A Very Merry UnBirthday Party

Alice in Wonderland is a great theme for a birthday party, especially if you won't be hosting the party on your child's birthday!

Two years ago, Big Sister requested an UnBirthday party in March, since we'd been on vacation in Florida for her birthday in February. It was fun to make cupcakes for this party, instead of a big cake! There are so many things you can do with this theme: the white rabbit, the cheshire cat, the playing cards, bread and butterflies, flowers, etc.

 I always try my best not to host birthday parties at mealtimes, to cut down on food costs (one of my tips for frugal birthday parties), but we had more than enough finger food to nibble on. We had fruit, small sandwiches, sugar cookies and some candy (mostly for decoration). Of course, things were labelled "Eat Me" and "Drink Me"! We put a bunch of tea pots on the table, and everyone had their own fancy tea cup (purchased for another party from a thrift store several years back).

I made decorations by printing photos and illustrations from different versions of Alice in Wonderland on my computer, and using sticky tack to attach them to the walls on the walls (no tape residue left on my walls!). I also framed some of the photos and placed them on tables where we usually have family photos (notice the Mad Hatter and the Queen of Hearts on the food table?). I also drew and cut out direction arrows from cardstock and taped them to black construction paper to give them some definition.

 

We also hung some store bought heart garlands from the ceiling (left over from Big Sister's many Valentine's Day birthday parties), alternating with homemade circle garlands made by sewing together circles of scrapbook paper.

 

I also drew a doorknob similar to the one from in the Disney cartoon of Alice in Wonderland.

For activities, we had a craft table garden, where the kids could play with plasticine and create paint-with-water pictures from Alice in Wonderland. I made the giant flower and mushrooms out of bristol board. It's hard to see in the photo, but there are "bread and butterflies" and "rocking horseflies" on the wall, too!

We also played "Pin the Watch on the White Rabbit" and "Alice Says" (like Simon Says). Between that and the food, the kids were content just to play together, and we didn't feel like we needed any other scheduled activities for a 2 hour party. We didn't have any prizes for games. Each child got to bring home a notebook and pencil as a party favour.

...and of course, we sang the UnBirthday song instead of Happy Birthday!


   

Bloggy inspiration - games and printables

I've been getting a lot of inspiration from other people's blogs lately. There are so many creative ideas out there! Here are a few of my recent favourites (some are spring and Easter themed):

• Story Stones from Inner Child Fun
• Foil mushrooms for a fairy circle from Filth Wizardry
• Sponge painting shapes from NutureStore
• Coloured wooden eggs from The Wonder Years
• Spring sensory tub from No Time for Flashcards (I keep meaning to make a sensory tub. I love the idea of using birdseed, so I'm not wasting food! Whatever spills on the grass or deck will just be eaten by the birds!)
  

I'm also trying to create a good stash of printable activities to have on hand for when I'm exhausted from the new baby, but want to teach C with some fun new activities (or have someone else teach her while I'm napping!). Here are a few samples:

• Exercise ABCs, originally from Homeschool Share
• Tracing shapes from Coloring Castle
• Chick and nest math game from Itty Bitty Bookworm
• Chicks in egg game from Tired, Need Sleep
• Easter egg number matching from Confessions of a Homeschooler
  I also downloaded the entire Letter of the Week Preschool Curriculum, and it's fantastic!

Feel free to link up your favourites in the comments - I love seeing what's on everyone else's radar!

Simple St. Patrick's Day fun

 

We celebrated St. Patrick's Day a day late this year, but it seemed a shame to let the holiday go by without commemoration!

We listened to Irish and Irish/Newfoundland music all day, and learned about the history of St. Patrick's Day through this cartoon on YouTube (Oh, how I love YouTube).


  We ate green snacks: leftover sugar cookies from the freezer, spread with icing and topped with green sprinkles, and green Jell-o later in the day.

We had a colour hunt, which C waned to do again. I think we'll try this another time with a different colour! I hid (in plain sight) a few green items to get her started, and we walked around the house collecting more items and putting them inside a green canvas bag. Afterward, we took an inventory!

Later in the day, we did some very simple artwork using different shades of green.

I hope you all had a fun day!

To all the crafty people out there...

I've been saving potential craft materials from the recycling bin, and while cleaning up our craft closet, I discovered that I've accumulated quite a collection of empty toilet paper and paper towel rolls!

Do you have any ideas for crafts that will use a bunch of them at one time?

Christmas preparations

Today we hung our Christmas lights outside! Granted, we don't have many, but it's still a big deal for us to have any up before December. Having a little kid definitely makes you think about Christmas earlier!

Here are some fun crafty things on my "To Do" list:

Decorating

• an indoor "snowstorm"
• snowman garland
• an ornament wreath (done and hanging - it just needs a bow - pictures soon!)
  

