Fireworks

This weekend we have a 3 day weekend because Monday is the 4th of July. This weeks theme will be just that - 4th of July/Fireworks.

We did a fun, slightly messy project this morning using toilet paper tubes and paint to create fireworks. I found this project on Happiness is Homemade.

I cut slits 1.5 to 2" long all along one end of a toilet paper tube and bent them back  (it kind of looked like an extra tentacled octopus). 

We had one each for red, white and blue. Actually we had two sets for the four kids to use. Then they dipped each tune in its designated color and created stamps. I showed them to overlap the colors, resulting in a fireworks pattern.

Robot worksheets

Things have been a little extra busy around here so I haven't been updating the blog daily. Yesterday we did Robot Do-A-Dot worksheets from the free downloadable worksheet pack from Homeschool Creations.

Today, we did a 9 piece Robot puzzle from the same set of downloads.

Robots!

We never quite got around to a project yesterday, partly because what I had planned was a bit too ambitious for a 2, 3 and 4 year old. Today's project was mostly just using a glue stick for them.

I printed out two pages of 6 different sets of robot parts. The kids picked which body parts they wanted and I cut them out. Then they glued and assembled them into robots. 

Frozen super heroes

I saved this extra fun project for today - Sutton's 3rd birthday. Last night I froze two super heroes each per bowl of water. 

Then, this morning we went outside with some cheap, small water guns and squirted the blocks of ice to free the people. Technically some were villians, but I reasoned that they were all enemies of Mr. Freeze. 

The kids had fun, but they were starting to lose patience by the time the people started breaking free. Luckily, once we started getting some free of the ice they wanted to finish the job.

Superhero Worksheets

Today, after reading some Batman books and playing outside for a long time, we did a quick Superhero worksheet before lunch.

You can download a whole Superhero worksheet pack from here for free. 

Spiderman handprints

It's finally superhero week! I purposely scheduled this for summer when my summertime daycare kid would be here. It's also Sutton's birthday week and all of the kids are into super heroes. In fact, Sutton will have a PJ Masks birthday cake for her party this weekend.

Today's project was a Spiderman handprint. After stamping each hand red (Lucian's the only child who painted his own hand red), I thought how quickly that had gone. It took much longer to finish the second part though.

After the red handprints were dry, I added white eyes. While the kids ate lunch (and the paint was dry), I added in the webs, and spider with a black sharpie. The kids were quite surprised I turned that red handprint into a spider!


Our Super hero book today was 10 Rules of Being a Superhero by Deb Pilutti. The book is fun, with great illustrations.

Name rockets

We made "rocket ships" today for our last day of space week. 

I cut everything out and wrote the letters. For 3/4 of the kids I mixed them up so they could find them and put them in the correct order. Then they needed to glue them on.

This helped with letter recognition and their glueing skills. I thought the oldest would cut his own squares, but he wanted nothing to do with cutting.  Lucian was able to put the letters in the correct order, however he turned a few sideways. 

Space sticker sheets

Have you ever purchased the Design A Scene stickers from Oriental Trading Company? I've been buying them for many years now. They are great for kids of all ages to do. I happened to have a space one, so our project today was  a sticker sheet.

I usually save what stickers they don't use on their sheets for various other sticker uses/projects. Then I watch for free shipping from Oriental Trading and buy some more! 

Paper plate aliens

We took last week off and enjoyed a more relaxed schedule last week. I had 5 days off over Memorial Day weekend. We did lots of gardening (flower and vegetable), some swimming at my parents, visited my brother who was camping, went to the park and ice cream stand, played lots of games, and just spent time together. Saturday we also went to the monthly Home Depot Kids Workshop where the kids made cell phone holder trophies. We did more gardening, errands and swimming.

When our daycare friend returned Thursday we spent two days just paying inside and outside and didn't do any projects. It was actually nice to have a week "off." We are ready to start a new theme though, so it's time for Outer Space Week! Another daycare kid (age 6) will be back part-time this summer as well, so some days we will be a group of 4.

Today's easy project came from Glued To My Crafts.  I really loved this project because even though she had a template of how it was done, we were able to really individualize each alien based on each kids thoughts on how their alien should look.


First, the kids covered their small paper plates with glue. Then, they laid small squares of tissue paper all over the plates. You can cut your own tissue paper, but I have some from Oriental Trading Company that are pre-cut.

When they had their plates covered, they glued eyes on the plates, and then used pom-poms, paper and pipe cleaners to finish designing their aliens. They really enjoyed making these.

Sutton and Lucian's had pipe cleaner legs.