Busy Box No. 3

Another fun and easy busy box to put together! 

A. Puzzle - being a 15 piece puzzle, this is simple enough for my 4-year-old to complete on her own

B. Wipe Clean Learn to Write Pen Control Book - a dry erase book that I highly recommend. It’s perfect for pre-writing practice, drawing and tracing lines and completing simple activities.

C. Sticker Stories Book - a dollar store find! The best part is that the stickers are reusable!

D. Magnetic Cinderella - this is a tin container with small magnetic images based on the story of Cinderella - a fun thrift store find! 

E. Colouring Book, Blank Paper, Stickers, Paper and Markers - I always like adding something arts and craft related as my daughter really loves stickers and colouring, and she can get pretty creative with her drawings.

F. Duplo Counting and Building - these cards were a great find on Pinterest! Click here for a link to the free printable. I already had a set of duplo blocks, so this was an easy busy bag to put together. Great for number recognition, counting and patterns!

Busy Box No. 2

In this busy box there is a mix of some educational items and opportunities to be creative through imaginary play and drawing/colouring.

A. Magnetic Dress-Up Doll - a fun pretend play activity of dressing up a magnetic doll in fancy clothes.

B. Boogie Board E-Writer/Tablet - this was given to my daughter on her 4th Birthday and she absolutely loves it. Simply doodle on it with the pen that is provided, and the push of a button erases it. It comes with 'cards' such as a maze, connect the dots, alphabet tracing, math equations, etc. Not only is this a great quiet time activity, but its also good for taking on trips, whether on the plane or in the car! 

C. Felt Cupcake Busy Bag - I created this using a template that I found online (click here). It also comes with 'Cupcake Recipe Cards' that I put together. It gives options for imaginary play, but it's also great for number recognition and counting. 

D. Water Wow! Alphabet Book - No mess painting! If you haven't seen 'Water Wow!' books before, they are great not only for quiet time, but also traveling with kids. It includes 4 reusable pages and a refillable water pen. Simply use the pen to trace/paint the letters and images, then let the page dry to erase the pictures and fill it in again and again.

E. Stencils and Markers - I can't quite remember where I found these stencils (I think the Dollar store), but they have been a huge hit with my daughter. I provide blank pieces of paper to go along with this in the busy box and she is free to trace the stencil onto the paper, or even punch out the stencil images and colour those. They are stencils of 'princess-related' items, which my daughter loves lately! 

F. Notebook, Pen and Stickers - This group of items leaves an opportunity for some creativity! She can either put the stickers in this fancy sequin notebook (found at the Dollar Tree) or on the blank piece of paper that is provided in the box (as mentioned in my previous point). She loves to write lists and practice her letters, so I often include a notebook in her busy boxes. 

Busy Box No 1.

My 4-year-old daughter stopped napping a few months ago, so i started researching and thinking of ways to still keep that quiet time in the afternoons (for all those Moms with little ones, you know we need the quiet time as much as they do, if not more!)

Busy boxes have worked wonders lately! She plays happily in her room for at least 1.5 hours (sometimes more!) I will be sharing the five busy boxes that I have put together over the next week or two. Each one contains between 5-6 items. 

Here’s the first one:

A. Clothespin Number Match - count the dots and clip the clothespin with the correct number on it. Great for learning numbers and practicing fine motor skills!

B. Play Pack - you can find these at the dollar store - comes with a small colouring book, stencil, a felt colouring page, crayons and stickers too! 

C. Notebook and Pen - my daughter loves to draw, write ‘lists’ and practice letters. She also may use this notebook to put the stickers in. The fuzzy, colourful pen adds a little something extra. 

D. Popsicle Sticks with Pattern Cards - Build the patterns as shown on the cards, or make your own designs.

E. Leap Frog Game - Aim to get each frog into the pond!

This box provides a good variety of tasks and skills - building, patterns, drawing, colouring, number recognition and fine motor skills. 

