busy bags or boxes

I love the idea of busy boxes. The idea of busy boxes is having everything all ready for your child to do an activty when you need them to be busy because you are. I have not done it but I think I may try it. I have found it in a few different places. I wanted to put the links all together.
Play at Home Mom has busy boxes 
Intrepid Murmurings calls her's toddler and preschool activity bags
Chasing Cheerios also calls her's toddler activity bags and she has better bags to use in this post.
My Delicious Ambiguity calls her toddler busy activity bags
Tired and True has homemade stuff in hers
Money Saving Mom calls hers busy bags
The Princess and the Tot call hers the toddler busy bags
The View from 5'5" calls her quite time boxes and they each have a few things in them.
Mine for the Making has some great ones. She calls them busy bags.
Playing House calls hers busy box. They have a few things in each one so she has a little more time.

I think you could do a lot of different things the same way. Those site have good stuff to get you started.

A souvenir on a budget

We all love to get things when we go on a trip. I know I do and so does Girlygirl. When we where moving here from Illinois a few months back, we made a game out of finding post cards. Girlygirl loved it. She loved pick out just the right one at the gas stations and looking at them when back in the truck. We put those in a journal my mom wrote for her about the trip I am sure she will love it for years to come. Now when on the road Girlygirl is on the look out for post cards. We do get them for her. We got a cheep photo album and she puts them in there. At night she often looks at them in her bed. At Christmas time we took a trip and she jump for joy when she found the post card she wanted. It is great way to get your child something cheep to help them look back on the family fun. What do you do to help your child remember our family fun?

Less Tv For Preschooler

The Ten Way to Watch Less Television

1. No TV Before lunch This one is hard for me. On the days I do it works great.
2. Listen to music The noise and fun of the songs has help Girlygirl not think about turning on the TV.
3. Read When the TV is off and Girlygirl needs something to do I stop what I am doing and read a book. It takes but a few minutes and is great for her.
4. Have your child help you It takes more time to have your child help you but they love it. Plus if they learn how to do it slowly when they are young and want to "they" say it is easier to get them to help later.
5. Keep toys cleaned up This may be easier for others but I feel often why clean it for her to just take the same thing out again. What I have learned is Girlygirl plays a lot longer in a clean house.
6. Have quite time for your child daily This gives you the time you need on your own.
7. Move toys around There are a few ways you can do this. You can switch them from the play room to bed room or keep some up and bring them from time to time. I do both. Toys in a new place are like new toys
8. Art and Crafts They break up the day and give the child something new to do. I do some planned but she has a book and now collage tray she can do whenever she wants.
9. Play with your Child
10. Teach your child to play on their own You can read my post on that here.

Let me know some ways you keep the TV from taking over your house.

Teaching Preschooler about the Bible

Teaching your preschooler about the Bible can be over whelming but we as Christians know we want your children to understand God's truth. Therefore teaching your preschooler about the Bible is important. There are a few things that I have done to teach Girlygirl about God's Word. Helping your preschool memorize Bible verses is easier than I thought. After joining Awana she has taken off. If you never heard Awana of it is a great program. I loved it as a child and now Girlygirl is having a great time in her first year. Girlygirl is doing great at remembering the verses. She even asked to do two in a week. I do few things to help her meet her goal. I have writen them on index cards and taped them on the door frame between our living room and dining room. This helps me see them easly to say them over and over through out the day. At first I say a word Girlygirl repets me. Then later in the week I say 2 to 4 words and Girlygirl repts me. I also turn the verse into a song and sing it with her (sometimes she loves it others she doesn't it.) By the end of the week I just say the first word and can say the whole thing on her own. I think she wouldn't try as hard if wasn't getting a patch for her Awana vest every few weeks. More about teaching your preschool about the Bible in the weeks to come. Today remember to help your child learn the word of God and hide it in their hearts.

Collage Tray

Girlygirl loves to glue. She often can be found sitting at her little table making a collage. It is great open end craft project and now is out and ready whenever she wants to do it. The great thing about collages is you can put to match a theme or just random things.

I just keep a store bought veggie. I just ask for it after the church potluck. Veggie tray are great for a few reasons. It is dived to keep the different things in there own place and has a lid. What I like best is if you get them from a potluck like it did it was free. Now here are some list I found of stuff to put in the Collage Tray. Earth Kids has a great list that can be found here. This list is almost the same but has a few different ideas.

