April 29, 2013

How can I make my own spring themed sensory bin?

I feel like it has been weeks since I put together a sensory bin (oops, probably because it has). Since, Smiley Man is a classic toddler and he loves sensory activities, I realized it was high time I made up a sensory bin for him. We have been talking about spring a lot in our house recently and what better way to introduce spring to a toddler, than through a sensory activity just for kids.

I started the sensory bin with a base of colored and plain pasta. I first made this pasta for a St. Patrick’s Day sensory bin, but I have used it for lots of other sensory activities. It was right at home in our spring sensory bin. Next, I added lots of spring items for Smiley Man to explore. All of these other items were from the dollar store!

I added three different kinds of flowers, some plastic bugs, some plastic frogs (these were definitely Smiley Man’s favorite) and some fabric butterflies. Smiley Man was very upset when I held him back to get some pictures of the sensory bin before he could play with it. He wanted to get straight into that sensory activity.

This spring sensory bin definitely turned out to be a success. Smiley Man loved exploring all of the spring items, especially the bugs and frogs. Yeah, he’s a boy. :) He also loved running his fingers through the pasta just to explore how it felt.

I have to say, I used to think sensory bins were a big waste of time. I thought, there are so many fun activities for toddlers that I just didn’t find time for sensory bins. Luckily, I finally tried them and I can honestly say that sensory bins are one of the best fun activities to do with toddlers. Smiley Man LOVES them and Little Bear also enjoys playing with the sensory bin.

We've found some fun people with great linky parties. You might just see this post linked up on one of these amazing sites! Link and Learn from No Time for Flashcards Sunday Showcase from Train Up a Child Share it Saturday from Teach Beside Me Tot School Gathering Place from 1+1+1=1 Montessori Monday from Living Montessori Now Tuesday Tots from In Lieu of Preschool Show and Tell from ABC & 123 For the Kids Fridays from Sun Scholars Finished Friday from All Our Days Weekly Kids Co-op from Frogs and Snails and Puppy Dog Tails Preschool & Kindergarten Corner from Homeschool Creations TGIF Linky Party from 123 Homeschool 4 Me

March 20, 2013

How can I put together an Easter basket for under $10? What are some inexpensive gift baskets I can give my kids on Easter?

I was recently doing some Easter basket shopping and I was a little overwhelmed by all of the possibilities available. I decided to go home and do a little research before buying anything for my kids’ Easter gifts. I gave most of that research yesterday when I posted 125 Easter Basket Gift Ideas. If you need some help thinking of inexpensive Easter gifts for kids, then check out that post. It’ll save you the few hours of research that I spent. :)

Once my research was done, I was determined to put together nice, inexpensive Easter baskets that weren’t filled with too much candy. (Let’s just say that Halloween brought a little bit more candy than I was expecting and I am not eager to repeat that experience.) So, I put together these gift baskets that are not too overdone, have very little candy, and are very inexpensive. I will actually be adding a few religious things to the baskets (it is Easter after all), but I haven’t bought them yet so they are not included in this post.

I set a budget of $10 for each child. We will be having a separate Easter egg hunt on the Saturday before Easter which will include dyed Easter eggs as well as Easter eggs filled with a bit of candy. I did not include the cost of those in these Easter baskets. Also, I bought a pack of 48 Easter eggs for $2, but since I only used ¼ of the bag for each Easter basket, I counted $ .50 for the Easter eggs. Also, I bought of package of peeps that had two cardboard rows in it, but I split it between Little Bear and Smiley Man.

I wanted the Easter basket eggs to be filled with something other than candy, so I filled them with water balloons and small toys. Check out my Easter Gift Ideas post for lots of non-candy items to fill Easter eggs with. Last of all, I used shredded paper as Easter grass. I had the shredded paper leftover from a St. Patrick’s Day Sensory Bin we did a few weeks ago. The shredded paper as Easter grass was definitely my favorite idea for these baskets. ;) And now, here are the two Easter baskets for under $10!

Easter Basket for Under $10

• Basket: $1
• Easter Eggs: $ .50
• Peeps: $ .50
• Chocolate Bunny: $1
• Spider Man Activity Book: $1
• Crayon Water Squirter: $1
• Water Guns: $3
• Water Balloons (to fill Easter Eggs): $ .50
• Army Guys (to fill Easter Eggs): $1
• Green, Yellow, and White Shredded Paper used as Easter grass: FREE

Total: $9.50

 

Another Easter Basket for Under $10

• Basket: $1
• Easter Eggs: $ .50
• Peeps: $ .50
• Chocolate Bunny: $1
• SpongeBob Activity Book: $1
• Plastic Watering Can: $1
• Sand Toys: $3
• Water Balloons (to fill Easter Eggs): $ .50
• Dinosaurs (to fill Easter Eggs): $1
• Green, Yellow, and White Shredded Paper used as Easter grass: FREE

Total: $9.50

We've found some fun people with great linky parties. You might just see this post linked up on one of these amazing sites! Link and Learn from No Time for Flashcards Sunday Showcase from Train Up a Child Share it Saturday from Teach Beside Me Tot School Gathering Place from 1+1+1=1 Montessori Monday from Living Montessori Now Tuesday Tots from In Lieu of Preschool Show and Tell from ABC & 123 For the Kids Fridays from Sun Scholars Finished Friday from All Our Days Weekly Kids Co-op from Frogs and Snails and Puppy Dog Tails Preschool & Kindergarten Corner from Homeschool Creations TGIF Linky Party from 123 Homeschool 4 Me

March 1, 2013

One of those cliche New Year’s resolutions seems to be getting more organized. Although cliche, this is a goal I seriously set for myself. We moved into a new apartment just before Christmas, after almost a year of living with other people and having all of our things in storage. Let me tell you, after months of not having your own things you forget how much you have.

