christmas paper - tuesday treasure (a day late)

Its time for us to post some overseas Christmas goodies and we need some paper, so Flynn and i got busy today with some rollers and blue paint. I know that chrissy paper is cheap, but i think presents to loved ones wrapped in home made paper is a more thoughtful way to give gifts. Also it gives Flynn and opportunity to paint on really big bits of paper and that's always fun. It also makes the lead up to christmas that much more exciting for kids if they are involved in all the steps of gift giving. Flynn has been subjected to many christmas shopping trips lately as i madly try to get it done before the shops get to catastrophic. So he has helped choose presents, now he gets to make the paper, he will also be making cards and i may even employ his elfish little hands to manage the sticky tape at wrapping time. He will have a good understanding this way of the joy of gift giving, and i hope too that he will see christmas is about giving to loved ones not just about what hes getting.

ok so how did we make our christmas paper? We had some paper from flynn's daddy that he no longer needed, we got some silver paint and some blue paint, some little sponge rollers and i cut out some stencils. very basic stencils. I cut out a snowman and a snowflake and this was ok, but i cut them out of paper, big mistake they started to break and rip after the 3rd rollering. I then cut some stars out of a empty cat bikkie box and this worked fantastic. I cut one really big star, flynn really liked this one, and a few small stars. The biggest difference i noticed was he struggled with the first stencils because he was rollering around them, needed lots of help. But with the star stencils he was rollering the inside shape the star itself and this clicked with him so much better, interesting that the negative positive aspect would make a difference but at nearly four i can understand its easier to see what your doing. We quickly filled up two big pieces of paper, the silver paint was not bold enough so we combined the blue with it to get a shiny blue paint. I think the paper has worked out rather pretty, i think the key to stencil paper is to keep the stencils simple.

If your having trouble with the drawing up of a stencil you can always print a basic star from the computer, or just let loose and remember that your kids are very forgiving and will love whatever you do! my stars are a bit wonky x x

sassy

linked on mommy club wednesday linky & Its Playtime & tgif linky party & fun stuff fridays

chatterbox learning - thinking cap thursday

Chatterbox's make great play things, i remember my mum spelling out words with them and then she would write funny things on the inside. They make a great medium for learning.

I have made a few for Flynn, the first has got our names on the outside then numbers on the inside, then shapes under the lift up bit. The second has colours on the outside, sight words on the inside and then positive sentences under the lift up triangle along the lines of "your a star" and "my little champion". I think this helps to boost his confidence ans i hope it will reinforce that learning is a positive experience. The green one is all about the alphabet, i worked through the letters on the outer, inner and the under layers. The bottom layer also has some words begining with that letter.

So how do you use them? i hope this makes sense, you pop your fingers into the bottom triangle and move the chatterbox as if it is a mouth. You spell out the word your child has chosen, or run through the alphabet until you hit that letter. Then you let them choose from the inner part, and you spell count or run through alphabet, when you finish this time you lift the little triangle flap and read whats underneath.

So how do you make one? im hooking you up on ehow and a video on metacafe

ok have fun learning, sassy x  linked on playtime

Squirt the Flyer - Thinking Cap Thursday

Earlier in the week i had a play date with another almost 4 year old and they both like the angry bird game (grumpy birds Flynn calls it) on the ipad. Thinking about this and wanting to make a game they could play outside that had a similar feel i came up with putting some angry bees on my washing line. I cut them out of cardboard and added some yellow stickers for zing and handed the boys water free water pistols to pretend blast the naught angry bees.

 I left them on the line and today i thought i could turn it into a more exciting and potentially educational game. I cut out some other flying things, birds butterfly's and bats and hung them from the line. All were different colours, with different coloured stickers and I attached them to the line using a pipe cleaner, so they slide a bit in the wind. This time we filled the water pistols with water, and Flynn had to squirt at the ones we called out a colour or an animal. He had to think quick and observe which animals were there what colours they were and what colour spots they had, then co-ordinate that with squirting. He had to count how many were say blue and squirt them all. The more he squirted the more i pretended the bees got angry and i shook the washing line making it harder to squirt them, he giggled and laughed, i got squirted and so did he, it was fun. He had no idea that i was honing his skills of observation, a perfect game for a hot sunny afternoon.

sassy
p.s next time i might add some plastic balls to throw at the flyers.