Science – Page 6 – Butterbees and Bumbleflies

Christmas Activities

I debated about how to do this post – if I should put everything separate so it doesn’t seem overwhelming, or just put it all together. I decided it’s easier to reference later if it’s all together… and honestly, if I wait on some things until later, you have less time to do them with your kids! So… get ready. I’m about to bombard you with a bunch of fun ideas – the first several will be great for even your little toddlers, and the rest will be geared toward your older kiddos.

Many of these activities I have stored in little plastic bags and all inside a storage box (in fact, the same box that once held our Apple Activities). But a couple of them are ready at the window any time one of the kids wants them. The great thing about the activities in the box is that while Becca is working on her activities, she can select something from the box for Gray to do, to appease his desire to do what she is doing. She can also interact with him on his activities, and I love watching the tender moments they share (which usually come right before a snatch-grab-cry-scream fest HA!) together when working on a project. If you have a toddler and an older child, you know how hard it is to find something they can both do either together, or to keep the little one occupied while the older one does something different. This box of activities seems to be my best effort yet in this department.. and is about 80% effective! So, here we go! Let me know if you try any of these with your kids! I’d love to see you share pictures on my Facebook page, as well!

sticky window

The Christmas Tree Sticky Window is super simple to make – just draw a Christmas tree onto a piece of clear contact paper, and then attach it to your window with tape – so that the sticky side is out. Then, cut various shapes out of felt or other fabric (so that they won’t adhere permanently) and let your kids decorate the tree over and over again! While Becca enjoyed this activity at first, this is definitely a Grayson favorite. He LOVES standing at the window and moving the shapes around. Of course, he also loves to carry the shapes all over the house and leave them random places…

shape identification

This felt Christmas tree was a busy bag I made a few years ago at a MOPS meeting – simply by cutting shapes from various colors of felt. It’s a great activity for the kids to do together – Becca loves to tell Gray the names of the shapes and their colors. She likes to make patterns of ornaments – he likes to throw them in the air and watch them rain down around him. Either way, they are happily occupied.

writing coloring

In an effort to provide activity for Gray AND Becca in the same box, I have a couple of Christmas coloring books and some blank paper that either of them can enjoy, but I also have magnetic Christmas words that Becca can spell, and then write in her bare book (I found a bunch of them in the Target dollar section at one point this summer!). She also has two rhyming word wheels that she can practice with and write the rhyming words in her book. Gray loves that he’s “writing” with crayons while Sis is writing too. He feels so big and important, and it shows! We just have to watch that he doesn’t run around with a crayon sticking out of his mouth… he has that tendency.

geo shapes

We have some really fun building materials – you could use anything you have laying around – Legos, Duplos (for your little hands), building blocks, marble runs, whatever you have. Challenge your little ones to build a Christmas tree out of the supplies provided!! Looking for more STEAM Engineering ideas? Click Here!

reading retelling

We have a play Peanuts nativity set (affiliate link – thank you!) available on our low window sill for Becca to retell the Christmas story anytime she’d like. Gray also enjoys playing with the characters, and he loves to sit and listen to her act out the story. I also provided in her Christmas activity box Jan Brett’s Gingerbread Baby and Gingerbread Friends (affiliate links – thank you!) books – along with a tiny stuffed ginger baby that she can read the books to, and then use to re-inact the stories.

Not an activity for Brother, Becca LOVES making Christmas trees of various designs using green popsicle sticks, red buttons, white pom poms, and one gold one for the star on top. She has come up with some of the coolest, and also weirdest designs. Some look like trees, and some, well… don’t. But she is having a blast, it’s a great sensory activity for her that really allows her imagination and creativity to go wild.

fine motor

Becca struggles with some simple things like getting dressed, and in order to strengthen her hands and fingers to work on those little things like putting on socks and shoes, I try to find lots of fine motor skill practice activities for her. I had some green colored pasta leftover from one of our habitat boxes, and also have some little Christmas jewelry pieces that I put in some little containers and let her string onto pipe cleaners to make bracelets and necklaces. She LOVES it, and it’s great practice. I even made an extension to this that stays in her room for holiday play – mini ball ornaments that she can string onto pipe cleaners. It’s fabulous for her, and I’ve seen just in the past couple of weeks her fine motor skills making some great improvements!

$star math$

I programmed several index cards with a variety of patterns and addition/subtraction/multiplication story problems, and had her use these little star cards to solve them. She even said “I wish all math was fun like this!” So we’ve started using the star cards for other kinds of math too. You could use anything you have around the house – scraps of paper, fabric, cut pipe cleaners, Legos, Duplos, crayons, etc. Hands down, using manipulatives makes math more fun! (And Mr. Gingerbaby even got involved in the math, too!)