Kiddy Crafts

• handprint Christmas tree
• coffee filter angel
• scrap paper stocking

P.S. Canadians, don't forget to write your letter to Santa! Mail it by the second week of December to make sure you get a reply before Christmas!

(You can also email - Santa's become a techie)

November, so far...

What we've been up to lately...

Making poppies (kind of!) for Remembrance Day:

Sorting with Mickey:
Learning patterns with Mickey (I love the Disney paint chips from Home Depot - they're cute and colourful, and no cutting or laminating are required!)

Spelling (with cards, on the fridge, and in songs). By herself, C can spell her name, her Dad's name and "mop" (thanks to the song "Rag Mop" on her new favourite CD, Jazz For Kids). She's doing really well with letter sounds too, so we should do some more games with that while she's interested!

Making our own stickers - and this is inevitably what happens whenever we play with stickers!

And baking! We started our pre-Christmas baking a couple of days ago. We've been listening to Christmas music, which has increased C's interest in Santa Claus, so we broke out the Christmas books too. This is unprecedented for me - usually I'm a not-before-December kind of gal! Speaking of baking, I went to a Pampered Chef show last night - they have such nice kitchen gear!

 
We have totally cut out C's naps due to unusual bedtime crankiness recently, and things are going much better (although Mummy is very tired by the time 2 or 3pm rolls around!).

That's all for now!

Artwork with Cheerios

...is not always productive. She got in a snack though!


The Cheerio octopus printable is from Making Learning Fun.

Coffee Filter Butterflies

We've been potty training this week, so I've been keeping C upstairs on the hardwood floor and away from the carpet downstairs. To keep us busy, we've been doing a lot of crafts, and this was a fun one that we did a couple of days ago. Here was the finished product:

Supplies:

• coffee filters
• paint & paintbrushes (we used watercolours)
• pipe cleaners

All you need to do is paint the coffee filters (C did about 5 and she spent lots of time on them!), let them dry (30 minutes out on the deck did the trick for us), then twist a pipe cleaner around the middle of each coffee filter to make the body and antennae of the butterfly. Voila - butterflies! C and her bunny Stanley (à la That Rabbit Belongs to Emily Brown) had lots of fun playing with them that night.

By the way, C's face paint was done at a multicultural festival earlier in the day. Isn't it cool?!

Fantastic site for printables!

Last week, Katydid and Kid posted about her fabulous boredom bags, filled with activities to keep kids busy on trips, in restaurants, waiting rooms, etc. While clicking on the links in her post, I found the most fantastic website and I just had to share!



I initially got excited about Hugo l'Escargot because it has thousands of colouring pages on almost every subject imaginable! Click through the coloured tabs to find subjects like cartoon characters, famous paintings, animals & nature, countries of the world, children of the world, Egypt, pirates, and so many more! The faces section is pretty neat too - kids can draw their own faces on the people on the colouring pages. The website is in French, bit it's pretty easy to navigate; there are icons for every section.

Well, after exploring the site another day, I found some more gems! The songs section (chansons) has music files, lyrics and colouring pages related to each traditional children's song. Of course, the songs are all in French, but it's a perfect site for anyone trying to teach their child French! We live in New Brunswick, Canada, an officially bilingual province, so this will be helpful for us.

On Hugo l'Escargot, you can also print stationary, birthday invitations, play online games (some of which are in English), view crafts & recipes, and other printables and cut-outs (including fantastic paper dolls of boys and girls. Print them on cardstick, paper, or give them a magnetic backing).

A helpful hint: visit an online translator whenever you need a web page (or just a few words) translated. You can enter website addresses and it will translate a whole page at the click of a button. The grammar certainly isn't perfect, but it will give you the gist of what is on the page!

So there you go, I hope you enjoy the site as much as I do! I was so excited when I saw all of the great activities that I think my husband thought I was a little bit nuts!

Fuzzy Bunny craft

C woke up at 5:30am yesterday. She's normally a 7:00 riser, so it pains me to say that. She played in bed until almost 6:30, which a tired Mama greatly appreciated, but then we were up. We got a ton of things done, chore-wise and fun-wise! Maybe getting up early is the solution to tackling my ever growing list of things to do? Not that early, though.

After breakfast, I sat my PJ-clad gal down to do a quick and easy craft - a fuzzy bunny. I enlarged and printed the bunny template from Hostess with the Mostess' paper bunny garland (which looked fabulous over my sliding doors at Easter - too bad I forgot to take a picture!). Then I let her draw on it and squirt the glue. We spread the glue with a popsicle stick, and C stuck cotton balls on it. Voila!

Thank goodness for washable ink!

