Our family goes on a lot of walks. Especially now that we have an adorable 2 year old dog. On these walks my daughters often find things that interest them and ask me to hold on to it. It could be a leaf, a little flower that fell, or even a wood chip! They love nature and never want to leave anything behind. We’d get home and I would have a handful of things that I didn’t know what to do with.
I wanted to encourage their exploring nature, so I made them magnifying glasses that would allow them to keep their little treasrues safe. They love looking into the magnifying glass to see what they can find as we walk around, and get so excited when they find something to stick to it.
What I really love about this magnifying glass is that it is a great way to teach your child about nature. They may see things through their magnifying glass that they can’t collect, but may be curious about. They will be full of questions as you walk around.
Here’s how we made our magnifying glasses.
What You’ll Need:
Cardboard
Sharpie
X-ACTO knife
Press’n Seal
Scissors
How To:
- Draw a magnifying glass onto the cardboard.
- An adult can use the X-ACTO knife to cut it out.
3. Place the magnifying glass onto press’n seal. Sticky side up.
4. Cut the press’n seal so that it is only behind the circle.
5. Cut a small circle in the middle of the press’n seal so your child can peek through to find their treasures. ( Look at the finished magnifying glass at the top of this post to see how to make the little circle)
That’s it! You can write on your magnifying glass, color it. Whatever you would like. I hope your little one enjoys playing with this as much as my daughters’ do.
Comment down below with your thoughts. Looking forward to hearing from you.
*Adult supervision is required*
When your mom is a teacher, you never know what is going to happen when you see her take out a muffin tin and some baking cups. She could be baking something delicious, OR she could be making a learning game. Today, I decided to save the baking for another day, and made a learning game instead. My daughters were slightly disappointed until they got to play the game. They were completely engaged which was nice to see and forgot all about baking. If you would like to see a video of them playing, visit my Instagram @thiscraftygirlmom
What You’ll Need:
Muffin tin
Baking cups
Marker
Pom poms (two different colors)
Index cards
How To:
So, for this game you can review any skill. Letter recognition, sounds, sight words, even math, to name a few. Today, we decided to review sight words.
- Write 12 sight words in marker on the baking cups and index cards.
- Place the baking cups in the muffin tin.
- Hand out the pom poms and place the index cards between both players.
- Each player gets a to pick a card and place their pom pom in the muffin tin that shows the same word. The first player to get three in a row wins!
I ended up writing all of the sight words for their age on a bunch of baking cups and index cards, and we kept switching them out. They played until we reviewed them all! Mom win for sure!
Sight Word Palm Tree
What I love about this sight word craft/activity is that it is completely personalized. Your child gets to use their handprints as leaves, and you can include only the words they really need to review on the coconuts. My daughters enjoyed tracing their hand and trying to figure out how to place the rectangles so it looked like the tree was leaning. They had a fun time which is a positive when they are completing a learning activity.
What You’ll Need
- Green, brown and white construction paper.
- Scissors
- Glue
How To:
- Trace your child’s hand and cut out the handprints.
- Cut out little rectangles to make the tree bark
- Cut out circles (coconuts).
- Write the sight words on the coconuts.
- Glue down the tree bark first onto the white paper, then add the handprints and coconuts.
You do not need to glue down the coconuts. Your child can simply place them on the leaves, say the word, and then remove them to work on new sight words as they learn more.
That’s it for today. I hope you like these activities. Comment down below. Looking forward to hearing your thoughts.
*Adult supervision is required*
My daughters are really interested in ocean life and can not wait for our first trip to the beach this year, which is happening at the end of the month. While I love the ocean, and enjoy going to the beach, I am a bit weary of what lies beneath the waves, and rather sit on the sand. The last time I went into the ocean ( a few years back), something rubbed against my feet and I jumped onto a strangers back to get away from it. Turned out to be seaweed… In my mind, jumping on that stranger was totally justified. They didn’t mind, they found it rather funny actually. I’ll just keep my toes in the sand and out of the ocean this year.
Anyway… since summer is around the corner, and our first beach trip is upon us, I thought we could make some ocean themed crafts.
