Guest Posting Today: DIY Bouncy Balls

I'm writing today over at Free Fun in Austin. Here's a little sneak peek at what we made:

Thankful Tree with Pictures

I decided we would try to make a pictorial Thankful tree this year while the girls are little.  For the last few days, I've been asking them to think of things they are thankful for and then giving them the camera to take pictures of their answers.

Today I made a tree out of butcher paper and let them stick the leaves on the tree

 My favorite so far is this leaf.

M's first answer to what she was thankful for was "I'm thankful I have a sister."  I just about melted with the sweetness of it.  :-)

Rainbow Squish Monsters

I don't know what it is lately (maybe it's third trimester pregnancy), but messes around the house put me in such a grumpy mood these days.  (That's not to say that there AREN'T messes, I'm just not very good natured about them :-)

So when I remembered that unopened package of finger paints that craftprojectideas.com had sent me a while back, I felt a little tempted to send it back into hiding.  But then I remembered a fun idea I had seen on someone's blog a while back (can't remember who- sorry!)  about using finger paints to make symmetrical squish paintings.

I got out the popsicle sticks and we dabbed blobs of finger paint onto the middle of a piece of paper.  We folded the paper and SQUISHED (definitely the fun part).

When we opened up the page, we had the fun of figuring out how to turn the shape into a monster.  I gave the girls googly eyes to put on where they wanted, and they instructed me as to where to draw details on with a marker (ears, feet, hands, horns, etc).

Much less mess than finger painting- and not without imaginative and sensory appeal!

Turkey Crafts for Kids

Maybe your taste in turkeys runs differently than mine, but I think all four of these turkey ideas are really, really fun!

1.  Wooden Spoon Pumpkin Turkey from Naptime Crafters
2.  Pinecone Turkey from Amanda Parker and Family.  I love the crayons as the tail!
3.  Handprint Cookie Turkeys from Somewhat Simple
4.  Fall Leaf Turkey by Babycenter

The Story Road

This is Annie. She took a little trip down the story road today. She hopped from book to book as we told a story about her, each aspect of the story relating somehow to the book she was on.

 The book paths forked and combined at various points so the author could decide what kinds of things they wanted to include.

 Each of us took a turn making up a story with Annie and the books. I went first, and it was interesting to see how each girl copied a bit of what I did but also added her own elements. We came up with some pretty crazy stories :-)

(You might have noticed that both girls are wearing two sets of clothes- leftovers from their self-declared "dress-up day.")

It's Playtime!

Play Doh and Rubber Stamps

For a while now I've felt a little guilty about not better utilizing these fabulous animal track rubber stamps that my mother got for the girls a while back.  It's just been so hard for me to get excited about the combination of ink pads and toddlers.  Paint is a little better, but still messy.

Yesterday I was so tickled to find a low- mess way to use them.  They work great with play-doh!  Even little G can get fun effects with them with no help.

Three Art Mediums for Three Types of Clouds

1.  Cirrus - white chalk
2.  Stratus- thick gray paint
3.  Cumulus- equal parts shaving cream and glue.  It dries fluffy and textured- really fun!
     (for cumulonimbus- add a little black paint)

We did this as a go-along activity for Mr. Gumpy's Motorcar and The Cloud Book today in our homeschool co-op.  I liked that it worked for our wide age range  (3 year olds through six year olds)

Welcome, Money Saving Mom Readers!

I want to extend a hearty welcome to all those visiting from my guest post at one of my all-time favorite blogs, Money Saving Mom!

While you are here at Having Fun at Home I hope you will be able to find some inexpensive and creative ideas that your family can use.  Here are some categories that might be of particular interest:

Holidays
Family 
Games

We also have activity ideas broken down by age group:

Babies
Toddlers
Young Children
Older Children

Thank you for visiting!

Three TerrificThanksgiving Books for Kids

I really love Thanksgiving.  Among the holidays, it's one that is relatively untainted by commercialism.  The grit of the Pilgrims is inspiring, and being deliberate about thankfulness to the Lord as a family is so potent.  Plus, because it's not an explicitly religious holiday, I don't feel like it is being irreverent to indulge in some of the fun and silliness that surrounds it.

All that combines to make it one of the holidays that I'm really willing to invest time and energy into making special.

Here are three of my favorite Thanksgiving books.

1.  Most Beautiful Artwork:  N.C. Wyeth's Pilgrims by Robert San Souci.  The illustrations in this book are out- of- this- world gorgeous.  Instead of the typical, artificially manufactured fare that you usually find in children's books, these pictures come from art that stands on it's own merit.  They are based on a series of murals painted by N.C. Wyeth for The Metropolitan Life Insurance Company in New York in the 1940s.

