Homemade Easel

This was the final post from 2018 that I'm just having a chance to finish.

My grand daughter likes to paint on the easel at StrongStart

so I decided to make one for her at home.

My daughter had a box, that is similar to a pizza box, that I used to create the easel.

I opened it all the way up and taped it to her sensory table.

I taped a clear tray to the bottom and inserted a paper clip to hold the paper.

I decide to use waterpaint cakes instead of liquid paint for a couple of reasons.

One they don't need to be covered.

Two they are less messy.

Three she can use them any time she wants without assistance.

The Twins Christmas Tree

For my younger grand daughters (they just turned 1) I made a tree from a cardboard box.

I found these amazing screws, for cardboard, at a store in Vancouver.

They work like a charm and hold the cardboard pieces together so simply and firmly.

I cut one hole in each side and finished off the edges with tape.

I gave the girls a basket each full of balls.

 Some balls were smooth, ruff, prickly, small, big, rubber, plastic and some have lights inside that shine when they are hit or dropped.

After they spent time checking out all the balls I showed them how the balls can disappear into the tree.

The balls that light up are great motivators for the little ones to look through the holes.

 It didn't take them long to figure out to drop the ball through the hole

but getting it out again was a challenge.

 These two are quite physical so it wasn't a surprise to see the tree tipped on to it's side.

 Which seemed like a perfect invitation to go inside.

If one tries it then the other often does too.

I think they like all the balls the best.

A couple of days later I visited again to see they were trying to get the ball out through the hole.  I noticed that she tried with both arms.

When that didn't work she went around to the open end.

It may be a proud Nana talking but I think they are clever.

Who Lives in a Tree?

I built a tree around our tube stand and cut out some holes for our stuffed animals to live inside.

The Little One loved it!

The bird's nest is right at her level so that was the first stuffy to come out.

Once it was out she played with the flap, opening and closing it.

Then she decided to put her baby doll inside.

Next onto exploring the rest of the animals that live in a tree.

We have a fox, raccoon, deer, squirrels, chipmunk, skunk, eagle, robin, owl, crow and baby birds in a nest.

One day I caught her using her saw pretending to cut the hole.

I found these paint sticks at Michaels when I had a half off coupon.

We decided to try them out to colour our tree.

They work great.

They go on smooth, there is no dripping and they dry quickly.

While our tree dried we visited the Little One's cousins and went for a walk.

We saw these decorated trees.

All wrapped to keep them warm for winter?

 Back at home we had one more thing to do to our tree and that was to add some more leaves.

The Little One loves tape and had fun putting the leaves on, taking them off and putting them on again.

We think it looks pretty good.