Craft Archives - Page 10 of 11

A Book About Home and A Home for Construction Vehicles

August 6, 2010 By Deirdre

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After being on the road from July 20th through July 26th, it is wonderful to be home. There were a few times while we were gone that I wished I could have just put my house on wheels and brought it with me the way the characters in Home did. This wonderful book subtitled Once There Was A House, A House That Was A Home by Alex T. Smith tells the tale for four friends. Each friend has a dream that they want to share with the three others that share the home. When they start sharing them, they realize they really don’t want to do them together. Each one takes off to live their dream with a different part of the house. One takes the door and goes off to be a pirate. The second character named Two takes the wall and goes off to be pirate. Three goes to live underground with the windows. Finally, Four goes off to the big city with the floor. At first, they each enjoy their dreams. After a short time each learns that although they each have part of the house, it isn’t a home without all the friends together. In the end, the characters decide to rebuild their house, add wheels to it and share their dreams with each other in their new mobile home.

I love the pictures and messages in this book. The author/illustrator does a wonderful job of painting a picture of what makes true friends true friends along with what makes a house a home. As someone that lived in a condo for eleven years that I didn’t consider home, I really appreciate the aspects of my life and house that make where I live now a home.

JDaniel has a growing number of toy construction vehicles. Some of the vehicles are small enough that they have been living in a “garage” under the loveseat in the living room. The larger toys haven’t had a permanent home. They sometimes live under the coffee table. I decided we would create one out of a cardboard box.

We headed early one morning to the grocery store to get a box while the shelves were being restocked. The clerks at our local Bi-Lo walked JDaniel and I down the cereal aisle and let us chose a box. After creating three different size doors for the vehicles to enter the garage, we sat down at the computer and brainstormed what words and signs would be needed to decorate the box. JDaniel was sure the text needed to be red and the name had to be the Front Loader Garage. His favorite sign was the one that says “JDaniel Working.”

Here are some of the signs and words he chose.

Here is how the small doors work on the front for small vehicles.

Here is the entrance for big machines and apparently big boys.

Disclaimer: Home is a book published by Tiger Tales. As an official Tiger Tales reviewer, I was sent a copy of this book to review. The views and opinions expressed about this book are my own.

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Mice on Main Street And In My House

July 30, 2010 By Deirdre

Here in Greenville, S.C. we have a great mouse hunt on Main Street. Bronze mice are scattered up and down the street. Some are easy to find and others are quite difficult. I took my nephews down to search for them. We had a print out of clues that I found on the Mouse on Main website.

The mice are very popular and have even had a children’s book written about them called MICE ON MAIN: HOW NINE BRONZE MICE CAME TO LIVE ON MAIN STREET.

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JDaniel is a little young to find most of the mice. I pointed one out to him when we were downtown for a Touch-a-Truck event. He thought mice statues were in his words silly.

I decided to have him decorate some mice with glitter glue and crayons. I would hide them around the house. He was given clues as to where I hid the mice. He had a blast.

Construction Books and A Crane

July 16, 2010 By Deirdre

We have read about twenty books on construction equipment. I am only going to highlight three today.

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Dig by Andrea Zimmerman and David Clemesha is a wonderful book with rhymes about the five jobs Mr. Rally and his dog Lightning do in one day. They did up rock! They did up clay! They dig up dirt! They dig all day.

Dig Dig Digging by Margaret Mayo has a great repetition of words. I loved reading the book to JDaniel.

Tip Tip Dig Dig by Emma Garcia is another book full of repetitive words. I love that the machines come to do something with the mess they find in a lot. What do they make? They create a nature playground.

We printed out a picture of a crane. JDaniel aggressively colored it with markers. I cut out the outline of the crane so that you could see that it is indeed a crane.

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A Garbage Truck Can Be A Parade Float

July 2, 2010 By Deirdre

We read a number of books about the Fourth of July this week. Grandma Drove the Garbage Truck by Katie Clark was our favorite by far. Grandma usually runs the office and her sons drive the truck and collect the garbage. On July 4th all three of her sons are sick and it is up to Grandma and her grandson Billy to collect the garbage before the parade. There is a problem. Grandma can barely see over the steering wheel of the truck and she doesn’t drive well. She gets her mailbox, one neighbor’s roses, and another neighbor’s clothesline wrapped around her truck in her attempt to collect garbage. She also ends up at the front of the parade with a ribbon for Most Creative Float. JDaniel thought this book was really funny.

I decided to make JDaniel a garbage truck and have him decorate it. He had a blast.

JDaniel painted it with Bingo markers.

He added stickers to decorate his truck.

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Books on Summer and Craft

June 25, 2010 By Deirdre

We read a lot of books this week most of them about construction equipment and trains. We did fit in two books about summer.

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It’s Summer by Jimmy Pickering is a fun book about a girl and her dog enjoying the season. They love all the aspects of summer from when it’s hot finding a cool water spot to selling lemonade, meeting a crustacean on the beach, and so much more. We love rhymes at my house and this book is all in rhyme.

The second book we read is called Alaska’s 12 Days of Summer by Pat Chamberlin-Calamar. This wonderful book could be sung to the 12 Days of Christmas literally. The sheet music is the back of the book. JDaniel loved looking for the animals on each page. As your progress from one to twelve, the animals move all over the page to make room for new animals. I loved the facts that were on the bottom of the page about each animal.

Art Project

After reading the books, JDaniel painted a paper plate with an orange bingo marker. The sunspots are where he got a hold of a blue bingo marker and added a little blue to the project. On the outside of the plate, we glued tracings on his hand.