When we were starting to put things away I knew I wanted things to have a system and be clearly organized so I would know where everything was. It took a couple days for us to get things figured out and contained, but it was worth it. I have to say that it would have taken weeks except my wonderful husband took a lot of initiative and did a bulk of the work. While I like to be organized, I tend to just deal with clutter. He made sure we accomplished our plan to be all cleaned up and put together.

One of the ways I organized my drawers and shelves was by cutting down large cardboard rolls into smaller pieces. I found an awesome work table at Costco for about $50 (here is a picture of it). After several cutting projects in the past, I knew this would be a great purchase. Turns out it was! Using our Multi-tool my husband was kind enough to cut down these rolls for me. It was a lot of work but I love how it turned out! It was a great cheap alternative to buying drawer organizers. I also used it to store all of my scarves. It works really well and I can see all of my scarves at the same time (as opposed to being in a pile on a shelf or in a drawer).

I know we don’t usually make a point of advertising products to you, but I really have to tell you how much I love my Craftsman Multi Tool! It is seriously one of the best tools we’ve purchased. It has all kinds of uses around the house. We got a set at Costco that also included a cordless drill (here is a link to the drill) as well. The quality is great and we have used both items around the house quite a bit.

Ok, enough of the tools :). We bought two sets of these metal shelves while in our last apartment and they currently reside in our extra room. While they are super handy, I really wanted to have a solid shelf for my extra dishes (food styling props). I didn’t want to have to buy wood for the shelves so I decided to try using cardboard. After I cut down the cardboard boxes we’d used to move to the correct size I realized they would be perfect! I had some fabric leftover from another project and decided to cover the cardboard with it to make it look nicer. I love how it turned out! Here is a little step by step of what I did:

Cut the cardboard to size

Hot glue the corners and sides

Finish up gluing all the sides

Voila!

During the days we were organizing I also made about 5 trips to the dollar store. They have so many great items to help with organizing! Plus, they come in lots of fun colors! I had a bunch of random containers I had saved over the years so I tried to use those as well before purchasing new things. I’m a little bit addicted to cute containers :).

Needless to say this was a very time consuming project and it involved some creative thinking, but I am so glad we did it! As it turns out cheap home organization is possible! A variety of solutions are possible, you just have to figure out what works best for you. All of these little containers has really helped our house stay so much cleaner and it is much easier to find things.

We've found some fun people with great linky parties. You might just see this post linked up on one of these amazing sites! Link and Learn from No Time for Flashcards Sunday Showcase from Train Up a Child Share it Saturday from Teach Beside Me Tot School Gathering Place from 1+1+1=1 Montessori Monday from Living Montessori Now Tuesday Tots from In Lieu of Preschool Show and Tell from ABC & 123 For the Kids Fridays from Sun Scholars Finished Friday from All Our Days Weekly Kids Co-op from Frogs and Snails and Puppy Dog Tails Preschool & Kindergarten Corner from Homeschool Creations TGIF Linky Party from 123 Homeschool 4 Me

February 8, 2013

What are some fun items from the dollar store for Valentine’s Day? How can I survive this winter?!?

I am so excited that Valentine’s Day is coming. You know why? Because that means winter is a little closer to being OVER!!! Hallelujah! Okay, so winter is not my favorite time of year. Don’t worry, I’m not one of those people that is always waiting for the next season, but never happy in the current season. I love spring, summer, and fall. I just don’t like winter and Valentine’s Day means there is just over a month until the first day of spring!!

To keep me from withering up and dying from the ridiculous cold and gloomy weather, I made a trip to the dollar store. Luckily, it didn’t disappoint (does it ever?) and I found some pretty awesome Valentine’s Day items for this dollar store finds post.

Heart Picks: I saw these heart picks in a bag and immediately grabbed them. I knew I could do something great with them. I used them with Smiley Man on his Valentine’s tot trays, but I wanted to think of a way to use them for Little Bear, too. Well, these heart picks are perfect for putting little pony beads on, so I figured they would be perfect to practice patterns.

I sat down with Little Bear and told him we were going to make patterns on the heart picks. I told him I was going to do a pattern of dark pink, light pink, dark pink, light pink. I let him do whatever pattern he wanted. He started off with (I can’t remember what, I’ll edit this after I see the pictures:). Then he kind of just put beads on however he wanted. We did get some good pattern practice in, but Little Bear just liked putting the beads on. I was fine with that because it was great fine motor practice.

