Valentine's Day Wreath Toddler Style

Crafty Claire strikes again, there is a poofy, pink and very glittery wreath on my front door. It's fab.
Did I mention the glitter?

I'm thinking everyone needs a wreath like this on their front door. And I'm sure this is proof that I've been sniffing too much polyurethane while finishing our staircase.

Three stairs down and at eleven to go...I'm sure there will be lots of crafty goodness to share in the coming weeks as this home improvement project wraps up (or as I get tired of sanding). I've got to keep this kid occupied so while I'm slaving away, Claire's been whipping up some Valentine's Day decorations.

I cut out a bunch of hearts from some heavy duty watercolor paper and Claire went to town painting them and liberally sprinkling them with glitter. And I mean LIBERALLY...the whole wreath is a-glowin' and I'm just glad it's hanging on the outside of the house.

Claire enjoyed using the stapler for the first time. We counted out four sheets or so per flower and alternated between accordion folds and poofing and just stapling tissue paper straight to the wreath.

I hesitated introducing the stapler since I once stapled my sister's fingers together. We were terrified to tell my mother so I pried them apart and told her to suck it up. She managed to play flute and oboe just fine so I'm sure there was no lasting damage. Heh heh, I'm a great big sister ;-) Love ya, Laurie.

Love the nose scunch in this photo

My plan was to weave some tissue paper flowers through a wire wreath form (leftover from Christmas). That proved rather tough so I improvised:

At least I didn't use the greasy side. The pizza aroma just adds to the experience, trust me. 

And here is the finished project in all its glittery, pink glory:

Be sure to let me know if you tackle this project, I love to feature other mums and their blogs! Upload your images to our facebook page for some virtual pats on the back.


Want to see more Valentine's projects? Don't miss the V-day recipe for sweet and crunchy heart apple chips, a DIY project for heart stamps using building blocks and our spray painted Valentine's!

Saturday Snapshot

Claire and her new favorite game, "Singing Contest." She croons from her bed while Dan and I sit in chairs and bop along. Most of the songs consist of one word (princess, penguin, instrument or alphabet are recent favorites) repeated over and over (and over) in different monotone rhythms. She seems to have her grandmother's "gift" for pitch.

We clap as directed and smile, lots of smiling.

On Going Outside

Originally published Jan 2010 - the large swarth of the US covered in snow got me thinking about this post. We're enjoying our own snow with mini-snowmen and copious amounts of cocoa.

Want to know my thoughts on outdoor play? I consider it an absolute necessity for all children (and adults!) I read a great article recently about “Nature Deficit Disorder” and couldn’t agree more with the author Richard Louv (Last Child in the Woods) that kids today are disconnected from nature and spending way too much time in front of the boob tube and computer screen. It’s an interesting conundrum for me, as a school’s technology coordinator - I’m always encouraging teacher’s to find ways to integrate technology into their curriculum, but is that sometimes at the expense of the child? The former park ranger in me wants to boot those kids out of their desks and send them into the field to collect data and THEN use the computer to interpret the results. But, I digress…


Back to my current life as chief teacher of a 2 year old…

Outdoors everyday. Even in the cold.

Technology for Tots: Fonts

Hello.

My name is Regina and I have a slight font obession.

Some women collect shoes, I collect fonts...upwards of 300 and counting. I can't seem to help myself - the files are tiny, I LOVE each and every one. I tell myself it's totally normal to have so many choices of type (and I'm hoping you'll tell me too).

My latest finds are font sets to use with Claire. Check this out:

Wouldn't this make for fantastic coloring pages or an alphabet chart? I wish I was this clever and artistic! Or maybe you can try something like this:

Both fonts are FREE! Snag them at fontspace.com. Click here for the Pictograph front and here for the tracing one. There are a plethroa of fonts on this site, I've downloaded a gazillion and have yet to clog up my hard drive. Happy browsing!

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After many requests here are 8.5x11 printables of the picture above. 

Here's the link to the full sized landscape version of the alphabet chart:

http://flic.kr/p/9ePSjP

And here's the link to the full sized portrait version of the alphabet chart:

http://flic.kr/p/9eSZBd

By the way - I didn't watermark this because what kid is going to want to color all over something labeled "Chalk In My Pocket" but I'd love if you'd link back or email me if you share this somewhere.

This one's for the birds!