Straw Airplane

The other day my daughter, Raya, enjoyed watching a piece of paper blow away from the wind of a fan, so I thought how much more fun would it be to play with a paper airplane?? This paper airplane design is much simpler to make for a preschooler than the traditional paper airplane and it flies just as well! 

Here's instructions on how to make a straw airplane. 

Supplies Needed:
- paper
- scissors
- paint / markers / stickers
- straw

Cut two strips of paper 1" in width. The first strip should be 10" long and the second strip 5" long. 

Decorate them anyway you like! My daughter loves to paint so she painted hers, but you can colour and/or add stickers as well. 

Then tape the ends of each strip together to create a circle.

Once both circles are made, use a piece of tape to secure the end of the straw to the large circle. Repeat this step for the small circle, securing it to the opposite end of the straw. 

Ready for take off!

Coffee Filter Flowers

We tried another coffee filter craft and this one was a big hit with my 3-year-old! (If you haven't seen the previous coffee filter craft we did, click here)

Coffee Filter Flowers

Supplies Needed: 

- 2 to 4 coffee filters (the more coffee filters you use, the fuller the flower will be)
- washable markers
- paint brush
- pipe cleaner

Just like the previous coffee filter craft, my daughter drew different designs on each coffee filter and then used a paint brush and water to lightly paint and drop water onto each coffee filter, allowing the colours to blend and bleed into each other. We let them dry and ended up with a small stack of coffee filters in beautiful colours! 

Next comes the folding. Keep the coffee filters stacked on top of each other as seen in the photo above. See the following steps on how to fold:

Step 1: Fold in half.                          
       















Step 2: Fold in half again.

Step 3: Fold one side back, flip over and fold the other side back. It will look like this when done:

Wrap a pipe cleaner around the tip of the flower as shown below:

And here comes the fun part. Spread out each of the coffee filters to let your flower bloom! 

My daughter made a few of these and put them in a vase to create a beautiful bouquet. 

Coffee Filter Butterfly

Our crafting time this summer has been limited due to visiting with family and friends, attending events around town,  and enjoying the outdoors when it hasn't been smoky (the BC forest fires have been the worst this year!). But I still fit the occasional craft in on days we have nothing planned. 

I have a pile of coffee filters (bought at the dollar store) and so I thought it would be fun to try out a couple of crafts with them. 

The first craft we made was a butterfly.

Supplies Needed:

- 2 coffee filters
- washable markers
- paint brush
- clothespin
- paint
- pipe cleaner

Step 1: Draw a design on each coffee filter with different coloured markers. 

Step 2: Use a paint brush to drop water droplets onto the coffee filters (This was my daughter's favourite part - so fun to watch the colours blend together!).

Tip: Put the coffee filters on a cookie sheet covered in wax paper so that the colours can bleed through onto the wax paper. Just simply throw the piece of wax paper away when you're done - less mess! 

Place each coffee filter onto a piece of paper towel for them to dry. 

Step 3: Paint the clothespin and draw eyes on it with a black marker. (My daughter also drew a mouth :) )

Step 4: Open the clothespin and wrap a pipe cleaner around the back part of the clothespin to create the antenna for the butterfly.

Step 5: Fold each coffee filter into an accordion and clip the clothespin in the middle of each. Spread out the accordion fold to create 4 wings. 

And here you have a beautiful butterfly! 

Mermaid Bookmarks

Earlier this week, we took a trip to the library to get some new books. I asked Raya what kind of books she would like and she said "mermaids!" Kind of a random thought... however, now that I think of it, she does love the movie "The Little Mermaid". But, she hasn't watched it lately and the subject of mermaids has never really come up in conversation before. So I go with it and we ask the librarian if she knows of any kids books about mermaids. We found these two:

Both are fun books that I would recommend if your child loves mermaids!

