Using what we have: Junk mail 'I Spy' Pictures

Our weekly community newspaper usually arrives stuffed with ads from the major supermarkets. These are my two-year old son's favourite reading matter!! He loves to 'read' the pages with me, excitedly identifying familiar products and asking me to name the ones he doesn't know yet.

Last week's offering included two supermarket pamphlets for toy and sweets specials. After we had raided them for pictures of Lightning McQueen for Sweetpea's mini book, ArrowBoy scanned the leftovers and discovered pictures of his favourite - Mickey Mouse (or, as he says it, Meee Nouse..!) He got really excited about a teeny, tiny Mickey on the packaging of some game or puzzle, and this gave my the idea of using these minute little pictures for a simple, inexpensive I Spy page.

This was our first page:

The largest picture measures about 3cm x 2 1/2 cm, and the smallest is a mere 4 mm x 4mm!

I printed some clues for a few things to look for, laminated the sheet for durability and gave it to the children with a magnifying glass - it was a hit! So much so...

... that when I was clearing out some magazines this week, I held on to a catalog from a baby shop, and used it to create an even busier page!

Play and Learn with Mama: Trip to the Fire Station

One of the mothers in a local online homeschooler's group I belong to, recently arranged a trip to our local fire station, and the Little Joyful's had a ton of fun there! Here are a few highlights from the very chilly, but super-exciting morning!!

He was fascinated by the friendly fireman demonstrating how the jaws of life work!!

If you've missed any of my previous posts, be sure to also check out the Fire Fighter Lapbook we made, and our fun Fire Truck snack!

Play and Learn with Mama: Fire Truck Snack

This was such a simple, sweet little treat - way more sugar that they are ever allowed, but hence the word 'treat'!! This is our version of a Fire Engine snack I first saw here.

We used a lovely home-baked bread that my husband made the night before, as well as..

Strawberry Jam

Mini Shortbread cookies for the engine's window

Chocolate covered cookie rings for the wheels (the original used Oreos)

A glace cherry for the red light

Pretzel sticks for the ladder

I had prepared an example beforehand, and placed all the little bits and pieces on individual plates for the Little Joyfuls to build their own engines.

Delight!!

Play and Learn with Mama: Fire Fighter Lap Book

   I have been meaning to do a few weeks of Play and Learn activities with a community helpers theme for a while now, so when a mom in our local home schooler's group recently arranged a visit to the fire station, it was the perfect opportunity to jump right in with some fun activities!

   We started with a very simple lap book:

For the cover I printed a paper doll and fire fighter outfit from Making Friends. I coloured and cut it out for Sweetpea the night before, and she then had fun 'dressing' her fire fighter in the correct sequence.

  The next day we revised the order in which a fire fighter dresses for a fire emergency by discussing this picture I printed from here . I had made an extra copy, and Sweetpea then glued the pictures in the correct sequence into a mini book.

  We also had lots of giggles as we practiced Stopping, Dropping and Rolling, after we had discussed this picture, also from the resource above. (Click here.)

  There are some amazing free fire fighter printables available online, but since most of them are English, I designed and laminated a few of my own. Carissa over at 1+1+1=1 has a great post full of tips on how to create your own printables for lap books and tot packs. You can check it out here. Ours included:

  Size Sorting:

  Counting from 1 to 5:

  Letter practice:

 Pre-writing exercises and Matching pairs (and learning some interesting new words in the process!):

{Note: I will gladly e-mail you these printables to you if you're interested - just leave me a comment.}

  I also laminated these pages I printed out from Club Fire Facts.

I cut off the top of a manila envelope and glued it to the back cover of our lap book to keep the laminated pages together.

Envelope houses

A row of envelopes glued down on a strip of green cardboard 'grass' and decorated with foam stickers and oil pastels - so fun and cheerful!! We worked on this one together - I drew the road and most of the features on house number 3 - Sweetpea loves it when we do art together!!

Felt laptop

When I first saw this super-cute idea on Pinterest, I just knew the Little Joyfuls would love it! You can find the tutorial here to make one of your own. I adapted mine a little in terms of colours (using what I had on hand) and by slipping in a thin piece of cardboard between the layers of felt to make it slightly more sturdy. The letters are rub-ons I found in the craft section at our Crazy Store.

The children saw me making this and Sweetpea is very excited about it, but it's actually part of a stash of little treats I am working on for when baby comes. I've cleared a small shelf in my closet where I am collecting handmade toys and homemade activity packs I can pull out as needed in case things get a little busy during those first few weeks.  More about this in a future post!

Linking this to ABC and 123's Show and Tell!

Mama-made Toys: Stick puppet theater

Oooohhh, I am just giddy giddy glad to FINALLY have gotten around to making a puppet theater for the children!! It took some serious thinking, because I wanted something they could play with themselves, too, and since they're still a little young, they would rather be seeing the action played out, than be stuck behind the curtain putting on a show they can't watch. The solution was a table-top theater for stick puppets.

I started with two sturdy boxes, and cut a slit in the side of one. This would become the floor of our stage, through which the puppets are slipped.

For the background, I used fabric glue to glue down two pieces of felt. I chose felt so that we can later add other felt elements or 'props' to our background depending on the play we are putting on! The bottom of our stage got the same treatment, making the slit I cut in earlier, nice and smooth for the puppets to glide back and forth. I then covered the sides and back of the box in some fun polka dot gift wrap.

Next, I attached the first box (i.e. the stage) to the second box, which would serve as its stabilizing base. This also allows us some space to fit our hands in under the stage to manoeuvre the puppets.

The curtain 'rail' is just a length of ribbon strung across the top of the stage and secured on the outside with two wooden beads. 

I painted the base blue, and sewed some ribbon ties to the curtains to keep them in place while the show is on.

Our first set of puppets were hand drawn and coloured by yours truly, and then popped through the laminator and glued onto popsicle sticks. The characters are from the 1970's Japanese Anime version of Heidi - this was one of the first children's shows on South African television and the first TV program I can recall watching. So last year my mother gifted my daughter with a set of DVD's of the first 25 episodes, and Heidi is now about as much part of our family as any of the actual flesh and blood members!!

Here are the characters:

And here they are on stage, with some felt props in the background!!

I also found these printable Community Helpers  which we printed, coloured and laminated. Will keep you posted as our repertoire of shows grows!!

Linking this to ABC and 123's Show and Tell! and All things Wonderful at My Shae Noel