Water Beads

Hey, Happy New Year...a week ago!

Sometime in the last 6 months I came across a page somehow (Facebook? Pinterest? I just don't know!) that if you have not been to, you will absolutely love. It's called Play At Home Mom and it is so full of ideas you might even get overwhelmed! They are a group of moms who post so many fun activities and ideas and have these amazing rooms set up for their kids to play and learn in. I admit it. I wish I had a space like that and am totally jealous. However, just because I can't do it all, doesn't mean I can't do some which leads me to an idea I read about on their site. Water beads.

I had never heard of these. They are these tiniest little seed looking things that you soak in water for several hours and they get bigger. They are normally used for plants and flowers instead of a vase just full of water. The idea that Play At Home Mom suggested them for was a sensory bin. We have our rice bin already, but I thought this would be the perfect thing for my one and a half year old. (I didn't think to take a picture of how they looked at first, but here is how tiny the package was. I got them at Michael's by the flower stuff.)

I tell you, these things are amazing! They are kind of squishy when they expand and I instinctively tried to pop them. (It doesn't work, they just break). My daughter was asleep when the beads had soaked up enough water, so my two boys and I played in it. I really loved it. They did too. They played hide and seek with some crayons in it (then I suggested getting plastic animals instead since the beads made the crayon wrapper damp.)

 When my daughter woke up she gave the beads a whirl. She did attempt to put them in her mouth a few times, so watch for that with little ones. Once we got that behavior (temporarily) out of the way, she had a ball.

The tiny package made a big bin fun and it seemed like the perfect amount. This is something I think we will have a lot of fun with. I love discovering new things. Thanks Internet for existing!

Funky Line Designs with Shading

So for another "Art Class from Mom"....We saw this super cool site from an elementary school art teacher... Art with Mr. E


It had this fun idea for line drawings.  The kids and I decided to try it out.  It was really really fun.

SUPPLIES:

*Paper

*Sharpie

*Colored Pencils

Start by drawing a mild curvy line across your paper

Then draw eight dots on the curvy line at various distances from one another.  Make sure the dots on each edge of the paper are fairly close to the actual edge. 

 Starting with a small index card might be less intimidating for smaller children.

 You will then start connecting the dots.  The dots close to the edge will go off the edge of the paper to an imaginary dot.  You can not cross over any lines.  However, you can share a line as you begin going up and out.

  The lines should be taken off the edge of the paper as you extend outwords.  Some sections may be pinched off as other sections grow larger...and that is totally ok.

 The art was really cool and interesting even before we started coloring them.

 Then using colored pencils start coloring.  Have kids pick a group of colors they feel work well together

  Press harder in the corners...and as they near the center get lighter and lighter.  This is a great way to get them practice with pressure control!!! 

They did take a few days to complete - but I love the way they turned out - each had a different feeling.  I would like to try some variations of this again with them.

Mandala Pages

We decided to have some fun "art classes by Mommy" over the weekend.  The kids were excited as I tried to make it seem like an "official" class they were taking.  Our first experiment was with Madala Pages.  A definition of Mandala Art is found HERE.

Working on these type of art pages is said to help you relax - so maybe try it for a much needed "Quiet Time".  It also helps with concentration.

 We simply googled Mandala pages and downloaded several different free pages available from a few different sites.  

Some sites we found with fun patterns are below:

http://www.freecoloring.info/mandala-coloring-pages.php

http://www.free-mandala.com/en/start.html

 This is a great tool for teaching patterns and color schemes.  We thought this was a great forum for colorful markers. 

  The kids took to it right away and created some very interesting pieces of art.

I think it would be fun to print the same one off for each child and see how different they turned out.

Starfall.com

About 9+ months ago we discovered a free, great website for kid's learning. It is for preschool age kids to learn letters, build fun holiday pictures, practice their letter sounds, sounding out words, etc. It is called Starfall.com.

Both my girls love to play it and I don't feel bad letting them because it is completely educational. The schools around here even use it in the early elementary grades for learning. Both my girls can navigate the site 100% by themselves.

We have an old computer that my girls get to play on while I'm on the real computer. The internet homepage is set to Starfall.com to make it even easier for them.

Learn to Read