Dandelion Painting

It's that time of year again when now that the grass is green the dandelions are popping up too. I have to admit, even though I know they are a weed, there is something so summery about seeing those bright yellow bursts all over the yard.

Of course, the boys love to pick them. And in addition to picking them, we've discovered how great they are for painting with. They make awesome designs!

Paper Plate Wreaths for All 4 Seasons

In the last few years we've discovered how easy it is to make a "Paper Plate Wreath" using a paper plate and some decorations. In fact, we find them so easy we've made them for several different seasons and holidays!

Which is what inspired collecting all of these awesome posts from other bloggers too - because if they're that easy to make, why not make one for every season of the year?

Easy Cardboard Bird Feeder

As we're solidly in the middle of winter, it is a great time to be thinking about the wild creatures who are surviving the winter outside. We decided to create some easy cardboard bird feeder treats to hang outside for the wild critters in our neighborhood.

If you've been reading our blog for a while now, you know we love projects that use materials you can easily find already at home or at a local store, and this project is definitely one of them. 

Wrapping Paper Origami

Big Brother is in a phase where he loves paper folding crafts - paper airplanes, origami, and more. He got both an origami and a paper airplane kit from different relatives over the holiday weekend. He's been excited to dig into both - and while each kit came with paper, it won't be long until we run out.

Luckily I quickly realized that we have lots of colorful paper still on hand - used wrapping paper!

I always feel a little sad about how quickly the wrapping paper is unwrapped and then discarded by the kiddos on Christmas morning. And while I try to save some of the bigger pieces for another year, two eager unwrapping kiddos can make that tricky. Which means it's always great to find some easy crafts for the used paper instead. 

Paper Bag Space Helmets

It's hard to believe that this week we're wrapping up summer, but I am having a lot of fun looking through all the fun things we did these last few months. And, after making sure we keep summer simple, I'm still putting together some posts about it all!

These Paper Bag Space Helmets are a simple activity I've always loved doing with kids. A while back we made them at Big Brother's Outer Space Birthday Party, but I also made them with preschoolers years ago in my early days of teaching.

The day the kids made them this summer it proved to be a perfect summer activity - we had all the materials on hand and the kids had a blast playing in the yard with them afterwards. 

Dinosaur Egg Sensory Play

Some of our activities I plan out and some of our activities just happen. On the days they turn into something that's tons of fun, and I know we might want to do again, I try to grab the camera. That's exactly how this Dinosaur Egg Sensory Play evolved.

Recently we were given a tub of "Delta" sand by my Dad. As far as I can tell, it's pretty similar to Kinetic Sand (although maybe not quite as fluid.) Online I had seen a cool video posted by Hallecake to use kinetic sand with plastic eggs. 

Cardboard Tube Easter Bunnies

The Easter holiday is almost here. This cute craft is pretty easy to put together and doesn't take too long to finish. Best of all, they use something you probably even have laying around: cardboard tubes!

We love finding ways to use up things we already have on hand, and for that same reason we're usually hanging on to things like cardboard tubes. You just never know when you might have a project with them, just like these fun Cardboard Tube Easter Bunnies!

Exploring A Recycling Center (Learning Through Adventure Series)

We were really excited when we learned about the opportunity to participate in the Learning Through Adventure Series that is being hosted by Bambini Travel. We're known for being a pretty on the go family, and we're often on the look out for cool places to explore with our kids. Usually we find great resources for learning and exploring first hand! A few years ago we had a blast with our Alphabet Adventures which gave us lots of options for exploring local places.

For this adventure I decided to take us to a place I'd been with students, but not with my own kiddos: a local recycling center.

A little over a year ago as a family we moved to a zero sort recycling system that we share with our neighbors. This meant our kids no longer saw 1) where recycling went and 2) what the categories for recycling were. (They just know we do a lot of it and that every once in a while a large truck picks it up.)

Cardboard Airfield

Okay, so I'm not going to lie, I had a little too much fun putting together this cardboard airfield for the boys.

They've been really into airplanes lately, and I knew they would love it. But, I also just loved having a chance to be creative myself. And even though I could have let them help me put it together, I again have to admit I was having too much fun to let them help and decided to put it together all on my own.

(Pretend Play) Homemade Menu

The kiddos love playing restaurant in their pretend kitchen when their cousins come over, which led to the inspiration of this homemade menu for pretend play.

When the two cousins are here it's not unusual to find all four kiddos pretending to run and own a restaurant. So one day when I knew Big Cousin was coming, I set up the materials for she and Big Brother to create their own pretend play menu.

