4 seasons – Page 9 – Butterbees and Bumbleflies

Owl Art

So, I saw an idea shared by one of my favorite bloggers for these adorable (and perfect) owls. And I decided to make our own project – to make our family… and let it be more of a “free” design. I just cut ovals by hand – no pre-design – and let Becca do all the gluing (a BIG step for me since, as you know, I’m somewhat of a neat freak… and so is she!). I put glue on a paper plate, and she used a throw-away foam brush to spread it. Worked great! Then we used fake leaves from a package b/c let’s face it – in South Texas, our leaves don’t turn until November, and I wanted to do this project now!

To be perfectly honest, these owls sat about 2/3 finished on our counter for almost a week. B/c that’s just how we roll when Mommy is living every day in constant pain from RA. Some days I have patience for art projects, and some days I just don’t. But now they are done, and hanging on our wall, and they are just absolutely adorable! Becca helped color the background paper and told me what names to write by each owl. I love her interaction with every step of the process, and they were certainly super fun.

To make your own, you’ll need:
cardstock ovals for the owl bodies
paper to go behind the eyes
google eyes
leaves
paper for the noses and feet
glue
and a large sheet of butcher paper if you are going to hang them on a display picture like we did.

Halloween Rice Sensory Play

Back when I colored a bunch of rice (see that post here), I made both orange and purple rice. Today I only gave her the orange rice, a few pumpkins, a spoon, scoop, some cups, and this pumpkin ice cube tray I found at Dollar Tree. She had so much fun stirring the rice and transferring it to the tray. I’m hoping to have time to make some additional items to go with this activity before Halloween. When I do, I’ll update and repost this. The long-term plan is for her to have the orange and purple rice mixed together. 🙂

Clean up tip: If you’ll put your plastic table cloth with the fabric side up, the rice doesn’t bounce or roll off of the table cloth. 🙂

Total Prep Time for Mommy: Because I already had the rice colored, this took about two minutes (or less) to throw together.

Total Play Time for Becca: About 15 minutes. I’ve noticed the past few days that her attention span for activities has been shorter and shorter. But, it took very little time to set up, or clean up, so it’s all good.

Leaf Art

Well, as you know, I’m not Jean… but I am trying to become a more art-loving parent! So, when we went to the library and the story time activity was to go outside and collect leaves, I decided to bring them home and do something with them!! I made the poster, then gave her the bag of leaves and a sheet of contact paper to stick them on. She loved putting them on the sticky paper, and then was so excited to see her leaves on her poster! We also put the leaves under some copy paper and did rubbings of them. It was a super fun art time!

Here’s a view of our art wall, which I’m really striving to keep new art rotating through more regularly! Becca LOVES seeing her art displayed on the wall, and is so proud when we hang up new things! I need to come up with a really good way to keep the stuff we take down off of the wall…

This is the text “picture” that anchors the wall. Found this quote and fell in love with it. We just very simply attached a cable to the wall behind the picture, and anchored it at both ends with nails. Then I can clip art of various sizes easily.

Autumn Sensory Bin

In continuation of our week of autumn, here’s what I threw together for Becca this week: dry beans, old popcorn kernels, foam leaf stickers (I peeled the backs off and stuck them together), play pumpkins from Dollar tree, and flat toothpicks. Of course I also gave her her favorite scoop, and a little bowl as well. She really doesn’t like the toothpicks at all. So I keep presenting them in different ways so that she’ll have the textural experience. She likes the pumpkins and the leaves and digging her hands in the beans. At one point, she started sorting the corn kernels from the beans. Ever the OCD… not too fond of things mixed together. HA! She also asked for a tray to assist in her sorting.

Total Prep Time for Mommy: five minutes just to throw it all together

Total Play Time for Becca: she didn’t play at this one as long – only about 10 minutes. I think when I give it to her today, I’m going to help her pull out the toothpicks… and then I bet she’ll play with it for much longer. Those durn toothpicks!

An Invitation to Autumn Play

Continuing the theme of fall/autumn activities this week, I thought I’d share the shelf I set up as an invitation to dramatic play as well as reading – on theme. Here’s how I prepared the shelf:

I didn’t have to buy a thing – just went thru my decorations in the attic! I went thru our various shelves of books, and came up with some fabulous options, and put the board books here for easy access. (See below for a listing and links for purchasing.)

In the basket, I placed a bunch of little pumpkins and gourds that I had on hand – I believe I got them at dollar tree and hobby lobby a few years back. The basket was also a hobby lobby find ions ago. (AKA – if it gets torn up, I’m not gonna cry over it!)

So the books – as you can see, a couple of them are Target dollar section books. But here are the links to the others (all affiliate links – thank you for your participation!).

Duck & Goose, Find a Pumpkin – Becca LOVES Duck and Goose books. So much that she’s already excited about writing a letter to Santa Clause to ask for more of them. 🙂

It’s Pumpkin Day, Mouse!

Eating the Alphabet (yes, I consider this a fall/harvest book)

Jack and Jill: A Halloween Nursery Rhyme

She immediately went for the Duck & Goose book, and then slowly got everything else out. She has really enjoyed having these items available for free play/read anytime!

Total Prep Time for Mommy: About ten minutes – because I got distracted while digging through the decor in the attic. 😉

Total Play Time for Becca: She will regularly sit here and spend about 5-10 minutes at a time, if not longer.