Minnie's Bowtique Birthday Party

 

I know I say this every year, but how in the world is my baby girl three years old?!?!? Seriously...where has the time gone??? Claire is the sweetest, spunkiest little girl ever and has taught me so much more than I can ever possibly imagine teaching her. She made me a mother and continues to make me strive to be a better human being every single day. Words will never be able to express my love and amazement for her! Ok, before I start bursting into tears, here are the details of her Minnie Mouse Bowtique-themed birthday party that we recently threw for her. Have I mentioned I love any excuse for a themed party???

 

I found the cutest, matching, Minnie outfits for Claire and her sister, but A- it was SO cold for our outdoor party (at the end of June, mind you), that we had to cover Claire's up with a hoodie and leggings and B-baby sister pooped all over her adorable outfit moments before the party began. Never a dull moment in my life! Thank goodness for the cute headbands!

 

 

No birthday is complete without a good, birthday banner! I used the Mickey Cricut cartridge for the bows and the Alphalicious cartridge for the letters. The bows were glued to purple ribbon and hung in front of the backdrop I purchased at Wal-Mart.



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Mickey Cricut cartridge came in handy tremendously for these gift bags, which I made using black bags purchased at Hobby Lobby and attached a bow and ears created by the Cricut. The hair bows were far too girly for the boys at this party, so I simply made theirs bowties and they got the "Mickey-version" gift bags.

 

 

My sister created the adorable Mickey heads using small and large Styrofoam balls, which I placed into cylinder vases with pink and purple paper shred. Word to the wise, do NOT try to spray paint Styrofoam!!! It will shrivel and die, which is no bueno! Instead, use a foam brush and acrylic paint. You won't regret it! I also used black and white, Gerber daisies and placed them in vases with paper shred for extra funsies!

 

 

How cute is this cake?!?! A friend of the family created this adorable confection of deliciousness for the big day!

 

I created this door hanger to greet party guests as they entered using a cardboard number, acrylic paint, and paper (and yes, the ears and bow were also created using the Mickey Cricut cartridge. Thanks so much for noticing!). And maybe its just the teacher in me, but I strongly think that chalkboards make everything better...Hence the chalkboard sign greeting guests as they entered the party!

 

 

 
 

  

 

 

 Happy 3rd birthday, my love!!!





 

 

 

 

 



Pom Pom Learning Activities

 

Now that we are finally getting into the swing of being a family of four (five if you count my crazy, toddler-like dog), I am finding a few moments here and there to update posts and add some new fun stuff to the blog. Bear with me, as its a very gradual process, but we'll get there, haha!

 

With that being said, in order to keep my almost-three-year-old busy at all times while I am feeding or changing or entertaining her baby sister, I have created some activities to occupy her hands and mind. As a teacher and giant arts and crafts nerd, I had an overabundance of pom poms in a variety of sizes and colors that I decided to use for some of those activities. Here are the activities that were simple to put together and promote academic AND fine motor skills...

 

 

Using three rectangular pieces of construction paper in different colors, I laminated the pieces and placed them in a bag, along with five of each color in corresponding pom poms. Perfect for a color sort activity that is easy to store.

 

 

 

Using another piece of construction paper, I drew a line across the middle and labeled the top "BIG" and the bottom "little," also providing a visual of a big and small circle as a frame of reference. The paper was laminated and placed in a large Ziploc with an assortment of big and little pom poms and Voila! (Note-you could also add a "medium" section when you think your munchkin is prepared) A fun and hands-on way to learn and differentiate size!

 

 

A final idea (and I'll add more as I think of them and as time allows, haha) is to create dots randomly on a piece of construction paper. Using glue and small pom poms, the child uses his or her fine motor skills to pick up the pom poms and glue them onto the dots. This is such an easy task to put together and little ones love any excuse to use glue. As a side note, if you're hoping to make this activity even more independent or avoid potential mess, use foam stickers so that the child can simply pull of the backing and stick them on the dots.

 

 

To be continued...

 

 

 



Magnetic Play and Decorate Snowman

Recently, I had the opportunity to be a guest host at My Craftily Ever After, where I shared a tutorial for this Magnetic Play and Decorate Snowman. Not only is it a great decoration to get you through the winter, but it also doubles to give your little ones the opportunity to manipulate its parts in any way they choose. If that's not enough, most of the materials used for this project can be found at home or purchased at your local dollar store. In fact, the entire project cost me under $3.00! Here's how you can make one of your very own...

Materials:

-stove burner cover set (I found mine at my local Dollar Tree and got a 2 piece set for $1 in 8" and 10" diameters!)