Paper Plate Fish
This adorable little fish was quick and easy to make. I had everything we needed in the house which is an added bonus. It is always great when I don’t have to order materials.
What You’ll Need:
Paper plate
Paint
Paint brush
Cupcake liners
Googly eyes
Glue
- Cut a triangle out of your plate. Save the triangle.
- Paint the plate any color you would like. Let it dry.
- You can use the triangle you cut out as the tail of your fish. Glue it to the back of your paper plate. Pointy side in.
- Glue on the googly eye.
- Fold each cupcake liner in half and then in half again. Glue them down onto the plate. You can make any pattern you would like. Cover the tail with the cupcake liners as well, and add a top fin.
Paper Plate Octopus
While I love making this octopus with my daughters, you have to watch the pointy ends to the pipe cleaners. I usually cover them in some way when my daughters are using them. Also, make sure an adult is always present when your child is making or playing with this octopus as the uncooked pasta noodles can be a choking hazard. Aside from that, this craft was so much fun to make and my daughters spent a great deal of time placing and removing the pasta noodles to create different looks.
What You’ll Need:
Pipe cleaners
Paper plate
Google eyes
Construction paper
Paint
Paintbrush
Uncooked pasta
Food Coloring & Vinegar (optional if you’d like to dye the pasta)
Single hole puncher
How To:
- If you are dying your pasta noodles, prepare them a couple of hours before you start this project so they have a chance to dry. There are so many different methods online to follow if you’d like to do this. I do suggest finding a method that uses vinegar instead of alcohol in case your child licks the pasta.
- Paint your paper plate and let it dry.
- Once your plate is dry, punch 8 single holes into the bottom of the plate.
- Push the pipe cleaners in the holes and tie them around the back of the plate. Make sure the pointed ends stay around back and doesn’t make their way to the front.
- Glue two google eyes by the octopus’ tentacles.
- Cut out three circles from construction paper and glue them to the top of your octopus.
Now you can let your child put the pasta onto the tentacles. They can try out different patters, they can count, whatever you’d like. If they lift the plate the noodles will fall off. You can secure them if you would like. We like to keep them loose so that we can keep trying out different looks.
Coffee Filter Turtle
My daughters and I love turtles! When we saw a version of these coffee filter turtles on Instagram @kidsactivitiesblog we knew we had to make our own version. They are so adorable, we wish they were real!
What You’ll Need
- Coffee filters
- Markers
- Green and blue construction paper
- Googly eyes
- Glue
- Water and pipette
How To:
- First cut out the legs and head for your turtle. Glue the legs and head down as seen below. Glue the googly eyes to the turtle’s head.
2. Flip your coffee filter upside down and flatten. Draw a pattern.
3. Using your pipette, drip water all over the coffee filter. Let it dry. You can glue the coffee filter down onto the turtle’s body or just place it on top so you can keep changing out the shell. Up to you.
If you would rather your turtle have a raised shell, try out the turtle down below.
What You’ll Need:
- Coffee filter
- Green and blue construction paper
- Googly eyes
- Glue
- Scissors
How To:
- First cut out the legs and head for your turtle. Glue the legs and head down as seen below. Glue the googly eyes to the turtle’s head.
2. Flip your coffee filter upside down so it looks like the raised turtle shell.
3. Cut out green cirlces (or whatever you’d like to add to your shell) and glue them on the shell.
4. Place the shell over the turtles body. We didn’t glue this one down. We wanted to make many different shells and change them out.
That’s it for today. We hope to try out different ocean themed crafts this summer. Do you know any fun ones? Comment down below?
*Adult supervision is required*
We have been busy over here making some Father’s Day gifts. My husband much rather receive something handmade than store bought from our daughters, which is great, since us girls love a good crafting session. We’ve spent the entire morning cutting, pasting and coloring, and can not wait to present these gifts to Daddy on Father’s Day.
YOU’RE FIN-TASTIC
Since my husband enjoys fishing, we made one of our gift ocean themed. My husband will definitely enjoy turning this plate around and around to read all of the lovely messages our daughters have written out for him.
