since they work with headphones. They also have the Jr. version for younger kids. Just make sure to download the books to the leap reader before your trip and introduce it to them so they know how to use it and don't get frustrated with it on the plane. We had these and lots of books to go with:

·        Crayola wonder markers and coloring books/paper... So many to choose from!

·        Mini reusable stickerbooks (lots to choose from on amazon)

·        Wikki Sticks (they make different sets, but I got this awesome book for the plane on amazon. I also love the party packs and keep them in my purse for restaurants)

·        Mini puzzles

·        Melissa and Doug Memory Game… Saw these at a restaurant and it kept the kids busy forever...These are awesome:

·        Melissa and Doug magic marker coloring

·        Lacing cards (Or you can make your own using card stock, yarn and a hole punch)

 *Leave the play doh at home. It's too messy in my opinion. Your flight attendants will thank you.

Some more great websites with ideas to keep them busy in the plane:

http://www.repeatcrafterme.com/2012/11/10-airplane-travel-games-for-kids.html?m=1

http://childhood101.com/2013/10/25-ways-to-keep-toddlers-busy-on-a-plane/

And when all of these ideas are no longer cutting it, don't be afraid to bring out the iPad if need be. We had ours loaded with Sesame Street and some brand new apps, but we ended up only watching one episode of Sesame Street the whole flight. (Keep in mind my kids don't watch tv, movies or play on our iPads or iPhones so they aren't used to this anyways.). My motto for the airplane though is "Do whatever it takes to get everyone there happy and quietly even if it means using the iPad".

I hope you found this list helpful and I hope you have a great and successful trip with your little one(s)!

Chicka Chicka Boom Boom Alphabet Activity

 

One of our favorite books to read lately has been Chicka Chicka Boom Boom by Bill Martin Jr. I enjoy reading it to Dylan, Jake and Emma just as much as they enjoy listening to it. The premise behind the book is that the lowercase letters are climbing to the top of the coconut tree and once they all get up the tree, it's so heavy the tree tips and the letters all fall out. They brush themselves off with the help of their parents (the uppercase letters) and try again. It's really a cute book and a great way to introduce letter recognition to preschoolers and young school aged children.

 I decided to use this book as an inspiration for an art project a few weeks ago. The materials are simple, the project is not messy and they turn out adorable!

 Here's what you need:

 - construction paper (green, brown, and white)

 - foam alphabet stickers*

 - scissors

 - glue stick

* If you can't find sticky foam letters you could use alphabet stickers or even print letters on the computer cut those out and glue them on.

 For the project:

We began the project by rereading the book, Chicka Chicka Boom Boom.

First, I assisted them in cutting out brown paper to represent the tree trunk. I asked them if they wanted a straight or curved/tipped over tree. Next I cut green leaves and small brown circles for the coconuts. They glued everything onto their white paper. Then they cut out a green strip to represent the grass for the bottom of their pictures and they used their glue sticks to glue that on as well.

 

After we finished the trees, we talked about all the letters in the alphabet. We pulled out the foam letters from the box and put them in alphabetical order singing the alphabet song along the way.

 Once we made sure we had all the letters I passed them out. They removed the paper backs and stuck them on and off the tree.  I loved how each of their pictures represents a different part of the story.

 

 

 This was a fun and easy activity and a great educational one too!  It's also nice because it is easy to modify for older kids. Have fun with it!

 

The finished product!

Jake's Tree

Emma's Tree

Dylan's Tree