Liquid Glue Ideas

I used to think that as long as a person had a few glue sticks around the house,  there was really no point in buying the liquid stuff.  I have since changed my mind; there are SO many other uses for the liquid variety beyond sticking two pieces of paper together.  Now when the stores have their back-to-school craft supply specials I buy the stuff in BULK.  Here are a few of the reasons why:

Paintman

What kind of craziness have we been up to at our house?  Find out over at Quirky Momma today!

Ten Activities with Sticky Notes

Looking for something new to do today?  If your craft cabinet has as many random pads of sticky notes as mine does you can try one of these fun activities:  

Sticky Note Quilts (Sweet Vintage)

Mosaic (G Prime)

Building with Sticky Note Pads (Ready, Set, Read!)

Heavy and Light Activity (A Little Learning for Two)

Writing with Glue 

Crosswords (Having Fun at Home)

Treasure Hunt (Mummy Mum Mum)

Love Bugs (Inner Child Fun)

Lion Craft (Having Fun at Home)

Kissing Flip Book (Inner Child Fun)

Or, if you want something really simple for a beginning reader, try "reading the house."  (Label various objects with their names and let your child find each one and read it) Thanks, Busy Kids= Happy Mom!

And, here's one more "bonus" activity that I accidentally left off earlier.  This one uses alphabet post-its!

Letter Pad Name Spelling (Toddler Approved)

Melty Beads Crafts

Have a million melty beads that you're not sure what to do with? Check out my post Melted Bead Projects to Create with Children at Quirky Momma for instructions on these three ideas:

 Melty Bead Bowl

Melty Bead Nightlight 

Melty Bead Vase

A Visit to the Asian Supermarket

I've always been fascinated with ethnic grocery stores.  The interesting sights, smells, and sounds make me feel like I'm Alice in Wonderland.  The other day, I took M and G on their first ethnic food adventure- an Asian grocery store in North Austin.  

To see some pictures of our time there, and 10 suggestions for fun things to do with kids at an Asian grocery store, see my guest post at Free Fun in Austin.

I let each girl choose a new food to try from the snack aisle.  G's choice cracked me up- dried squid.  hmmmm, I have to say, I'm definitely not used to such a fishy smell in my snacks.  It didn't become one of our favorites, but I was proud of both girls for giving it a try!

Preschool Penguin Crafts

1.  Ripped Paper Penguin from Baby Matters Blog

2.  Toilet Paper Tube Penguins from I Can Teach My Child

3.  Footprint Penguins from Meet the Dubiens

4.  Penguins with handprints for feet from Casa Camacho

3 Russian Crafts for Kids

In our Five In a Row co-op this week we read the book Another Celebrated Dancing Bear which takes place in Imperial Russia.  I believe this is the first book we've read with that setting; so I was pretty excited to see what kinds of crafts I could find to illustrate Russian culture.

1.  Printable nesting dolls.   I love these adorable Russian nesting dolls.  You can print them out in full color or in black and white outline to color them yourself.

2.  Faberge eggs.  I am honestly shocked that I have been unable to find any children's nonfiction books containing the story of the Fabrege eggs. Their history is all about riches, surprises and lost treasure- just the kind of thing kids love, and such a great way to teach about Imperial Russian and the 1917 Revolution.  If you want to tell your children the story and show them a few pictures, this link from PBS has a pretty good summary.

We used a really fun silk technique to dye the eggs.  They don't actually look all that similar to the historical Faberge eggs, but they're fancy- which is basically what we were going for.  I'll be writing about how to make them in an upcoming post.

3.  Russian Architecture-  The colorful onion domes on the Orthodox churches in Russia are so striking. I thought it would be fun to let the kids design their own churches in this style.

My husband (who has a much steadier artistic hand and loads more patience for historical accuracy) sketched some historically accurate domes and spires for me on a piece of card stock.  I used those as templates for cutting out lots of domes and spires from different colors of construction paper, along with some other basic shapes.  The kids could then arrange them like building blocks on their page and glue them on once they found an arrangement they liked.  They used markers to draw on details like windows, stripes on the domes, and crosses.

Any other ideas for Russian kids' crafts?  

Twelve Favorite Activities of 2011

Here are 12 fun things we did in 2011 that we absolutely loved.  I suppose eleven would have been more appropriate, but these twelve just really jumped out at me, and I didn't feel like going to the trouble of narrowing it down any further.  (I've decided that in the month after giving birth one is allowed to take the lazy route now and again :-)

Making Butter

Three Teddies

Stained Glass Fall Leaves

Butterfly Symmetry Matching Game

Balancing Butterflies

Ribbon Treasure Hunt

Jumping Through a Rainbow

Soap Snakes

Texture Scavenger Hunt

Everyday Life Portraits

Spray Bottle Painting

Making Marbled Paper with Shaving Cream

4 Fun Snowman Ideas

1.  Make a ice cream sundae snowman- from Gordon Gossip.
2. I really like this exercise in perspective from Mrs. Knight's Smartest Artists
3.  Melted Snowman cookies from Crazy Domestic
4.  These snowman snowflakes from Almost Unschoolers are easy and so appropriate!

Turkey Crafts for Kids

Maybe your taste in turkeys runs differently than mine, but I think all four of these turkey ideas are really, really fun!

1.  Wooden Spoon Pumpkin Turkey from Naptime Crafters
2.  Pinecone Turkey from Amanda Parker and Family.  I love the crayons as the tail!
3.  Handprint Cookie Turkeys from Somewhat Simple
4.  Fall Leaf Turkey by Babycenter

Three TerrificThanksgiving Books for Kids

I really love Thanksgiving.  Among the holidays, it's one that is relatively untainted by commercialism.  The grit of the Pilgrims is inspiring, and being deliberate about thankfulness to the Lord as a family is so potent.  Plus, because it's not an explicitly religious holiday, I don't feel like it is being irreverent to indulge in some of the fun and silliness that surrounds it.

All that combines to make it one of the holidays that I'm really willing to invest time and energy into making special.

Here are three of my favorite Thanksgiving books.

1.  Most Beautiful Artwork:  N.C. Wyeth's Pilgrims by Robert San Souci.  The illustrations in this book are out- of- this- world gorgeous.  Instead of the typical, artificially manufactured fare that you usually find in children's books, these pictures come from art that stands on it's own merit.  They are based on a series of murals painted by N.C. Wyeth for The Metropolitan Life Insurance Company in New York in the 1940s.

I love the play of light and color throughout the book, and I appreciate the way the depiction of the pilgrims challenges the typical conception that they were dour and stiff people.  Lots of life and joy in this book- without being saccharine.

The author consulted many sources for making text, and the writing is just fine.  (although, really better for older children.  My little ones just look at the pictures for now).

2.  Best Text:  Tattered Sails by Verla Kay.

The illustrations in this book are rather good too, but it is the text that really stands out.  Tattered Sails tells the story of a Pilgrim family's difficult voyage across the Atlantic (not necessarily the Mayflower, but it could have been) and ends with their thankfulness at settling into life in the New World.

Verla's Kay's writing style is impressionistic.  Instead of straightforward prose, she uses short staccato phrases strung together to paint a poetic picture of life during that time, and I think it really works.  Our family have several of Kay's history stories, and we read them over and over.  It's rhythmic without being trite.

3.  Most Fun: Blue Hat, Green Hat by Sandra Boynton.  This isn't necessarily a Thanksgiving book, but it's about a silly turkey, and it's humor is just right for toddlers.  So fun!

So...I'd love to read about your favorite Thanksgiving books.  Please link up! (or leave a comment)