As we were making this gift, I was reminded of the last time I went fishing with my husband. It was a long time ago, before our daughters were born. Instead of catching a fish, I caught a crab. When I tried to release it back into the ocean, it fell into the boat and started running around snapping its little claws at me. Have you ever had a crab coming at you with his snappers up and ready to pinch!? I hope not, but if you have, you’ll fully understand why I haven’t gone back. Anyway, scroll down to see how we made this craft.
Materials:
Two paper plates
Scissors
Paint
Paint brushes
Paper fasteners
Sharpie ( If you choose to write on the plate)
Pencil
- An adult can cut out a fish window onto one of the paper plates. Then, paint an underwater scene onto the same plate.
- Put the paper plate you just painted (when it is dry), on top of your second paper plate, and push a paper fastener through them both.
- Use the fish window to trace the same fish onto the bottom plate. Keep turning the top plate and tracing until you run out of room. We ended up with 4 fish.
- Remove the paper fastener, and the top plate and paint the fish. Once they dry write a message on each fish.
4. Put the plates together again and put the paper fastener back.
That’s it. Now turn the top plate and read each message.
Handprint Flower Bouquet
My husband loves to garden. Our backyard is filled with beautiful flowers and vegetables thanks to his green thumb. We thought it was fitting to give him some flowers on his special day, but since he has enough real flowers, we decided on some handprint flowers. We found this adorable craft on Pinterest, and knew it was the right one to make for his big day. We made a couple of adjustments so we could add some writing, and love the way it turned out.
Materials
Colored cardstock
White cardstock (Large enough to fit the flower bouquet)
Glue stick
Scissors
Black marker
How To:
- Trace your child’s hand and part of their arm.
- Now, trace just their hand onto 5 different colored papers.
- Cut out all of the handprints.
- Cut 5 long strips of green cardstock.
- Glue the green cardstock (flower stems) to the white cardstock.
- Glue down the handprint (with the arm) so it looks like it is holding the bouquet of flowers.
- Glue the other handprints onto the stems.
- Cut out white squares that will fit into each handprint. Write down 5 different messages for Dad on these squares. Glue them down onto the handprints.
Your flower bouquet is done!
What are your plans for Fathers Day? Have you made any crafts or have you tried one of these? Comment down below!
*Adult supervision is required*
Summer is coming, and while I can not wait to put away our homeschool schedule and turn off zoom, I do want to find a way to sneak in some learning over the next couple of months. This tie dyed paper towel activity is one way I plan on sneaking in some academics this summer. My daughters love this activity because they think they are just playing around even though there is learning happening.
I’ve used this activity in the past to review letters, numbers, shapes and sight words. And now, even though they are older, I still use it to review other skills. Today, for instance, we got out our pipettes, markers and paper towels, and worked on fractions. Every time I said a fraction, they would find it on the paper towel, and use their pipettes to drip water on it. Their favorite part was watching the fractions disappear into a mess of blended colors. It really is fun to watch.
They didn’t complain once about doing math because they were having so much fun. AND they actually asked for me to draw out more fractions so they could continue blending the colors together. WHAT! More fractions? Mom win for sure. Ok… I really don’t think they realized we could just draw any random picture and get the same results, and thats why they asked for more fractions, but hey, I’ll take it.
That’s it for today. If you want to see a video of us doing this activity, head over to Instagram @thiscraftygirlmom. Until next time.
*Adult supervision is required*
Last year, or maybe it was two years ago… or was it three? I have no idea! I’m loosing track of time. Let’s just say, at some point in the past few years, I read about grass heads on Pinterest and my daughters and I have been making them ever since. We have so much fun watching their “hair” grow and really love when it’s time to give them a trim. You can also style their “hair” when it gets long enough. I think I have been in quarantine for too long, because today, when my grass head’s “hair” was long enough to style, I was so excited. Don’t judge me… ok, judge if you must. My daughters even gave me a sideways look as I gleefully tied the grass into a ponytail.
