bookworm

I came across this sweet little scene today, and my heart pretty much melted on the spot.  Elise had taken Busy Piggies off her bookshelf, and was sitting, flipping through the pages all by herself.  Oh, how I adore this little person!  I hope her love for books and reading lasts a lifetime!

ripping things off the walls

"Oooaaaaaghhh!"  Thump thump thump thump, riiiiiiiiip!   

That's the sound of Elise crawling around the house, tearing pictures off the wall.  Ever since Elise was a newborn, I've been hanging pictures at her level along the walls.  She's enjoyed looking at cool calendar pages, postcards from faraway lands, and photos of herself, family, and friends.  

This was all fine and dandy until Elise became mobile.  Then, the pictures started coming off the walls.  Within seconds, they were crumpled, torn, and soaking wet.  While I cheered Elise's dexterity, I also mourned all the cool pictures we were going through, and worried about the ink and paper that was being ingested. 

That is, until I busted out the laminator.  I had forgotten about that thing!  When I was teaching, I used it all the time.

Anyway, I laminated a selection of photos - I tried to choose ones that were fairly close up, and showed Elise working in her environment or interacting with friends and family.  I rounded off all the sharp corners when I cut them out of the laminating plastic.

Once they were laminated and cut out, I stuck small pieces of sticky back velcro on the back's of the photos - I used the rough, hook side.

Then, I stuck larger pieces of sticky back velcro in various places around the house - I used the soft, loop side.

I can easily stick pictures all over the house this way, and Elise LOVES discovering them and pulling them off.  She'll spend a good portion of the morning crawling all around the house, looking at pictures.  It's so much fun to hear her squeal in delight when she discovers a picture of herself doing something fun.  Plus, when the velcro pulls apart, it makes a really satisfying ripping sound.

I keep laminating more photos and rotating them around to keep it interesting for Elise.  It would also be fun to laminate other small pictures, like magazine images of people and animals.  Eventually, Elise will be able to put them back on the walls herself, but in the meantime, it only takes me a few seconds to do it - and that's important! 

well, hello there!

It sure has been awhile!  Have you missed me?  ;)  I have most definitely missed the blog world, and lately I've been feeling pretty inspired to give it a go again.  I'd like to introduce you to my biggest inspiration, my lovely new little friend and daughter, Elise.  She was born last July, and I am head over heals for her - sorry Hubs and Rosie, but you've kind of been replaced.  Ha, ha!  JK!  I still love my husband and dog -  having a sweet baby is just the icing on the cake.  Anyway, I've stopped teaching to stay at home with Elise.  I miss all my little pupils back at the Montessori preschool, but I am having lots of fun making materials and creating a Montessori environment for Elise here at home.  I've gotten many great ideas online (umm, pinterest is incredible!!!), and I'm ready to start sharing what Elise and I have been up to here on the blog.  There!  Now you're caught up with me, so what's new with you?    

peep, peep!

Happy Easter,

friends!!!

recycled egg crown tutorial

We wanted to celebrate Earth Day AND Easter, so we decided to make some festive eggs crowns using materials from our classroom recycling bin.  It was sort of a fusion of two projects I'd seen on the Crafty Crow:  Sew Together's Easter Egg Crown and El Hada De Papel's Easy Yarn Easter Egg Tutorial.  The children LOVED making these eggs.  Sometimes I feel like crafty projects require a little too much adult assistance, but this one was just right for the 3 to 4-year-olds in my classroom.  Anyway, anyone who's anyone around here wants one of these crowns, so I decided to put together a little tutorial.  Here it goes!
 

  What you'll need:

• broken down cracker boxes
• old catalogs, magazines, paper, etc.  {we also used unclaimed child artwork}
• sissors
• glue
• marker

DISCLAIMER:  I keep forgetting to take photos at school, so I put this tutorial together at home.  At school, we used a glue stick rather than Elmer's and we most definitely DID NOT use a Sharpie marker for tracing!
 

Draw an egg-shaped oval on the inside of the box.  The one above is free-handed; at school, we used a stencil.  

Cut up magazines and paper into strips.  Our strips were all 1/4 to 1 inch wide.  It doesn't really matter how long they are - it's kind of fun if they're different lengths.

Cut out the egg-shape and apply glue to one side.

Stick paper strips to the egg-shape until it's entirely covered.

 

At this point, the children were pretty curious about why I had covered up the egg-shape...

They were SO excited to see that the egg was on the other side - it was a little like a magic trick!  Love them!

Cut around the egg-shape, using the edge of the cardboard as a guide.

Turn it over, and now you have a lovely paper egg!  Oooooooo! Aaaaaaahhhh!

AND, if you are so inclined, staple, glue, or tape several of these eggs to a longer strip of paper attached at the ends, and you'll have a fabulous crown!

I picked Hubs up from work wearing the crown and these sunglasses, and he was definitely impressed! 


Happy weekend!