My Perpetual Calendar

Two of my grand children will be moving to our city and I will be looking after them part time.  I have set up my front room as Nana's Preschool.

I have been doing on line story times with them for the past year.  They have been interested in time and counting down the days so I created a calendar that they can use to explore days of the week, months, numbers, seasons and the whole year.

Here was my process.

 I started by painting peg dolls for the days of the week.

I found the holder at a thrift store.  It's for votive candles.  Perfect with seven holes.

I started with a round that was cut out of a table.  The table was used for a sensory bin for the little ones.

I cut the tree from a pressed board using a scroll saw.  I also cut an extra top so I have enough for all the seasons.  I had originally planned on using pegdolls for the months but you'll see later on that I changed my mind.

The round was painted and I sketched on my tree roots.

The round is split into four sections for the seasons of the year and painted with slightly different shades of blue.  Spring being the lightest and winter the darkest.

I painted the tree trunk next.  It will sit in the centre of the board and be able to turn as the month go by.

The tree tops and matching roots were painted next.  I chose pink blossoms for spring, green leaves for summer and coloured leaves for autumn.  The branches are left bare for winter.

I found a big bag of these little door knobs at the thrift store and decided to use them for the months.

Here it is all finished.  Sorry I didn't take any pictures of painting the numbers on the blocks.

The months are held on to the wood with magnets.

My little weather gnomes are placed around the calendar. 

All ready for the little ones to arrive.  Just a few more weeks and they will be living with us for about a month and a half til they can move into their own house.

Peg Dolls

 For the past couple of years I've been having fun making toys for my grand children.  Here are some of the peg dolls that I've painted to go with our favourite books.

 

Goldilocks and the Three Bears

                                                                    Room on the Broom

The Three Little Pigs

Owl Babies

Caps for Sale

Five Little Monkeys

Grumpy Bird

  

  Pete the Cat

I Love my White Shoes

and His Four Groovy Buttons.

What's in the Tub Tuesday?

Our newest book is Mouse Paint.  It's a great book to introduce and reinforce colours.

I made some paint for the little ones to use.

One of the twins is still putting things in her mouth so I decided to use an instant pudding mix as the base and added food colouring.

Here's our red, blue and yellow paint.

(Although the blue is a bit more green than I preferred).

I took their sensory table, turned it upside down and wrapped it in plastic.

The plastic was recycled from a big item that I had purchased.

The girls were excited.

The twins hadn't used paint brushes before and they didn't put theirs down the whole time we were painting. 

They shared the paint pots adding a new element of colour mixing.

(like the mice in the book)

Since it was new they didn't limit themselves to painting on the plastic.

 I brought out some paper to give them another alternative than their bodies.

The older one has a much different hand grip on the brush.

She has been painting before and can manipulate the brush for big and small strokes.

Here's the reason that the paint is made out of pudding.

But using pudding makes the paint sticky.

And they were all pretty sticky by the time they were done.

So like the mice, in Mouse Paint, they needed a bath.

Which they were surprised to have outside but loved it.

Plastic Cups

I brought some plastic drinking cups for the girls to explore.

First they pulled them all apart.

They looked like they were wondering what do you do with all these cups.

Then they started to pretend to drink from them.

Next they tried to put them on different body parts

and discovered that they fit well on their hands.

So we sang a little song and used them as musical instruments.

They discovered that the cups are fun to kick, they don't hurt their toes and they make noise.

They also discovered that this size can be hard to pick up.

Once they mastered that they begun to try to stack them.

It was easier to stack them when they are upside down.

And they were worked so well together building a tower.

And sometimes carrying more than one cup at a time.

I left the cups on the speaker for them to go back to.

Which they did and kept stacking and unstacking.

Another simple item you wouldn't think of a toy but offers much fun and exploration.