DIY Fine Motor Skills Craft for Toddlers with Pipe Cleaners

Posted in activities for kids by Rosemary Lynn

DIY Fine Motor Skills Craft for Toddlers with Pipe Cleaners at RoamingRosie.com

I like to make homemade activities for my girls by recycling things we have around the house.

We use pipe cleaners {or chenille sticks} fairly often, so we’ve always got those on hand. I usually get them at the dollar store.

For this project, I used 4 pipe cleaners and cut them into inch-long pieces with a pair of strong scissors.

Then, the goal was simply to put them into an old spice container.

This is the type of spice container that holds dried herbs, like parsley or oregano. You’ll notice the top has only 6 large holes.

It’s a great way to work on fine motor skills and helps with prewriting skills.

The only drawback to this is that the metal inside the pipe cleaners can be a little sharp. There are a couple of ways around this. One: ignore it. And two: use pliers to curve over the very ends of the metal pieces, making sure that the sticks still fit through the holes in the spice container.

We chose option one.

Really, it’s not terribly sharp and you can insert them without pushing the ends anyway if you manipulate the pieces by holding them on the fuzzy part. Or pushing gently, which is what I showed my girls.

Or, if you’re really worried about it, you could just use pieces of yarn instead.

My favorite part is that all the little pieces fit inside the container, and, thus, it is self-contained and easy to store.

For more kid activities using items around the house, check out:

Practice Measuring with Rice

Painting With Chalk

Our Colorful Backyard: Color Matching Activity for Kids

Blustery Day Water Play

Free Kid Activity: Developing Fine Motor Skills with Crayons

Pretend Play: Makeup

Free Kid Activity: Chalk on Construction Paper

Free Kid Activity: Painting Newspaper

Make Your Own Color Shadows

Dirt Soup: In Contact With Creation

Have fun!

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5Sep2014

Letter C: Free Alphabet Worksheets for Kids

Posted in activities for kids, alphabet activities, free worksheets & printables by Rosemary Lynn

If you’re new here, please read the Introduction to the Alphabet Activities first!

Here are all of the printable PDFs for the Letter C. They are free for home and classroom use, but please don’t sell them.

C is for Camel

C is for Candy

C is for Car

C is for Clocks

C is for Counting Colorful Cats 1

C is for Counting Colorful Cats 2

C is for Cow and Cheese

C is for Crab

C is for Types of Clouds

And don’t forget to check out all of our Letter C Alphabet Activities.

Follow me on Facebook and Pinterest to see my latest posts.

Have fun!

11Aug2014

Painting Birdhouses With The Kids

Posted in activities for kids, books & book reviews, toys & games & gifts by Rosemary Lynn

painting birdhouses

My kids were SO excited about this project.

I hadn’t realized that picking up a couple of $1 wooden birdhouses at the store could make a day so very eventful.

It was pretty awesome.

Anyway, the reason we even went looking for birdhouses was because of this book that was given to us by a neighbor:

This First Discovery book about Birds was something I thought looked kind of fun, but I wasn’t sure how my kids would respond to it.

Surprisingly, it’s been requested over and over again at bedtime.

Even though it’s a learning book and not a story book, both my 4yo and 2yo enjoy reading it.

This is partially because they love all kinds of books where they get to discover things (the 4yo often requests a book that spells out the life cycle of butterflies) but also because of the fun way they allow kids to “discover” the facts about their subject matter.

This series of books includes transparent pages.

The transparent pages are printed with pictures on both sides and “hide” part of the page that’s underneath it. When you turn the page it reveals the hidden image.

My daughter calls these the “puzzle pages.”

And, from looking at the pictures of others in the series on the back cover, she’s already ardently requested that we get the ladybug book.

Thus, a ladybug and a dinosaur book are in a box on the way to my house right now. And I will be buying more in the future.

If you think your kids would love this kind of interactive learning, too, here are a few others in the series for you to view:

Do you own any of these books already? Which are your kids’ favorites? Your favorite?

