Glittery Turkey Thanksgiving Craft

Project completed November 2015. 

This turkey jar was a fun Thanksgiving project. I got the idea from I Love to Create, which calls them "Gobble Gobble Globes." However, I switched up the order of the steps, because to me pouring the water in at the very end would risk getting the decorations wet! Here's the order we did it in with our supplies... these would be very cute place settings if you wanted to make a bunch of them!

Supplies:

• Empty, clean baby food jar
• Scrapbook or construction paper in various fall colors
• White glue or glue dots
• Gold glitter
• Water
• Googly eyes

Steps:

1. Fill the baby food jar with a generous amount of glitter and water.
2. Holding the baby food jar upside down, attach the googly eyes and a triangle of yellow or orange paper to the jar with glue.
3. Trace your child's hand on paper and cut it out. Use this template to trace and cut out multiple copies of their hand shape (we used 4).
4. Once the glue for the eyes and beak has dried, use glue to attach the "feathers," fanned out, to the back of the jar. Allow to dry.

Colored Rice Craft

Activity completed September 6, 2015.

This was a simple addition to our fun with colored rice. It couldn't be easier - all you need is:

• Colored rice
• Cardstock
• Clear-drying glue

We each made designs with the glue on our paper. I went for a heart shape while Tripp experimented with how the glue flowed and how hard he needed to squeeze. Then we added handfuls of the rice onto the paper. A few minutes later I shook the loose rice from each paper and we had our colorful designs!

Exploring Colored Rice

Activity completed on September 15, 2015.

Tuesdays are the day Tripp and I get to spend entirely together. Usually we go to the library in the mornings, he naps, and then we have fun with an activity in the afternoon - anything from going to the park if the weather is nice to a craft or just free play. Tuesdays are great and I really cherish them, because all too soon he'll be in school and we won't have this free time together.

I thought having some fun with colored rice would be a nice way to spend one of our Tuesday afternoons. In the morning, before we went to the library, I followed these directions from Paging Fun Mums and by the time he was finished with his nap and lunch it was dry and ready to be played with.

While I was making the rice I let him choose the colors. We ended up with blue, green, yellow, red and a very dark purple.

We donned our winter hats, as you do, and got to playing. I had cups and bowls out to experiment with moving the rice. He got right into it.

 

 

Fall Leaves Garland Craft

Activity completed November 2015.

I first spotted the idea for this fall leaves craft on Raising Arizona Kids. It was a perfect fit for a Tuesday afternoon at home since we always buy Viva paper towels and we had plenty of pipettes and food coloring on hand.

The idea is simple: draw or trace leaves on paper towels with Sharpie, then use the droppers to drop colored water onto the towels. When they're dry, cut them out and string them up for a pretty seasonal garland.

One thing I enjoyed in contrast with the original blogger's leaves was the colors on each leaf. Ours turned out with lots of colors on each leaf and it looks so pretty, particularly in person. Tripp likes any craft where he gets to use those pipettes!

Marshmallow Engineering

 Activity completed September 8, 2015

Marshmallow engineering is a super simple, fun STEM activity. It's easy to set up and clean up and chances are you already have what you need in your kitchen. When we recently visited the Children's Museum of Phoenix, they had this set up in one of their side rooms.

All you need is marshmallows of various sizes and dry spaghetti noodles. Then you can let imagination do the rest. See how tall or long something can be built. What kind of support do marshmallows offer? Can you replicate a famous bridge or building with food? What else can you use to build with? Imagination is limitless...

Recipe: Apple Sausage Stuffing Bites

I saved this Weelicious recipe in a text document a year and a half ago and finally made it! I made a few changes - so I figured I'd share my version of this yummy kid-friendly meal here.

Ingredients
4 cups of cubed day-old sourdough bread
1 cup cooked sausage with sage
1 chopped medium apple
1 cup chopped red onion
1 cup water (I'll probably use chicken stock next time though)
2 beaten eggs
1 tsp olive oil
Spices to taste (thyme, salt, etc.)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350.
2. Heat oil in a frying pan. Add the sausage, apple, red onion and spices. Heat about 5 minutes until everything is hot and the apple and onion is getting soft.
3. In a large bowl, mix sausage mixture, bread, water, and eggs.
4. Spoon the mixture into a greased muffin tin (we got 14 out of our mix).
5. Bake for 45 minutes.
6. Enjoy!

A Glittery Pumpkin

Activity completed October 13, 2015.

We did a very simple painting activity today. I cut out the shape of a pumpkin on cardstock and we painted with glitter and black paints. We had fun watching the glitter show up, and when we added some black paint to the purple glitter paint, we got black glitter paint! So pretty and a wonderful addition to the "punkin wall."

I also helped Tripp write his name and the year on the bottom of the pumpkin. He held the pen and I put my hand around his so he could feel the shapes of the letters as we wrote together. When his daddy asked what his favorite part of the picture was, he pointed to his name.