When I saw that Friday was going to be a cloudy, cool-weather-kind-of-day, I did some research and planned a simple mermaid craft for Raya to do. The timeframe between after naps and dinner can sometimes be a challenge to keep the kids entertained so I used part of this time to do the craft with her. I saw this great post on a DIY Mermaid Bookmark (check it out here!) and knew this would be a fun one for my 3-year-old to try. 

Supplies Used:
- mermaid printable (go to link mentioned above)
- colouring pencils/crayons
- paint (I use Crayola washable kids paint)
- sequins (check out your local dollar store!) 
- craft glue

First, she coloured the top half of the mermaids using colouring pencils.

Then she painted the mermaid tails and decorated them with sequins while the paint was still wet (although the paint dried fairly quickly and so we had to use some craft glue so the sequins would stick). 

Then we glued the top half of the mermaids to their tails and this was the end result:

(Unfortunately, some of the blue paint got smudged onto the faces of the mermaids, but how cute are these?!) 

Slip them onto a page in your book to keep your place....

Such a fun, easy craft! 

Meet the Rock Family

Sometimes crafts come together in parts, piecing it together in simple, creative ways, not always knowing what the end result might be. 

This particular craft started out with some time outdoors looking for different sized rocks (we have a number of them in our backyard).
I pulled out our Crayola washable paints and my 3-year-old, Raya, painted them, all in different colours. She loves to paint, so I'm always looking for different objects and textures for her to try and paint.

We left them to dry and the next day we thought it would be fun to draw faces on them! So I grabbed a sharpie and Raya drew eyes, nose and mouth on each of them. 

And then a couple days later, we came back to this same craft again and I pulled out my bakers twine and yarn -- perfect for hair! I let Raya choose which colour yarn she wanted for each of the rocks and I cut them to size. She then painted white craft glue on each of the rocks and placed the yarn/bakers twine on them. (I wasn't sure if white craft glue would hold, but it held no problem and still has not come off!) 

The end result? The Rock Family. 
We had no intention of making it a 'family'; we just so happened to have 2 larger rocks for the Mom & Dad and 2 smaller rocks for the kids. :)

A fun project that came together so nicely! 

Celebrating Canada Day

It's been a little while since I've posted on here! Over the past month we have been settling in our new home in Prince George, BC. While the transition was difficult, leaving behind family & friends in Ontario, we are excited for what lies ahead. We love our new house and neighbourhood and are finding ways to make this place our home. 

We just celebrated Canada Day yesterday and the week leading up to it I found some activities/crafts for my 3-year-old to do each day. It was fun! These activities could easily be adapted for July 4th, for example. 

See below for a brief summary with simple instructions for each craft/activity that we did:

DAY 1: HAND PRINT CANADIAN FLAG

Supplies: 
- white cardstock
- red paint (we use Crayola washable paint)
- red tissue paper

My daughter loves getting messy so putting paint on her hands was the highlight of this craft. I helped guide her hand when she made the print on the cardstock and it turned out great! I then drew two lines on each side of the cardstock to mark where she could paint red to complete the flag. 

While the paint was still wet, she crumpled pieces of red tissue paper and placed on the wet paint. Here's the end result:

DAY 2: CANADA DAY RIBBON STICK/WAND

Supplies:
- stick
- red & white ribbon

This one was a little difficult for my 3-year-old to complete on her own, but would be great for older kids! We found the stick outside in our backyard and then she chose which ribbon pieces to put on the stick. I tied them on using double knots. It was an especially windy day for us and she loved playing with it outside afterwards!

DAY 3: SINK OR FLOAT CANADA-THEMED SENSORY BIN

Supplies:
- large bin filled with water
- red toys, blocks, jewels, pom poms, buttons, ribbon, pipe cleaners, lids, Canada flag, cuttlery, etc.

Raya loved this one! The night before, I gathered red items from my craft room, toy bins, recycling bucket, etc. and placed them in a veggie tray. I also found a few Canada-themed items at the dollar store. 

She loved placing each item in the bin filled with water one at a time to see if it would float or sink. This kept her busy for a while! 