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21May2014

Children’s Picture Books by David Wiesner {Book Reviews}

Posted in books & book reviews by Rosemary Lynn

Children's Picture Books by David Wiesner {a book review}

I recently sat down with my daughters and “read” some of David Wiesner’s books to them.

I put “read” in quotes because most of these books have little or no words.

But the pictures… well, the illustrations are breathtaking.

I was a little nervous when I first saw them. I was afraid maybe the illustrations were too intricate to hold a preschooler’s and a toddler’s attention.

I was wrong.

My 4-year-old would ask me to tell her the story, and then we’d flip through the book again and she’d tell me the story. My 2-year-old would point out all the little details as we read. They both requested the books over and over.

I’d borrowed as many as I could find from the local library, because I didn’t know yet if they were worth the investment to purchase them. But now I know my girls love them.

I narrowed down my daughters’ favorites to two: Flotsam and Sector 7.

Flotsam

Flotsam is a tale of a young boy who discovers an old camera while exploring the shore.

He digs it out of the sand and develops the film.

What he finds in the photos is, quite simply, amazing.

There are sea turtles with tiny cities growing on their shells. Sea horses watching tiny aliens play. And so very much more.

I enjoy this book at least as much, if not more, than my girls.

Here are some images from Flotsam:

Children's Picture Books by David Wiesner: Flotsam

Sector 7

Sector 7 is the story of a young boy visiting the Empire State Building on a school field trip.

While on the observation deck, he meets a curious character: a mischievous cloud.

They become fast friends and the cloud takes the boy to on a trip up into the sky. They visit Sector 7, the Cloud Dispatch Center, where clouds receive their instructions about how they should be shaped and where they are to go.

The boy happens to be an artist, and the clouds happen to love his sketches. The clouds decide to replicate these sketches, and mayhem ensues.

Here are some images from Sector 7:

Children's Picture Books by David Wiesner: Sector 7

While those two are our favorites, Wiesner has some other gems as well. Similar books include:

Tuesday

On Tuesday, strange things happen. This Tuesday, lilypad-riding frogs take to the skies, exploring the town by air.

Free Fall

In Free Fall, a young boy falls asleep with a book in his arms and visits magical, far-away lands and the knights, castles, and dragons within.

Hurricane

In Hurricane, two young brothers see a tree fall to the earth during a storm. It becomes their playground, representing everything from a pirate ship to an exotic jungle.

June 29, 1999

In June, 29, 1999, a young girl’s science project of vegetable seeds is launched into the atmosphere, has an extraterrestrial encounter, and we find out what happens when lima beans loom over Levittown and artichokes advance on Anchorage.

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30Apr2014

Our Easter Resurrection Garden

Posted in activities for kids, holidays by Rosemary Lynn

Easter Resurrection Garden

The Easter Resurrection Garden is a craft that’s been floating around Pinterest for awhile, and this year, I decided to make one with my girls.

They love gardening, and physical, interactive representations of stories are a great teaching tool.

Ever since we made the Garden, my daughter has been talking about it and asking me to tell Jesus’ story every time we to out into the backyard.

Plus, it gave them an opportunity to get their hands dirty. Pretty much an “all win” in my book.

So, here is our version of the Easter Resurrection Garden:

Easter Resurrection Garden

There are a lot of variations of this on the Net, and most of them include grass. We used flowers instead.

That may not make it geographically correct, but it matched our garden.

Anyway, the tools (which you see above) are pretty simple: some sort of large flower pot, a tiny flower pot, a rock, potting soil, and whatever embellishment you’re going to use, be it flowers or grass seed.

Fill your large pot with the soil, dig a bit of a hole to make room for the tiny pot, lay the tiny pot on its side, and cover it with the soil so that only the top of the pot is showing. This represents the cave. Place the rock near the mouth of the cave and add your embellishments.

Easter Resurrection Garden

My oldest daughter added even more flowers to her Resurrection Garden. She wanted some pink in there to go with the purple.

But, no matter how you decorate your garden, the main point is that you can use it to illustrate Jesus’ resurrection by removing the rock to show the empty “cave.”

I suggest reading a few Easter books, too, which is what we did. It was nice to go back and forth from our Garden to the colorful illustrations of the Easter story. Like these:

Have you tried this craft? Please share your stories with us!

