Papier Mache Houses

Welcome to Rainbow Juice Box Village!

I just couldn't resist the shape of these empty juice boxes - it was begging me to turn them into little houses!

So I cut out the doors and windows with a craft knife...

And gave them a single layer of papier mache - just strips of newspaper dipped in diluted white glue - and left them in the sun to dry.

Then one coat of white PVA paint (latex paint, if you are in the US)...

And the best part of all: painting them in pretty pretty rainbow colours! I sealed it all with two layers of water-based, non-toxic varnish.

I left them in the pot of pansies while I went in to grab my camera, and would you believe it, when I got back, some friendly new neighbours had already moved in!!

If you ever have trouble getting into your house, the resident Big Friendly Giant will kindly assist you.

And if you get tired of the country setting and would like a taste of the hustle and bustle of Big City Life, that can be arranged, too! This gives new meaning to the term 'mobile home!'



I linked this post to Show and Tell on ABC & 123!

and to Tea Rose Home's Linky Party.

How we use our creation bean bags

One of our favourite CD's is The Singing Bible that I ordered from Focus on the Family two Christmasses ago. Sweetpea was still a bit young then and the snippets of narration between the songs didn't appeal to her then, but I took it out again a few months ago, and now it is requested daily!

The Singing Bible

(South African readers: Click on the link above to order from Kalahari.net)

The set consists of four CD's that tell the story of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation through song and short bits of narration that tie it all together. My favourite things about this set are, firstly, the message of God's love that runs through all the songs like a golden thread, and secondly, the wide variety of music genres that were used.

One of our favourite songs is track three on the first CD, called God made the Universe! and since we've been learning about the wonderful way in which God created the world in six days, I decided to use this song as a starting point for our learning. To make it more concrete and visual, I made six felt 'pockets' for our bean bags - one for each day of the Creation story. If you missed the post earlier this week, you can click here to see how I made them.

So here is how we play:

First we read the Creation Story from the Children's Bible each morning.

Then I bring out the appropriate bean bag for that day and we discuss the picture on it.

Then it is music time! Although we sing the whole song through every morning, on the first morning we only played with the Day One bean bag. Whenever the words: "Day One - God made the night and the day!" were sung, Sweetpea and I would toss the bean bag to each other, and then continue with the actions we made up for the chorus. The following day we added the Day Two bean bag, the next day the Day Three one, an so on. As the number of bean bags increase, so does the fun, and we usually end up in an exhausted, giggling heap from trying to catch and toss all the bags!

We have also played with these by lining the bags up in a row on our living room floor, and as each day is called out in the song, we would hop over to the appropriate bag - lovely gross motor fun on less-than-perfect spring days!

Creation bean bags

      We have been doing a lot of fun activities around the Creation Story lately and to make it more concrete and visual, I made up a set of six Creation Bean Bags that we have been using in many exciting ways!

   To make the pouches, I cut strips of blue felt a little wider than our bean bags, and sewed the sides closed, leaving a little flap at the back, to which I sewed a plastic press-stud. The pictures were glued down with fabric glue and left to dry under a stack of heavy phone directories overnight.

    I used some of the heavy duty bean bags that I sell. They are made from sturdy bull denim, and filled with PVC pellets instead of real beans. This means they can be washed in a normal washing machine (a great benefit if you have children like mine who seem to learn about their world primarily through their sense of taste!!). Also, beans and lentils can get moldy - no such problem with the plastic pellets!

   So I just slip the bean bags into their felt pouches for the duration of our Creation 'theme', and can then put them away until later ( I will store them with our felt board themes - you can click here to see how I keep our felt themes together in a tidy, 'compact' way!)

Here are close-ups of the bean bags for each day:

(CANNOT. GET. PHOTOS. TO. UPLOAD. CORRECTLY. 

 I appologise for the pictures that are on their sides. I have tried and tried to get them right side up, but to no avail.)

    

    

GAME IDEAS:

1. We played a silly bean bag toss game while we listened to the song God made the Universe from our The Singing Bible CD - more about this in another post later this week.

2. Make a masking tape grid with six squares on the living room floor. Place paper plates that are numbered 1 to 6 in each square. Place the bean bags in a line at your child's feet. As you call out the number of the day, she must pick the correct square and toss the bag onto the plate in that square!

3. On the first morning that we used these, I presented them in a 'lesson' similar to the Montessori Godly Play style. Click here for a video that shows how to go about this.

*Please note: you could also make a seventh bag with nothing on it to show that God rested on the seventh day. I only had six bean bags, so whenever we spoke about the seventh day, we would stretch out dramatically and say: "On day Seven, God rested in Heaven!" *

Come play at the Childhood 101 We Play Link Up!

I also linked this post to Se7en's Friday Link Up and

ABC and 123's Show and Tell Bloghop

Oh Boy! # 3 - Mommy's little helper, and a new haircut

ArrowBoy loves to help me wash the dishes. I took these photos one evening after supper last week. We had just finished the dishes, and the little man then proceeded to wipe clean his step stool, too.

He was starting to look like a Beatle with those woolly locks, so I finally talked the Dad into giving him a hair cut. It was a team effort with Dad cutting, me taking video and Sweetpea entertaining him!

It's a bit choppy around the ears, because he kept turning his head to try and see the scissors!

My handsome young man!

A lunchtime to remember...

    On Wednesday last week my mom and I loaded the little ones in the car and drove off into the glorious spring day, winding our way through the Stellenbosch winelands, through strawberry fields and past pastures with grazing cows, to finally end up at Thelema, the wine farm where one of my younger sisters work. I actually had an appointment in a little town on the way, and called my sister earlier that morning to ask if we could pop in during her lunch time to say hi while we were in the area.

    The tasting room and cellar at Thelema is modern and sleek and I will admit that I always feel a little out of place there with my boisterous little ones around my ankles and a nappy bag over my shoulder (which is why we really don't go there very often). When I had visited her there previously, she had been on duty and we just had a quick, quiet visit on the small deck outside the tasting room. This time, however, she had an hour long lunch break during which a colleague would be relieving her of her duties, and she lead us around the imposing farm house and past some outbuildings and workshops to the pond that overlooks the breathtaking Simonsberg. And just like that what was going to be a quick, courteous little visit, turned into a time of refreshment for my soul in the middle of a crazy week!

In the woods beside the pond we found a beautiful peacock, and Sweetpea tiptoed through the woodpile for a closer look...

...and was rewarded with this:

My mom and I were drinking in the beauty and quiet.

ArrowBoy was fascinated by the peacock and I got super excited everytime this exquisite bird bristled its feathers!

He discovered pine cones with Ouma...

...while Aunt A took Sweetpea for a walk...

..and they discovered a little boat...

...in which Sweetpea rowed away.

A rowing lesson on the Sea of Emerald Grass...

...and my daughter deep in thought as she took in the beauty around her.

Another small person in awe of the big, beautiful world...

Still amazed at that peacock over there!!

Love.

While I'm making dinner...

A quick and easy idea for keeping a toddler occupied while you are preparing dinner.
Collect the boxes food or household products come packaged in.

Cut them up to make simple puzzles.

Mix up the pieces and give to your toddler to unscramble!