Monday Meanderings - Thanksgiving

Well, Thanksgiving is only 3 more days away! It is time to get serious about things. Here are some great ideas for your family.

First, we have the Mostly Food and Crafts Blog with one of my favorite traditions. The "Thankful Tablecloth". You just purchase a plain tablecloth and some fabric markers and everyone writes what they are thankful for and the year beside it. What a great family memento!

Fiskars has adorable "Kid's Table" decor and directions. They may prefer the kid's table this year! I personally love the pie tin snack.

How about an Apple Turkey Snack? What a great way to get kids to eat a healthy snack! Check out Mom Endeavors for all of the details.

I love these turkey & Pilgrim bean bags from Almost Unschoolers. What a great way for the kids to work off a little energy.

We hope everyone has an amazing Thanksgiving!

Tuesday Teachings - Fall Counting

We have been trying to work on our counting skills lately and there is no better time than Fall! There is a vast selection of items to count and make patterns with.

We started with a package of Halloween rings that I purchased for $1.00. Our rings included spiders, bugs, skulls and bats. We worked on several things with these rings: Counting all of the rings, sorting the rings by colors, sorting the rings by shapes and then patterning. For the patterns, I would either use colors to show the pattern or I would draw the shape. My son would then have to figure out which rings matched my drawn patterns and put them all in order.

The next thing we worked on counting was acorns. There is a huge abundance of acorns available right now, so we might as well put them to use. We counted acorns, we poured acorns from one container to another and we used a spoon to scoop acorns from one container to another.

The last thing we counted was leaves. We went outside and collected a variety of leaves from trees, shrubs and plants. Once we were back inside, we counted all of the leaves and then we sorted them by size from smallest to largest. Next, we sorted them by colors and worked on our patterns.

It can be inexpensive and fun to work on counting when you just take the time to look around you and see the abundance of items available. Go on a nature hike and then go home and count your bounty!

Monday Meanderings - Halloween Costumes

With Halloween fast approaching, I thought it would be a good time to post some homemade Halloween costumes that you can make inexpensively!

First we have Mom Inc Daily with an adorable Octopus Costume that she was able to whip together in no time. Not to mention, the supplies were cheap.

This next costume is on my list of possibilities! Geek Mom did an amazing job of turning her son into a tractor. Wonder if I can talk my son into being a tractor?

On Coolest Homemade Costumes they have this adorable Oompa Loompa costume that would be easy to recreate.

I will be back next week with some more great homemade costumes!

Monday Meanderings - Johnny Appleseed Day

In honor of Johnny Appleseed Day, here are some great apple projects to do with the kids.

I would definetly start off with the "Apple", Oreo Truffles. They are adorable and I love Oreo Truffles. These were made by Raising Memories.

Ramblings of a Crazy Woman has a great apple craft. I woudl let the children also tear up the paper to work on thie rmotor skills prior to gluing.

Lilly Cakes made an adorable apple tree with a paper towel tube and some cardboard. Love recycled crafts.

Next we have No Time For Flash Cards with thier adorable apple print wreath. I love this and I love the lesson of not pressuring the kids to finish a project on our time schedule.

Lastly, I am sure we will once again make our Apple Pie Play Dough. We had lots of fun with it last time and have had several friends request some of the yummy smelling dough already this year.

Remember - An Apple a Day, Keeps the Doctor Away!

Tuesday Teachings - Fall Education

I am posting links to some great educational printables that you can use with your kids. These bloggers have graciously given of their time and talents to create some great activities.

First up is, Oopsey Daisy with a great L is for Leaf download. There are a massive amount of ideas and activities in this packet.

2 Teaching Mommies is a great resource. This is a direct link to their Pumpkin unit. I love the pumpkin life cycle and the fact that it ends with pie!

Counting Coconuts has this great sensory box for Fall. I love scarecrows, they just make me smile.

Have fun this Fall!

Monday Meanderings - Fall is Coming

The first day of Fall this year will be September 23rd. My favorite season is Summer because I like hot weather but, Fall is a close second! I love the changing of the leaves, the pumpkins and the mums in bloom. Here are some great Fall activities to think about doing with your kids.

First we have Martha Stewart. I know, I know, let the kids have fun. Their project does not have to be Martha perfect, but what a great crafting medium for the season.

Next we have Little Wonders' Days with a beautiful Fall leaf craft.

The next blog, Atelier Pour Enfants is not written in English but the pictures are enough. They made beautiful art using all natural materials.

Start getting ready for all of the great Fall activities!

Apple Pie Play Dough

Recently my son's class at daycare has been studying an Apple Theme. Since they started that he is obsessed with Apple Pie. I do not mean he wants to eat apple pie, he just likes to say apple pie. When he is leaving the room he even looks at me and says "Bye-bye, Apple Pie." It is adorable.

I tried to serve him some apple pie for dessert but he wanted nothing to do with it. I then decided that we would make a "pretend apple pie" with apple pie scented play dough.

 Dough recipe:
1 cup flour
1/2 cup salt
1 tbsp oil
1 tbsp cream of tarter
1 cup water
apple pie seasoning (I just shook it in until I liked the smell)
Red food coloring

Stir the ingredients well and then cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until the dough forms a ball. Put the dough on the counter and fill your pan with water to soak. Now go back to your dough and you will knead it out until it is smooth and feels "right". Store it in a plastic bag that is zipped closed.

When I pulled out the dough, I also pulled out some rolling pins and some disposable "pot pie" pans. We rolled out a section of the dough and used it as the bottom crust. After we put that in the pan, we tore off small pieces of the dough and rolled them in our hands and dropped them into the crust. Once the pan was full, we rolled out another section to use as the top crust. I cut out a design on this to "vent" the pie.

My son loved this experience and we have played with the apple pie dough several more times since this first experience. I think I will be making pumpkin pie dough soon!

Monday Meanderings - Acorn Art

My Mom brought us a big container of acorns this weekend so I looked around for some great acorn crafts that were suitable for the younger set. These are some of the great ideas I found and will be using soon at our home!

First up is Teach Preschool with a fall edition of marble painting using acorns. I love this craft! If you have not checked out Deborah's pages, go do that now! She has some great ideas and lots of great links to other ideas.

Next up is Family Fun Magazine with some toddler sized pumpkins. These would be so cute filling a little bucket and setting out on a table. I am absolutley making some of these.

Last but not least is another activity from Family Fun and before you say it, I know this is not a craft per se, but they look delicious!

Tissue Paper Leaves

At out office we have a die cut machine and one morning when I came in, there were several leaves and the left over stencils in one of our training rooms that someone teaching a class the prior night had left. I grabbed some of the stencils and took them home for my son & I to use.

We cut out some clear contact paper and laid it sticky side up. We then paid the square with the leaf cut out on top of the contact paper. We ripped fall colors of tissue paper and sprinkled it on the open leaf shape and then laid another piece of contact paper over the top.

It was a quick and easy activity especially since some one else did half of the work for us. The leaves could easily be cut out by hand though.