Towel Time

In my last posted about things I do to teach Girlygirl to play on her own. Now I wanted to share what towel time looks like in our house and give you some idea of toys to give during this time. Where does towel time happen? Towel happens most often near me, where ever that is that is the great thing about it. This helps me make sure Girlygirl stay there and helps me to get to her fast if she gets of. I do not always stay in the same room but if I am down stairs then she is too if I am up stairs she is too (my house is tiny so it works out good for us). I just tell her we are going to do towel time. She doesn't like it at first some days. The longer it has been the hard it is for her. Should I do towel time with my kids at the same time? This summer when we had my friend's kids living here. Both of the little girls (Girlygirl and Little Sister) like to do towel time. They would do it at the same time often in the same room but not close enough to touch each other. It gave them a break from having to share and deal nicely with other. It also gave me time to have one on one time with one of the big kids also. What does Girlygirl get at towel time? Like I said before she gets a few books, her blanket, and a toy or two (may be a group of toys) What are the toys Girlygirl gets at towel time? There are a lot a different toys I give her. Some I keep put up for this time only others are out all the time and I just think she will like to play them more than she does. When it comes to picking toy pick things you know your child can do on their own and will like to play with. Here is a list of the ones we us most.

• Doll house
• Little People- most often the farm but some time another ones
• blocks-we a a few different kinds to choice from
• Fast food toys- I keep them in a drawer with the other toys and just give her the drawer
• Mr. Potato Head
• puzzles
• stacking cups
• Elmo ( like Mr. Potato head)
• Doodle Pro
• lacing cards
• doll with clothing, food ect.

Girlygirl is the only kid here with me right now and she has learned to play on her own because of this we don't do towel time much. Cheek out what Kimberly said in her post called Multi-level Homeschooling: Little Ones Part 2. It will be hard at first but remember your not in the entertainment business you are their mom and teaching them to depend on themselves from time to time will only help them as they get older. I'd love to hear how towel time or whatever you call it in your homes works so please share in the comments.

Preschools Playing on Own

Before I became a mom I learned that children need to be taught to play. Getting down and playing with your kids is important. Just as important is teaching your child to play on their own. I have done a few things to teach Girlygirl this. I am not good about have a set time for things but we use all these more as needed than daily.

• Towel Time-It is just like it sounds. Girlygirl sits on a towel and plays with toys I have given her. I put a few toys on the towel for her to choice from along with 2 or 3 books and her Nauna (her blanket) I set the time for 10 to 25 min. (I notice more than 25 min is too long).
• Room Time-She plays in her more for 30 min. I put up the baby gate and just let her play. She has about half her toys in her room and a lot of her favorites.
• Table Time-I have blogged about this before. I often start something with her and then let her do it on her own for 5 to 15 min. I will then come back and play with her again.

I even teacher she can do things on her own in our day to day interactions. I am not quick to help her. Even at a young age I would sit back and watch how she would do something I thought was too hard for her. Sometimes she would amaze me at what she could do. Other times she be proud of her work done "wrong". I have many pictures of her trying to put on clothing at 1.5 years old and it is all "wrong" but is was happy to do it herself. Encouraging words when she wants me to do it or if is get frustrated. I often tell her if she tries she can. Sometimes it works and she will do it others she just stops. In Elmo's Potty time the have a song about things being hard when you are learning. I will sign it to her. I also use words to tell her how. We gave her a V Smile for her birthday. It is a little hard for her. I will sit with her and tell her what to do. Like press enter the big orange one. When she does it she knows she can. Teaching your kids to do all they can gives them great self esteem. So let them do things on their own even if they don't like it at first they will. You are teaching them they can play and do things on their own.

4th of July fun

We had a fun day we talk about 4th of July. I don't think she gets it but we had fun. We made cards that will send out Wednessday.We color rice.

Then Girlygirl played with it for a long time. We put up window stickers. Then we made Fireworks with the rice to hang on the wall.

We had tons of fun. above you can see them drying. Remember to play with your kids today. It make the happy.

Bean Bag Fun!!

Bean bags will come in handy again and again. Here are some ideas I have to get you started but they are a great open ended toy. Bean bags could lead to hours of play.

• Bean Bag Toss- toss the bean bags into a laundry basket, bucket, pie tin or other container. Once he has gotten skilled, make it more challenging by moving the container farther away. • Catch- with friend or by throw up in the air • Balance beam- place bean bags in a line on the floor and walk on them • Pillow- for doll or stuff animals • Balance-walk with a bean bag on your head. Too hard on the head try crawling with them on your back. • Game of hot potato • Practice colors- by talking about the colors or asking your child to bring you the _____ bean bag. • Counting- count the bags, have the child bring you ___ number of bags. • Juggle • Hit the can(s)- set up cans and throw beanbags to knock over the cans • Parachute flip- put bean bag(s) on parachute and flip up. (No parachute? Use a sheet or for a two man game a pillow case.) • Bean bag hide and seek- hide the bean bags all around the room or house for little on to find.

