Happy Birthday Ladybug!

Today is my daughter's 3rd birthday! I have no idea how that happened! She woke up this morning to a floor full of balloons and streamers hanging in her doorway. Now we are off to the zoo because it is supposed to be a beautiful day!!

Irish Potato Candy

When I used to work in the brick and mortar schools, one of my co-workers used to bring this in to school every St. Patrick's Day. They are called Irish Potatoes because the cinnamon makes them look like potatoes. She used to keep them in the teacher work room for everyone to share. I loved them so much and it has been a few years since I have had them since I moved away. I had to ask for the recipe and she was nice enough to share. Thanks Cathy.

Irish Potatoes

¼ lb soft butter or margarine
1 tsp salt
2 tsp vanilla
2/3 cup Eagle Brand sweetened condensed milk
6 cups 10x powdered sugar
8 oz coconut
Cinnamon

Mix together margarine, salt, vanilla and milk. Gradually add sugar. Mix well. Add coconut. Mix well. Remove from bowl and knead well.
Roll about 15 balls at a time, place in a plastic bag- put cinnamon in the plastic bag, and shake. Repeat with rest of batter.
Put potatoes on cookie sheet lined with wax paper.

Refrigerate over night.

Butterfly Craft

Today we made butterflies out of craft sticks and coffee filters. We used washable markers to color on the coffee filters and then we used a spray bottle to gently mist the filters to make the colors run. Allow it to dry or microwave it for a minute. Then we folded the top and the bottom of the filter and sanwiched it in between 2 craft sticks and glued them together. Lastly we added googley eyes and some pipe cleaner antenae!

Supplies needed:

coffee filters

craft sticks

markers

googley eyes

glue

pipe cleaners

Rainy day

Can you tell what kind of day it was here? The kids decorated some paper plates that were cut to look like umbrellas and then they glued on a handle and some rain drops.

supplies needed:

paper plates

scissors

markers

colored paper

glue

Craft Stick Flowers

Our Dafodils have started coming up in our flower beds. I hate to tell them that they will most likely be seeing snow soon. We are so excited to see our flowers bloom that we decided to make some of our own. We made these out of craft sticks and buttons. The craft sticks that we had were already colored. but you could easily color plain ones with markers or paint. We glued them all together and let them dry. It is so nice to be thinking about spring!!!

Finger Print Rainbows

As you may remember, I have 2 frames in my kitchen that my kids put artwork in every season as seen here. We have had our snowmen in there for quite a while and I have been ready for our spring picture. We made rainbows out of their finger prints using stamp pads and then we made a sun using the side of their fist and orange rays using their whole finger. We cut the sun and the rainbow out and pasted it on a blue sheet of paper and glued a few stretched out cotton balls for clouds. Now I am a lot happier to see the spring pictures especially since we had warmer weather this weekend. I am ready for SPRING!!

Supplies needed:
white and blue paper

cotton balls

glue

ink pads or paint

Art Work Wind Socks

It is really windy here today so we decided to make some wind socks. The first thing we did was make some artwork. We took a large sheet of art paper and my son wanted to draw his family on his, but my daughter decided that she wanted to cover hers with stickers. Then we taped some crape paper as tails for the wind sock. The last thing we did was punch two holes in it and tied yarn through them so that we could hang our wind sock. We have already been running through the yard (as you may be able to tell by my son's smushed wind sock). The kids had a lot of fun playing with them today.

Supplies needed:
paper
markers and crayons
crape paper
hole punch
yarn
stickers

Tissue Paper Shamrock

We made shamrocks out of tissue paper and paper plates today. It was a lot of fun! We cut tissue paper squares and then we cut out a Shamrock shape out of paper plates. Then we spread some glue on one section of the plate and took our pencils and put a square of tissue on the end of the pencil and smoothed it up. Then we put the tip of the pencil on the plate and continued to do this until the Shamrock was covered.

My 2 and a half year old had no interest in this project the way I had intended, which was absolutely fine. She preferred to just cover the plate with the tissue paper. She was very happy with her shamrock and so was I. My 5 year old was very determined to cover the shamrock and did a great job!

Supplies needed:

tissue paper

glue

scissors

pencils

paper plates

Shamrock Search

My kiddos love to play hide and seek so I decided to use their shamrock art we completed yesterday to play a little game. We cut out all of the shamrock stamps from our paper and then the kids sat in another room while I hid a bunch of shamrocks all over our living room. They loved searching for them all. After they found them, they wanted to keep going on so the kids would hide them from each other and the other kiddo would look for them. It was a lot of fun.

Shamrock Stamps

We used our heart foam stickers that we had left over from Valentine's Day and made shamrock stamps out of them. I hot glued 3 layers of cardboard together and then we put the heart stickers on to make our Shamrock Stamp. We used our favorite giant stamp pads we got from Oriental Trading Company and stamped away on our paper. My son loved making a pattern between light and dark green.

A Pot of Gold at the End of a Rainbow (mobile)

Today we made rainbows out of scraps of construction paper. We got the idea from No Time for Flashcards. Then we made pots of gold to put at the ends of the rainbow since we are now in March and it will soon be St. Patrick's Day!!

