Decorating a Tree

Talking with my daughters, leading up to Christmas, they were both wondering if they should put up a real tree yet.  Or would their little ones be too curious and try to pull it down?

For my oldest grand daughter I found this big felt tree.

It is a big cone and has velcro that holds it together.

(makes it easy to flatten and store through the year).

She was excited to discover  all the decorations

and took time check out each one.

On the tree there are lots of red pompoms.

Each felt ornament has a string attached so it can be looped over the pompoms.

 I thought this would be challenging for her but she managed very well.

For a younger child the felt ornaments will easily stick to the felt tree.

Finally there is a star that sits on top.

They added lights and now have a toddler friendly Christmas tree.

Tomorrow I'll share what I made for the one year old twins.

Gingerbread Felt Man

I just love finding a great piece at the Dollar store.

Here is a felt gingerbread man with felt pieces to decorate.

It would have cost me much more to buy the felt and make this myself.

All I added was magnet strips to the back of the body so it could hang on the fridge instead of using a felt board.  

I'm always looking for things to use in the kitchen to keep her busy while I'm making dinner or cleaning up.

Here are a few of our ginger people:

She had to give the crying ginger kid a hug.

And of course we had to try moustaches on ourselves.

Another Excellent Thrift Store Find

This is our newest toy.  I found it at Value Village.

At first I thought it might be magnetic blocks but once

I opened the bag I realized they were connected by a cord

that runs through each.

 I think it probably started as a cube shape

 but the children were intrigued 

by how it moved and that they could change it's shape.

I know a toy is really good when the grown ups are just as interested

as the children.

A New Toy

Our Parent Advisory Council had grant money that the teachers could use to purchase

items for the gym.

I couldn't think of anything else we needed for the gym but I had seen

this toy on the Kodo site.

It's called a Half Round and it's four feet long.

I placed it on the carpet a couple of weeks ago and watched how the children 

and their parents interacted with it.

The infant and toddlers played in and on it.

Practicing crawling across it.

Being encouraged to stand beside it.

And climbing over it.

The older children figured out they could crawl through it.

Although I was surprised they could but

they made it through in doing the fire fighter crawl.

They also figured out how to rock it like a boat.

We added an alligator so they could scream when we sang 

Row, Row, Row Your Boat.

As the days went by they became more comfortable with it.

 Using their bodies to stand on it,

 slide across it,

and just be comfortable.

Predators

The children continue to play with our rabbit warren toy.

One day I overheard a family playing and talking about 

a fox chasing a rabbit.

I looked in my basket of animals but couldn't find a fox.

But it started the idea of 'predators'.

I did find a wolf, a cougar and some dogs.

All would either chase a rabbit to play or chase to eat it.

The rabbits slid down to hide in their burrow

while the predators barked above at the holes.

Over the weekend I went thrift store shopping 

and found a few more animals to add to our play.

One being a fox.