Restaurant Napkin Doll Tutorial

If you have been following this blog for a while you may remember a post I did about a year ago with ideas for passing the time while waiting with your family at a restaurant. Well, the other day, I was browsing Valerie's blog Frugal Family Fun and was tickled to find a great idea to add to the list.

Wouldn't your kids love it if you could make them a little doll to play with every time you went to a restaurant? You can! I tried this tutorial the other day and it was EASY and turned out cute (and I can assure you that I am especially UN-talented at all things origami-related).

If you try it, I'd love to know how it turns out for you (and whether you impress any waitresses with your fun new skill)!

Daffodil photo cards

Recently our playgroup did a project for an elderly lady in our church. The idea for the cards came partly from a recent issue of Better Homes and Gardens. This is what we did:

1. Took a picture of each of the children hugging a teddy bear. Printed the pictures off the computer, and cut them out as circles.

2. Glued the picture to the center of a muffin liner.

3. Glued the muffin liner inside of a second liner to make a daffodil shape.

4. Glued the flower to a card (folded construction paper)

5. Cut a number of green stems and leaves out of construction paper. The children then used glue sticks to glue them to the card. (something they could easily do, got them involved, and still left the card looking nice)6. Gave the teddy bear and the cards to our friend in the nursing home, showing her that the teddy bear came bearing hugs from all of the little children at church.

I really liked the way this worked out. Bringing all of the children to the nursing home would have been overwhelming to our friend, but the craft gave us all a sense of connectedness, and our friend seemed to really like knowing that we all had been thinking of her during our playgroup.

Toddler Box Train

My friends who are moms and I have often wondered what it is about trains that so fascinates little children. They sure like to ride them, talk about them, look at them, etc.!

M made this train today out of toy boxes from the playroom. It kept her (and her stuffed animal menagerie) happily occupied for about 45 minutes.

Daily Schedule with 2 Little Ones

A while back a reader asked me to do a post describing our daily routine. It seems like things are often changing, but we have been doing what we do now for a few weeks. (I should mention that my girls are roughly 6 months and 2 1/2 years old).

Here is the skeleton of a regular day with the girls:

6:00am- Rise and shower
6:30am Bible reading and prayer
7:00am- G rises, eats, I make breakfast
8:00am- M rises, dresses,
8:30am- Breakfast- M and I work on memorizing bible verses
9:00am- G goes down for morning nap; Morning chores (M's job is to sort the clean silverware into the drawer- when she is done, I continue working while she has free play time)
10:00am- M's "school time"
11:30- G eats followed by errand running about town on some days; on other days this is outdoor play time
12:30pm Lunch
1:15pm- Story time with both girls
1:30pm- M goes down for nap, G's alone play time with me
2:00pm- G goes down for nap, My project/cleaning/napping/emailing time
4:00pm- M and G get up; M gets snack, G eats
5:00pm- I make dinner; M has a "Blanket Time"
6:00pm- Dinner and talk time with husband
7:00pm- Daddy play time with girls
7:15pm- Bible bedtime story with M, get her ready for bed
7:45pm M in bed, G eats and goes to bed

Of course, some days aren't like this at all- either because of unusual circumstances, or because of laziness. Do any of you have any tips or suggestions for arranging daily routines with little ones? I'm really very eager to hear about them. Hearing about other families' days is one of the best ways I have been able to make progress in this area.

Playdoh snake writing

Here is another activity that really will work better when M isa little older, but we did have a fun time with it today too.

I showed M how to roll playdoh out into skinny snakes. When we had made lots of snakes of varying sizes I took her magnadoodle and drew a large number on it. Then M and I worked together to place snakes along the lines of the number until the entire number was formed by snakes. Each time M was proud of the finished product. Fun and easy activity!

(This one also came from The Toddler Busy Book).

Clothes Pin Spelling

Yet another use for foam stickable letters. Spell simple words on the back of a paper plate. Stick the same set of letters on clothes pins. Let child match the letters one at a time to the letters of each word. Tell child that he/she has just spelled that word with the clothes pin letters.

This activity really was a little beyond M. (partly because she still has difficulty clipping clothes pins) I think I'll pull it out again in a few months.

