The "Lantern Jack" Story

I have been telling this story for a very long time and have no idea where I got it.  This is how I tell it, but obviously you can change it up however it suits you.  All you need is a piece of paper, we use any color, even white works, and some scissors. 

Once upon a time, in a big forest, there lived a little mouse.  He didn't have any friends.  One day he decided to go out into the forest to find a friend.  He took our his map, (the paper) and folded it in  half, so it would fit in his pocket. He walked all the way around the forest, (cut around the outside of the paper to make a circle), but he didn't see anyone. So....

he climbed the biggest tree he could find, he climbed all the way to the top, (cut zigzag and back down the other side to make a tree shape), He still didn't see anyone.  So...

Then, he saw a dark cave, and peeked in.  It was too dark in there, so he moved on.

Then, he saw a little house,  he looked through the window, (fold the top and cut a circle shape), I always let the kids look through the circle, and guess what he saw?

A Lantern Jack.....(as my daughter calls it)!

 

I told this story over an over again yesterday.  They can't seem to get enough of it.  Sometimes I change up the animal to a troll, or zebra.  After awhile, the kids tell the story as I cut. 

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Squash the Spider

For some reason, we have been having a sorts of spider visitors lately.  We have even caught a few in jars to observe.  They are creepy, but so fun to watch. 

We read the book "Squash the Spider" by Nick Ward and then made these spider webs and cute spiders to go with them. 

 To make the spider webs, all you need is some wax paper and white glue.  Squirt the glue onto the wax paper making a spiderweb shape.  You need to make sure all the ends touch or it will be tough to peel off.  When the webs dry, simply peel them off the wax paper. 

 For the spiders, I gave the kids paper and left them to it.  I really thought it was fantastic that they all added 8 legs on their own.  Of course, we had talked about how many legs they have and all that, but I thought it was pretty cool that they all did it!  When they were done creating their spiders, we got some googly eyes to add to them.  I was instructed to hang the spiders from the ceiling, since that is where we usually find the live ones. 

Then we made edible spiders. We used mini chocolate donuts, some pretzel sticks, a little frosting and some m&m's for the eyes. 



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Crayon Rubbings with Homemade Prints

To do this, we used our old paint chip samples and some white glue.  The kids made their own designs with the glue on the paint chips.  When they were dry, we put them under some paper and rubbed them with a crayon.  This inspired me to make some letter prints for the kiddos too.  We had a great time with this and it was "amazing and cool" to discover which print would appear on our paper.

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DIY Felt Board

I had the best felt board when I was teaching.  Now, as a stay at home mom, one is just not in the budget.  I had this big poster board from something and a big sheet of felt. Put the two together and you've got a great felt board.  I measured and cut the size I would need to cover one side of the poster board.  Then I sprayed the board with spray adhesive and smoothed the large piece of felt onto it.  I wrapped the sides around and gave another couple sprays of adhesive to keep it on.  Voila!  Done. It took me less than 5 minutes yet the kids played with it all day. 

In the pictures, R is playing with our "Little Cloud" by Eric Carle book felt pieces.  For those, I simply placed some white paper over the pictures in the book, traced and cut them out to make templates for the felt.  Really easy, and I am all about quick and easy.

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Sea Shells I Spy Bottle

We make many I Spy bottles, but since summer is here, I thought I would share the sea shell one we made today.  I like to have the kids help me choose and put together the bottles so they have some ownership over them.  They love to do it.  I got these shells at the craft store.  We found some "summer" items, a lemon, lime and watermelon eraser, foam flower, fish and sea star, a button and a glass marble.  I made up a picture card for them of all the things they put in the bottle.  We filled it about 3/4 full, put the lid on and gave it a couple turns.  Then they got busy searching for the things inside.  So fun!

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Chicka Chicka Boom Boom Tree

One of the kids favorite books is "Chicka Chicka Boom Boom" by Bill Martin Jr.  For those of you who aren't familiar with the book, the little alphabet letters climb up the coconut tree and then fall down it.  All the capital letters (mommas and pappas) come and help.  So cute and a fun rhyming text as well.  So this morning I drew a coconut tree on the nonstick side of contact paper. The kids were super excited and helped color in the tree.  Then I took off the backing and taped it to the wall, sticky side up.  We have a bunch of foam letters that stuck just right to the contact paper.  We read the story, many times, and the kids helped the letters up to the top.  T, of course, got busy making a "spaceship" out of the letters and insisted that I spell out the words "spaceship".  He spelled "zoom" with my help.  They have been playing with this all day.  Easy and great fun!  Letter recognition, pre-reading, games, spelling are all involved with this activity. 

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