I Love You Tons!

We were walking out of Olive's MDO last week admiring the Valentine animals that were hanging on the walls.  Olive loves elephants and so she was naturally so excited about the elephant and asked if she could make one.  All you need for this project is 2 different colors of construction paper, cut into hearts, glue and googly eyes.  Start by gluing one of the large hearts onto a piece of paper.

 Cut the other heart in half and glue one half to each side of the full heart.

 Glue the other half to the other side.

Cut a rectangle of construction paper the same color as the ears and roll one end up. 

Add a dot of glue for the nose.

 Glue the trunk in place.

 Put glue dots for the eyes.

 And add your eyes!

 So easy and SO ADORABLE! Olive was so proud and wanted to give it to Daddy. 

Melted Crayon Art

For this project you will need: paper, wax paper, crayon shavings and an iron.

 For the paper ones, cut the paper into whatever shape you would like and let your little one sprinkle the crayon shavings onto one side. 

 Fold the paper in half

 Place a piece of construction paper over the heart and iron on top of it. 

 Open up the heart and Wa-la!  Beautiful hearts!  We are going to use these hearts on Valentine cards for special people in our lives with the words "You Melt My Heart, Valentine". 

 Another variation is to use wax paper.  Have your little one sprinkle crayon shavings on the wax paper and fold the ends over so that all of the shavings are enclosed.  Then melt the same way with your iron.

 Then cut the wax paper into the shape of your choice.

 These are really pretty as sun catchers, so we put them on the back door. 

 Olive loved sticking them to the door and she kept saying they were in "families"

 Beautiful Valentines!

Sensory Bin with Colored Rice

We made our own little sensory bin today by filling it with colored rice. For this you will need, rice, rubbing alcohol, food coloring and a large container.  To color the rice put about 1 cup of rice in a ziploc bag.  Add in 3 Tbsp. of alcohol and lots of drops of color.  Seal the bag and squeeze to mix it all together.  Then lay out your rice on a cooking sheet to dry.  We actually put each color in the microwave for one minute and then laid it out to dry.  It dried completely in about 45 minutes. 

 Squish the bag! Olive loved this part!

 I got out some little toy animals for her to play with, but they only lasted a few minutes.

 She was much more into scooping the rice into different containers.  She used measuring cups, drinking cups, measuring spoons and eventually her hands!

 I thought it was interesting that with the measuring scoops, she would just scoop the rice, but to fill the measuring spoons, she would fill them by hand.  I am sure there is some psychological process going on here that I know nothing about! :)

She had a fantastic time with this activity!  As I am typing, she has been playing with the rice for 45 minutes and counting!  This is an eternity in Olive time! I think she likes it!

Pom Pom Fun!

This is such a simple activity, but Olive LOVES it.  Anytime she sees the bag with the pom pom balls in it, she grabs it and starts playing.  All you need is some pom pom balls (cotton balls would work too) and ice cube trays.  All they do is put the pom poms into the ice cube trays.

 There are a ton of ways to extend this activity to make it more "educational".  Have them count the pom poms when they put them in, create color patterns, or sort by color. A variation for older kids is to play with a partner and roll a dice and have them place in that many poms and then figure out how many more they need to fill it up, the first to fill the tray wins.   

 I use this activity with my Pre-k students, using a clothespin to put the pom poms in the trays which is great fine motor practice.  Olive wanted to try it, but her fingers aren't quite ready for that yet. 

Paper Plate Snowglobe

I saw the idea to make your own snowglobe here and we decided to give it a try.  I think it turned out cute, but there is a lot of "Mommy help" work involved.  Older kids could do most of it on their own, but my 2 year old needed some help. 

The supplies you need are:

two paper plates (one with the middle cut out)

glue

sequins or pom pom balls

an extra ziploc bag

small circles for your snowman

stapler

 Let your little one color the part that will face out. 

 We used sequins for the snowman's eyes and then I drew the nose and mouth.

 Then glue the circles on the plate into the shape of snowman.

 Then we added sequins for the scarf.

 Cut your extra ziploc into a circle and use clear tape to tape it to the back side of the plate.  Make sure it is really secure so none of your "snow" can sneak out.

 I put a thin line of glue on the border of the plates and then stuck them together and stapled around the edges.  Leave a small opening at the top so you can put in your silver sequins that will wiggle around when you shake it like snow.  Olive has been carrying it around shaking it like crazy!

Splish Splash!

So I am sure that you are probably smarter than me and have thought of this before, but I tried it the other day and I was AMAZED at   

a) much she loved it.

b) how long she was engaged

c) the educational concepts involved!  Math at it's finest! 

All you need is a sink full of soapy water and some random kitchen utensils.

 Sit your child safely in a chair next to the sink and let them go to town!

By the end, I had taken her pants off because they got water spilled on them.  For the most part though, most of the water stayed in the sink or on the towel.  Happy splashing!

Snowballs

For our 13th day of advent, we decided to make some yummy treats for our friends!  Baking can be difficult with a two year old who wants to taste every ingredient going into something, especially when raw eggs play a factor!  After brainstorming and gathering ideas off of pinterest, we decided to do a mish mash of ideas and make rice krispy snow balls! 

Little C helped me measure out 6 cups of rice krispies and add them to a bowl.  Then we measured out 4 cups of marshmallows (give or take a few handfuls that went straight to her mouth) and 3 tablespoons of butter into a pan and warmed it on the stove.  While I stirred the hot mixture, she sat on the opposite cabinet and gorged herself on extra marshmallows.  As soon as the marshmallow/butter mixture was melted, we poured it onto the cereal and then C stirred it up with a little help from mom. 

After the mixture had cooled for a few minutes, I separated it into 12 dollups and then began to roll them into round balls with buttered hands.  As soon as a ball was complete, I handed it to C who dropped it into a bowl full of sprinkles and rolled it all around.

The end result of our hard work was a super easy, safe to eat, and actually pretty cute little snack!  C was incredibly proud of her hard work and insisted that dad eat a snowball as soon as he walked in the door.  She checked his face with every bite and smiled with each yum.

Hope your holiday season is filled with delicious treats and wonderful memories!