Fiesta Wreaths

Adelyn's wreath! She picked the colors and glued them herself.

San Antonio celebrated the annual Fiesta in April!  If you are not familiar with Fiesta here, I'll just tell you it's like Mardi Gras but Texas style.  It's a huge celebration to honor the battles of the Alamo and San Jacinto.  We got parades, costumes, and big ol' parties.  It started out as a single event but now there are about 100 events during Fiesta week.  I saw Fiesta wreaths similar to these one in one of the schools where I see a client so Adelyn and I made these one Monday morning for our craft.  We used tissue paper and glued it to a poster board circle cut out.  Last we attached the ribbon. 

That was our little Fiesta celebration this year!

4th of July

Happy Forth of July! 

We are so thankful for the people who put their heart into obtaining freedom for all of us and that we now can make our own choices here in the USA.

Forth of July Crafts

Fireworks Glitter

Used glitter glue pens

Adelyn's

Zachary's Chalk Fireworks

Forth of July Songs

Stars and Stripes Forever by John Phillip Sousa

Song from Preschool-plan-it

This Is July sung to Frere Jacques

4th of July! 4th of July!

Independence Day! Independence Day!

Hear the bands playing.

See our flag waving.
4th of July! 4th of July

Forth of July Baking

• Strawberries
• Blueberries
• Cool Whip
• Flat angel food cake

1. Lay angel food cake in a pan/on a plate
2. Spread cool whip
3. Cut fruit and place on cake.
4. You're finished!

Adelyn had a hard time helping with fruit placement so she decorated her own cupcake!

Sun Craft

We got this super fun and easy sun painting idea from a blog I just found the other day called Mrs Karens class.  She had some great ideas for a hands on astronomy lesson.  Her blog post on this craft can be found here.  Mrs Karens class.

Sun Painting:

1. Trace a circle onto white paper.
2. Cut out.
3. Put a blob of red, yellow, and orange paint on the circle (less red than yellow).
4. Put plastic wrap over the circle.  Taping plastic down temporarily is optional which can  
5. Smear paint together all over the circle!  
6. Let dry!
7. Glue to black piece of paper.
8. Add suns rays with small paintbrush or cue tips.

Adelyn's sun (I helped with the rays a tad. And the tracing...and the cutting)

Creative Letters for the Wall

My sister n law (ah so nice to say that officially!!) married to my only brother took the time and effort to make Adelyn this beautiful name decoration for her wall.  Adelyn has become a purple fanatic as you can see with the bed and outfit.  This was the perfect addition to our decorating her area of the room. 

The letters are wood and are painted with purple acrylic paint.  My brother drilled holes through the sides at the top of each one in order to string them all together for hanging. The ribbon has the wire edges which made it easy to shape the ends into the curls hanging down.  The flowers on the front are embellishments for scrapbooking.  The back of the flowers have a self sticking adhesive which makes it easy to peel off and stick onto the wood. 

To hang I put push pins in the wall and wrapped each side of the ribbon around them.  I also hammered tiny nails through the ribbon underneath the push pins and added more sticky adhesive under each letter. 

Thank you Kathryn!

Yarn Letters

The Great Northwest Library here in San Antonio does a wonderful ABC club which we attend on Wednesdays.  We here stories and see puppet shows which are selected based on the letter of the week. The kids also get to bring a show n tell item that begins with that letter. After the story time they can participate in games and crafts that have to do with the letter.  

This week we did a craft to practice shaping the letters using yarn.  Adelyn who is now two and Zachary were both able to participate.  We did letter X and Y this week and here is a sample of the artwork.  We had a great time making them with our friends and the little ones really enjoyed just playing with a ball of yarn. Thank you to the great librarians who come up with the crafts and activities!

Home Made Fish Tank

A few years ago Zachary and Scott made this fish tank as a fun project while I was on bed rest in the hospital.  The extra projects with Daddy and the grandparents definitely helped him cope with me being away.  The nights away from him were of course hard on me too so I enjoyed seeing the activities they worked on.  I'm very thankful we had great hands to help out during that time. 


I believe this beautiful tank contained leaves, rocks, sand, plants and plenty of pretend sea creatures! The container was an old drink container of some type....tea...lemonade...


Zachary lately has begun asking for a fish tank again. Taking care of our dog is plenty for me right now so I plan to bring this up again! :)

Crayon Hearts

So the popular pinterest picture of crayon melts... it worked well for us! Zachary and Adelyn brought these for Valentines at MDO.  


