Where, Oh Where, Has My Tablecloth Gone?

What do you use to protect your crafting and activity areas? 

A few years back I attempted to make my own re-usable shopping bags out of vinyl tablecloths.  That project failed miserably and I was left with more intact cloths than I'd ever need for picnicking. That's the day vinyl tablecloths became my go-to crafting area cover-up.

There should be a cute picture, here, huh?  

That's the problem, my tablecloth is missing...

You have, of course, seen our table protectors before.  They've made appearances in picture we take for this blog.  Here are a few examples to refresh your memory...

Our old pink striped tablecloth

Our current fishy table cloth

I love that they cover the entire space (unlike place mats we've tried in the past) and are waterproof so paint spills and globs of glue don't leak through to the table.  When we're done I simply pull it up from the corners, take it outside for a good shake, and toss it in a drawer for use on another day.  

Sure, they get paint all over them, but that's the point, isn't it?  On the cloth and not on my table.  One extra nice thing is never having to scrape play dough off my table; throw out a vinyl table cloth and clean up is a breeze!  Every now and then I throw it in the wash for a little scrubbing power, but I just don't stress about keeping it too clean.  

Unfortunately, today my kids and I are driving each other a little crazy.  I have a fun painting project for them to do, but our fishy tablecloth has gone MIA.  I remember it hanging on the front porch railing for drying after it's last wash, and now I have absolutely no idea where it has ended up.  I have a small suspicion another adult in our house may have thrown it away, but as soon as I openly accuse him I know it'll show up in that really clever spot I decided to put it.  

I guess the painting will have to wait.  Maybe I'll try to entertain the kids with some baking.  And head out to Ross or TJ Max (they have super cute ones for $2-$3)  to replenish my vinyl tablecloth supply first thing tomorrow morning! (Watch for pictures next week of the new cloth and our painting project)

What do you use to keep your tables clean?

Mail from...Alaska

I LOVE when I have an idea for an okay lesson that Beck gets carried away with and pretty soon we've come up with something pretty cool!  That's what's happening right now-I had animal flash cards to divide into groups by number of legs or stripes/no stripes.  He, of course, took it a step farther and is now busily drawing an 11x14 "habitat" where all those animals can live.  He's amazing!

That's exactly what happened a few weeks ago when we pulled out our Alaska postcard!  (Oddly enough, the topic was animal related that day, too).  The postcard itself had no extra information written on it, but did have a cute cartoon of Alaska's baby animals.  I tested myself a minute, trying to remember the Alaska state bird and then was transported back to my time living there.  It really is a place where everything you hear about or see on tv is 100% real.

Alaska State Bird: Ptarmigan

We decided to use google images to find pictures of baby animals that live in Alaska.  We came up with photos for wolves, caribous, marmots, puffins, beluga whales, lynx, grizzly bears, salmon, mountain goats, and polar bears.

For an activity I found a simple tutorial to make a pop-up greeting card on Enchanted Learning.  I was excited to finally figure out how to do something as easy as that.  Beck's mind was running way ahead of mine and before I knew it we'd printed out all our baby animal images for him to put into his greeting card.

What was the last activity your children took eons farther than you had planned for?

Holiday Giving: Our Surprise in the Mailbox

I wrote on my other blog a few weeks ago about how much I DREAD the arrival of the holiday toy catalogs in the mail.  The moment they enter the front door is the last moment I have any quiet until Christmas is over. The air is constantly filled with, "I want, I want, I want!!!"  Leading up to Thanksgiving, I try to help everyone in our family to focus on the blessing of things we have instead of things we want.  It is usually pretty successful, and if I try hard to carry that over through the Christmas season, the "I Want's" die down to a manageable rate.

Throughout December the boys and I  focus our thoughts and energy on the simplicity of giving to other people instead of the intensity of keeping our Santa lists up-to-date.  This has been one of our favorite activities...

The Recipients:  The people who live on our street

The Activity:  Make & Deliver a small treat 

The Goal:  Add a joyful surprise to the mundane task of getting the mail.

Here's how we did it:

First, we counted out 10 chocolate squares, & 10 candy canes, then glued the top of the chocolate squares...

 ...and put the candy canes on top...

Next we tied ribbon around the candy "package". I would advise making sure the ribbons are long enough for a new knot-tier and then trim them up.

 Always let the kids choose a comfortable place to work...

The last step in creating our mailbox surprises was cutting out the tags and tying them on top. I used these tags, but also really liked these ones...

NOW ON TO THE DELIVERY!!!

