Kids Craft: Ballerina Puppets and Stage

It's a strange day here in our household, only Parker and I are at home...Skylee started her very first day of school. ever. :( All last week we were getting things ready for her to start, which included a special skirt and matching headband made my me. I figure there are only so many years I can get away with these things, so I must take advantage! While I was working away on her skirt, she asked if she could do a craft too. Since I don't have all my craft supplies with me, I had to do something really simple, but she's been loving it and playing with it ever since.

We took a shoe box and turned it into a stage, then I cut out ballerina silhouettes with "leg holes" for her to color and decorate. Since I was working with pink tulle, she put "tutus" on some of her ballerinas , and although she didn't, it would be fun to decorate the stage too!She had a lot of fun, and thought I'd share it for those of you who may have little ones around who want to feel included in your crafting :). It was a great way to keep her busy, creative, and out of my hair ;) This can be modified to be anything or anyone with legs :) The only downside to doing ballerinas was that they couldn't really spin :(

(backstage)
Hope you're all having a great week! I'll be taking advantage of the time I have on my hands to play with Parker and get my house in order!

*Brittney*

Preschool Crafts

I do a little co-op preschool with some friends for Skylee-bug and this week was my turn to have the kids over and attempt to teach them something ;) (They really are so smart and well behaved).
We have a rotation for their curriculum, and Tuesday we focused on math and visual arts. Of course we reviewed numbers up to 100, then made some of these fun wooden spoon puppets that then got to put on a show and make up stories with their puppets. Of course I forgot to take pictures of the other ones we made but this is Skylee's: Complete with twine locks!Today we focused on science so we made these sensory bears. This bear is filled with rice so he makes noise when you shake it, sprayed with body spray, and has different textures that make up the body(sand paper, felt, ribbon, buttons). For the tasting part, well...I just told them it would taste yucky if they tried to eat it, and to be reminded of our tasting sense by the rice inside (maybe it's a stretch?). Then we made up some reminders with our fingers about all the 5 senses. They turned out pretty cute,and effective, so I thought I'd share :)If you've got other fun preschool activities/ideas/crafts, please share! :) have fun with your little ones!

*Brittney*