Easy Easter Sensory Bin

The other day I was looking for something fast and fun for the boys to do, and quickly put together this Easy Easter Sensory Bin.

All month I've been inspired by several different posts where people used plastic Easter eggs in sensory bins. We already had ours out for our Jelly Bean Math Play, so it was easy to add them to our bin. 

Fast and Easy Fire Truck Play

The other week we had a friend over to play. With three little boys in the house, the play quickly turned to our extensive collection of vehicles. All three boys especially became focused on using our well loved fire trucks. (We have two fire trucks which were one of our favorite yard sale finds last year, two for $2!)

They kept trying to find things "to put out" which led to this fast and easy fire truck play set up. 

Toddler Color Sort Box

As I've mentioned before, I'm often looking for ways I can capture Little Brother's attention with a "quieter: activity. He has loved "drop" activities for quite a while now. Other drop activities we've created before include a pom pom can drop, the simple straw drop, and a big bottle ball drop. For this activity I was inspired by my husband's poker chip set (because he's not using them anyway) and a small shoe box to create a Toddler Color Sort Box.

We've tried some color sorting activities with Little Brother before, including a pipe cleaner color sort, but this was our first time using three colors. The poker chips were a perfect sorting material because of their size and distinct colors. 

Cardboard Igloo and Ice Fishing Play

We love cardboard box play and take any opportunity we can get to grab a big box for really fun activities. So when we offered a freezer box around the holidays, of course we couldn't turn it down. With a little paint and imagination, we turned our box into an igloo!

Big Brother has been really enjoying some weekend ice fishing with Daddy, and liked the idea of extending it into play at home. This inspired us to turn our box into an igloo and add some fishing fun too. 

Cork Bats

The other day we were headed to a play date with two good friends who also love to craft and we wanted to bring something fun to do. We quickly put together this fun cork bat craft, which is perfect for October and was easy to assemble.

The kids (ages 4, 5, and 7) were able to do almost all of the work themselves, which made them all feel really proud of their creations.  

Halloween Character Votives

Earlier in the summer we had a lot of fun using recycled baby jars to create Under the Sea Votive Holders. Now that it's a new season, it was time to create a new set with a new theme: halloween!

These votive holders are really so easy to make, and can turn out really colorful and fun. We added a new lighting source for this set: finger lights from the dollar store. The lights are very bright and make the candle holders really glow. Plus they are easy for Big Brother to turn on and off  by himself. 

Beading With 5 Household Objects

We enjoy beading here. I've loved it since I was a kid, and enjoyed passing on the activity to Big Brother. But not only can we create "beautiful" necklaces and bracelets, it's also a great way to develop fine motor skills.

I've mentioned fine motor skills before; they are small movements made by the smaller muscles in our bodies (like those you find in fingers and toes for example.) Helping kids to develop fine motor skills are important because they need to be able to use these muscles for important everyday activities (like zipping a coat) and academic skills (like writing with a pencil or cutting out a picture.) 

Beading is a great way to work on developing fine motor skills, as it's using repetitive small muscles, it's fun, and you create a finished product (which kids always love.) But you don't always have to use beads, there's plenty of household objects you can use. 

Switching up the object adds variety and interest for kids, but also means they're learning how to hold onto different types of objects. Here are 5 of our favorite household objects you can use below.

Cereal Box T-Rex Statue

When little kids think dinosaurs they of course think of T-Rex first. So for dinosaur week we had to do something where we made our own T-Rex!

Before crafting we learned a few things about the tyrannosaurus rex (some of them are well known facts, but to 4 year old Big Brother it was great information and mostly new.) 

A Few T-Rex Facts (from the Usborne Book of Dinosaurs)

• T-Rex dinosaurs are meat eaters, or carnivores. They ate other dinosaurs and sometimes scavenged. 

• They were so heavy they could probably only run for short distances at a time. 

• Its hands only had two little claws. 

• Its teeth had edges like saws. 

Under the Sea Votive Holders

This is a fun and simple craft using old baby food jars we made this week to go along with our current Ocean theme.

Using craft acrylic paint, clean baby food jars, and stickers we created these cute votive holders. 

(Project note: Don't have any baby food jars? Any small, smooth sided glass jar will work too!) 

Simple Straw Drop for Toddlers

I know I've already shared several drop activities for babies and toddlers, but Little Brother has been enjoying this activity for over a week, so I couldn't resist sharing. It was so easy to put together and such a great way to work on fine motor skills.

He loves putting small things into other containers, which inspired me to put together this one afternoon. I used regular drinking straws, a cardboard coffee can, and a hole punch to create this simple activity.