I love the play of light and color throughout the book, and I appreciate the way the depiction of the pilgrims challenges the typical conception that they were dour and stiff people.  Lots of life and joy in this book- without being saccharine.

The author consulted many sources for making text, and the writing is just fine.  (although, really better for older children.  My little ones just look at the pictures for now).

2.  Best Text:  Tattered Sails by Verla Kay.

The illustrations in this book are rather good too, but it is the text that really stands out.  Tattered Sails tells the story of a Pilgrim family's difficult voyage across the Atlantic (not necessarily the Mayflower, but it could have been) and ends with their thankfulness at settling into life in the New World.

Verla's Kay's writing style is impressionistic.  Instead of straightforward prose, she uses short staccato phrases strung together to paint a poetic picture of life during that time, and I think it really works.  Our family have several of Kay's history stories, and we read them over and over.  It's rhythmic without being trite.

3.  Most Fun: Blue Hat, Green Hat by Sandra Boynton.  This isn't necessarily a Thanksgiving book, but it's about a silly turkey, and it's humor is just right for toddlers.  So fun!

So...I'd love to read about your favorite Thanksgiving books.  Please link up! (or leave a comment)

Numbered Sticky Note Name Spelling

I was going to write today about our thankful tree plans for this year, but I'm afraid time has gotten away from me this afternoon, and I don't have a picture ready to go with it.

Instead, I'll just show you what we did this morning for G's school time.

1.  Six sticky notes lined up and numbered one through six.
2.  Six more sticky notes- each with a letter of G's name spread out randomly on the table.
3.  We sang the silly little song I made up to help G remember how to spell her name.  As we sang each letter, I asked her to find the corresponding sticky note.
4.  I instructed G to put the sticky note letter on the correct numbered sticky note.

It was good practice for practice for G with:
- spelling her name
- identifying upper and lower case letters
-identifying numbers

What other activities have you tried to help your child learn how to spell his name?  

Thankful Tree Inspiration

Tomorrow I'll be sharing our plans for this years' thankful tree, but for now, here is some wonderful inspiration from around the web:

1.  Children's hands make great fall leaves as shown by Crafts by Amanda

2.  You could make individual thankful trees out of paper towel rolls like they did at Motherhood Moments.

3.  Scrap the tree idea entirely and go with an erasable blessings board.  The tutorial is at Less Than Perfect Life of Bliss.

4.  I love this artfully done printable for a thankful tree.

5.  The Red Thread came up with the idea for this reverse advent tree.  Each day her family filled it with something that they are thankful for.

6. Parent's Yarn Thankful Turkey is so cute!
7.  I really like the look of the white spray painted branch at Better Homes and Gardens
8.  The Artful Parent shows you how she made her pretty leaf garland.
9.  This child-decorated thankful box is a good idea from No Time for Flashcards.

Blanton Museum of Art Scavenger Hunts

Here are three fun scavenger hunts for Austinites to use with their children at The Blanton Museum of Art.  

Animals

  Hats

Contemporary Art Pieces to Find and Color 

 By the way, don't bring crayons to use with this activity.  They won't let you use them (I found out the hard way), but colored pencils are ok.  

All of the pictures are from paintings or sculptures in the permanent collection, but bear in mind that occasionally, even some of those pieces go on loan to other museums.

I hope you have as much fun with these as we had the other day!

We Made Butter!

I've seen people making butter around the internet for a while now and always in the back of my mind thought that it probably takes forever and doesn't really turn out that great.  But when our homeschool co-op recently read a book that was a perfect tie-in for the activity (When I was Young in the Mountains), I figured it was time to give it a try.

Materials:
Heavy cream (the higher the fat content the better)
Jar or tupperware container for shaking (smaller containers= less time shaking) I used a salad dressing shaker because it was easy for little hands to hold while they shook
Marbles (optional, to aid the mixing process)

Directions
Fill the jar half-way up with the heavy cream, drop in the marbles and shake, shake, shake.  You don't have to be super vigorous; just keep it moving.

The cream will first turn to a thick whipped cream; shake for a little while longer after that- and suddenly you will see the butter curds separated out from the rest of the liquid.  (It will be obvious) Shake until it doesn't seem to be changing anymore.

Drain the buttermilk off of the butter and reserve for pancakes or something else delicious.

You'll be left with a soft, spreadable butter- slightly wetter than what you would buy in the store.

The Verdict
So...it DID take a long time.  The five kids shaking it had worn themselves out before it was done; so the adults finished it up.  Altogether, it took about 20 minutes of shaking for the butter to form.

But, the results were super satisfying.  The kids were fascinated by the dramatic change from cream to butter, and it was tasty on the skillet cornbread that we made to go along with the lesson.

If you're on the line about doing this activity yourself, my advice is that it is worth it, but be ready for a good arm workout!

Works for Me Wednesday!