This was perfect for using up the tiny broken crayons.  The most difficult part was pealing the paper off.  We used a rubber heart muffins/cupcakes mold.  We cooked ours at 280 for 10 minutes.  The top looked like the colors had just run together but when we peeled it out it looked pretty! It did not stick at all to our molds.  The directions on the pinterest page actually say to cook them at 230 for 15 minutes.  They cool in about 5-10 minutes. 


I enjoyed this myself!

Rainbows and I Am Special

Books


The Crayon Box that Talked- Shane DeRolf, Illustrated by Michael Letzig

A little girl overhears a box of crayons arguing and being unkind to each other. She buys the box, takes them home and teaches them about how everyone is important.


I'm Special, I'm Me- Ann Meek, Sarah Massini

A little boy learns that his ideas are important and unique because they are his and that he can be whatever he wants.


Rainbow Rob- Joe Rigg, Simon Mugford

Rainbow Rob doesn't like being black and white so he imagines himself as different colors and discovers who he really wants to be!


Polar Bear and the Rainbow-Moira Butterfield, Illustrated by Sanja Rescek

Ben the bear wants to be a different color because he thinks white is boring, but he learns about the importance of being the color he is.


The Little Engine that Could- Watty Piper

The popular story of learning to believe in yourself.


I Like Myself- Karen Beaumont

Learning to like the qualities of yourself!

Music

• ROY G BIV- They Might Be Giants-http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SF7H6v0h3c
• Do you Know the Colors of the Rainbow?- Signing Time- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVcJHv32i18
• The Rainbow Song- Nursery Rhyme- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6aouC56MPOE&feature=related
• The Rainbow Connection- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSFLZ-MzIhM
• You are Special- Barney- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G17eL8z9Mo4
• Somewhere Over the Rainbow- The Wizard of Oz- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1HRa4X07jdE
• The Rainbow Colors Song- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRNy2i75tCc

Crafts


Tissue Rainbow Craft

1. Cut a paper plate in half by folding and cutting on the line.

2. Cut a small semi circle out of the bottom.

3. Start with purple around the bottom!

Rainbow Rice

Share and Remember.

Rainbow Crayon Melt

http://megduerksen.typepad.com

Visual Aids-Easy to Make

Baking

Rainbow Cupcakes


Family Fun


The Crafty Crow   Plus at this site there are more rainbow ideas.


Our Experience

DNA Model

Here is a project my husband did for himself to add to his knowledge about biology. This DNA kit comes from Hobby Lobby for a very reasonable price, I think maybe $9 or $12. It makes for a very hands on and fun lesson about DNA.

Summer

Books- Have not read all of them, but viewed summaries on the library website.

• Mama, Is it Summer Yet?- Nikki McClure
• Morgy's Musical Summer- Maggie Lewis
• Carl's Summer Vacation- Alexander Day
• Summer Beat- Betsy Franco (Two friends celebrate the sights and sounds of summer)
• Mouse's First Summer- Lauren Thompson
• Summer is Summer- Phillis and David Gershator- (Summer from a child's perspective)
• Four Friends in Summer- Tomie DePaola
• The Encyclopedia of Summer Olympics-David Fischer

Crafts

The link below has some fun and amazing summer crafts including a paper plate sun, popscicle matching game, ocean flower pot, watermelon craft, a homemade butterfly net and more.

http://www.allkidsnetwork.com/crafts/summer/

Baking

• Vanilla Pops (See below for recipe)
• Blueberry Yogurt Treats (see below)

Vanilla Pops- from Highlights High Five Magazine

1. One cup of milk

2. 6 oz container of vanilla yougurt

3. Tablespoon of honey

Blend ingrediants and pour into paper cups.

Freeze for 30 mins to an hour and then insert Popsicle stick.

Freeze until frozen!

Eat!

Blueberry Vanilla Treats

1. Break up graham cracker and pour in bottom of cup

2. Add vanilla yogurt

3. Place blueberries on top

Pick Your Theme Table Runner Craft

Decorative Table Runner

We got this idea out of the Highlights High Five Magazine. We really enjoy reading that magazine and Zachary always looks forward to it coming in the mail each month. There is always a craft and a baking activity in it. There is also counting, short stories, hidden pictures, Spanish, and more.

Table Runner Craft

You will need: Wax paper, contact paper, and colored tissue paper

1. Unroll the contact paper onto the length of a table sticky side up.

2. Cut squares out of selected tissue paper and place them on contact paper.

3. Unroll wax paper onto contact paper.

4. Display!