Where does it come from?

 
I introduced these "Where does it come from?" puzzle cards to O last week, and we really enjoyed doing this activity together. The cards include many things that she would not have a clue about (gum comes from trees, newspaper comes from trees, etc.), so I didn't have any expectation of her doing this activity independently. It was fun to discuss the pictures and teach her about where things come from. I'm looking forward to doing this activity with her again soon :)
I printed and laminated these cards close to a year ago, and I have no idea where they came from! If anyone knows, let me know.

Fun with Pattern Blocks

O was not interested in these pattern blocks at first, and I thought that perhaps it was too difficult since I had so many blocks out for her. It turns out she just wasn't interested that day :) When she decided to complete the patterns on her own, she had no problems and REALLY enjoyed herself. My niece (who is almost 5) also LOVES the pattern blocks :)

Meet Roberta the Robot

My niece has to make a robot for a school project, so my sister, my niece, and O have been working diligently on this project. Roberta is super cute, and the girls are SO proud!



Melanie thought it would be fun to give the robot human organs made from playdoh :) It turned out great! M's favorite part was playing with the playdoh :) The girls have learned a lot about their internal organs during the making of the robot.



Melanie has given the girls several lessons on the names and functions of their internal organs.



Please excuse the dissaray!

We're Thinking...

Pink! It's a girl! We are VERY excited. Thanks for all of the well wishes :) Hooray for baby girls!

It's a ...

healthy baby! We had an ultrasound today, and the baby looks great :) It was a huge relief to see a healthy, very active baby! Do you want to know what it is?

Another Color Match with Clothespins

To make this activity, I put color dot stickers around a bowl and matching color dot stickers on the clothes pins. O matches the clothes pin with the correct color dot to the dot on the bowl.






This activity was very difficult for O at first because she was using her left hand, and it is not as strong as her right hand. I suggested that she try her right hand, and she was able to complete the task. She was VERY proud because she had planned to give up after the first try. I was proud of her for persisting until she finished :)






This activity is great for improving fine motor skills, hand-eye cooordination, and concentration. Enjoy!

Rock Family

O will be getting this family of rocks for one of her handmade Easter gifts. I hope she loves them :) I've had making this family of rocks on my to-do list for months, and at first I was a little dismayed by how they turned out. Then I decided to lower my perfectionistic standards and just enjoy their simplicity :)

(I wish I could find the blog that inspired these rocks. The inspiration paintings were MUCH nicer!)

Decorating Blown Eggs

Decorating blown eggs is a tradition that my mom started with us when we were kids, and she still has a few left. I'm hoping to find them when we go to her house this weekend.

I decided to continue the tradition by having O decorate 2 or 3 blown eggs (and we'll date them), and I'll decorate 1 or 2 special eggs for her. We'll hang them on the egg tree (that we don't have yet, so that tradition will start next year), and when she is grown she can have her special eggs for her own home and children. I'm planning on coating the eggs with mod podge to strengthen them in the hopes that they'll last a long time. Here are our creations:

I decoupaged pictures from some of our favorite picture books onto the egg. It didn't turn out very well, and I was pretty disappointed. I should have used smaller pictures and next time I'll try to choose pictures that are printed on thinner paper.







I painted this egg with leftover chalkboard paint. I think it will be fun to decorate and write messages on it each year.







Here is one of O's creations. She painted 2 eggs and colored 1 with markers.








My mom and sister made an egg for each girl (O and my niece) using tissue paper and mod podge. They wrote their names on the eggs, and they are very pretty.

Thanks to Jo for the idea to use skewers to hold the eggs! It made painting and decorating the eggs so much easier!

A Grassy Centerpiece

O and I planted grass for our Easter/Spring centerpiece. She had fun finding her eggs in the grass :)











Gracie was especially excited about the grass. We're going to find a much larger container and keep grass all summer for Gracie to enjoy (on the 2nd story deck since she is an inside cat).

 

Pipe Cleaner Crown

I've wanted to make this crown for a while, so I thought it would be a good activity for me to do on the way to our vacation spot this weekend. However, it was so quick and easy that I was finished before we even got to the interstate :)
My little princess was excited about her new, beautiful crown!







The idea and directions for making a pipe cleaner crown came from here. I mostly followed the directions, but I made O's crown bigger because I wanted it to fit on her head without needing bobby pins.

Contact Paper & Tissue Paper Collage

After the success of O's recent texture collage on contact paper, I decided we'd try a tissue paper collage again( we did this about a year ago and had lots of fun). In order to set this up, I had to move O's texture collage...

I had no idea what I was in for! Just a little advice...if you have a 2 and half year old who is totally immersed in her sensitive period for order, has had 4 days of disrupted naps and bedtimes due to a vacation, and it's 9 o'clock at night, don't move her artwork! O was DEVASTATED that I moved her artwork! I felt bad about it, and she eventually calmed down and we came to a solution that we were both happy with, but wow! If I'd known how devastating this would be, I would have waited until she was asleep to move it (she wouldn't have minded first thing in the morning after a good night's sleep).

Phew! Anyway...I taped 2 sheets of contact paper on the sliding glass door, 1 for O and 1 for my niece. Today while my sister and I were fixing lunch, I gave them a bag full of leftover tissue paper and told them to tear and place the paper to make a collage. They really enjoyed themselves, but O left her artwork before she covered her paper completely, and M took over! She was really into this activity!

Easter Bunny Handprint Cards

O, M, and I made Easter Bunny cards for their grandparents today. We had lots of fun, and the cards turned out really cute. I love handprint art, so we used their handprints to paint the bunnies. I let them each choose a color and a color of construction paper. Then I painted their palms, their pointer fingers, and their ring fingers. We pushed their palms onto the construction paper to make the bunnies.





After the paint dried, the girls glued on googly eyes and beads for a nose.








M drew her whiskers and mouths on her bunnies, and I drew the whiskers and mouths for O. This was fun and easy!