We just read "The Big Snow" by Elmer Hader and (if possible) Claire has become even more obsessed with birds. Having lots of wintry weather here like in the story, it was the perfect time to provide some sustenance to our feathered friends. Claire said I looked just like the old lady in the story when I through the remnants of the suet cakes in the garden...um, thanks sweetie.

I house all sorts of experiments in my fridge (both intentional and unintentional, green shrimp, anyone?) but this hodgepodge of lard, peanut butter, sunflower seeds, cheese and bird seed was a success, both in "cutifying" our backyard and keeping my three year old occupied. If birds could talk I'm sure they would be raving about this recipe, our feeding stations were swarming with visitors and the birdie cakes were the hottest thing there.

There are lots of tutorials for DIY bird suet on the web but I liked this one for two reasons, I had the ingredients on hand and the recipe came from reputed wildlife organization so I figured we wouldn't accidentally harm any wildlife.

The cast of characters, do NOT melt the lard. 

There are no ingredient ratios, so I randomly lopped everything into the bowl. The basic goal is to get everything to gel together in a firm enough package to mold, the freezer will take care of the rest. I wasn't sure how birds felt about Parmesan cheese so there's only a bit of that.

This is a kid friendly recipe, nothing to heat. I highly recommend limiting the distance from jar to bowl, or pouring the seed in. I was trying to make this project take up time on a cold morning and while Claire is very careful, there was still scattered seed from her scooping the seed little by little. Nothing intentional, but those little seeds kept rolling right off the spoon...maybe a scoop would work better?

 We tried a few different mixing options, of course hands won out. I had to dig in and help at this point because I intentionally left the lard pretty firm. We packed (squished might be a better description) the suet into cookie cutters, mini muffin tins and tupperware containers then froze for about 3 hours. I brought the tray of mini muffin bird cakes outsides and set them right in the snow with a cover to protect them from the squirrels. Easy peasy.

I know everyone else who blogged this project put little straws in to allow string to be passed through a hole after the were frozen. I found it just as effective to load a bit of the suet into the container and then have Claire put some yarn (birds love pink, it's a fact) in the center before loading the rest of the suet in. It might not be as cute, but we liked it just fine. The final product:

 

Our Nature Table

Children are natural collectors, and I'm guilty of the same thing myself, often arriving home with just as much "treasure" in my pockets as my daughter. Rather than discourage our little naturalist-in-training, I carved out some space on an end table to display whatever bounty Claire snags on our nature walks. We filled a few glass vases with some seed pods and birch trimmings (thank you Amanda, your leftover wedding goodies have been put to good use) and turned a really cool chunk of moss into the centerpiece of our nature table by putting it under glass. A handful of pine cones, some great rocks and 'voila!' a display that looks nice to adults and invites the kiddo over to explore. A magnifying glass is tucked into the pull-out drawer under the shelf and having a lamp on the table already was an added bonus. Our nature table has been in set up since late October and I've yet to see Claire abuse it. Other then stacking the birch trimmings on the floor for towers, everything has been gently examined on the table and returned to its rightful place. Leaves, acorns and the occasional dead bug have made an appearance - if you ask my mother, it's quite an upgrade from housing live millipedes in my cake stand. Study on little scientist, observation is an important part of the scientific method!

Learning Activity Round Up

 

 

I'm getting such great ideas from all the other parents at home with their "littles." Check out the  “Tot School” and “Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers” for more ideas and weekly wrap ups.

 

Here's a recap of our learning moments from the past week, be sure to click on the titles or pictures for full the full post and more photos.

 

