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.

Individual Smoosh Painting

We did an art activity with the Little One and her cousins last month.

Start with a canvas board and give your little one pieces of tape to stick down.

I think this was her favourite part of the activity.

Next squeeze paint all over.  I chose the three primary colours.

Then cover it with Saran Wrap and tape it on the back.

Finally put it on a flat surface and let them smoosh.

When they are done take the Saran Wrap off, let the paint dry a bit and then peel the tape away.

The Results!

 At the same time that the Little One was painting her even younger cousins were starting.

It was a beautiful summer day so we did this outside.

They are just crawling and I noticed that they used their whole bodies more than their older cousin.

Occasionally they would stop to try a pinch and a poke.

Then head off crawling again.

Their mom did the tape work for them.

st-Art-ing the Life Cycle

Here are a few art activities we did while waiting for our caterpillars.

Using styrofoam sheets I carved a leaf pattern,

the children used it to make prints.

The child above asked for coloured paint after making her leaf.

She added a caterpillar.

Which was an awesome idea and other children copied her idea.

Next we did the same process and made flower prints.

Then another day we used straws to make flowers.

 And finally on the day our larvae arrived we made little caterpillars to add to our

bulletin board.

 We often put out pipe cleaners and beads because the children

love stringing them together.

I love watching them increase their fine motor and eye-hcontrol.

When they finished making their caterpillars we glued them onto the bulletin board.