Santa Says
I might have mentioned before that for almost 3 WEEKS now, either one or both of the boys have been sick. We all have MAJOR cabin fever! While Little Brother was napping this morning, I decided Big Brother needed some…
Christmas Sticker Letter Tracing
This was our first attempt to get Big Brother to write the letters in his name…and it worked beautifully. He was SO EXCITED that he wanted to keep writing the names of everyone in our family. As you can see,…
throw a "snowball"
A sweet reader, Anna, e-mailed me with the idea to use cotton balls as pretend “snowballs”. Both of my boys loved this! We have all been “sicklings” for the last several days…so it was nice to do something fun together….
Before Dinner Fine Motor Practice
I was attempting to prepare dinner tonight and needed something to occupy Big Brother. I gave him our toothpick holder, dumped out the toothpicks and let him get started putting the toothpicks back in through the tiny hole at the…
Handprint Christmas Wreath
httpI just love anything that involves children’s handprints. I loved making handprint crafts with my first graders because I knew it was a gift their parent’s would treasure. And I myself already treasure the few handprints we have of our…
Homemade Snowglobe
I love finding ways to repurpose things that would otherwise be thrown away. This snowglobe is made from a baby food jar we had lying around and a small piece of garland I trimmed off (shhh…don’t tell Prince Charming). :)…
Countdown to Santa!
This Santa Countdown was inspired by an activity Crystal, my friend and fellow first grade teacher, introduced me to my first year of teaching. I didn’t have a copy of the printable teddy bear that was on her original Christmas Countdown,…
Christmas Box Counting & Number Matching
This “game” is wonderful on so many levels…cognitive development, number recognition, one-to-one correspondence, and fine motor development (opening and closing the boxes)! This is one activity that works on many different skills…all while your child is having a GREAT time. :)…
Gel Bag for Traveling
I thought this would be a fun take-along activity for Big Brother on our upcoming car travels. It’s like a sensory tub in a bag! I orginally found the inspiration for the bag here. I used things we already…
Native American Attire
We have been reading several books about the First Thanksgiving and Big Brother has been fascinated with Squanto and the Massasoit Indians. We decided to make {our own interpretation of} a Native American outfit (besides just a breechcloth…). :) Here’s…
Festive Apple Turkey
I saw the idea for this little turkey here and thought it would be fun to make. The only problem was…I didn’t have any colored marshmallows. We had regular marshmallows, so we improvised by adding some gel food coloring. It made…
Turkey Toss of Thankfulness
This simple activity turned into over 45-minutes of family fun yesterday evening! We took turns tossing the turkey ball back and forth and saying what we were thankful for. Big Brother L-O-V-E-D this! He was thankful for everything from his bed,…
Autumn Leaves Song
*For those of you who are new here, I am going to apologize in advance (as I always do) for my terrible singing voice as well as the fact that you can barely hear that voice (count it as a…
The Mayflower (simplified)
I love how children’s crafts always take on a life of their own. So what if it doesn’t look all that much like it is supposed to…it is the process, not the product. :) Even though this Mayflower does not…
Pretend Play: Voting
I’m always amazed how the most mundane things in our lives can be extremely exciting in the eyes of a child. Now, obviously I consider myself extremely blessed to be able to vote and choose the leaders for our country,…
X is for X-Ray
About 7 months ago, I walked into the kitchen at our old house to find batteries strewn all over the floor. I had been changing Little Brother’s diaper and didn’t know that Big Brother could open the refrigerator (which is…
Exploring the Five Senses with a Pumpkin
We carved a pumpkin last night…for the first time since Big Brother was born. As expected, he wanted nothing to do with sticking his hand inside the icky pumpkin. (Just a forewarning–I have been playing around with the manual setting on…
Crayon Resist Spider Web
We had quite the infestation of spiders in our house this summer…and most of them were Brown Recluse (the kind of spiders that are actually really dangerous). Big Brother is used to investigating the numerous glue traps we have in…