Just Add Stickers

Halloween Magnets This is an easy and fun craft that everyone can help with and when you're done not only can the kids play with it but your kitchen will be decorated for Halloween.  For the supplies I raided the Halloween crafts section at Walmart which was still full because I got there early in the season.  I found a tub full of foam stickers, which were a big hit not only for this craft but to decorate everything. I bought some round magnets and the rest I had at home.  You can't go wrong!   Let the leaves fall off the tree by making each leaf its own magnet.   Time: 30 minutes Cost: Under $10.00 Material: Foam stickers Foam sheets in Halloween colours Fake leaves (I bought a ring used for center pieces at the dollar store) Glue, white glue and glue gun      Directions : Cut out Halloween inspired shapes: ghost, black cat, haunted house, tree etc. Choose which stickers you want...

Our workbook - letter recognition I did a lot of research lately in preparation to home-preschool my son.   I made the choice when he was born to stay at home until he started school.   I was looking into preschools in my area and came to the realization that most are preschool daycares and since I decided to stay home and not use a daycare it didn’t make sense to send him to one.   I sat down and listed the reasons I wanted him to go to preschool.   After some research I realized that I could teach him at home.   He has weekly activities where he sees other children so I feel that the socialization aspect is taken care of.   I thought making the decision was the hard part then I had to come up with a curriculum.   Researching online was somewhat stressful it seems that there are dozens available but I wanted to tailor to my son’s needs and to what I thought was most important without having to spend lots of money on workbooks. This is what I cam...

Emotions: surprised, happy, sleepy, sad, silly and angry I found that my son has picked up words for different emotions along the way but doesn’t always use them in the right way he’ll say sad for instance instead of mad.   So I came up with these puppets to help him learn the different emotions.   I wrote the emotion on the back and he had to find the mouth and eyes (eyebrows in some cases) that fit.   It was a fun activity and we spent time putting on little 'plays' with the puppets.   The plays mostly consisted of him standing behind his puppet theatre saying I feel something and then finding the right puppet but he learned the right emotion words without realizing it.   Time: 30 minutes Cost: Under $5.00 (you probably have everything around the house) Material: ·          Foam sheets (including black for the features) ·          Googly eyes ...

This is an easy and fun craft to help your child learn the days of the week.  It's very easy to personalize these door hangers, I made them bilingual by gluing stickers on each side.  Tip: I sorted out the letters we needed for this ahead of time but that would be a good activity for children who are learning to spell.   Cost: About $10.00          Time: 20 minutes Material: ·          Foam door hangers ·          Foam puzzle letters (any letters will do but I liked the way these looked and they are stickers so I was sold) ·          Foam stickers for decorating (you can use themed stickers if you have a specific activity that day) Directions: 1.        Sort the letters for the days of the week and stick them onto the foam door hangers. 2.  ...

I had wanted to make a family tree for my son’s nursery when I was pregnant but as many of my ideas that fell to the side.   The other day I was inspired by a clip on Disney Junior and I decided that this would be a perfect time to pick up the project that I had abandoned and let my son add his own touches.   It is a great project to make together and an opportunity to talk about the different relationships that make up a family. In this day of digital cameras we don’t have pictures lying around anymore waiting to be put into albums.   So you’ll have to  take a trip to a photo kiosk or print them at home if you have a good printer. Time : 1 hour Cost : Under $10.00 (other than the cost of printing the pictures I used what I had at home) Material : ·          Cardstock or construction paper (I used some scrapbooking leftovers for this project) ·          Family p...

I love making piñatas they are a great activity for kids at any occasion!  I make them out of cardboard boxes that are destined for the recycling fill them with candy, stickers and little toys from the dollar store cover them in papier-mâché and then paint them.   It takes several days to make it from start to finish with the drying times but it is worth it at the end to hear all the laughter and excitement. Time : 4 hours divided over 3 days, leaving time to dry over night between steps. Cost : About $10.00 for candy and toys Materials : ·          Large cardboard box (I use diaper boxes) ·          Small soft cardboard box (I use soft drink cartons) ·          Toys & candy ·          Newspaper ·          String ·   ...

One perfect hot summer day last week we were looking for something to do.   We go to the park often in the summer and I was tired of always going to the same parks.   There are three parks within walking distance three more if we go by bike and even more that I could drive to but we don’t go to very often.   So my activity that day was to go park hopping.   I packed some snacks and a lunch and off we went.   A little research goes a long way.   By going on the city website to find out where the parks were exactly I found out that there are free activities for kids in some of the parks in the area.   There are camp counsellors at one park who are paid by the city to organize activities for kids.   There is also a mobile library that sets up a tent in different parks for two hours at a time and the librarians read stories to the kids for as long as their attention span holds out or until the park calls them back to play.    ...