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We stumbled upon this adorable fable
by Bill Martin and Michael Sampson |
| 1. Let your child color 2 return address mailing labels gray (or silver) and one with a highlighter. |
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| 2. Make an “x”. |
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| 3. Add the highlighted label. |
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| We made this a card (for who, however, is TBD). You could do the same if you want to. |
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| 4. Add googly eyes, antennae, and stars! |
This craft sorta happened on accident. It is a combination of a leftover tie-dyed coffee filter from this post and the Bob & Larry Stained Glass. But boy, am I glad we stumbled upon it! I would like a few more to adorn my kitchen window because it truly is beautiful.
Here’s what you’ll need: coffee filters, markers, spray bottle with water, black piece of construction paper, scissors, contact paper. Optional: laminator.
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| 1. Fold a piece of black construction paper in half. Draw the outline of one side of a butterfly. |
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| 2. Cut out the outline and the inside of the butterfly half. |
3. Meanwhile, let your kiddo go to town coloring on the coffee filters using washable markers.
4. Spray until all of the coffee filters are wet, but not soaking. Let dry (it typically takes a couple hours).
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| 5. Cut out a piece of contact paper slightly larger than the butterfly outline. |
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| 6. Meanwhile, let your little tear the coffee filters into small pieces. |
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| 7. Start sticking the coffee filter pieces on the sticky side of the contact paper. |
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| Almost done… |
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8. Now you have two options. You can either place another piece of contact paper on the top OR you can do what I did and place it inside of a laminating sleeve and run it through the laminator |
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| (If you have a laminator, run it through.) |
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| 9. Then cut around the edges. |
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 10. Put a few pieces of tape on the back and stick it on the window or use a hole punch and hang it! Isn’t it lovely??? |
I’m typically not one to make food fun. To be brutally honest, by lunchtime I am exhausted (especially since LB isn’t taking a morning nap anymore) and typically can’t muster enough creative juices to do anything but slap some food on a plate and give it to the boys. But I happened to remember seeing this idea for butterfly grilled cheese last year and quickly adapted it to my picky little eaters who refuse to eat grilled cheese! Our version isn’t nearly as cute because (a) I only had blue and yellow food coloring and (b) no cherry tomatoes for the head. Oh well…the boys loved it anyway!
Here’s what you’ll need: tortillas, shredded cheese, butter (or butter spread), food coloring, a basting brush (or paintbrush) and a carrot.
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| 1. Melt about 1 T. butter in 2 separate bowls. Add the food coloring and mix! |
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| 2. Let your little one use a basting brush to brush the butter onto the tortilla (use 2 separate basting brushes if you don’t want the colors to mix…we only had 1). |
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| All done painting! |
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| 3. Throw the tortilla painted-side down into your pan on medium heat. |
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| 4. Add cheese on one side and once it’s melted a little… |
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| 5. Fold over the sides and flip until evenly grilled. |
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| You can make the butterfly like this with blueberries for eyes…or plain like the picture at the top of the post. |
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| Both boys really enjoyed their butterfly quesadillas…and so did I! |
, which worked really well), clothespins, pom-poms, googly eyes, glue (our pom-poms wouldn’t stick to just plain Elmer’s glue, so I had to use Tacky Glue), and magnetic tape
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| 1. Flatten out your coffee filter (one per butterfly). |
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| 2. Let your little ones get started coloring on them using the markers. |
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| Little Brother had lots of fun with this part! |
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| This is Little Brother’s… |
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| …and this is Big Brother’s (which turned into a purple blob, so we tried the Do-a-Dot Markers) |
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| 3. Spray with water using a spray bottle while on a plate until all areas are wet, but not soaking, and then let dry. |
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| Here’s a tip…this is a little TOO wet! |
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| 4. Put a line of glue on your clothespin. |
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| 5. Add your pom-poms. If they don’t stay on, try using some tacky glue or hot glue. If you don’t have pom-poms, you could just cut out small circle to glue on! Then add the googly eyes. |
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| Aren’t they cute? |
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| Here are the coffee filters after they’ve dried. The back right is Big Brother’s first attempt (purple blob), the back left is the one made with Do-A-Dot Markers, and the front is Little Brother’s! |
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| 6. Gather the coffee filter in the center and “fluff” the wings. |
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| 7. Attach the clothespin and then add magnetic tape to the back. |
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| All done and ready to “cuteify” your refrigerator (yes, I just made that word up). |
Those foam pool noodles are quickly becoming my favorite “manipulative”. For just $1, we’ve gotten three different uses out of one noodle (the rest of which I’ll share later this week). For this activity, we created a number game that Big Brother was able to complete independently. And it works on number recognition and one-to-one correspondence!
Here’s what you’ll need: one foam pool noodle, a sharp knife, a Sharpie, rope (I couldn’t find any around here so we used rubber weatherproofing!), and a pipe cleaner. Optional: hot glue gun and googly eyes.
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| 1. Use a sharp knife to cut the foam noodle. The widths of our pieces varied from 1-2 inches. |
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| Cut 11 pieces total. |
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| 2. Use a Sharpie to write the numerals on each piece. I wrote one on the front and one on the back. |
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| Can you see our yellow kitchen in the background. I.can’t.stand it. Oh well, I guess it will stay this way for a while… |
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| 3. Add a face. Optional: Use a glue gun to add googly eyes and an antenna. |
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| Isn’t he cute? |
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| 4. Once you’re ready, put all the pieces and your “rope” in a pile. |
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| 5. Tie a knot on one end of the rope. |
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| 6. Encourage your child to find #1 first and put it next to the caterpillar face. Then #2 and so on. |
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| Counting the numbers…after he was finished. |
This activity could easily be adapted to meet the development of your child by cutting down the number of “numbers” or even adding more!
