Dirty Pig Craft—Creative Thursday

I am really working with Alex on his animal sounds. He is coming along so nicely with his speech, and his therapist recommends doing as much animal sounds as possible. So I figured it would be a good idea to plan our activities around animals.

I got this idea from The Mailbox Weekly preschool themes. I modified it, I think it calls for using mud, but we just used paint instead.

I printed off a pig (I just Google imaged pig coloring page). And had the boys color them. Then we cut them out and glued them onto construction paper. Then they painted with brown paint. In order to make a dirty pig.

Some of the things I talked to Alligator about as we did the project:

1. That he is coloring a pig and the pig says oink.

2. As he was coloring I said color the eyes, color the tail…

3. Did the same as number 2 put with the mud.

   

I thought they turned out rather cute.

 

Possible Solution—part 1

As many of you know I love to do activities with my boys. My oldest goes to preschool 5 days a week, and my youngest goes 2 days a week. So I don’t have to do a whole lot of planning since they do attend school. But still,  my favorite way to spend time is to do structured activities with them. I love planning for them, finding them, making them or buying them.

I started off with Tot Trays for Monkey. It worked great. I kept them high up, so that he would need help to get them down.

But then our shelves got overcrowded so we added this book case to house the trays. The problem was that Alligator and Monkey have access to this area whenever they are playing, so they would take down parts and things would get lost or misplaced.

So I think I have found my solution!

I baught this at Walmart for 9 dollars.

In the top drawer I have activities for Alligator, the middle is for Monkey, and the bottom is for activities that they can both do or an art project.

 

Each of the activities in bagged with all the necessary components, so when I want to play something with Alligator. I can go straight to that drawer and pull something out. Also, this helps me to organize ahead of time. So this morning, I went through all my Valentine themed activities that I have either made or bought from Time for Tots.  I sorted them based on who will play with them and now they are in the correct drawer.

So here is an example.

Here is the bag which has our muddy pig activity. This is an art activity that I will do with both boys. All the materials are in the bag. Including the glue, scissors, crayons, paint, a paper plate for the paint to be put on, the pig printable, construction paper, and paint brushes.

 

 

This way, when we have time, we can get out the bag and do the activity. The set up has already been done!

Oh, and I bet your thinking, but can’t they just open the drawers and pull out your stuff. Well, I have 2 solutions to that problem. Number 1, the cart has wheels so I and stow it in a closet if I need to. The other solution is a piece of tape. If they are messing with it, a pieces of tape on the side of the drawer will stop it from opening (Hey, it worked for the manufacturer!)

First Art Box

 

I have decided to try an art box. Monkey is so into building and putting together “contraptions” (his word). So I thought if I gathered some materials and put them in a box he could create something marvelous.

I have seen this idea on several blogs.

Here is what the box looks like:

And here are all the contents so you can actually see the items.

I have included:

Valentine hearts and stickers, also some sticks with hearts on them.

Some pipe cleaners,, and some popsicle sticks.

Plates and paper.

String.

Animal stamps and a stamp pad.

Do a dot markers.

Tape, glue, scissors, and a hole punch.

Monkey will only be allowed to use this when he is supervised. He is now banned from scissors, unless he is watched and has permission. He was cutting things ( shoes, clothes, sheets, hair, toys…) We finally got wise and banned him from scissors. He now knows he will lose his TV if he has scissors when he hasn’t specifically asked.

I will post later and let you know what he and Alligator have created.

Farm Magnets

Alligator is working on making animal sounds. He is getting really good at mimicking their sounds, and for some he can make the sounds spontaneously.

The more we practice the better off he will be. Although we have numerous animal toys, puzzles and books. I decided to make him some animal magnets. That way they are in the kitchen and when he is in there I can remember to point to them and make the sounds.

I used a printable from KidsSoup. You have to be a member but it is pretty inexpensive, and it is a wonderful resource. I printed them on cardstock, then glued them to colored paper, and laminated them. Finally, adding a magnet to the back. It is a lot of steps but I love the look.

I chose this printable because  I liked the faces on  the animals.

Here are some things we will do with them:

1. Hang them one at a time on the fridge at eye level. I do one at a time so that Alligator doesn’t run off with them and lose them. He is notorious for getting stuff off the fridge and me never seeing it again. This way whenever we are in the kitchen together we can work on that animal sound. I will rotate them each day.

2. Use them as props for singing “Old MacDonald”

3. Use them as props for singing “I went to visit a Farm One day” (click the title to see the lyrics, you can do the animals in any order.)

4. Put them in a bag and pull one out at a time to sing or make the animal sounds..

5. Match our toy animals to the magnet.

6. Putting on and off the fridge is a good fine motor activity.

7. Play where’s the…. (Where’s the pig?)

3 in 30 January update

My goals for January were:

1. Journal my food 6 out of 7 days a week.

I did pretty well with this. I figure I journaled maybe 4 days a week. I really learned a lot from the journaling though!

2. I will set up and complete a morning and evening routine.

I have been much more consistent with this and am excited to report I really have gotten in the habit.

3. Write 3 blog posts a week. I have also done much better with my blogging. I have written many posts this month!!!!

February:

Continuing with my 3 main goals for the year my goals will be as follow:

Weightloss:

1. Have an average calorie deficit of 500 per day. I have a GoWear, which I will wear, and I will also track my food. Over a week, I would like to burn 500 more calories a day than I eat.  Over the course of a week, I think this is doable.

Household tidiness:

2. My goal is during week days to spend Alligator’s nap time doing 15 minutes of household work, then 15 minutes of me time. I have been doing this the last few days and it has really helped.

Blogging

3. The goals is to do at least 1 post a week that is a project or toy that I have created. Whether it be a sensory tub or a game. Obviously, probably everything has already been done somewhere, but I will try to think up my own project!

Tot school 1-23-11

Alligator is a week away from turning 2!!!!!

We have a new system for tot school, we will see how it works! I have this shelf that I place his trays on.

The top 2 shelves have his trays. I am trying to teach him that we play with those only with Mommy or Daddy. Since Alligator plays independently in the play room at times, I have kept the small pieces in bag or sealed container so that he doesn’t just spill them on the floor.

The bottom 2 shelves just have some toys on that I will rotate. These are more for independent play.

On the top shelf this day was:

The feeding frog activity from

 

an activity for putting sticks in a cheese container (these happen to have hearts on the end)

And the 3rd activity is about learning the names for facial features (he know what they are, but we are working on their names)

The second shelf has

First words puzzles, our sensory bin and a heart game from Time for Tots.

Alligator loves the sensory bin.

He even will pull it down and carry it to me!

Here he is feeding a frog

    

matching the hearts (which I am amazed he could do)

Playing with his Tag Jr (I am setting out the reader and 1 book at a time. This is on his shelf. He chooses it a lot.

 

Another independent activity he chooses is his music box. It is stored under this couch, and he knows how to pull it out! He loves the drums!

Alex made a Valentine (again from Time for Tots) I added some of our stickers to it, and he was able to pull them off the paper (the stickers were real thick, so I think that helped) But he loved, doing it by himself!

  

FInally Alligator has been well enough to go play in the snow. He has never, ever been out it in before, because he has always been to sick. The ear tubes have been such a blessing.

To see what others are doing click the picture below!

Preschool Corner 1-21-11

To see what others are doing for Preschool Corner, click the picture above.

We had snow this week. So Monkey had fun sledding in our front yard.

The only other planned activity was the sensory bin. You can read my post about it here.

I am going to plan some activities to do with Monkey for next week. I spent this week really fine tuning my Alligator activities, which you can read bout in my next post.