DAY 4: CANADA DAY WIND SOCK

Supplies:

- toilet paper roll

- red & white paint

- Canada-themed stickers

- gift packing ribbon

- string / bakers twine

- hole punch

For this craft, Raya was able to complete most of it, but needed my help for curling the ribbon and punching the holes in the toilet paper roll. She first painted the toilet paper roll and then after it dried put Canada-themed stickers on it (I just found these stickers at the dollar store). I then punched two holes at the top to tie the bakers twine so we could hang it up and then holes at the bottom for the curled pieces of ribbon. Here's the end result:

DAY 5: SALT-PAINTED FIREWORKS

Supplies:

- white cardstock

- craft liquid glue

- salt

- watercolour paint

This one was fun! We found a fireworks template through Pinterest (click here for the blog post) and printed it on white cardstock. Because it was a bit too difficult for my daughter to squeeze the liquid glue out of the bottle, I completed this part. She then sprinkled salt over the glue and we shook off the excess (be prepared to get salt all over your floor!). After that, Raya started painting! She loved this part. We used whatever I had for watercolour paints (cheap Crayola watercolour pods) and started painting the salt covered fireworks. We did the first firework together in red and then she chose to do the other ones multi-colour. I love how it turned out! We will definitely be doing this again, but I would love to try actual liquid watercolour paint. I recently found some on Amazon and will be trying that next time. I think the colours would be more vibrant. 

One other thing we did this past week was take a trip to the library to find some Canadian-themed books. Here is what we picked up:

Happy Canada Day to all my Canadian friends and to all those living in the US of A, enjoy the upcoming July 4th holiday! Hope these crafts/activities inspire you to complete some of your own with your kids! 

A Name Collage Activity

Over the next while, I'm hoping to teach my 3-year-old daughter the letters that make up her name through different activities and crafts. I love it when a fun art project also becomes a teaching opportunity!

Here is a colourful, simple and fun activity you can do with your preschooler -- a Name Collage Activity. I am always looking for activities that take little time to prepare and this is one of them!

I simply taped two pieces of computer paper together (you may need more depending on how long your child's name is) and wrote my daughter's name on it using a marker. Make sure to leave a bit of space between each letter. Then I cut small squares from wrapping paper that I found in the closet. I chose bright and colourful wrapping paper with flowers on it, but any wrapping paper will do! The only other supply that you need is glue. I use clear school glue. Instead of having my daughter squeeze the glue out of the tube, I poured some into an empty baby food jar and had her apply the glue to the paper with a paint brush. It works great! 

I first told Raya what the letters were and then had her repeat them back to me. I find this the perfect opportunity for her to recognize letters (uppercase and lowercase). 

And here is the end result....

A beautiful collage display of her name!

Nature Activity: A Scavenger Hunt and Suncatcher

My family and I are in the process of moving across the country to British Columbia. We are in the transition stage in which we have sold our house and are waiting to move into our new house. In the meantime we have been staying with the kids' grandparents and while we are out of our usual routine, I still manage to keep my preschooler occupied with daily activities and crafts.

Last week it dipped down to colder temperatures again, but that didn't stop us from exploring outside! My daughter loves the outdoors and I try to get her outside as often as I can.We went on a nature scavenger hunt! I created a simple chart of items that I thought would be easy enough for her to find in the woods behind her grandparents' house (click here for a free printable).
But we didn't limit ourselves to just this list -- my hubby came along on our walk and pointed out things that we could teach our little 3-year-old. She loved every minute of it!

We then picked some smaller items from what we had collected and made a nature sun catcher. To prep this craft, I simply cut out the middle of a paper plate and taped (or you can glue) wax paper to the outer edge of the paper plate. Raya then glued pieces of flowers, pine needles, tree bark, moss, fungi, a feather and leaves to the wax paper. To complete the project we punched a hole at the top and put a string through it to hang it up. It looked beautiful in the sunlight! 

I love it when an outdoor activity can be combined with a fun and simple craft!