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

Best Friends

"Sometimes being a brother is better than being a superhero."

A few weeks ago my parents had to chop down a Brazilian Pepper Tree in their back garden, because the roots had begun to destroy the paving. We went over to check on their progress, and I took this picture of my sweet little ones as they were mourning the loss of a really great swinging tree... I love to watch the special bond between them - they really are best friends.

Printable Cars play set

I found this very cute printable Cars play set via Pinterest  on Parents24.com and the Little Joyfuls have been having a blast with it!! 

Play and Learn with Mama: Disney's Cars Theme - Reward chart

   My three-and-a-half year old daughter is a very...umm...let's call it enthusiatic eater... Which is my euphemistic attempt at saying that the girl just really struggles with table manners!! She loves her food and has a wonderful appetite, but oh, to get her to eat with her mouth closed... to not talk with a mouth full of food... to keep those little elbows off the table!! It's giving this fairly blonde Mama some proverbial grey hairs!!

   So as part of our Cars themed week I made her this reward chart. A magazine picture of Lightning McQueen was laminated and glued onto a wooden clothes peg, and for every meal that she consumed in a civilized fashion, she could move him up one mark closer to the 'Piston Cup.'  The reward was going to the supermarket with her dad to pick out a  Cars puzzle. It worked very well, and we are now into our second week of using it - this time the reward will be a Daddy-and-Daughter outing, probably to her favourite park. Making it fun to get things done!!