Supplies needed:

Construction paper (colors of the rainbow and black for pot)

yarn

glue

white paper or cardboard to sketch outline of rainbow

hole punch

Another Book Idea....

We use these bags every now and again to have scavenger hunts for small things. We used them for this fall craft and we used them again here. I made a pocket out of a clear plastic sheet protector on the front of the bag big enough for an index card to fit in to remind the kids what we were looking for. We were focusing on our colors. This is an activity that can take a couple of weeks if you choose to do one color each day. After the child has found things that are the color of the day, take a photo of all of it and make a book out of it! They are so proud of the things they have found.

Personalized Books For Kids

I made a counting Book for my son years ago, but I used white cardstock pages and laminated them with laminating sheets and then took it to my local office store to be spiral bound. That worked out really well and he still loves looking at it. When I saw these blank board books on the Oriental Trading Website, I had to order some and use them for my daughter's book.

I took pictures of things of hers that she loves and printed them off on sticker paper, stuck the sticker to the board book and then I put laminating sheets over those. I personalized the cover with a picture of her and SHE LOVES THIS BOOK! She has been taking it to bed with her to read over and over.

Supplies Needed

Blank Board book, found here

laminating sheets

camera

sticker sheets

Glass stone Caterpillars

We used our glass stones again! We cut out a leaf out of card stock and drew a line of glue across it and the kids placed the stones across the glue. Then they added some pipe cleaner antenae and some googley eyes!

Supplies needed:

Green construction paper or card stock

Glass stones

googley eyes

pipe cleaners

glue

Glass Stone Picture Frame

I have had these glass stones for a while because I used them for an activity once in the classroom. The kids have loved playing with them, so I decided to use some of them in a couple of crafts this week.

We made a picture frame out of craft sticks and used some markers to color them. Then the kids placed the stones on the frame where they wanted them and I used the hot glue gun to stick them on. The kids were very proud of their creation and loved having a photo shoo0t to choose a picture to put in them.

Supplies needed

craft sticks

glass stones

markers

hot glue gun

Homemade Musical Instruments

We have started a band and are taking our show on the road. I bet if you listen closely, you could hear our instruments right now....even in other countries. It is a little loud, but so much fun. They are learning a lot as well.

We made a guitar out of a shoebox lid and several rubber bands of various sizes and thicknesses. We talked about the different sounds the rubber bands made and why they all sounded different.

We made a kazoo by taking a toilet paper roll and covering it with scrapbook paper. Then we punched a hole in the side (so the wax paper wouldn't be blown off when they talked into it). Then we covered one end with wax paper and fastened it on with a rubber band. We talked about the vibrations that are made with the sounds we make.

We made a drum/shaker by taking a container with a metal bottom and covering it with scrapbook paper and putting some dried beans inside. They can shake this or use pencils to drum on it.

We made our jingle bell instrument by putting beads and jingle bells on a pipe cleaner and connecting the ends together.

Foamerator

We hopped in the tub with our suits and started making some crazy bubbles. We cut off the bottom of a water bottle and we used some old wash cloths and used a rubber band to put them on the end of the water bottle. The kids then dipped the washcloth in some water to get the wash cloth wet and then we dipped it in some bubble bath and blew in the top of the bottle to make some bubbles. Such fun!! We found the idea here.

Supplies needed:

water bottle

wash cloth or old towel

rubber band

liquid soap/bubble bath

Beach in a jar

We made a beach in a jar! Just when we are about to get some more snow, we are ready to look forward to warmer weather. We used a canning jar and poured in some sand. Then we put in some sea shells. It is a very simple thing to do, but my kids were born 5 miles from a beach and we miss it some days. They played with the shells for about 30 minutes even before we started making our beach. Whenever we feel like we are ready for the sun, we can look at our jars and day dream.

Supplies needed:

jars

sand

shells

Smoothies

We had a delicious treat during our Hawaiian Luau. We made Strawberry yogurt smoothies. The first thing we did though was decorate our cups. We used some of the left over flower cut outs from our lei making and glued them on plastic cups.

Next we made our smoothies:

2 cups of strawberries (1/2 a quart)

1/2 cup yogurt (we used strawberry yogurt)

1 cup of ice

1/4 cup orange juice

2 T. sugar

Throw all ingredients in a blender and blend until smooth.

Tissue paper flowers and grass skirts

Continuing with the Hawaiian luau we had on Monday, we also made some tissue paper flowers and grass skirts. First we got some green tissue paper and cut slits all the way to the top except for a couple of inches at the top. Then we tucked it in to the bottoms of their suits.

Next we piled layers of tissue paper traced a circle from a plate, cut out the circle and folded them in a fan and wrapped a pipe cleaner around it and pulled each layer up to form a flower. We wrapped those around their ankles.

After we did this, we turned up the Hawaiian music (thank you internet) and danced around. We also did a limbo contest.

Supplies needed:

tissue paper

pipe cleaners