Mummy, I'm Scared!

Here's the thing about wreaths: I can start and finish one during nap time and I feel so accomplished.  I am so in love with this wreath. My inspiration wreath was way out of the budget, but I really, really wanted one.

The wreath form is an insulation foam pipe from the hardware store and make sure you read this tutorial before you make the circle.  I reinforced it with white duct tape and covered in cheese cloth.  Two skeletons hanging from the middle for a little scare factor and finished - Nap time crafting.

Mister and Ladybug helped me attach magnets to the spiders and arrange the spiders to give it a little more creep.  I think the arranging took longer than the wreath.

October Sensory Bin - What's Inside?

The spark and bang are still haunting me, so this photo is brought to you by Blackberry.  I know, it's nothing compared to the new generation of phones, but considering my husband and I are considering returning to a landline, it's what ya get.

This month is all about the inside of our bodies.  

• Elbow macaroni (clever) dyed orange and black
• Black and orange pom-poms
• Googly eyes
• Skeleton parts (wooden and plastic)
• Skeleton rings
• Cauldron
• Spoons
• Strawberry hauler

My word it's worse than I thought.

I hope to update when I get a camera.

A is for...

My husband is really good at fixing large manly type of things, like a motor or a bathroom.  What he isn't so good at is fixing delicate things, like Mister's glasses (hello warranty) and my camera.  Two things you  never want from your camera is a flash and a boom and those two things I have heard.  The good news is that I have a few things I haven't posted from last month, but I have a really cool sensory bin that I am itching to get to.  In the meantime, here are some of the Wee One's letter "a" activities.

Math - Scented apple stickers on dots to work on one-to-one correspondence.

Literacy - Letter A recognition and beginning sounds Letter Book

Apple stamping - she chose to use make yellow apples

Stickers - fine motor

Finally, we did a lot of dancing to Animal Actions.

We All Fall - Word Family

I know everyone has certain book your kid(s) insist you read over and over and over...until they remind you when you accidentally skip a page (and by accidentally I mean let's get this book over).  Our latest book like that is We All Fall for Apples.  Since they love this book, even the Wee One has it memorized, I took the word family -all and made an activity.

I cut out a tree and some fall leaves to put on the tree.  In the middle of the tree I wrote -all and asked them to think of words that had -all in them.  When they found one, I wrote it and they glued it on.  When it was finished, I put the tree on our wall for reference.

Then, on the shelf was the materials to make their own tree. 

Ladybug is writing her -all words.

I hung up their trees for our -all family wall.

Other Than The Kids

I have interests outside of my children.  No really I do.  My husband and I like to remodel, but like most things it never fully gets finished.  There is still a piece of tile that needs to be grouted in the kid bath and that was finished 3 years ago.  It's those little things that we will do tomorrow, but I can say that this project is finished.  Really finished.

Before

After

As Ladybug would say, "Are you proud of yourself mommy?"  Yes, yes I am.

Love Birds - Canvas

I feel like I am a crafty DIY person, but I am a lot better in my head.  Ask my family and they will tell you that I think I can build furniture, paint pictures, landscape, and make clothes.  Then ask them what I really can do.  Vastly different.  My lofty ideas usually take more effort and more money to create than paying somebody else to do it for me.  So, when this only took me two tries I had to share it.

It's a 10x10 canvas from Michaels and since they never have coupons (like Kohl's never has a sale), it was around $7.00.  I painted the canvas using leftover paint from the walls and I first attempted to cover it with pretty paper.  Modpodge and I battled a few times and clearly I wasn't the winner.  The "love" is from the Cricut on 4".  The birds are hand cut from clip art on white paper with a hint of a pattern.  The branch is drawn and hand cut from the webs.  Finally the leaves were cut from silver paper to add some shine.

Down Came an Apple

Yesterday, I wrote about the apple subtraction rhyme we have been singing and now the activity.

We started off my sitting on the rug and each person had a chance to shake some apples off the tree.  We talked about how many apples we had, how many fell off, and how many were left.  I like to think of it as a verbal word problem and for many kids word problems are a big thumbs down.

On the shelf was the same kind of activity, but in written as a word problem.

___ red apples handing in the tree
Looking red and delicious as can be!
I shook that tree as hard as I could
Down came ____ apple(s)
Mmm it was good.

How many apples are left in the tree?

Ladybug adding the apples to her tree.

Ladybug giving the apple tree a shake.

This is a self-checking activity with the correct answer on the back.  I hope it was a stress free introduction to word problems.  Happy apple shaking and subtracting.