Finger and Hand Puppets. Literally.

Remember these guys?

Printable Cut and Paste: Ice Cream Cone

Q-Tips Make Great Brushes

Skip giving your Octopus a Paintbrush. I take it back. Our newest paint trick is using q-tips. I rip off the cup portion of an egg carton and fill each cup with a different color paint and now, instead of using paintbrushes and rinsing it after every color in a cup of water (which just gets messy and wet!) I've been putting a q tip in each color. Then the kids can go to town- Spiff won't freak because his yellow is suddenly brown and Fumble isn't able to make a lake in the middle of his painting after dumping out the rinse water. It makes for easier clean-up too- paint and toss! Me likey.

Printable: Fold and Cut Butterfly

Folding and cutting activities are a great way to hone those preschool skills. My 4 year old loves seeing what comes out when he unfolds the final product after cutting. He loved this butterfly.

*Tip: When learning to cut, it's easier to cut through thicker papers that stay stiff. Start with card stock then work your way up to construction paper and then plain paper.

Printable: King for a Day Crown

Decorate this crown and be king (or queen) for a day!

Printable: Flying Geese.

This cold, wet weather we've been having here in New England puts me in mind of geese flying. Depressing as it is, that's not too far away!

Here's a printable for a pair of flying geese. Make a pair (Did you know Geese generally mate for life?) or an entire flock! Hang them on your light fixture or on your curtain rods. Or make a mobile.

The Printable:

What You need:
card stock
scissors
crayons
hole punch
string
tape for hanging (or just hang them on a curtain rod.)


What You Do:

Grown-Ups- Print up on card stock. Cut out the goose bits, punch the holes and cut the slits. Cut lengths of string and tie one to each goose.

Kids: Color the geese. Fold the wings in half on the dotted line and slip the wings through the slot your grown-up cut on the bodies. Tell your grown-up where to hang them up! Also, before hanging, if you pinch the top of the body with your finger and thumb you can make your goose flap his wings by moving your hand up and down!

Bubbles!

I don't like finding corn syrup as the number 2 or 3 item in product ingredient lists, but I've got to say corn syrup has some pretty great craft usage. Like fake blood (yes, I'll do that around Halloween- remind me.) and bubbles!

I was pretty excited to learn I don't have to buy glycerin just so I can make bubbles. Who wants glycerin hanging around? Besides, I'd have to go out and get it and I'm an immediate gratification girl. I like finding out I can use things I have hidden in my very cabinets already. Especially when it's corn syrup I've had kicking around since my first son was a vampire for Halloween 2.5 hears ago.

And if I'm bad about waiting, my kids are worse. Making bubbles was awesome. No oven, no drying. Three ingredients, mix and voila, blow!

Recipe:
1/4 cup corn syrup
1/2 cup dish detergent *
2 cups water

Combine and stir.

That's it. You can't beat that for instant.

We stored half in a jar for later and the rest we brought outside immediately to blow bubbles. We used all sorts of things with holes that we had lying around to make bubbles, but the best bubble-makers were the plastic cookie cutters. We have a circle and a heart one that came with the Little Tikes Mud Pie set my Mom got for the boys last year, and it made bubbles as big as their heads! Just watch out you don't pop the bubbles ON your heads or you might get soap in the eye, an incident that occurred at our house which briefly put a damper of tears on our fun. But if it happens to you, a bathroom cup with cold water held up to the eye makes a nice emergency eye rinse. (I had flash backs to high school chemistry.)


*On dish soap. We used Palmolive the first time around because that's what I had (instant, remember.) and it made great bubbles that day and even better bubbles the next, but in a few days it was not so hot. I picked up Joy a couple weeks later because I've read that's the best. I feel like it wasn't as good as Palmolive the first two days but definitely held up better. We just finished it up today, over a week later. So... use what you've got I say. If you find a soap that works awesomely, let me know.