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11Apr2014

Crackled and Marbled Easter Egg Decorating Tips

Posted in activities for kids, holidays by Rosemary Lynn

Easter is almost upon us!

So I wanted to post a couple of photos of some out-of-the-box egg decorating I did with my girls in the past: Crackled Easter Eggs and Marbled Easter Eggs with Shaving Cream.

1. Crackled Easter Eggs

Crackled Easter Eggs

These looked pretty awesome. And they’re super easy.

Here’s the process: take some cooled hard boiled eggs and gently roll them on the counter to produce cracks all around while making sure the shell does not fall off of the egg.

Put the cracked egg in a little baggy and add a few drops of liquid food coloring. Make sure the color covers the entire egg and let sit for a half hour.

Peel the egg and rinse it in a colander, splashing it with a bit of white vinegar to help the color set.

That’s it!

And they’re perfectly safe to eat, which is kind of fun, too. My daughter really loved these; called them “dinosaur eggs.”

2. Marbled Easter Eggs with Shaving Cream

Marbled Easter Eggs with Shaving Cream

These are also a ton of fun for kids to make.

To create them, fill a pan with shaving cream and drop some liquid food color into the pan (I did red and blue in one pan and yellow and green in another). Gently swirl the colors with a toothpick or skewer, then roll the eggs in the shaving cream until covered.

Let the eggs sit on a paper plate or paper towel for 15 or 20 minutes, then wipe off the shaving cream.

That’s it!

Both projects are simple but fun. The only thing you have to watch out for is getting food coloring on your clothing, because it stains. I suggest having your kids wear aprons.

Happy Crafting!

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24Mar2014

Vet Toys for Kids {Product Review}

Posted in toys & games & gifts, wanderings in the world & web by Rosemary Lynn

Vet Toys for Kids {a review}

My kids love animals. And playing doctor.

So, not surprisingly, they both got vet toys for Christmas.

And they loved them. Both my 2-year-old and 4-year-old loved their own toys and their sister’s toys. I’d gotten different things due to their age difference, but it didn’t seem to matter that much.

They also incorporated the Doc McStuffins Doctor Bag quite a bit.

For both girls I got on big vet toy and a smaller item to go with it. Specifically:

For my 4-year-old, I got the B. Toys Critter Clinic Toy Vet Play Set:

And the Learning Resources Tilt and View Animal X-Rays:

And then, for my 2-year-old, I got the Plush Animal Hospital House with Animals:

And the book Biscuit Visits the Doctor:

As I mentioned, they were both happy with all the toys, and all of them are still getting plenty of use a couple months after Christmas. I’m happy with all of the purchases, but wanted to elaborate a little for you.

First of all, I adore the B. Toys Critter Clinic Toy Vet Play Set for many reasons. From a mom’s standpoint, my favorite part is that it’s self-contained. That’s always a plus. All the toys fit in the top and you can also store them behind all the little doors. The plush cat and dog are cute and my girls both seem to like all of the vet tools that were included, like the stethoscope and syringe. But I think the best part is the set of keys. Each of the six doors is opened by only one of the six keys and the color of the key matches the color of the correct door. Granted, I can also use my fingernail to turn the lock, but my girls really enjoy locking and unlocking the doors with the keys.

The Tilt and View Animal X-Rays remind me a bit of toys I used to have in the 80s. You tilt them one way and you see one picture, and you tilt them another way to see a different picture. In this case, one picture is of an animal and the other picture is of that animal’s skeleton. And the back of the cards have the names of the animals and interesting facts for each species. There are 18 cards and the animals range from Green Sea Turtle to Barred Owl to Emperor Penguin. They’re supposed to be for slightly older kids, but both of my girls liked trying to “find” the bones. The cards don’t get as much play as the other vet toys, but my daughter definitely likes them, and has showed an interest in comparing the animals.

