Our Elf on the Shelf is BACK!!!!

Ginger, our The Elf on the Shelf made her first appearance right after Thanksgiving and the girls couldn't have been more excited.  She was waiting for them on top of the front door where Juliette spotted her the second we went downstairs for breakfast.

Throughout the day Juliette kept telling us that she cant wait to see where Ginger is tomorrow and I wonder what she is going to do tomorrow.  I love their excitement over her and the anticipation of what she will do next.

Do you have an Elf on the Shelf?  Where have you found your elf playing?

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Penguin Shapes

Juliette made this adorable penguin craft at school while working with squares, rectangles and circles. The body is a white paper plate and the eyes are white reinforcement stickers. Then they used white shiny paper cut into squares and rectangles for the ice. She was so proud of her penguin!!

Let it Snow, let it snow, let it snow!!!

 And boy did it snow here!  After hurricane Sandy we were hit with a nor'easter which left about 7.5 inches of snow.  It also knocked out our power for 4 days, but that was nothing compared to what some other families were dealing with. 

So we made the best of it and enjoyed the perfect Snowman making snow that was covering our yard!

 Emily and Juliette's Snow Frog!!!

stART~ Snow Day

Welcome to stART!  I hope that you will enjoy our story and art project and maybe even share your own too. All I ask is that you link back to A Mommy’s Adventures somewhere in your post by either adding my button or a text link, so that others can see all the other great projects that everyone shares too! The linky will be open all week.  Be sure to stop by and visit the different links…every week there are so many different and fun book and craft ideas!

Check out the  stART tab in my navigation bar where you can find our past stART projects.  All the books that we have read and did a stART project for are listed in alphabetical order.  I have also included a list of all the blogs that participate in stART. 

Emily took the book Snow Day, by Lynn Plourde out on Library Day and we really enjoyed reading it together.  Even though we have not had any snow yet the girls can’t wait for it to come.  This book is written to tell the story of a snow day from the moment a child rubs the sleep out of their eyes to when they snuggle up to a good book at the end of a fun day in the snow to get ready for bed.  It is written in a poetic form that is fun to read and flows really well as the story of this special snow day unfolds.  

For our art project we talked about some of the things we can’t wait to do once it finally (hopefully at least once!) snows here.  After discussing our favorite things to do in the snow the girls were given a piece of paper, crayons and oil pastels to draw a picture of their favorite thing about the snow. 

When they were all finished we added the snow!  The girls used white paint that was mixed with glue and a q-tip to dot or spread the glue onto the paper. 

Finally they added the sparkling finishing touch…GLITTER!

Emily making snow angels in the snow

Juliette going sledding ( she drew this picture all by herself )

stART ~ The Snow Lambs

 

Welcome to stART!  I hope that you will enjoy our story and art project and maybe even share your own too. All I ask is that you link back to A Mommy’s Adventures somewhere in your post by either adding my button or a text link, so that others can see all the other great projects that everyone shares too! The linky will be open all week.  Be sure to stop by and visit the different links…every week there are so many different and fun book and craft ideas!

Check out the  stART tab in my navigation bar where you can find our past stART projects.  All the books that we have read and did a stART project for are listed in alphabetical order.  I have also included a list of all the blogs that participate in stART. 

This week we  read The Snow Lambs, by Debi Gliori.  This is a story about a Sam and his sheepdog Bess.  While they are counting their sheep the Bess goes missing.  A snow storm is coming and Sam is worried about his dog.  Find out what Bess was up too for the wonderful ending to this story.  I loved how after the first couple of pages you can see two stories through the illustrations, what is happening with Sam and what Bess is doing.

We made some Snowflakes to go along with this book.  We used some q-tips, glue and glitter.  Both Juliette had fun creating their unique snowflakes by gluing the q-tips onto blue construction paper.   When they were all finished we sprinkled iridescent glitter over the q-tips.  I love how they sparkle!

Emily did her snowflake all by herself.  She  was able to break her q-tips to the size that she needed by folding them in half.

  I gave Juliette a pile of q-tips of all different sizes.  She wanted me to start her so I put glue lines for the big q-tips and she covered them with the q-tips then added the smaller ones herself.

stART ~ Groundhog Stays Up Late

Welcome to stART! I hope that you will enjoy our story and art project and maybe even share your own too. All I ask is that you link back to A Mommy’s Adventures somewhere in your post by either adding my button or a text link, so that others can see all the other great projects that everyone shares too! The linky will be open all week.  Be sure to stop by and visit the different links…every week there are so many different and fun book and craft ideas!

Check out the  stART tab in my navigation bar where you can find our past stART projects.  All the books that we have read and did a stART project for are listed in alphabetical order.

This week we read Groundhog Stays Up Late, by Margery Cuyler.  This is a cute story about a little groundhog that does not want to sleep through winter and instead decideds to play.  Soon he realizes that it is not fun alone and tricks his friends into thinking it is spring so they will wake up early.  After reading this book I was planning on making a craft to go along with it, however Emily’s Nursery School teacher beat me to it.  Not only did she beat me to it, they also read the exact same book at school and have a really cute song to go with it! 