Here’s what you’ll need:
Plastic plant pots (clear cups work just as well)
Potting soil
Grass seeds
Construction paper
Googly eyes
Buttons and pom poms (optional)
Scissors
Hot glue gun (glue dots also work depending on what your using to plant your grass in)
How To:
First, glue the face onto the plastic plant pot. Next, fill it with potting soil. Don’t go all the way to the top, leave some room. Add a good amount of grass seed and then cover the seeds with soil. Water daily.
If you give this a try, comment down below. I would love to hear how it went.
*Adult supervision is required*
Anyone else’s children really into rainbows right now? My daughters are all about the rainbows. They want to eat rainbow food, make rainbow crafts, and paint their nails in rainbow colors. Even some of their Barbie dolls have rainbow colored hair. FYI, those barbies didn’t come like that. My daughters used markers and gave them a makeover. Better the barbies hair than theirs I suppose. So today I thought I would give them a special treat and make them rainbow pancakes and take them on a rainbow themed scavenger hunt.
Rainbow Pancakes
I’d love to say I made these pancakes from scratch but I didn’t. After being woken up at 6:30am (my daughters are early risers) I was way too tired to make anything from scratch. My eyes were barley open when we entered the kitchen. I just grabbed some Bisquick, and food coloring, and made pancakes the easy way.
We didn’t have all the colors needed to make a full rainbow, so my daughters mixed some colors together to create orange and purple. They told me that they learned all about mixing colors in camp last year so they didn’t need my help figuring out which colors to mix together. They are becoming so independent. I can’t believe they are almost in 3rd grade! I digress, back to the pancakes.
If you are not afraid of a mess, and you think your child is ready for this job, transferring the pancake batter into separate cups and mixing in the food coloring is a lot of fun. My daughters helped out with this today and only got some of the batter on the countertops. It used to stress me out when they helped me in the kitchen because of the inevitable mess, but I eventually learn to embrace the chaos that comes along with children helping out in the kitchen. It also helps that they are old enough to help clean up the mess.
When the pancakes were done cooking, I piled them on a plate and placed them in front of my daughters. They both grabbed one of each color, stacked them in rainbow order, and took a big bite! These were so much fun to make and eat. We will definitely make these again.
Rainbow Scavenger Hunt
After breakfast we got out some paint and paintbrushes and began painting our rainbows. I was a bit apprehensive about giving them paint after last weeks painting project went downhill fast, (they decided to paint each other instead of the paper) but it’s not like I can keep paint from them forever, so I crossed my fingers and handed over the materials. Thankfully all the paint stayed on the paper this time. Do your children do things like this, or is it just mine? Comment down below.
So anyway, while our rainbows dried, we took a walk around our neighborhood and documented everything we saw that was the same color as the colors of the rainbow. I have to say, it was a lot of fun. My daughters were so excited whenever they found something, and loved writing everything down.
Once our list was complete, we typed it up, cut out each word, and glued them to our rainbows. We realized we had some extra space on our rainbows so we looked around the house and found more things we could include. This was such a fun little project. My daughters loved the way their rainbows turned out. Comment down below if you give this a try. I’d love to hear how your scavenger hunt went.
*Adult supervision is required*
Lately, I have been thinking about how I let things slide during quarantine. The majority of people I spoke to about this said they have given up on keeping their homes clean and no longer restrict their children’s electronics. For me it wasn’t either of those things. It was something else.
I couldn’t let my house get messy because I became a complete germaphobe during this quarantine. Did this happen to any of you? Whenever I get a spare minute I’m scrubbing something. Everything must be clean! I am sure I will calm down about this… one day. For now it is what it is. The cleaner the house, the safer I feel.
I also didn’t give my children unlimited access to their electronics. This isn’t because my children are so well behaved that I don’t need to distract them with television and iPads. Not at all. It is because they have become obsesses with yodeling. Yes… YODELING.
Every time they turn on the television, the sound of someone yodeling ( and the sound of my daughters yodeling) fills the house. It’s cute, I will give them that, but how much yodeling can two little girls listen to? Too much, the answer is TOO MUCH! There is such a thing as too much yodeling, in my opinion, not theirs. It was going on ALL DAY LONG! Thanks but no thanks. Electronics will remain on lockdown.