Bean bags have hours of fun in them to help to kill hours of boredom for us. To find out what others do to kill boredom cheek out Works For Me Wednesday "Mom I am bored" week over at We Are That Family. After your done remember to go play with your kids.

I re-use it!!

I know it is sad but I am not good at being Green. One thing I am good at is finding a new life for old stuff. Here is some things I reuse for our table time (Tot School).

Juice boxes I just started saving them. They are strong and it was the right size for the pens. I will be finding more uses for them I am sure.

I am sure we all reuse bubble wrap.(Girlygirl use to hate the noise but loves it now)

It is hard to see but that is one of Girlygirl's paintings made into cutting strips. I save the piece she cuts and give then to her to glue later. I have tried to let her cut and glue at the same time but it hasn't yet worked for her. Play-doh tubs work great for holding things on her trays. I also use the smaller one for sorting or with a small wet rag for painting (this keeps the water cup from making a mess). I save all our lids above she used the to glue below I traced and cut them out for her circle collage.The lacing card is made out of a cracker box and a painting Girlygirl did. I use old food tubs for lots of stuff to store stuff or to hold things on the tot tray. In this tub is cut paper and glue stick.

A cigar box become letter box.

Egg cartons are great. We us then lots we made Easter bunnies this year with them but no picture. Above: is was we use for counting. Below is pattern matching.The mail box is made from a tissue box.The jar is hold all kind of old stuff.We painted news paper hearts for Valentine's Day. I know I do reuse other stuff and I am do an other post about it someday. I just don't want this to be too long or is it too late. Anyways what do you reuse in your tot school or just with your kids?

Preschool Craft time: Coffee Filter Butterfly

Preschool Craft time: Coffee Filter Butterfly These are great fun but a little messy to make it. Step One: Gather 1 or 2 coffee filter(s) and 1 1/2 pipe cleaner. A cup of water, water colors paint and bushes. Young kids have fun using more than one brush. You may put down pager on table because paint does go through the filter. (I don't mind cleaning up the mess so didn't do this.) Step Two: paint the filters and let dry.

Step three: If using two filters put together. Then pinch mild together. (like in picture above.)

Step Four: Wrap the half a pipe cleaner (the are easy to cut with scissors) around where you pinched it. Step Five: Place the whole pipe cleaner through the pipe cleaner that is there. Fold in half and twist together. This is held to make the butterflies fly. Girlygirl loved that she made something she can play with.

New Ideas For Preschooler

I was looking at a book my sister has and I got new ideas I would like to try with Girlygirl. I love finding new things that I have not tried that will work for us to do at home. For snack time I found a great idea to had Animals in the Mud. All I need is animal cookies in chocolate fostering. Just have the animals standing in the fostering. I think I will be a good thing when we talk about animals. For art/craft time I got lots ideas. Some are more simple like; scribble bookmark, torn paper or fabric collage. A few will be made out of shoe boxes. Treasure box made out of a shoe box covered in construction paper. You can choice to decorate the box with stickers and by coloring. We will use it to hold all the treasures of a two year old and as she grows. Show box garage simply cut whole in front to fit toy cars in. Again you and decorate however you want. I am sure the kids will not care if it is just a box with a hole for their cars. Mail box is made just like the garage you can decorate or just cut a hole to get the mail. (I plan to make the mail box this week I will blog about it when we are done) Car wheel painting is a great and easy thing to do. Just get or make a shallow box make sure it is big enough to fit your paper. Roll toy cars in paint then in box. Or you can just put a few drops of paint in the box and roll the car around on them. I have never used a car but when I worked in a preschool we did it with balls it work it was a great hit. I found three other things I am not sure what category they'd be in. I still look forward to trying them. Falling ball tunnel (I think can work for cars too) you need a cardboard mail tube, a towel, cookie sheet and masking tape. To make the falling ball tunnel you roll towel and place on cookie sheet. Then place the mail tube long way on the cookie sheet with towel holding one end high on the other end on the cookie sheet. Tape all three together do not cover the holes. A cheep great game is what is in here. All you need is a pillowcase, tube socks and things to hide in the socks/ pillow case. There are two ways to play you can just put things in the pillow case and let your child play with them. They may dump the all out then put back in or just take out one at a time. The other way to play is to hide things in the tube socks and then in pillow case. The last sounds easy but I never thought of it. It is called laundry basket ball. It is just like it sounds you throw a ball in the laundry basket. The other idea was to use rolled up socks. I can't wait to play these with Girlygirl. Remember to play with your kids today.