Since this was competed at school I do not have any pictures of Emily working on her project.

To make this puppet they used 1 whole paper plate and 1 half of a paper plate.  Emily colored the whole paper plate blue and the half of a paper plate brown.  The plates were stapled together.  Then Emily glued on the black shadow of the groundhog and the sun.  Finally a brown groundhog was glued onto a popsicle stick and placed between the two paper plates so that he can move up and down to see his shadow.

  On the back of the puppet is the song that they children sang to go with it.

To start for the first verse the groundhog was pushed down all the way hiding between the two paper plates.

For the second verse he is raised up to peek out of the hole.

For the third verse he is all of the way out.

Crafting a Nice Warm Cup of Hot Cocoa!

We have had a lot of snow here and whenever I think of snow and winter can’t help but think of a nice warm cup of hot cocoa with lots of yummy marshmallows.  So that is exactly what we made for our craft project with our art group.

I cut out a mug shape for each child.

First, they decorated their mugs with stickers, markers and our new favorite Crayola Slick Stix.

 

Next, they painted in the hot chocolate with brown paint.  I added some cocoa powder to it, but I don’t think it was enough because it didn’t smell chocolaty to me at all.

  Finally and maybe the best part was gluing on the mini marshmallows.  I had a bag that had fallen all over the floor and was also kind of stale anyway so I put it away to use for an art/crafting project just like this. 

They also glued the mug to a piece of construction paper (color of their choice) and added some steam coming from the cup.

Emily’s Mug of Hot Cocoa 

Juliette’s Mug of Hot Cocoa

 

Check out other great ideas for Tots and Preschoolers:

 

Open Ended Art ~ Painting Snow

We had another snow day and I thought that painting some snow in our nice warm house would be the perfect activity for today!

Emily’s friend braved the snow to come play and this kept the girls busy and having fun for a while, which is always the mark of a great project in my book :0)

First I put a layer of snow in a cookie tray and patted it down for Emily and her friend.  Then I filled our paint cups up with some liquid watercolors (the best paints ever) and some water.  These watercolors are very concentrated so for this activity diluting the paint was perfect.  I was going to use food coloring but I was out of red.

Emily used the dropper to color the snow on her tray.

      I think the smile says it all!

After she filled the tray with color I filled up a bowl with snow and we added it on top of the colored snow.  It was fun to watch the watercolors spread out and color the new snow.  I thought I took a picture but realized I didn’t after I washed all the snow down the drain :(

This activity was a great open-ended art project and fine motor skills practice too.

Check out other great ideas for Tots and Preschoolers:

 

Sensory Fun ~ Packing Peanuts and Pom Poms

I thought it would be fun to make a winter sensory tub and I have been saving some biodegradable packing peanuts for a while now just for this activity!  So I filled our sensory tub with packing peanuts.  Then I added some white and blue pom poms, cotton balls, silver and blue sequins and spangles and white, silver and blue pipe cleaners.  This added some fun colors and textures for the girls to explore!

I also added some blue training chopsticks for the girls to pick the pieces up with.  Then small, medium and large clear plastic containers and our snowflake silicone baking cups for them to fill up. 

Juliette loved putting the packing peanuts in the silicone baking cups.

Emily used the training chopsticks to transfer the pieces into the containers.

stART ~ Snip, Snip…SNOW!

Welcome to stART! I hope that you will enjoy our story and art project and maybe even share your own too. All I ask is that you link back to A Mommy’s Adventures somewhere in your post by either adding my button or a text link, so that others can see all the other great projects that everyone shares too! The linky will be open all week.  Be sure to stop by and visit the different links…every week there are so many different and fun book and craft ideas!

Check out the  stART tab in my navigation bar where you can find our past stART projects.  All the books that we have read and did a stART project for are listed in alphabetical order.

This week we read Snip, Snip...Snow!, by Nancy Poydar.  When I saw it in the library I knew it would be perfect, especially since the ground here is still covered in snow!!  It is a cute story about a little girl that is anxiously awaiting the first snowfall of winter.  She is very disappointed when the forecast calls for snow, but when she wakes up there was nothing!  (I could totally relate to this when I was little!!)  At school her she makes a ton of paper snowflakes and to her surprise it starts to snow.  This story was fun to read and the perfect story to go with making your own paper snowflakes!

Emily, Juliette and I had fun making colored coffee filter snowflakes and then dancing around with them!  Although this is not very original, it was so much fun :0)

 

Emily and Juliette colored on their coffee filters with markers.

Next, we used a spray bottle to wet the coffee filters and make the colors run.

Then we let them dry.

While we were waiting we made some plain white snowflakes.

Emily folded the coffee filter in half and then in half 2 more times to make a triangle shape.

   She cut little pieces out of all the sides.

Although she has no problem using a pair of scissors on plain paper, she had a hard time cutting the small pieces out.  So when the colored filters dried she asked me to make them.

Our colorful coffee filter snowflakes.