Decorative Hearts: When I first picked up this package of decorative hearts, I planned to simply hang the hearts up on our window. When I took the hearts out of the package, though, I had an epiphany. My kids didn’t have a Valentine’s Day gift to give their wonderful and amazing daddy. I thought they could decorate these hearts like a card and I would even let them use sharpies! Usually they get grounded for a year if they even look at sharpies (well, they get a consequence at least ;) ).

So, I sat them down and gave them a sharpie and a heart to decorate. They LOVED getting to use the sharpies. Anything off limits is always fun. I also traced each of their hands and wrote I Love Daddy on the Valentine. The boys were very proud of their artwork when they were finished, and I know that Mr. Remarkable is going to love them. He’s amazing!

I’ll probably have to take another trip or two to the dollar store to survive this winter, so stay tuned for more dollar store finds.

We've found some fun people with great linky parties. You might just see this post linked up on one of these amazing sites! Link and Learn from No Time for Flashcards Sunday Showcase from Train Up a Child Share it Saturday from Teach Beside Me Tot School Gathering Place from 1+1+1=1 Montessori Monday from Living Montessori Now Tuesday Tots from In Lieu of Preschool Show and Tell from ABC & 123 For the Kids Fridays from Sun Scholars Finished Friday from All Our Days Weekly Kids Co-op from Frogs and Snails and Puppy Dog Tails Preschool & Kindergarten Corner from Homeschool Creations TGIF Linky Party from 123 Homeschool 4 Me

November 27, 2012

What is a good deal at the dollar store? How can I use dollar store items in my preschool?

Welcome back for another part of Dollar Store Finds. This will probably be an on-going series that pops up every once in awhile. Basically whenever I find something awesome from the dollar store, I’ll do another post for this series. Since there are SOO many things, it will probably pop up quite often. So, what did I find this time? Hair Clips and clothespins.

Hair Clips

I found a package of 30 small hair clips and I thought of a way to use them for preschool! I know, I’m pretty creative. As a mom of two boys, I have to use my imagination when I want to buy girlie stuff for a daughter that I don’t have. I will note that I got the package that had the least amount of girly colors. There were pink and purple clips, but there were also blue, green, yellow, orange, and white.

I used the hair clips with clip cards from the Letter of the Week curriculum from Confessions of a Homeschooler. She doesn’t name them clip cards in every letter set, but there is something like them in almost every letter set. They are basically a picture with a number on it. The T letter set has 10 turtles. Each turtle has a number 1-10 on it. Some of the clip cards have a number of objects rather than an actual number. For example, the U letter set has 10 umbrella pictures. Each umbrella has raindrops above it. The first one has 1 rain drop, the second one has 2 rain drops, etc.

To use the hair clips, the students simply have to clip the right number of hair clips to the clip card. Since there were only 30 clips, the students clip the right number of hair clips on a card, count to check, take the hair clips off, then go on to the next card. If you wanted, you could buy two packages of hair clips and then the students wouldn’t have to remove the hair clips with each card. They could leave all the hair clips on until the very end. If you only give them 55 hair clips, then they can self check because if they have any extra hair clips or not enough hair clips at the end, then they know they made a mistake. The hair clips are great, too because they are slightly difficult to open which really helps with fine motor skills!

Clothespins

This was an item I was happily surprised to find at the dollar store. I bought a package for 36 clothespins for $1. I haven’t found them cheaper anywhere else. Now, clothespins are one of those things that have a million and one uses. I’m sure you can think of plenty of ways to use clothespins, but here is how I use them to make words. On each clothespin I write a different letter of the alphabet. I do all 26 letters and a few extra for the words that have double letters.

Every week we get a new set of words to add to our word wall. There is usually one sight word that cannot be easily sounded out (was, the, our, etc.) or that is extremely common (it, in, to, etc.) and a few words that are easy to sound out and that have the vowel sound we are currently working on. Our short a words were wag, man, sat, ant, tap, bad, fan (We didn’t do all of those in one week ;) ). I write the words on word strips (hey, those are also from the dollar store, cool). Next, each student gets a word strip. They look at the first letter in the word and find the clothespin that has the same letter. Then they open the clothespin and put it on the letter so that the letter on the clothespin is showing. They repeat with the second letter and third if there is one. Again, this really helps with fine motor skills, plus I find that kids really love clothespins. I don’t know why, but it’s universal.

There you go, two fun activities courtesy of the dollar store!

We've found some fun people with great linky parties. You might just see this post linked up on one of these amazing sites! Link and Learn from No Time for Flashcards Sunday Showcase from Train Up a Child Share it Saturday from Teach Beside Me Tot School Gathering Place from 1+1+1=1 Montessori Monday from Living Montessori Now Tuesday Tots from In Lieu of Preschool Show and Tell from ABC & 123 For the Kids Fridays from Sun Scholars Finished Friday from All Our Days Weekly Kids Co-op from Frogs and Snails and Puppy Dog Tails Preschool & Kindergarten Corner from Homeschool Creations TGIF Linky Party from 123 Homeschool 4 Me