-white, acrylic paint

-foam brush

-hot glue gun/glue sticks

-3-5 large buttons

-1 sheet of black foam

-felt sheets or scraps-orange (nose), red (trim of hat), black (eyes and mouth)

-material for scarf (approx. 18" in length)

-brown, pipe cleaners (3)

-magnetic strips or discs

Instructions:

1. Paint the insides of the burner covers with white paint (they actually are already off-white in color, so you could leave it as is, if you want. I chose to make them more of a snowy white).

2. Using black foam, cut out a top hat for your snowman. Embellish the hat with a strip of felt in any color your little heart desires.

3. Cut out a carrot nose using orange felt. Create eyes and a mouth out of black felt (or any color you'd like-Its your snowman, Go nuts!)

4. Cut two, brown, pipe cleaner in half. Wrap one half around the end of another pipe cleaner to create a branch-like arm. Repeat this step to create the opposite arm. Hot glue the arms to the front of the large, burner cover, placing felt scraps over the ends of the cleaners to adhere.

5. Place magnetic strip or discs on the backs of the carrot nose, eyes, buttons, and mouth with hot glue

6. Using hot glue, create a loop at one end of the ribbon and glue to the back of the felt hat. Below the hat, place hot glue on the ribbon and adhere the front of the smaller burner cover to it.

7. Below the small burner cover, tie the material around the ribbon to make it look scarf-like. Under the scarf, place hot glue on the ribbon and adhere the front of the larger burner cover to it. Trim any excess ribbon below the large burner cover.

8. Encourage your little ones to arrange the magnetic pieces to the snowman however their little hearts desire and hang to display!

Hope you've all enjoyed a wonderful, holiday season and are ready to begin a crafty, new year!!!

Children's Jack-O-Lantern Painting

With baby #2 on the way, I have had virtually no energy to do anything once I get home from a long day of work. Poor Claire has been a trooper when I explain to her that mommy needs to lay down a little and watch her play, or must her chicken nuggets yet again for dinner because I have no energy to cook! Now that I am starting to feel a little (and I mean a little) less exhausted, I finally broke down and bought her the art supply she's been requesting for longer than I care to admit (the thought of setting up, taking down and the potential mess were all just too much for this preggo to handle in the first trimester)...paint! 2 packs of watercolors, 1 set of finger paints, brushes, a Mickey Mouse poster paint kit, paper, and one, giant, drop cloth later, and we were on our way!

Once we arrived home, it was on! I grabbed an old shirt of mine for Claire to use as a smock, covered everything within a 3-mile radius in a drop cloth and let her go to town. After finishing her Halloween-themed, Mickey Mouse posters, she used the leftover paint to decorate a white, baby pumpkin we had recently purchased. A word to the wise...teaching a toddler that she must wait for paint to dry before touching and playing with the completed 

projects WILL result in multiple meltdowns. The sooner you accept it, the easier it becomes!

Finger painting was our final endeavor of the evening. We worked on mixing colors to make other colors and used the orange we created to spread and play with the paint. I helped Claire use her fingers to trace jack-o-lantern eyes, nose, and a mouth and placed it in a safe place to dry.  The following day, I knew I wanted to use her creations as Halloween decoration and decided to tweak her finger painting a bit to be able to display it proudly year after year.

I used a green, chevron, piece of cardstock I had in my stash and traced a pumpkin shape on the back of it in pencil. Using scissors, I cut out the pumpkin shape. 

Double-sided tape allowed me to adhere the pumpkin cutout to the finger painting, so that the jack-o-lantern face was centered nicely. 

I trimmed the excess paper from the finger painting and cut down the chevron paper to make it fit an 8x10 frame. Once placed in a cute frame, the project was complete!   

I do believe this will be a household staple for every Halloween and Fall for many years to come!

Counting Money Activities

Let's face it...there are TONS of mathematic concepts that we've been taught,  which we can honestly say we have NEVER used in our everyday lives, nor ever use them in the future! I mean, who can say they've ever had to use the Pythagorean theorem or know the square root of anything in their adult lives? I mean this as no offense whatsoever to all of the math teachers in the world and give them tons of credit for all they do. I am simply leading into some activities that I have used for my students to enforce a math concept that will constantly be used in the future...concepts of money! As a teacher of special needs students, these are crucial life skills that will be used their entire lives and are far more beneficial to this population than exponents, angles, and other, more abstract concepts. Here are some activities to use at home or in a classroom for students of varying ability levels to teach concepts of money...

Practice sorting coins using fake money and small cups

Label envelopes with specific dollar amounts and have students place the correct amount of faux dollar bills in each envelope

Practice combining coins to create the amount written on each envelope (I always include a picture of the item they are "purchasing" to empahsize the fact that money allows us to buy the things we want)

I would loooove to hear ideas you all have for helping your students and children understand concepts of money. Let me know!