Scissor Skills

We wanted to make a birthday card for a friend from church. Without running to the store we decided to see what we could come up with. I took some junk mail and had the kids spot letters and then cut them out. I helped with the fine detail cutting, but they did plenty of cutting also.

Letter Formation

We are talking about the letter I this week. I got the idea from our curriculum book, Abeka 5K, to take pretzel sticks to form letters. We were supposed to only create the letter I, but my kids love trying to make the letters of their name. It was hard to get pictures of each letter they made before they destroyed or eaten, but this was a fun activity and snack!

Cooking with Kids

I have been spending the last few weeks trying to find things that the kids can help me cook in the kitchen to build their skills and confidence. Recently I found this recipe for Pizza Bombs. My kids love eating these. They are Daddy approved. They are also SUPER easy.

My kids are currently five and four. For the most part, if I was okay with mess, they could make these almost completely on their own.

You can teach your kids so much by cooking. I am trying to be okay with the mess and the extra time. This time we made the Pizza Bombs the kids worked on their cutting skills and cut our cheese and meat (I substituted sandwich meat for pepperonis because it was what I had). 

You can teach them how to measure and talk about fractions. You can practice fine motor skills and abilities. You can just get messy!

Cook with your kids!

Fine Motor Skills

I used to be really into scrapbooking. I have gotten away from it as my time is used elsewhere. I recently decluttered the supplies I had, but I decided to hold on the all the paper punches and silly scissors. My thought was that they could be fun art supplies for my kids.

We have been getting them out every couple weeks. I let the kids go nuts with the punchers, scissors, paper, and glue. This is what we did today.

My kids really enjoy this and it keeps them busy for at least one to two hours. This is something that they can do almost completely on their own while I make dinner in the next room. I don't always let them have the scissors on their own, but the punchers aren't going to hurt too much.

Easter Necklace Craft

I found this free printable from the Teachers Pay Teachers site and printed off the packet as a Easter activity for my kids to do. Easter Printable

In this pack there is a sheet of Easter eggs to color. I decided to take that a step further and make it a full craft.

We colored the eggs. Then cut them out. I let them punch a hole. Then we put them on a string with some beads.

This kept them busy, but also helped them work on fine motor skills. I used some large plastic needles with yarn. I had both of these around my house, you could make it work with just some string you have in the junk drawer. My kids are very interested in learning to sew and I have gathered a few supplies to work on teaching them so I had these in my sewing stash.

I thought about using a cereal instead of beads, but decided we could use beads today and maybe make a cereal necklace tomorrow. The idea was that I want bright spring colors and the beads I had worked well for this.

Idea of the day: Recycling cards and paper products

I have a lot of stuff come into the house that I don't really need to keep forever, but I hate just throwing it away. So I've started a pile of things I can easily give my daughter to cut, draw on, etc.

I'd gotten a thank you with an order recently and decided it would be perfect for her to practice cutting lines.

Not everything needs to come from a shiny, new workbook to be useful in building skills!

Get Outside

Today, in an effort to enjoy the weather and be productive, the kids and I decided to wash the car. We are currently stuck home and I need to keep busy. My husband's car needed to be washed after a family road trip almost two months ago. The car wash didn't do a good job so we were waiting until it was warm enough to do it in the front yard. Today was the day.

I told the kids if they took a nap we could play in the water today. They agreed and when they woke up we got our sponges, the hose, and the water table out. I told the kids they could help scrub the car with specific clothes and as long as they stayed in front of me. I also gave them the option to play in the water table instead of working.

I was able to get the car scrubbed and the kids helped a bit, but mostly they played. This is okay! It worked well! We spent over an hour and half playing in the water and being outside! Sometimes this is all kids need. Just. Go. Outside.

I don't have pictures since I was playing in the water too, but you can imagine about how it looked with a mama and two kids in the front yard!