Caterpillar craft

This week, as part of our C for Caterpillar week, we of course read "The very hungry caterpillar" by Eric Carle...........we LOVE that book and it's been a favorite since Channing was VERY little. I have another book though that is Australian, about a caterpillar and has BEAUTIFUL illustrations....it's called "The very ordinary caterpillar" written and illustrated by Gary Fleming.

Here is a peek at some of the BEAUTIFUL illustrations:

Aren't they GREAT! Unfortunately, I just looked the book up on Amazon and there are 2 copies for $61.00......far out! If you come across a copy in a store somewhere, you should definitely pick it up. I got mine while I was teaching (in Australia).

After reading the story, we made our own caterpillar. I drew the letter C and Channing stuck the circles down.

We then added clouds (which we should have done FIRST).

I cut clouds out of blue paper (so it was easy for Channing to see on the white background of the caterpillar..... ....and then we painted around them using blue watercolor paint.

Channing's favorite part was snipping the grass.

I'm going to link this to StART.

What's cooking Wednesday

Candy Corn cupcakes

OK, did I mention I am going slightly candy corn crazy???! Here are some Candy corn Cupcakes I made for all the boys this week.

I decorated sugar cookies (with Royal icing) for on the top.

The inside had yellow, orange and white cake. To top is off, they were iced with a mostly butter cream (but a little bit of cream cheese too) icing...........they were GOOD!

Take Time to Craft Tuesday

Candy Corn

I've officially joined in on the blogger candy corn craze (I admit, they ARE adorable). Since the apple bean bags were an absolute hit with Channing and Sully (they play with them EVERY day!), I decided to make some Candy corn bean bags.

Don't look too closely at the actual sewing (I think I mentioned that I am only a beginner and not super good at it)..........I sewed little buttons on each candy corn.......number 1-10 so we can do some math things with them too.

If you make some, I'd love to see them :-)

I'm linking to ABC and 123 Show and tell here.

Beazley the sound muncher

We have a sound muncher that lives in our house. His name is Beazley. He eats anything that starts with the letter we are learning. Every time he "eats" something that starts with the letter of the week, we sing this song:

(to the tune of "This old man")

The Sound Muncher,

Sings c (letter sound) songs.

He sings c letter sound again) songs all day long,

with a cick, cack, caddywack

Sing his silly song,

Won't you come and sing along?

Beazley is made out of a little trash can. Here's what he looks like when he "munches".

Channing loves to put things into him and sing the silly song. Sully loves him too (but he keeps pulling at Beazley's hair!) I had one of these in my classroom too and the kids LOVED him :-)

I am going to link to ABC and 123 here.

Cute Cat game

While I was sewing some candy corns the other day (more about that later), I was thinking about what I could whip up for Channing to do this week and had a brainwave :-)

I've had these little rod like sticks for years and the boys got into my closet the other day and they were all over the place...........soooooooo, I came up with this:

A cute little cat face that Channing can roll the dice and add whiskers too.
Sully thinks it's fun too!

If you give a cat a cupcake.

Channing has been sick all week! In an effort to cheer us both up, we decided to get crafty (what better way to lift the spirit!). Since we are about to embark on the letter C, we read "If you give a cat a cupcake" written by Laura Numeroff. I think we got our copy when Kohl's were selling them for $5..............Channing loves the whole series.After reading the story, I cut a cat shape from brown cardboard and Channing went to town on the "puffy paint" (You can find a tutorial here).

Channing loved painting it on with Q-tips.

It's really fun because not only are the ingredients safe (they are in your kitchen cupboard), you microwave it when you're done and it all puffs up.

Cool huh?!

Channing's favorite part of the story is the cat tipping the sprinkles everywhere (who would have thought), so we HAD too include a cupcake WITH sprinkles. I know you can't see it very well but he is gluing little beads on the cake for the sprinkles.

All in all, it was a great story and a fun time together. To see more great story+art ideas, visit A Mommy's Adventures. I am linking this post for the first time :-)

What's Cooking Wednesday?

Orange Dreamsicle Cake
Oh delish!! This has to be one of the tastiest thing I've tasted since living in the States..........I'm not sure why no one makes it in Australia but they really should........

Here's what you need:

I box orange cake mix

1 Small box orange Jello (or jelly for you Aussies)

I Cup boiling water



1. Prepare cake mix as per directions. Bake and then cool for 20 minutes.

2. With a fork, poke holes evenly over the cake (at least 3/4 of the way to the bottom).

3. Mix boiling water and Jello.

4. Pour Jello over the cake (it will seep into the cake).

5. Refrigerate for 1 hour and then spread the icing on top.



Icing

1 Cup heavy cream

31/2 Oz packet of Vanilla pudding (the cold milk kind)

1 Cup milk

1 tsp orange extract

1tsp vanilla extract



1. Whip cream until stiff.

2. In a separate bowl, combine pudding mix and milk. Set aside until firm.

3. Fold in whipped cream and then add the extracts.

4. Mix really well and then spread over the cake.

5. Chill for at least 1 hr before serving!

Batty rhymes

Bat finger puppets

Here are some bat finger puppets that I made for Channing this week. They were super easy to make.
You need:
Black felt
Thread
Needle
Glue

How you do it:
1. Cut out little rectangles and wings .

