How to Make a Solar Oven
This is a really easy, really fun project for Earth Day! Best yet, the first step is to order a pizza!
DIY: Lemon-Rosemary and Orange Delight Natural Cleaners
Inexpensive, all-natural, easy-peasy recipes for green cleaners.
Home Sweet Preschool: Button Snake
This is a fun, Montessori-inspired activity to teach children how to button with a playful activity: building a snake. Not only do they develop this skill with lots of practice, but they also work on strengthening that all-important pincer grasp needed for writing.
Valentine Memory Game
Here’s a fun little Valentine project you can make for toddlers and preschoolers using paint chips.
1. Cut two hearts out of each color of pastel paint chips (Martha Stewart paint at Home Depot has great options.)
2. Write matching 2-word messages on the pairs of hearts mimicking Conversation Hearts. For a more advanced preschooler, you can write messages on different colors of hearts, so they actually have to read the first letter to find the match. This raises print awareness and is a great pre-reading skill.
3. Cut index cards to the size of a box of Conversation Hearts and glue on the hearts. Put the memory deck inside the box along with a few of the candies.
4. Play memory by taking turns drawing two cards and searching for a match.
Happy Valentine’s Day!
Preschool: Calendar Match
The first step in learning how to read doesn’t involve the alphabet. Here’s a simple and free activity to build your child’s prereading skills.
Dynomite Dinosaur Party
Here’s the culmination of Dinosaur Party Week. Max’s 4th birthday party was a blast, and the dino theme was so much fun. Here’s how it all came together.
Party Bags
When the children arrived, they were given these adorable bags Nana made and a Paleontologist Passport depicting all the activities. Upon completion of the activities, they were given a sticker.
Their bags also had one item: tiny dinosaurs that grow in water. I got a slew of them from Oriental Trading Company, but they looked cheap and had no directions. Using computer clip art and orange card stock, I repackaged them into a much nicer gift.
Throughout the party, the kids discovered dinosaurs they could keep, so they filled their own bags.
Brachiosaurus Buffet
The centerpiece of all my parties is the food. I always make an effort to keep to the theme. It’s fun and creates a party atmosphere without much cost. I decorated the table with outrageous ferns from our overgrown garden and the burlap cloth left-over from Max’s Zoo Party.
Menu
Watermelon T-Rex (Our watermelon was overripe and fell apart a bit, which is why his mouth is so wide.)
Swamp Dip and Stegosaurus Spikes (Green Goddess Guacamole and Black Bean Dip with torillia chips)
Herbivore’s Delight (hummus and veggies)
Pterodactyl Trail Mix (dried fruit and nuts)
Decorations
The various activity stations around the party provided most of the decor, but my husband and I also painted three muslin banners as a backdrop to our fun.
The birthday boy contributed artwork as well.
The Activities
This was the most activities we’d ever had. There are just so many cool things to do with dinosaurs. Here’s the rundown:
Pin the Horn on the Triceratops ( Hey, three chances to win!)
Stegasaurus Slide (regular slip and slide)
Plesiosaurus Pool (our backyard kiddie pool)
Max’s 3rd Trip Around the Sun Video
Before the cake, I always invite our guests to watch a slide show of the past year. Because of copyright issues, it’s really hard to post online these days. This year it was put to the tune of Walking on Sunshine. I was struck by how little growth and change there was compared to his past years. A one-year old looks so different than a two-year old, but four isn’t that much bigger than three. Instead of showing how much Max had grown, this year’s video captured how much fun we had! These videos take me a few weeks to put together, but in the end they make a great keepsake.