What I did let slide was my appearance. Day one of quarantine I changed from my nighttime pajamas into my daytime pajamas (yes, there is such a thing as daytime pajamas) and kept that up for a good two weeks. It was wonderful. I was so comfortable and I was eating whatever I wanted because I couldn’t feel my pants getting tighter. My pajamas were very forgiving. I did continue to wear make up though, (which made absolutely no sense since I was in pajamas but there you have it). I figured, at least I was somewhat put together.
Then one day, I showed up in the background of my daughters ZOOM call in my pajamas (and ROBE) and I decided getting dressed in the morning would be a good idea. That said, I did stop wearing makeup. Something had to give. It’s not a quarantine if you’re fully dressed with face full of make up. Am I right?
I was enjoying this new phase of quarantine until my daughter’s teacher asked me to sit down and talk to her on ZOOM. It wasn’t scheduled, it was random. She was giving my daughter a lesson and asked for me to come on screen for a chat. So there I was, no make up (ok, no bra either) and a teacher waiting for me to sit down to speak with her. I couldn’t ask for her to wait for me to put on some make up and and a bra so I did the only thing I could do… I stood by the computer, never showed myself, and had a full on conversation. I didn’t give an explanation. Who knows what she thought. Couldn’t be as bad as what she would have thought if she saw me!
Now, I get dressed (bra and all) and I put on make up… Thanks ZOOM! What did you let slide? Comment down below.
Press’n Seal art is something I did with my daughters when they were younger. I used it to teach them shapes, colors, and counting. They really loved it, especially my one daughter who is more sensory seeking. She loved sticking her hands to the Press’n Seal more than she liked sticking the tissue paper to it. Whatever keeps them busy, right?
So today, I decided to set this up for them again, but to make it age appropriate (they are 8) I asked them to cut out the tissue paper shapes themselves and create a scene. They made beach scenes (which included mermaids of course) and a neighborhood. This held their attention for such a long time. I was able to eat breakfast AND put away some laundry while they occupied themselves with this activity. Mom win for sure!
If you give this a try comment down below and let me know what your child created.
*Adult supervision is required*
I don’t know about you, but this three day weekend is just what my family needs right now. Being locked in our house (ok, we can get out, but you know what I mean) and homeschooling, has been interesting to say the least. Trying to get my girls to complete their assignments while they are surrounded by their toys has not been simple. This long weekend could not have come at a more perfect time.
The weather is getting nicer, and we have been able to go outside this weekend and enjoy each other’s company without interruption. No schedules and absolutely no ZOOM calls! Just us four spending some quality time together.
To start off our long weekend, I did a couple of Memorial Day themed crafts with my daughters. It was so nice to sit down with them and just have some fun. Ok, I am a teacher, and I did sneak in ONE educational Memorial Day themed game. Just one! I couldn’t help myself. Scroll down to see what we did.
Flag Themed Flower Pot
These flag themed flower pots were so simple to make and will be something my daughters can enjoy for months to come. We can’t wait to see what grows! (You can paint stars instead of dots if you prefer)
Uncle Sam Craft
This Uncle Sam craft is another easy and quick craft for kids to make. All you need are some craft sticks, paint, googly eyes and some hot glue and you’re good to go!
Memorial Day Themed Memory Match
Every holiday I like to come up with one educational game to make sure my daughters understand why we are celebrating. Memory match is one of my daughters favorite games, and so I made it Memorial Day themed and they were more than happy to play. Scroll down to see how to make this memory match game.
Materials
Wood circles (any shape)
Paint
Paint brushes
Mod Podge
How To
Paint one side of the wood circles, red, white and blue.
While you are waiting for the paint to dry, type up, print, and cut out some questions and answers relating to Memorial Day.
Paint the unfinished side of the wood circle with mod podge, place the questions/answers down and paint over it with another layer of mod podge. Let it dry.
Flip the wood circles back over to the painted side and paint a layer of mod podge over it to give it a more finished look. That’s it. It doesn’t take too long to make and it is a fun way to talk about Memorial Day with your children.
I hope everyone has a fun weekend! Comment down below and let me know how you celebrated?
*Adult supervision is required*