Beading a Necklace

A few days ago we were doing some activities and I found this necklace kit that I had bought a while back. Little Bug worked on some fine motor skills by beading the necklace. She did it all herself. She did a great job too! 

 She started sitting down

 The "concentration" face

 Lifting the string up that was taped to the table to slide the bead down

Although we don't normally stand on chairs (unless she helps me in the kitchen) I told her it would be easier to  stand up and hold the string to allow the bead to slide down the string. 

I wish I had a picture of the finished product but while she was taking it off the string broke and the beads fell off (thank goodness it was on the carpet and not on a wooden floor or they would have been everywhere!) Maybe we'll put it back together another day. 

Bubble Painting

I've actually done bubble painting before before Little Bug was even born. For a friend's bridal shower we went to Color Me Mine, which is a place where you can paint pottery, and we made her pieces of pottery for her house as gifts. I made a vase and used the bubble painting technique. I guess I just forgot about that way to paint until  I saw it recently on Meet the Dubiens .

I thought Little Bug would have a fun time bubble painting. I know I had fun when I did that 3 years ago. So we followed the directions and had a great time. It can get messy so you probably want to get the painting area ready first with an old tablecloth and a smock! I wasn't thinking when I kept Little Bug's clothes on - she didn't get too much on her shirt but as she was blowing the bubbles she blew a little too hard and paint got on her shirt and was speckled all over her arms and face! 

After that happened  I got smart and had her put on one of my old T-shirts from when I was a little kid. 

Next time we do this activity I will also use tempera paint. The only variety of colors I had were acrylic paints so we used those. The only other paints we have in the house now are watercolors, color wonder paints, and finger paints. So looks like I need to make a Michael's run! 

Little bug did a great job being careful and blowing bubbles. We practiced blowing bubbles before hand just to make sure that she wouldn't inhale the paint and dish detergent. It was a lot of trial and error our first time - several times we added more detergent and more paint to get a brighter color. 

 The supplies: water, paint, dish detergent, cups, and straws. We didn't use paper cups because of them getting soggy. We used plastic cups instead.

 Mixing up the paint, water, and soap

 Blowing bubbles (now with my old softball shirt on!)

 More bubbles and part of our painting

 Wow! Look at those bubbles!

To get the design below just put the paper over the bubbles and pop them (gently of course!)

Our final picture

Practicing Numbers

Little Bug already can recognize the numbers 1-10 and can count to 20 but one of my favorite sayings is "If you don't use it you lose it" so we continue to practice with numbers in a variety of ways just so she doesn't "forget" the numbers. For this activity we used little pom poms and glued them onto the numbers - in touch math style. For those who may not know what touch math is, it's a strategy used to count, add, etc by placing touch points on each number. For example, number 1 has one touch point or "dot", number 2 has 2 touch points, number 3 has 3, etc. Little Bug glued the pom poms (and later pasta because we ran out of pom poms) onto the touch points of each number. While doing the activity I told her to pick a number, name it, and then glue. 

 You can always tell when she is concentrating because she sticks her tongue out when she is working! 

 We put the glue on the dots first and then she placed the pom poms on the dots

 Colorful numbers

And when we ran out of pom poms we used Ditalini

Muffin Tin Monday: Little Bug's Favorites

This past Monday for Muffin Tin Monday I hadn't really planned anything out so I just decided to go with all of Little Bug's favorite things. Oddly enough though she didn't finish it all  but she did eat most of it. Here is what she had:

Top Left: Macaroni with Alfredo sauce,  a granola ball, shredded cheese (yes she just loves eating this as is)

Bottom left: blueberries and strawberries, a ham slice, and potato smiles

Little Bug still loves Muffin Tin Monday. In fact, one day last week she made me my own muffin tin lunch. She brought it into me and said "Here's your muffin tin lunch mommy!" It was too cute!

Here is my muffin tin lunch: a cupcake, an orange slice, lettuce, broccoli (I can't tell - it's plastic!) and a peanut butter and jelly sandwich

To see other Muffin Tin Meals head on over to Muffin Tin Mom

Glue and Sprinkle Designs

Little Bug just loves doing crafty things and I do to..............but sometimes I don't always like the mess. When I would do crafty projects with my students when I used to teach first and second grade I never really used glitter - because again, that is just too messy! Sure, it's nice and sparkly and pretty but so hard to get rid of. I am sure Little Bug would just LOVE glitter. I'm positive she would. But I got to thinking and I thought that she loves sprinkles too. So why not substitute sprinkles for glitter?? And that's just what we did! 

