Rainbow Activities

Last Spring we did a little learning about rainbows. Look how little Brady looks! One of the activities we did was to make a rainbow (fruit loopy) necklace. You may recall we did this at B's Birthday party this year. This is a great activity to work on fine motor skills, sorting, patterning, etc. And then you get to eat a sweet treat- always a bonus!
First she sorted the cereal by color in this divided dish. I think I got this at Dollar General-it's meant to be a dip serving tray, but works great for sorting and for holding various materials for collages and what-not. Then she laced them onto a string of yarn that had masking tape around the end. I think she choose not to do ROYGBIV order, but if we revisit this this year I'll make her since I know she's ready for that.
She proudly wore the necklace for a short while before gobbling it up!
We also attempted rainbow cookies. They were cute, but the dough was really crumbly. After making a couple we decided to mix all the colored sprinkles together and top off circle cookies with the mixture.

We did some other activities that I failed to photograph. B used dot markers on a rainbow sheet; we made a wind catcher out of a paper plate and crepe paper streamers of all the colors of the rainbow; and I'm sure some other things that have slipped my mind. It was a fun "theme". That we may look into again.

Valentine's Day Re-cap

I realize that we are now well into March, but I feel the need (for myself) to post a little about our Valentine's Day gifts. This year Brady was really able to get into the gift-giving and Valentine-making, which made the Holiday so much fun! Above are the Valentine's she made for her school friends. I drew the half-heart outline ;and then she cut them out, decorated them with stickers and markers, and wrote or stamped out her friends names. On the back she wrote Love, Brady. I thought they were really cute and I was pleased that she wanted to make her own rather than buy the boxed character ones. I hope we can keep that up for many years to come.
I made a little maze set for each class mate as well. I photocopied 4 mazes on card stock, tied them together with a pencil and a tag that said "Valentine, You A MAZE me! Love, Brady" This set went in a big envelope along with the heart Valentine she made. She then put each kid's name on the envelope with alphabet stickers. Lots of little steps, but I think they turned out cute. One thing I learned was that copying on my printer takes forever. I'll never make that many copies on it again. And, I'm not making any promises, but next year I'll try not to wait until post-bedtime the night before the Valentine party to do my part of the treating.
We made a few special treats for a few special friends. I married two cute ideas I saw somewhere out there in the blogosphere. Sorry, original creators, I merely made a mental note so I can't give you credit. We took sand shovels and tied on a bag of treats with the note "I dig you! Love, Brady". B and a few friends thought this little pun was pretty funny (after we told them what it meant of course.)
The treat was candy-coated M & M popcorn. For this we simply popped popcorn, melted candy wafers (purple left from B's Birthday Party), and then drizzled the melted candy over the popcorn, and mixed in some Valentine M & Ms. Then you let that sit in the fridge for a bit. This was so yummy. As I'm thinking about it I think this recipe or a variation on it came from Make and Takes a favorite site of mine. These ideas were simple, inexpensive, and fun (and yummy). We will probably do all of these same gifts next year since we will be in a different state with different friends.

St. Patrick's Day Tradition

Tomorrow we will be celebrating our 3rd "All Green All Day" St. Patrick's Day tradition. I'm a sucker for any holiday and any chance to celebrate in a special way. And a day full of green? I love it! So here's a look at some of our food and fun the past couple of years. How do I manage all green food? Well, I do cheat a bit. We eat lots of green veggies and fruits. In fact B and I made a Trader Joe's run this morning to choose green foods. In addition to those I use food coloring for water and milk. Once I added green to mac and cheese; I add it to laughing cow cheese and smear that on bread or crackers; we've had green pancakes; used green pasta, etc. We'll have green yogurt and treats of some sort and I bought a can of split pea soup- not sure if we'll like it, but decided this would be a good time to find out.

The last picture shows Brady searching for gold (Chuck E. Cheese) coins in her St. Pat's sensory tub- green lentils last year. She had a ball with this, but unfortunately stuck a lentil or two up her nose pretending they were smell molecules, thanks, Sid the Science Kid! Dr. Daddy and his attending couldn't see the lentil so it was decided to let it be, since it wasn't obstructing her breathing and was a natural material, her body would (did) absorb it eventually. We've done some other fun things over the years. When B was 2 we gathered all the green things we could and talked about the different shades and items. We'll revisit the lentil tub after a stern reminder and make some fun crafts over the next couple of days. B's preschool will be celebrating and we're going to a party at a friend's house tomorrow afternoon. It's sure to be a fun day!

Happy St. Patrick's/All Green All Day Day to you!!!