	Healthy Eating I love having Claire in the kitchen with me and concocting a healthy, yet sweet and crunchy sweet for Valentine’s Day was a major accomplishment this week. These apple chips were so simple, cheap and super cute.
	Art Time: Family Portrait I am beyond excited at Claire’s artistry. She just started drawing figures and I had to frame her first family portrait. The detail she’s putting into them (not always recognizable but always explained to me in great excitement) just cracks me up.
	Art Time: Holiday Decorating Crafty Claire strikes again! My front door is decked out in a glittery, poofy, pink wreath. Did I mention the glitter? There is no way Cupid will miss this house. We spent a lot of time with our liquid watercolors and heart shaped paper cutouts. This week I introduced the stapler and Claire had a ball stapling the tissue paper to the wreath. This is going to be a favorite (supervised) activity for sure.
	Science and Nature The last time Audubon's "Birds of America" hit the auction circuit, it fetched $10 million -- luckily Claire is happy with the free version from our library! This was our very first non-fiction checkout from the juvenile section. A very happy morning was spent observing the happy (fat!) birds at our feeder and finding their page in the guide book.
	Letters I came across a few great (and free) fonts to share. The “pictobet” is all caps and each letter is shaped into an artistic, yet totally readable picture. We’re still working on a proper pencil grasp, but I’m not pushing it because Claire is only 3. Coloring these pages has been tons of fun and if anyone would like some worksheets made with these, just give a holler!
	In the Kitchen To encourage the birds to gather at our feeding stations we whipped up some easy, no cook suet. Claire was excited to help gather all the ingredients and help “write” the recipe on the kitchen chalkboard (She traced my letters with her fingers). We molded the suet in tupperware, heart shaped silicone molds and free formed a bunch. Claire spent a nice morning hanging them throughout the yard. This tied in really nicely to the book we checked out of the library!
	The Nature Table I’ve been so inspired by nature tables throughout the blogosphere. We don’t have the room for a dedicated space, but this little corner is pleasing to all of us. Claire has been sorting all her collections and there have been some interesting games using the rocks and birch rounds…I’m not privy to all the rules but Claire tells me, “it’s rock ring around the rosy Mommy.” I’ve introduced the word “classify” and it seems to have stuck!

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Future Photographer?

Aunt Nikki and Uncle Matt gifted Claire a digital camera for her birthday and she couldn't love it more! We've been teaching her some photography techniques, first - get low and try to shoot at your subject's eye level. The tummy wriggle is especially effective when trying to creep next to the grandparent's elusive kitties.

Gotcha!

Not the most glamorous of snowballs, but it's one Claire can call her own. You've been hit!

Merry Christmas!

I sure hope your family had a wonderful Christmas, we celebrated with a big family gathering, lots of delicious food and much laughter. Watching Claire just enthralled by all the magic of Christmas was the best gift of all.

And snow?! Well we certainly got that. Our first storm of the season, and what a storm it was. Our family left late on Christmas day rather then risk getting caught in the blizzard. We were sorry to see everyone head out early but I won't lie and say that spending boxing day in PJs sipping eggnog and eating random leftovers wasn't fun.

I'll be so sad to take down our tree and decorations this year. Claire was so excited to help out. If there was a surface that could be covered in ornaments or greenery she was all over it! We spent evenings leading up to Christmas cutting snowflakes out of coffee filters, making evergreen wreaths and garlands and generating huge messes of glue and glitter for our paper punch ornaments. By the way - shatterproof ornaments are a fantastic invention, Claire helped me string them up everywhere! I'll have to post a tour of all our decorations but if you look carefully in the background of these photos you'll catch a glimpse of our handiwork.

I have a feeling that tossing the tree this year might be a bit of problem considering Claire is STILL decorating it. To make letting go easier, I'm thinking of having her string it with some popcorn and cranberries for our bird friends. We can watch them feast and enjoy the tree just a little longer without having pine needles underfoot in our living room for another month. Let's hope this works, otherwise there are going to be lots of tears or a tree up in February over here! I'm not sure which is worse!

If I'm not blogging before the New Year, let me take the time to wish you and yours a healthy and happy one!

Happy Solstice!

I'm lying in bed watching a full lunar eclipse through my skylight on today's winter solstice. It occurred to me that this is the type of thing I can't wait to share with Claire! My viewing platform of pillows and blankets is so much more snug then where I started out in the yard, I can't tell you how fantastic this is!

There is an 8 year age gap between my youngest sister Amanda and I and I vividly remember waking her up at odd times of the night to watch eclipses and meteor showers (the latter were always a bit disappointing on suburban Long Island). The Hale-Bopp comet was probably the best astronomy sight we've shared.

While I won't wake Claire intentionally tonight, if she stirs I'll be sure to show her what our magical universe is up to. This is a kid who is always aware of the phases of the moon so I'm sure a full lunar eclipse on this crisp, clear night would be a thing of awe for her.

Making Magic

All kinds of hysterical things seem to fly out of Claire's mouth, I suppose it's one of the joys of being around a three year old. Recently, all three of us were snuggled up in bed watching a movie and Claire said, "ooooh I'm making magic." Dan and I turned towards her as she rubbed her eyes, enjoying the fireworks inside her eyelids and just smiled.