So we ended up doing glue and sprinkle designs on paper plates. It's kinda like decorating cookies in a way - minus the cookie (which is better for me anyways because I LOVE cookies!) Basically I took a paper plate, used an Elmer's clear glue bottle and made a design on the plate with the glue. Next, I used colorful sprinkles (blue and red because it was around the 4th of July that we did this ) and sprinkled them over the glue. I did everything on a cookie sheet so that when we were done I could just throw the excess sprinkles into the trash.  Of course before I had the chance to do that Little Bug had her hands in the sprinkles eating them. While I started cleaning up she touched the glue (with sprinkles) on the plate and put that in her mouth (and quickly spit it out!!!) I guess she learned her lesson fast that we don't eat the glue.  (Come on I'm sure someone out there in their elementary years tried to eat some of the paste that teachers used to put in baby food jars!) 

Anyways, this was a quick, easy, and cheap craft for us - and I just love those kind!

 squirting the glue onto the plate 

 really pushing hard - those glue bottles make 3 year olds use their muscles! 

 adding blue sprinkles to her plate 

 and now the red

 this was my plate - the sprinkles actually end up melting into the glue

 and here is Little Bug's blob!

licking of a few sprinkles (plate with glue removed by this point!) 

Birthday Pancakes

Little Bug had her 3rd birthday last week and I wanted to do something special for her for breakfast. She had her fill of sugar and cake on her birthday and the day after during her playgroup birthday party and family get together so on Monday I thought I'd make her some birthday pancakes. She was very excited and whenever I make her colorful pancakes she cleans the plate and is always asking for more!

Muffin Tin Monday: Under the Sea

Last week Little Bug's friend came down and I made her, her sister, and Little Bug a muffin Tin lunch. I decided to do an under the sea theme. The girls really seemed to like it. Little bug finished most of hers and the others finished all of theirs! 

Top left: goldfish crackers, watermelon starfish, the beach (blue pudding and Nilla wafer sand)

Bottom left: pretzel and peanut butter fishing poles (to catch the goldfish), a strawberry and mozzarella cheese jellyfish, and a hot dog octopus with ketchup

To see more muffin tin creations go to Muffin Tin Mom for inspiration! 

Making Music

Little bug just LOVES music. Whether it is singing, dancing, or playing instruments she has a really fun time. We often have mini dance parties in our living room and she loves when I dance with her. It's fun but once I start dancing with her I keep hearing "Mommy do it again" over and over and over! I love dancing myself but when I dance with Little Bug I act goofy which is why she probably likes watching me dance so much! 

Little Bug has several instruments - a keyboard, an electronic drum pad, a tambourine, and maracas. I thought we could also make some instruments of our own. We used wine glasses filled with different levels of water for different notes and I added food coloring so that she could see the water level. She used the end of a plastic paintbrush to tap on the glasses and I showed her how to tap it very gently. I stood right by her, not only because she was tapping on glass but also because she was up on the counter doing it! 

Next week I think we may make some new instruments out of my empty spice containers and an oatmeal container so stay tuned! 

 It takes a lot of talent to play wine glass bells AND eat a dinosaur cookie! 

Here you can see the different water levels 

Muffin Tin Monday: It's a Jungle Out There!

So I FINALLY was able to do a theme muffin tin lunch! (It only took me about 6 weeks!) I came up with the jungle theme because this Friday is Little Bug's 3rd birthday and we are having a jungle themed party during our playgroup.  She just loves animals (snakes, lizards, and dinosaurs included!) and as I was looking at plates and other party stuff she saw the animals and liked them so we went with it.

I just happened to find some cute Noah's Ark cookie cutters at Michael's too that had a giraffe, elephant, and lion! Perfect!

So here is the lunch I came up with. Hope you like it! Little Bug did!

 Top Left: trees (pretzels and grapes stuck in the mud - peanut butter), animal crackers, a snake

Bottom: A lion (it wouldn't fit in the cup so I propped it up on a jungle themed cupcake liner), a watermelon elephant, and blueberries (rocks). Oh and giraffe cheese in the middle. 

 Little Bug taking a look at the lion before biting into it

After she already started eating I remembered I bought these cute animal picks. So I told her to pick one to eat the rocks with - she picked the zebra and said "I'll pick the zebra because I LOOOOOOVE zebras! Who knew! My guess would have been the lion. 

To see other neat muffin tin lunch creations visit the link below! 

Muffin Tin Monday

Displaying Independence

I've been trying to keep up with reading all of the blogs I have bookmarked and follow but there are just so many that it gets really hard! (Along with trying to do housework, cook dinners, care for my kiddos, etc) I can't seem to find enough time to do it all. Too bad we need sleep because I could surely use those 6....7....or 8 hours I get, depending on the night, to accomplish all I need to do! 

So while browsing around I found a link up to demonstrate how our children are displaying their independence on JDaniel4's Mom site. Let me tell you - Little Bug's repeated catch phrase these days is  "I can do it by myself!!!!"She is turning 3 next week after all so I guess that is to be expected!  I have plenty of  accomplishments I could post about but one that she is really proud of most recently is being able to sit on the "big potty seat" all by herself. 