My boys understand the concept of doing nice things for other people, but still, they're young.   I did want them to feel the reward at the end and had promised they could have some after we'd made our deliveries.  Still they were whine and beg to eat chocolate and candy canes. My ears bleed with the racket and I almost always prematurely decide the activity was an epic fail.  BUT, the minute we walk out the door, their whole attitude changes!  They get giddy, running from mailbox to mailbox and wanting to make SURE they don't miss anybody.  They get sad when a mailbox is empty, because that means the neighbor has already picked up their mail for the day.  I've caught them peeking out the window the next day to make sure those people get their goodies!

 I'd love to hear how you help your little ones understand the joy of giving or have you share this post with someone looking to add more giving into their holiday season!

Mail from...Massachusetts (Happy Thanksgiving)

My first job away from home was on Cape Cod in Massachusetts, south of Boston.  While there I fell in love with New England.  Fortunately I still have all my photos from then because we haven't received our Massachusetts postcard.  It was fun this week looking through them with Beck.  And, of course he wanted to know if I saw a Black-Headed Chickadee (the Massachusetts State Bird) while I was there.  I can't say that I remember specifically that I did...

Sorry I'm not posting my own photos here,
 my scanner is being temperamental

Plymouth Rock
Have you been there?
 It's one of the most disappointing landmarks I've been to,
but still a cool part of history.

Since the 1st Thanksgiving took place in this great New England state, I decided to go ahead and study it without a postcard to go along with it.  Somehow I am always too slow to get the fun popular seasonal books at the library, but this time it worked out okay.  Instead of silly picture books, we ended up with three non-fiction books that tell the real story of Thanksgiving.  Beck & Peyton have been so quiet and patient while we look through them, and I've caught them pretending to be Indians that help the Pilgrims find fish and food and arguing over whether there was turkey at the 1st Thanksgiving.  This time being to slow at the library has worked out for me.

To go along with our stories, I printed out some Thanksgiving printable crafts at artistshelpingchildren.org.  I've provided the links to each one below...

Pilgrim Boy Foldable Paper Craft

(They also had a pilgrim girl)

Indian Boy (and Girl)

Turkey

(This one was not worth the stress, 

and now I can't find the link, so I think it must be a sign)

Hope you have a Happy Thanksgiving!!

Mail from...North Carolina (Part 2: Flying Machines)

See that cardinal in there?
 Apparently 7 states claim the cardinal as their state bird.
Did you know only the males are bright red?

We haven't received a postcard from the official postcard swap participant living in North Carolina, so it was perfect timing for Beck's friend to mail us this one as soon as he arrived there.  We used it to spend two days studying Orville and Wilbur Wright and their flying machines.

There are a couple things I had no idea about when I started preparing for this lesson.  First, the Wright brothers did not live in North Carolina.  They grew up and lived in Ohio.  They had their bicycle shop there and that's where they created their flying machines.  So how did they end up on the beaches of Kitty Hawk?  Three reasons:  

 

1. They needed wind and Kitty Hawk was the sixth windiest place they could find
2. They wanted to be away from the public until they knew what they were doing
3. The sand made for a little bit softer way to land

It makes me wonder if Ohioans hold a grudge about all the recognition North Carolina gets when 5+ years of the work was done up north and 12 seconds of flying happened when they travelled down south.

Wright Glider  Source

Notice above that I said "flying machines"? That's the other thing I didn't know.  There wasn't just one airplane that miraculously took flight.  Coming up with one rendition a year for 5 years, the brothers tested different body styles, power options, and turning mechanisms.  The first machine was merely a kite that they controlled from ropes on the ground. 

There is an undending amount of information online to put together a lesson on the Wright Brothers, the history of flight, and the evolution of aviation.  These are the resources I drew from to intrigue my kindergartner and keep it interesting.  Click the images to be taken directly to the credited website.

U.S. Centennial of Flight Commission Sights and Sounds
8 short videos explaining each year/machine and the progress that was made

Downloadable Power Point directed towards 1st graders.  Great!!

My favorite!
Link is to a PDF of worksheets that accompanied the video series.
We chose out 6 that were on Beck's level, could easily be used for a range of grade levels.

The end of the Power Point listed above leads your child to create their own flying machine.  Here's a look at the new way Beck has for Santa to deliver his toys...

New to Eating the Nibbly Bibs? 

 Check out the story behind "Mail from..." here

A few other links I liked but didn't use in my lesson:

Instructions for making 10 different paper airplanes

Original Video of Wright Brothers Flights

Random interesting facts about the Wright Brothers

Not So Spooky Pumpkin Patch

For some reason, book learning has really been a struggle this week, so today I decided to let my boys do a little hands-on creating.  They were excited the moment they saw me pulling out the "painting sheet." (Painting Sheet=cheap vinyl tablecloth I started using for craft-time a long time ago.  It protects the table and makes for super easy clean-up.  It was cute today to see the kids relate the tablecloth to painting without me saying anything.)