Bug Books and Other Bug Related Activities

June 11, 2010 By Deirdre

We loved working with bugs this week. JDaniel has been so into trains and construction equipment. Bugs were a great diversion.

Books

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We read two bug-related books this week:

The Very Greedy Bee by Steve Smallman is about a bee that decides not to share a wonderful field of flowers he has found with his other hive mates. He eats it all himself and grows to big to fly. He needs the help of other insects to make it home. This book has a great lesson on sharing and helping others.

The Delicious Bug by Janet Perlman is also a book on sharing. The two lizards on the cover both catch the same bug. Neither one wants to let go of the plump bumble bug. They have an argument with their tongues out that takes them all around the pond they live near. The lizards have to learn to share and how to apologize to their neighbors for their rude behavior.

Language

JDaniel was asked to select a letter and put it in a construction paper hive. He preferred to put them in his dump truck.

The printout for the hive came from First School. The letter bees came from Toddler Toddler.

Math

We used an old juice bottle a bee hive to place the correct number of bugs in and later dump them out.

We made a bug out of two take-home boxes from Cracker Barrel. We went to Cracker Barrel while visiting with my mother-in-law this week.

Music

THE BUGS ARE MARCHING INTO TOWN

Tune: “When Johnny Comes Marching Home Again”

The bugs are marching into town, hooray! Hooray!

The bugs are in a great big Bug Parade.

Some are black and some are red.

Some have antennae on their heads.

Oh, we’re oh so glad the bugs could come today.

Jean Warren

The song was taken from Preschool Express.

Memorial Day Book and Craft

June 3, 2010 By Deirdre

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This week JDaniel and I read the book Memorial Day Suprise by Theresa Martin Golding. It is a really fun story that talks about a young boy learning about Memorial Day, parades, and the fact that his grandfather is a war hero.

JDaniel and I made a Memorial Day musical shaker to parade around the house with. I stapled the stars around two paper plates that were filled with dried pasta. JDaniel added the stickers.

We really enjoyed marching around the house with his shaker as we had our own parade.

Retelling or Reenacting Muncha! Muncha! Muncha!

May 20, 2010 By Deirdre

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JDaniel and I read the book Muncha! Muncha! Muncha! by Candace Fleming about three rabbits that use their cunning to outsmart Mr. McGreely who is trying to keep them out of his garden. He puts up a wire fence and then a wall. Then he makes a moat and a huge structure. While they can’t get over the huge structure, they outsmart him by entering the structure in his harvesting basket.

I decided it would be fun to try retelling and reenacting this fun book with JDaniel this week.

Retelling Activity

I made a flipbook for JDaniel on the Read Write Think website. If you haven’t been to it, you really need to. You can create a book that is designed and illustrated completely online or you can create the pages online and use the print outs to illustrate your book. I put in the name of each way the rabbits outsmarted Mr. McGreely at the bottom of a flipbook page. JDaniel helped me look for fruit and vegetable pictures in magazines to place on the garden page. I cut out pieces of construction to represent each of the structures Mr. McGreely used to try to restrict the rabbits and then set JDaniel lose with his crayons. Once the pictures were done we could retell the events in Muncha! Muncha! Muncha! as we flipped through his book.

Reenacting Activity

JDaniel and I gathered up three of his stuffed rabbits and then started building structures that Mr. McGreely used to try to keep them out of his garden. I took JDaniel’s plants and put them a construction paper fence about the casserole dish that contained them. Then we lifted up the dish and put a shoebox to represent the wall. Next, we put blue paper under the shoebox to represent the moat. Finally, we put all of it into a cardboard box. JDaniel had a lot of fun trying to help the rabbits get to the garden.

Children’s Books on Flower Gardens and a Circular Flower

May 14, 2010 By Deirdre

This week we have been reading books on flower gardens. I thought I knew which book JDaniel would like best and I was wrong. He really loves the book with the most detailed drawings and just a few words.

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We read:

Mortimer’s First Garden by Karma Wilson is about a mouse that decides to plant his last sunflower seed instead of eating it when he hears the people in his house say that planting seeds makes more seeds.

A Cottage Garden Alphabet is a beautifully illustrated book by Andrea Wisnewski. We have read it many times this week. I have walked in on him gazing at the pages on his own.

Zinna’s Flower Garden by Monica Wellington follows Zinna’s garden as it grows. She documents its growth in journal entries.

JDaniel made his own flowers by gluing circles onto paper plates. They made their way very quickly to the refrigerator.

Plethora of Painting and Mother Day Books

May 6, 2010 By Deirdre

JDaniel and I went to Creating Artists for Tomorrow ( an art center for children) with the Mom Later Than Sooner Group we belong to. He had the best time painting with and on all kinds of mediums. Yes, he even painted on a tree.

I was hoping to send some of his work to my mom and mother-in-law for Mother’s Day. We read several books about creating Mother’s Day presents. Right now the pictures are on the fridge where JDaniel hung them to admire. I may have to sneak two down while he sleeps and slip them into envelopes.

Here are some pictures of our painting adventure. I have also placed a list of the books we read below.

Here is some of his work:

He painted this by rolling golf balls through paint.

Two of these were made by dropping water on the paper and spraying the paper with colored water. The dots on the upper right were made using paint stamps and salt.

Here are the books we read:
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This great book called My Mom by Anthony Browne is about how a mom can do anything. This mom can sing, make anything grow, and make her child happy when she is sad. The floral design in the mom’s shirt appears in every illustration.