The Plush Animal Hospital House was what I gave to my youngest daughter because I thought it would be more age-appropriate for a two-year-old, but I find she plays with her sister’s Critter Clinic just as often if not more. Although this has more to do with the vet tools included in the Critter Clinic than the animals. She loves the dog, cat, bear, bird, and moose included in Plush Animal Hospital. She takes care of them, kissing their boo-boos and such. Many of the bandages on the animals can be opened to reveal boo-boos in the form of stitches. The animals are all soft and huggable, and it’s easy to put them in and take them back out of the plush house. Another toy with self-contained benefits. And a soft handle, which makes carrying it easy for little hands.

And then we come to Biscuit Visits the Doctor. My girls love Biscuit. We have many Biscuit books, and Biscuit is often requested at story time. So we’ve read this particular book many, many times. This is partially due to the doctor obsession brought on by Doc McStuffins, and also because Biscuit can be fun to read. My four-year-old laughs at his antics, chiming in with “silly puppy,” as my two-year-old quotes Biscuit right along with me: “woof, woof!” Either way, I highly recommend all Biscuit books for young kids, and especially this one for any kids remotely interested in doctors. I imagine it would also be good for kids that are afraid of the doctor, though I no longer have to worry about that, since my girls were cured of that through Doc McStuffins and Elmo.

Overall, I recommend all of the toys featured here, though especially the B. Toys Critter Clinic Toy Vet Play Set, which would be my vote if I had to choose which seemed to be the favorite out of all of them for my girls.

If you have any questions about the toys, please feel free to ask me!

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20Feb2014

Shamrock Fun for Kids on St. Patrick’s Day

Posted in activities for kids, holidays by Rosemary Lynn

shamrock suncather

I just noticed that my pin of the above Shamrock Sun Catcher has been re-pinned over 2,000 times on Pinterest. Reminded me that St. Patty’s Day is coming up.

I normally would have been much more aware of this, except that a massive sinus infection has recently melted my brain.

Anyway, the St. Patrick’s Day crafts I did with my kids last year are on one of my Squidoo lenses (St Patrick’s Day Crafts and Recipes for Kids), and include a few fun crafts that all resemble shamrocks.

Like our green dinner biscuits and chocolate shamrocks:

shamrock biscuits

chocolate shamrocks

You’ll find all of the instructions and step-by-step photos at St Patrick’s Day Crafts and Recipes for Kids.

Check it out and please share with me if you decide to make any of them!

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15Feb2014

The Incredible Book Eating Boy {Book Review}

Posted in books & book reviews by Rosemary Lynn

We loved this book.

I loved the illustrations and the words and the story, and my daughters seemed to love all of it.

As soon as our first reading of it ended, my 3-year-old said, “Can we read it again?”

That’s always a good sign.

So, The Incredible Book Eating Boy by Oliver Jeffers instantly made our list of favorites.

It’s a fun and slightly absurd story of a young boy named Henry who accidentally discovers that he likes to eat books. All kinds of books. And the more he eats, the smarter he gets. Until he eats too many, and things begin to get a bit jumbled and confused. Suddenly, it doesn’t seem like such a good idea to eat books anymore.

This makes Henry sad, until he realizes that – rather than eating them – he could read them instead! And he finds that he enjoys reading them even more than he enjoyed eating them. Although, when you read it yourself you’ll see that sometimes, quite by accident, Henry still takes a bite or two … as evidenced by the big chomp taken out of the back cover.

The gorgeous illustrations are so much fun. I find them to be delightful, as do my children, who scour the pages as I read. It’s definitely a book to be read by adults or older children, though, as it may be a bit too busy for emerging readers. But that’s the trade-off for the charm.

It’s recommended for kids 4 and up, but my 3-year-old loves it and my 20-month-old enjoys it as well. They are both engaged during the story. It spurs conversations and questions with my preschooler and my toddler likes to point out different objects, like the red books that Henry favors.

The Incredible Book Eating Boy by Oliver Jeffers

Oh – and don’t worry, on the back of the book is this “Disclaimer: Do Not Try to Eat This Book at Home.”

I completely recommend The Incredible Book Eating Boy.

So fun to read. Easy to devour. :)

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1Feb2014

Heart-Shaped Salt Dough Fingerprint Magnets

Posted in activities for kids by Rosemary Lynn