Block Play

Just wanted to share what the kids are doing lately.
We call this block play.... with Legos.

Working in pairs, they have outlined a letter E with the Legos. Later they made art from the outline using crayons making "letter creations". More on that later.

X marks the spot!

This is another project from recycled wallpaper. There were Lego Airplanes landing on this 'runway'

Life Throws Curves

An old pair of jeans that once belonged to my mother in law.

The remainder of a dress once worn by myself.

A swatch of chambrey fabric from my stash.

I combined these items & another pair of men's slacks to make walker totes for.....

These two.... My father-in-law & mother-in-law.

Recently, Nancy, the mil, fell & severely broke her ankle. She's home-bound for a good while.

Ron, the fil, has been wheel-chair-bound for quite awhile over his foot wound.

While Nancy was able to care for both of them before, things changed drastically for them after her injury.

So, I decided instead of sending her flowers.....

She needed a Handy Tote for the walker.

Of course she needed a little bling!

Here's the inside lining.

And here's the "Papa" version as our daughters call it.

Lined inside too with the chambrey.

These items were created with 'repurposing' in mind. The chambrey fabric was purchased (a long time ago) but all other items were recycled.

Say some prayers please for their quick recovery. They are each very independent people who have never asked anyone for help. Most of us know that God has reasons for everything & they were obviously meant to slow down for awhile. 

A Green Week

 

First Things First!

Thanks to Gavin and his family for the VERY COOL Mickey Mouse mug from your Disney vacation! I LOVE IT!



To play Stop and Go Racing, you'll need to make a game board. We used a cereal box & clear packaging tape. We robbed the cars from some transportation counters I have in another box.

We made game cards from the cereal box as well. When you flip over a green card you move forward one & you don't when you flip the 'stop' card. Pretty simple but teaches one to one correspondence that is so fundamental, you don't think about it as adults. But very important math skill for Early Childhood. 
For example, a child may have counting 1,2,3,4,5 memorized, but skips a counted object when placed in front of them.

These 2 photos are our recycled wallpaper samples that we flipped to the back to make a 'horse' trail. They requested playing with horses that morning so we created this playscape for the horses & stamped horseprints along the trail.
Here we are learning to experiment with art supplies and experiencing cause & effect.

This is another counting game created with a cereal box, milk jug lids, & a sharpie marker.

Wallpaper samples again cover these recycled boxes. We're also utilizing any boxes around to create this 'boat' the children are sitting in. They are holding paper towel tubes for telescopes to look for whales. There was no limit to their imagination this week.
Unstructured play is really where children learn to explore, learn to imagine, and learn to get along with other children.

For open-ended art, I supplied snips of paper with holes in it for extra texture, crayons, letter-size paper, and glue sticks.
Decision making is constant and continuous in assembling and decorating art and craft projects. There are also spacial relationships and thinking skills strengthened with open-ended art projects.

Children Learn By Doing, And Play Is Their Work