Teddy Bear Swing

We had SO much fun with this morning with this activity- tied a ribbon around M's favorite stuffed animal, tied the other end to a tree branch and let her push Sheepy on the "swing." Of course, then all the other little friends need to have a turn too!This idea came from The Toddler Busy Book. There seem to be quite a few other good ideas here too. I'll keep you posted!

A Morning Outdoors

I was reminded the other day of the value of spending time outdoors with my girls even when I don't have any particular ideas for activities with them.

For a number of reasons, our poor backyard has been looking like a jungle lately- lots of prickly weeds have been springing up here and there. My husband has a lot on his plate right now; so one morning, I decided to go back there with a screwdriver and try to get rid of some of the weeds. M wandered around the yard while I worked.

After I had been working about 20 minutes I saw that one of the weeds had a snail shell on it. I called M over to show her the live, slimy snail living inside. She was transfixed. I gave him to her to carry around, and she watched over him like he was a babydoll.

As I worked, I found more and more snails of various sizes, and at each, M was delighted, calling them mommies, daddies, or babies depending on their sizes. She set them on the patio, and pretty soon they oozed out of their shells enough to slide slowly along.

There were so many moments of childlike wonder that I couldn't have planned if I had tried.

Much of the time, it is easy for me to slip into an attitude of instant gratification with my children. If something doesn't seem interesting or fun to them in the first five minutes of trying it, I often abandon the effort. Adopting that attitude with nature doesn't work very well though. One can't expect the outdoors to show its little glories on demand. The snail surprise reminded me of the importance of being content to while away empty, unexciting time outdoors for the sake of the wonderful serendipity of spotting a red- headed woodpecker one day or a spider spinning a web the next.

Toddler Activity Disaster

I don't usually write posts about the activities that don't turn out so well, but this morning's activity was so awful that I just had to share.

It was supposed to work like this (I read about the idea in a book):

1. Using masking tape, mark several familiar shapes on the carpet.
2. Using different actions, tell the child to go to each shape. (run to the square, hop to the triangle, etc)
3. Child runs, frolicks and plays while learning her shapes!

M did not think this sounded like fun. (I think partly as a reflection of the terrible twos- following directions is something one has to put up with all day to stay out of trouble- it is NOT a fun game). I didn't want the time and effort to be a total waste; so I told her that she could give ME directions for moving from shape to shape.

That was mildly more interesting to her- but only mildly. I should have just given up on the whole idea, but I was stubbornly determined to make it fun. Knowing how much she enjoys it when we turn somersaults together, I told her that she could tell me to somersault to the different shapes.

Apparently my tumbling ability needs a little work. Instead of saulting to the diamond, I catapulted crookedly into M, kicking her in the head with my feet and sending her flying backward into the wall. Poor little girl...I'm afraid this incident has ruined our somersaulting fun for a long while!

Outlines and Shapes

Quick, easy, free and fun!

1. Gather a few distinctively shaped objects
2. Draw their outlines in marker on pieces of scrap paper
3. Spread the outlines in front of your toddler
4. Take the objects one at a time and ask the toddler to match the object to its outline.
5. Then try it the opposite way: have the toddler match outlines to objects.

Keeping Little Hands Busy: Peeling Cuties

My mom discovered over Christmas vacation that M can easily peel a clementine, and it keeps her focused and happy for about 8 minutes. Of course, she then has the pleasure of being able to share the slices with all of us!

What are some easy ideas you have found for helping toddlers stay busy on their own when you can't watch them too carefully?

Snowflake Pancakes

Aren't they cute? Heavenly Homemaker tells you the secret for making them quickly and easily over here!

Magnet Fishing Game

Over Christmas my mother and M had fun playing a magnet fishing game that my mother made. The "fishing pole" was a ruler with a string. The "hook" was a magnet tied to the end of the string. On the table was the "pond," a number of cardboard circles cut out of Christmas cards with a paper clip attached to each one.

M's job was to catch the circles one at a time. On the back of each circle was a number (one, two, or three). When she caught the "fish" she would look on the back, identify the number and then got to take that number of candies (my mom used the tiny dot candies that are stuck to a paper). Great fun!