2. Fold the little rectangles around until they just cross over each other. Hold the wing on top and do a stitch down the middle (this will stitch the wings and the band that goes around the finger).

3. Glue eyes on.

Finger plays

Here are some finger plays that you could use your bats with (I'm not sure where they came from.... I had them in my school boxes).

5 little bats
5 little bats hanging upside down,
the first one didn't make a sound.

The second one said "I'll fly far tonight."
The third one said "I don't like sunlight'"
The fourth one said "I want to eat some bugs."
The fifth one said "I'll give you all a hug."
Five little bats hanging upside down
Shhhhh! It's daytime, don't make a sound!



Sleeping bats
(to the tune of Frere Jacques)
Bats are sleeping,
Bats are sleeping,
Upside down,
Upside down.
Sleeping in the morning sun,
Waiting for the night to come,
Then they'll fly around.
Then they'll fly around.


Hope you have some batty fun this week too!

B is for Bats!

Weekly wrap up (again)

I decided to break this week's learning up in two sections (so the post was not super long). Here are some of the things we did when we learned about bats.

We painted our hand prints and made bats.

We did a number clip activity that I whipped up using "bat" pegs.

After reading a bat fact book, Channing did some counting play dough mats based on things bats eat. You can't see it very well, but Channing placed the bats in size order and hung them upside down on a stick with pegs. We made patterns with bats using bats I got from the dollar section at Target.
Channing had a pile of numbers which he used to draw from. He turned over one and had to place the correct number of bats on the tree.
We made a bat snack (see my post from a few days ago to see how you can make them too.)


We read a book that my kindergarten class had made a few years ago.


Look for another post soon about the cute bat finger puppets we made.

I am linking to ABC and 123 here.

Take Time To Craft Tuesday

Snails and Flowers

A few months ago, I was on a sewing kick and decided to make Channing my own version of "chutes and ladders" (or "snakes and Ladders" as it's called in Australia). I decided to make it only 20 squares long as Channing had never played a board game before and I wasn't certain that too many more squares would keep his attention.

Snails and flowers are not really "boyish" however I like them and thought it would be cute! He likes it too by the way :-)

Here is the finished product.
You play it the same way as the original game........flowers go up.......


.......and snails go down.

The playing pieces are bees.

To win the game, the bees have to get to the hive (with the correct number of spaces).

I backed the whole thing with material and ribbon (just like the car mat) so the bee playing pieces get rolled up inside and then you tie it all together. We also use a really big dice that I bought at the teacher store to play with.

Hope it inspired you! If you make one, I'd love to see it :-)

I am linking to ABCand 123.

B is for Bears!

Weekly wrap up

We completed another week of the letter B......simply because I had too many fun things I had planned. Channing didn't mind at all :-) Here are some of the things we did.

We found some cute panda bears in rainbow rice (there were 10 panda bears and 1 black bear). I found these little guys from a teacher bookstore.






We read "Brown bear, Brown bear, what do you see?" by Eric Carle. I have a picture book copy and a board book copy, so Channing read along on the board book while I read the picture book. Funny I hadn't noticed before but the pictures (in both books) are different AND some of the pages are completely different!




After reading the story, we graphed M&M's. You can find this printable here.


We also matched up animal halves from the story. You can find these here.





Channing sorted bears into color bowls.











After reading some books about bears, Channing put on his bear mask and ears and went "fishing".

As you can see, the bear mask didn't last too long :-)


I made 10 of these bear heads and we used them for all sorts of things (counting, sorting fish to each bear and seeing if if bear had a "fair share", hide and seek etc.........they worked out great!).

We also discovered some different types of bears and where they live.

How can we learn about bears and NOT go on a bear hunt? Channing found out his "baby bear" had taken off and left a note in his place........we followed the notes

........and found???? Stay tuned for details!

Find It!

How to make Find It bottles


You will need:


Empty plastic see through bottles (Like water or juice bottles)


A hot glue gun


Rainbow rice (see how here)


A funnel


little trinkets that will fit in the top of the bottle


A camera


How to make it:

1/. Take photos of all your trinkets! I usually do a few in each picture but you could do them each separate if you want.

2/. Place the trinkets in the bottle.


3/. Pour rainbow rice using a funnel into the bottle until at least 3/4 full


4/. Hot glue the cap on the bottle.


5/. Shake the bottle so the rice covers everything.


6/.Print off photos and make a little book so the kids know what they're looking for. If you have older kids, you could just print off a checklist. I laminate mine so they will last longer.





I'd love to see some pictures of some I-spy bottle's you've made!

Bat attack!

Cute bat snacks

This week since we're learning about b for bats, I thought we'd make a cute bat snack.

Here's what you need.

1. Oreos

2. chocolate covered pretzels

3. Twizzlers

4. Candy corn

5. M&M's

6. Icing (I chose chocolate so it wasn't so noticeable on the cookie)

How to make it:

simple! First take off the back part of the oreo and put the "wings" in. Then just decorate the front using the icing as "glue".