A friend with 3 kids once pondered why anyone would let their kids get their hands on non-washable markers. She must have had a few incidents, because she admitted to searching their backpacks and taking out ones that weren't! C has lost interest in crayons these days, preferring the vibrant colours of markers, but the permanent ones aren't within her reach (at least until she starts to stand on chairs to get things!). The other day while I was making supper, I sat her down at the table with some stamps, and she had a ball! Of course, we both had many "tattoos" by the time she was done, but it kept her entertained during the pre-dinner witching hour!

But again, thank goodness for washable ink. I picked up a washable ink pad last year on a clearance shelf at my local Co-Op, and it washed off so easily! I think thumb print art will come soon! Hmmm... we could also play police station and fill out the fingerprints on her child ID card...

Painting, gardening and planning for Earth Day

This week has been a busy one at work for me! C and I have been doing a lot of general playing and spending time outside, so there's not too much to report here! C used watercolours for the first time this week, and she liked that much better than regular paint! (Oh, I later read that coffee filters are good to paint on as they soak up some of the extra moisture. Good tip - her paper was soaked!) She also tried to figure out how to use scissors, with a little bit of success. She helped me pull up twigs and leaves from the garden, and played with outdoor toys while I worked, which was fantastic. One garden down, 2 to go!

I've also been planning some of our Earth Day activities for next week. We'll be visiting the library for a kid's concert on Saturday, so I hope to go early and pick up some books. I have to work on a few more ideas for our colour Green Day, and I have a recycling game in the works that I'll post about when it's finished. There aren't any Earth Day activities for kids in our city, so we're on our own! I'd love to hear what you're doing!

Celebrating Earth Day with a Toddler + an Earth Day Challenge!

I've been brainstorming ideas to celebrate Earth Day as a family. C is two years old, and I've been jotting down age-appropriate activities and searching for books that she would enjoy. Earth Day is on Wednesday, April 22nd, but we're going to celebrate all week. I haven't heard of any child-friendly activities in our city yet, so we're making plans on our own.

Here's what I have so far:

• Pick up garbage in the neighborhood
  
• Nature walk
  
• Tidy our garden to get ready for planting
• Make a pinecone bird feeder
• Painting rocks
• Read environment and nature-themed books
• Have a colour day: Green!
• Look at maps (download free maps here for colouring and activities)
  

I'd like to challenge you all to celebrate Earth Day with your families; or better yet: Earth Week! Post about your plans on your blog, and then link to it here using the Mister Linky below. Then come back and link to pictures of your family celebrating Earth Day!

Here are a few kid-friendly Earth Day crafts from Kaboose to get you started. I'm excited to hear about all of your ideas!

Please link to your POST (not just your blog). Thanks!

The Itsy Bitsy Spider

Yesterday C played Susie Tallman's version of The Itsy Bitsy Spider over and over and over on her radio. It's a great version of the song, but like anything, it can get old, so in keeping with the theme (and to stop the song), I suggested that we make a spider craft, which C was thrilled about!

The craft was super simple. I cut out a black oval, 8 short black strips, 2 white ovals for eyes, and got 2 blue circle stickers. C was very adamant that the blue stickers should not first go on the white ovals, and that was fine, so her spider just had blue eyes.

Here is her finished spider. You can see where I helped with the legs!

Happy Easter!

It's the night before Easter, and we finally dyed our Easter eggs! Miss C enjoyed helping to make the coloured water and drop the eggs in. Even more fun was decorating some of them with markers - she spent at least 15 minutes colouring 3 eggs!

We tried using stickers on a few of the eggs to make un-dyed shapes, but water seeped under the stickers and we ended up with shapeless white blotches. Too bad! We just used water, food colouring and a splash of vinegar in each bowl. The red (pink), blue and purple dyed well, but we had to keep the yellow and green in for a couple of hours to tint them.

We're not officially doing the Easter Bunny (I understand the history behind Santa Claus, but I just don't get the Easter Bunny), but we're having an egg hunt tomorrow, eating the hot cross buns that are cooking right now (why oh why did I start so late?), and hopefully heading to church. C is normally pretty well behaved there, but it will be a long, crowded service tomorrow, so we'll play it by ear and see what her mood is like! Tomorrow night we're having some friends over for supper.

I hope you enjoy the holiday with the ones you love!

Easter crafts

I've been making a few crafts for C's Easter basket, and I'm almost done! Here's what I have so far: a set of beanbags, a washcloth bunny, and a secret pocket egg.


C went to an Easter party today, and we got some cute crafts there. I can't take credit for any of these! Adorable bunny ears (everyone there had a set - so cute!), a foam egg brooch, and a basket for each child. The basket is a semicircle piece of paper which C decorated. We rolled and taped it together, added a pipecleaner handle, and then went on an Easter egg hunt!