Drawing inspiration from an egg carton craft project I saw a couple weeks ago, I gathered the supplies and sat down with my kids to make pumpkin patches!

Usually I choose crafts that don't require a lot of preparation by Mom beforehand, but today I decided the headache I could avoid by doing some of the work myself seemed worth it.  Those steps included:

• Cutting a 12-egg carton in half so each of my boys would have 6 "pumpkins"
• Cutting a green pipe cleaner into 12 short pieces
• Poking a small hole in the top of each "pumpkin" where the "stem" will go
• Hot Glue the "fence"

The boys got to:

• Paint their "pumpkins" and their "fences"

Okay, so Beck got a little confused and painted his paint plate
 before I re-explained it to him

• Push in their stems 

• Draw on their faces

We were running out of googly eyes,
so each boy got one pair and  then  drew the rest of their eyes

• Pick, cut, and glue on the straw

You could use craft straw, but we had an adventure outside finding dry grass we could use instead.  On the way back home from the field down the street, we had a close call with a snake and barely avoided stepping right on top of it.  The boys LOVED that!

• Choose the best place to display their pumpkin patches for everyone to see.  They decided outside on the front porch so that Daddy would be spooked when he came home.  

Aren't those the cutest "spooky" pumpkins you have ever seen?

Apple Week (and Arkansas)

Last week we pulled out the postcard from Arkansas and discovered that 1) the state bird is the mockingbird, and 2) the state flower is the Apple Blossom.  I could have put it back in the bin until spring when, the apple trees would be blossoming, but decided to link it to the apple harvest of this time of year instead.

This was our week of apple learning...

First, we counted & sorted them by color & size. We also looked for patterns & more than/less than (i.e. stems v. no stems, red v. green, etc)

Then, we made a comparison chart. Beck colored each different apple across the top.  Our categories were: stems, red, not red, & spots/dots.  Does anyone know why apples have those tiny, tiny little dots?

We tried doing a taste test, but my kids didn't seem to think the apples tasted any differently.  After a few probing questions, I decided not to push their apparent lack of taste buds any further.

I found this superhero apple template on Pinterest and KNEW my kids would love it!

After printing, I glued the pieces to a cereal box cardboard, and cut the pieces apart in hopes of avoiding the frustration of tired hands.

Beck had a serious problem that his little brother wasn't putting  his apple together properly...

He forgot soon enough, though, unable to resist the lure of being a superhero!

 Our second craft activity of the week was an attempt at apple printing.  They didn't turn out the way I'd anticipated, but still the boys had a lot of fun.

 And the Apple Week Grand Finale was a field trip with cousin Claire to our local apple orchard!  The kids got to run up and down the planted rows in search of the perfect apple to eat right off the tree.  This picture doesn't show it very well, but these Galas were nearly as sweet as the doughnuts that were waiting at the end of the tour!

Do you have a favorite apple activity you'll be doing this year?

Mail from...Arizona

The "Mail from..." series was part of our participation in a a postcard swap hosted by Beth at Living Life Intentionally.  The idea was to send out 50 postcards of your state-one to every state in the Union-and then receive back the same.  Being a travel junkie, I thought it was an exciting way to add a little geography into this year's kindergarten lessons.  Besides, what kid doesn't LOVE to get mail?

Well, the postcards have started to trickle in.  While most of them have included fairly generic tidbits of information, my kids seem to be most fascinated with learning each state's official bird.  They get confused with senders who didn't understand that was vital information.  And because that's what they're intrigued with, I've started printing out the official state birds and attaching them to the map as we study each new postcard.

The Arizona Cactus Wren

To get us started, let's take a look at Arizona...

The postcard we received showed an enormous Saguaro Cactus.  

I adapted this cute cactus craft from one I saw at Creative Jewish Mom.

To make:

~Cut apart the square parts of a cardboard egg container 

(This part was unexpectedly messy and probably should be done by mom)

~Paint the squares.

~Send your kids outside to collect pebbles and rocks while the paint dries.

~Glue the squares into whatever shape your child thinks a cactus looks like.

~Glue the rocks onto the cardboard  (we used the side of a cereal box) 
so your landscape looks like a desert.

~Crumple tissue paper and glue to your cactus for "blossoms" 

What fun tidbits can you share with us about Arizona?