teaching color with color bag

Back when I worked as a teaches aid the class had these cool color boxes from Lakeshore. I really liked them and when I wanted to start helping Girlygirl learn her colors I wanted to buy them. That is when I found out how much the cost. So when I was at a Thrift Store and fond canvas little bags I came up with the idea to make my own color bag for Girlygirl. I got 5 bags all white. It made a great art time for Girlygirl to paint the bag we just do one at a time. After the bag is dry I went around the house and looked for anything blue to add into the bag until the bag was full. Girlygirl loves the bags. Soon I will be teaching her to look and match the colors. We will have all 5 bags out and take all the toys out and she has to put each thing in the right color bag. I will let you know how this goes. Update: I found other home made color bags. I they are nicer than my done by the mom. Just thought I'd share my find. They made by PisecoMom over at Mind Games. Remember to play with your kids today. Playing is teaching

No Help

Girlygirl loves to do anything and everything she can with out any help. She got a great Christmas gift from a friend. It is a tea pot. She uses it very morning to pour her own juice. I also give her a cheese knife to put peanut butter on her toast. It not only saves me time but teaches her she can do it.

Starting Preschool Time

I will start in January having time with Girlygirl each morning learning different things. I will call it preschool time. We will do lost of fun stuff. Each month we will theme. Starting with E the first letter of her name then moving on from there. The first week will talk about E over all. Then the last three week we  will focus on one thing starting with that letter. I will post what I plan to do then what really happens. I think this will be fun but we will see. Girlygirl does do preschool like stuff with my sister and loves it.

Back Yard Scavenger hunt

If you have read my 100 free things to do with kids post then you may have say that I said do  back yard/living room scavenger hunt. You do not need to have stuff to hide. Just make a list of this for your children to find. Maybe get them a bag to hold the stuff. For older kids you can have them draw and write about what  they find if you want. You can make it so the learn new stuff of just have fun. Here are some thought about what you can find.

• sticks-tell how many or how big
• flowers-name a color
• rocks
• toys you have
• water hose
• bird-tell the kind
• leafs-tell how many or what kind
• weeds
• animals-your pet or something that you see off ten in your backyard like a cat or bunny

That is all I can think of right now but you could add to the list if you have more ideas. This would be a great way to get your kids outside and moving. Here are a few great list that I found online.

• Earth day nature Hunt
• Camping Scavenger Hunt- Some will work for things in your back yard too

Happy hunting.

Fall Crafts: 5 Leaf Craft Projects

All this crafts are things you can do with all those leaves in your front and back yard during the fall months. Ours are just now really falling so I put this together kind of late in the fall but here are 5 leaf crafts I found or have done with the kids.

1. make a tree-picture on right of Girlgirl's (I did the glue)
2. Weave Leafs
3. paint them-can just paint or use as stamps
4. Leaf Match
5. make leaf people

I hope that you still have time to enjoy some of these this year but if not maybe next. We just did 1 and 3 this year but I really liked the others so hopefully I get a chance to do them next year. I hope you take the time to enjoy what God has made and talk to your kids about it.

Doll Bath

I have read about letting your toddler give their babies a bath. Today we did and Girlygirl loved it. I just filled a toy tube 1/4 wit water and soap. Gave Girlygirly a a doll to wash. It was easy and she did if for about 20 min. That is always good. When she got up I told she had to be done no coming back. We then cleaned up together. Here are some cute pictures of her playing

Preschool: Learning Colors

I have been trying to teach Girlygirl her colors. I don't homeschool with her yet but we work on learning. Today I have been teaching the color purple. I never sat her down and said let's learn about purple. I just made it purple day. When she painted this morning she used purple paint; also she made purple with red and blue. I have these bath fizzy things. They change the color of the water. We had a purple bath. With lunch we had purple cabbage and grape juice. Girlygirl wear purple clothing. We looked for everything we could find that was purple. I look forward to sharing all our color days with you.

Homeschool Preschool links

I will just update this as I find stuff. I hope that you can use them as well as I. This is a great blog about montasory preschool. There is not much there but I like what she has