She's been potty trained since she was 27 months but she has always sat on a smaller Dora seat at our house (that I would lift her onto) or if we went out she wanted me to hold her over the potty. 

Well finally when we were at playgroup there was a small potty/stool combo in the bathroom and she was going for that and I said "You're a big girl - try sitting on the big potty seat". I showed her how to hold on so she doesn't fall in and she did great. So now not only does she sit on it she pulls herself up on it. I even found one morning that she came down at 7 am, went to the potty ALL BY HERSELF, and then went back up to bed. Ahhh she is growing up too fast. Now if only she could pull up her pants without giving herself a wedgie we will be good to go! Ha! That will be the next lesson I guess!!! 

But anyways, I'm not going to post a picture of Little Bug on the potty but I'll post a picture of another accomplishment: Little Bug riding rides by herself at Knoebel's Grove (a local amusement park). Last year she wouldn't even ride the kiddie rides (even with me offering to ride with her) and this year.....she was riding them on her own AND with her hands up in the air as she was "whipped" around the turns on the kiddie whip. 

 The Kiddie Whip ride  - the first ride she went on. I actually was not allowed to ride it due to height restrictions but Little Bug said she was ok to ride on her own. She held on tight at first with an unsure look on her face and then............

 A smile from ear to ear as she was "whipped" around each turn....eventually not even holding on with hands up in the air! 

 In the Cars

 "Driving" another car......just wait in 13 years this will become a reality

Riding on the carousel beside me

I'm so proud of my Little Bug! We'll have so much fun this summer trying all of the fun rides at different amusement parks! 

A Song We Like

Little Bug and I go on my computer from time to time to watch videos - either kid's music videos, songs from shows she likes, or even videos about animals or something related to a letter of the day activity. Although she doesn't watch Sesame Street that often (I did a lot as a kid), we do watch some other shows on the network and a snippet of this song comes on from time to time. It has a good message and we really enjoy singing and dancing to this song! Hope you like it too!



Verse 1 
If what I am is what's in me 
Then I'll stay strong - that's who I'll be 
and I will always be the best 
"me" that I can be. 

There's only one me, I am it 
have a dream I'll follow it 
It's up to me to try. 

Chorus 1 
Oh! I'm a keep my head up high 
Keep on reaching high 
Never gonna quit 
I'll be getting stronger. 

And nothing's gonna bring me down (no!) 
Never gonna stop, gotta go. 
Because I know 
I'll keep getting stronger. 

Bridge 1 
And what I am is thoughtful 
what I am is musical 
what I am is smart 
and what I am is brave 
what I am is helpful 
what I am is special 
There's nothing I can't achieve. 
Because in myself I believe in oh... 

Chorus 2 
Gonna keep our heads up high 

Keep on reaching high 
Never gonna quit 
Just keep getting stronger. 

And nothing's gonna bring us down (no!) 
Never give it up, gotta go. 
Because I know 
I'll keep getting stronger. 

Bridge 2 
What I am is super 
what I am is proud 
what I am is friendly 
what I am is grouchy 
what you are is magical 
what you are is special 

There's nothing I can't achieve. 
Because in myself I believe in oh... 


Chorus 3 
Gonna hold my head up high 
Keep on reaching high 
Never gonna stop 
I'll be getting stronger. 

Nothing's gonna bring me down (no!) 
Never give it up gotta go, oh... yeah... 
I'll keep getting strong--er.

Muffin Tin Monday

It's Muffin Tin Monday........or was yesterday. I'm a day behind in posting but I finally had a chance to sit down and get on my computer. 

Two weeks ago we had our muffin tin meal at Little Bug's Nona's house (my mom) and this week we were at her Nana and Papa's house (my in laws) for the 4th of July. Lucky for me Nana had a bunch of red, white, and blue foods in her kitchen so we were set. I decided to do a muffin tin snack this week and here is what Little Bug  had:

Starting at 12:00 - blueberries, red jell-o, bananas, a cupcake (I told Little Bug she had to eat some of the other food first because I know she was eyeing up that cupcake from the start!), strawberries, and a star shaped piece of American cheese.

I is for Ice Cream

I feel like I've been slacking on doing activities with Little Bug but I guess I have been busy traveling to her Nona's and Nana and Papa's. Before we left we did do some activities all about ice cream. I wanted to link to where I got the unit but I cannot remember.  If I do find it I will link back later. With the unit I downloaded there were so many activities and we really only got through a few because Little Bug has a few favorites. Even after we returned home from our travels the unit is sitting on our kitchen table and Little Bug tells me that she wants to do "more activites".

She did some sorting, number recognition, size comparison, and some patterning. Then of course afterwards I made her a bowl of ice cream.