Felt Christmas Tree

I had a board book about a Christmas tree to send to my nephew and wanted to include something else, so I decided to make him a felt Christmas tree to decorate.

I made a tree pattern on paper,

then traced it on the felt and cut it out.

Next came the decorations. I twisted red and white pipe cleaners together, cut them into short pieces, and shaped them into candy canes.

Felt ornaments and stars came next.

Finally, I stuck some Christmas stickers on cardstock, cut them out, and glued small pieces of felt to the back.

 

Voila! A Christmas tree to decorate and un-decorate to your heart's content. 

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Letters on Hold

My sister and I have a table at a craft fair this coming weekend and Trip is currently sick, so letters have had to be on hold for a couple of weeks. I have been spending the time I would normally use to find, plan, and prepare our letter of the week activities (plus any other moment I can spare) to craft, craft, craft. I have gotten a lot accomplished, but still have aspirations of more things to make this week. My hope is to share some of the things I have made here, but I'm not going to make any promises as to how well I will do at that.

K Week- A Mess in the Kitchen

I thought that it would be fun for Trip to help me make something in the kitchen during K week. A mess was not really what I was looking for, but it's what I should have expected. He was not interested in the actual food part, so he just played around me and took things out of drawers, off the fridge door, out of the sink, and out of the trash can.

We had fun talking anyway while I made these delicious Chocolate-Bottom Banana Squares.

Nothing to do with the letter K other than being made in the kitchen, but these things were awesome!

K Week- Hunting for K

A fun activity for any letter is hunting for that letter around the house (or anywhere for that matter). This week, I wrote Ks on some sticky notes and posted them throughout the house.

There were Ks on doors,

light switches,

walls, drawers, furniture, the castle, and more. Once Trip saw the first one, I encouraged him to keep looking and find some more.

He started taking them down,

and sticking them in other places.

He especially liked putting them on the closet door, but enjoyed just playing with them and carrying them around too.

This super simple game was a successful one and we will definitely repeat it with other letters.

K Week- King of the Castle

A few months ago, I won a Box Creations cardboard castle in a giveaway from one of my favorite couponing and deals blogs, Frugal Living NW. I had been waiting for the right time to put it together for Trip. K week presented the perfect opportunity and he had a blast being the king of his castle.

The excitement began as soon as I started putting the pieces together. Trip could tell he was about to have a cool new hideout. Once the walls were all up, he got right inside to explore. I told him he was the king of his castle, which lead to him repeating, "I da king! I da king!" I made him a paper crown, but he would have nothing to do with it.

The finished castle looks great and went together easily and quickly. It does take up quite a bit of space in the living room, so it won't be out too long, but it will be fun to get out every once in a while. Eventually Trip will be able to color it too.

The castle quickly became a place to play baseball (after sneaking away from the table without getting his face washed!),

to look a pictures and videos on Mommy's phone,

to watch Sesame Street,

and much more.

Thanks, Frugal Living NW for providing us with such a cool castle and a special place to have fun!

K Week- The List

Trip's real name is Kirk, a name that he shares with his daddy and grandpa, so I wanted to introduce him to the letter K. K week ended up being a busy one, making me glad that we were doing a letter that doesn't appear at the beginning of many words and that had some easy activities to go with it.

Our K week fun included:

• playing king in a castle
• some fun in the kitchen (or mostly making a mess!)
• finding kangaroos and koalas in some favorite books
• kicking footballs and soccer balls
• a kiss-covered K
• K pancakes
• hunting for Ks around the house

You can read and/or print my letter K brainstorming list here.

D Week- Dinosaur Matching Cards

I found these cool dinosaur head and tail matching cards from the 1+1+1=1 Dinosaur Tot Pack. I printed them out, colored them, then laminated them for durability.

This activity is a good twist on the matching games we have already done (football and Thomas) and is definitely more of a challenge. Finding heads and tails that match didn't come as easily as finding two trains or two football team logos that are the same. Trip didn't quite get it yet, but he tried and we had some fun making some funny dinosaurs as well.

D Week- Dinosaur Feet

I saw the idea for dinosaur feet made out of tissue boxes on Pinterest and loved it. Fortunately, we emptied two tissue boxes just before I was going to do this project so I was all set. I had hoped that Trip would help me glue tissue paper to the boxes, but he wasn't interested at all, so I did it myself.

To get started, I cut up two sheets of green tissue paper and watered down some white glue. I also taped around the opening in each box to provide a little more strength. It helps if you leave the plastic in the box, but if you take it out (like I did on one of them without thinking), you can always glue some more plastic in its place (I used a small piece of a trash bag but a food storage bag or grocery bag would work too). Having the plastic and it being reinforced with packing or duct tape helps your child keep his or her feet in the box. 

I started gluing on the tissue paper, using lots of glue and overlapping the pieces. After one layer, you could definitely still see the printing on the box. I wasn't too worried about it, but if you don't want to see what's on the box, you might consider covering it in paint or a thicker paper.

After another layer, the printing was mostly covered.

Once my boxes were dry, I cut up a large kitchen sponge to make the claws. I cut the sponge in half and then got three large and two small triangles out of each of the two pieces.

I used the larger triangles for the front claws and stuck two of the smaller ones together to make the back claw.

Trip's reaction to these dinosaur feet was interesting. They sat on the table almost the whole week and he would have nothing to do with them. Daddy and I each tried to get him to put them on and both times it ended in him falling to the floor and crying just at the suggestion. Then, during the weekend, he suddenly wanted to try them on. We put them on his feet and he tromped all over the house roaring and having a great time.

As Trip tried them out, we discovered that they are a little slick on our carpet, so I added a few lines of hot glue to the bottom of each box to provide some traction.

I was glad that this project didn't turn out to be a flop and that Trip realized how fun some new feet could be.




I'm linking up with:

D Week- Sensory Tub

When I don't have many objects that start with our letter of the week, I have found that a sensory tub with water beads is a good way to go. The water beads are so much fun in and of themselves that they don't need too many things added to them. I collected Trip's dinosaurs, dog, a few ducks, and some foam Ds to add to the orange water beads we used for our Halloween tub.

Trip especially enjoyed the dinosaurs (which he calls "dinafriends" for some reason). They had to fight,

swim,

and RAAAARRRR!

D Week- The List

Daddy has been waiting for "D for Daddy" week for a quite some time now. He was excited to do some fun things with Trip. Although there aren't that many words that start with D (making my list pretty short), there are some good ones, namely dinosaur, duck, and dog.

Our D week fun included:

• a D object sensory tub
• dinosaur feet
• a dinosaur matching game
• our ducky family
• making a dump cake with Daddy