$more math$

Becca has always struggled with seeing the importance behind having any numbers beyond 20. She can count to 100 now with ease, but just really doesn’t see the point. But she does love a good challenge, so I cut some 100s grids into lots of funny pieces, and she really enjoys putting them together. I also took her sensory box from last Christmas and stepped it up a notch. She loves playing with it with her balance. She has discovered that the shiny and matte ornaments do not weigh the same as each other. She has weighed the cookie cutters that are also in the box, and loves to scoop and pour the rice/split peas into and out of the balance. She gets so excited when she makes them equal, and loves trying new combinations to see how much she needs to equalize if one side has more ornaments, etc. I love seeing her creativity come out in this simple hands-on sensory activity, and I love to see her enjoying math. She’s measuring with her measuring cup each time, and getting better at recognizing the values, etc. Seeing her enjoy math is so good for me – I’m not a fan of math at all… so I try hard to make it really enjoyable for her so that she will love it.

What Christmas activities do you have going on in your house? We are also doing daily advent activities, reading lots of Christmas books, and watching lots of special Christmas shows. I’m hoping we can get out to look at Christmas lights sometime soon as well. It can be such a crazy time of the year, but when we remember to stop and focus on the Reason for the season, it is all worth while.

May God richly bless you and yours this Christmas! I look forward to hearing from you on Facebook, and I look forward to starting the new year with some new resolutions and some new post ideas!! Do you have something you’d like to see me post here on my blog? Send me an email! I’d love to hear from you!

Apple Activity Box

If you’ve been following my blog for a while, you probably remember the really fun activity centers I made for Becca last fall using our water table. I brought it in from our summer play on the back porch, and she really had a blast… and I was super proud of all I came up with for her to do! Fast forward a year, and lil Bro is into EVERYTHING… even things he’s not ready to do yet. So, I found a way to re-make her apple activity center into a box that can easily be packed up and kept out of reach of Grayson’s little grabby hands!

You can find boxes like this one at your local craft store in the scrapbooking section – they are 13×13 and are fabulous!!! I used scotch tape to stick the index cards on so they can easily be removed and the next seasonal activity center can go in their places.

Here are the skills that I included:
Math – apple patterning / apple adding & subtracting / measuring
Reading – a book to read and retell / a poem to read and recite
Writing – magnetic words to build / a blank book to write them in
Art – markers to make illustrations in the book and on the poem cards
Science – non-fiction book to read
Hand-Eye-Coordination/Fine Motor/Engineering – create an apple tree with popsicle sticks and buttons

Here are the direction cards, which guide play but certainly don’t limit it – she has gone way outside the box of just following these cards, though the lil OCD in her followed each card in order to some extent before moving on to do her own thing. I also included with each instruction the list of items your child will need to complete the activity. Some require prep, some don’t.

1. Write and illustrate a book about apples using the words on your magnets.
–>I got packs of 3 blank books for $1 at Target before school started! Score. You could make your own just by folding paper together and stapling. You’ll also need to write a few fall words on index cards, cut out, and stick magnet tape on the back.

2. Practice saying the poem without looking. (Recite from memory).
–>You’ll need to write the poem on index cards. I got it online – original source unknown. Here are the words:
—->card 1: Apples are so good to eat,
—->card 2: To have them is a special treat.
—->card 3: Red, green, yellow too,
—->card 4: All of them are good for you!

3. Draw pictures on the poem cards to illustrate what the words say.
–>Provide markers or crayons for illustrations

4. Make an apple pattern. / Add the apples: green apples + red apples = how many apples all together? (We extended this and did subtraction and multiplication as well – we have 2 groups of 5 apples.)
–>I got these little apples at Dollar Tree. You could easily use buttons or gems or place apple stickers on index cards and cut out. As long as there are at least red and green so that your child can make patterns, you’re good!

5. Make an apple tree with popsicle sticks and buttons. How many buttons did you use? How many are left over?
–>You’ll need a bunch of random red, green, and/or yellow buttons, and some popsicle sticks. I had green popsicle sticks, so we used those. Any color will work. You can really extend this by having your child pattern with the buttons, sort by size, add, subtract, make even groups for multiplication, etc.

6. Read the book “Apples” by Ken Robbins. Retell to a grownup.
–>Any non-fiction book about apples will work. This one fit well into the box I had. I selected a non-fiction book to add in a science aspect to the box, but you could easily do a fiction book. In my apple center last year, we had Ten Apples Up On Top and did a block activity with it. You could easily have your child use the buttons to put ten apples on top of the book characters, or some such. Use what you have, and you know your child – if your child won’t be “into” a non-fiction text, use what they will love!

7. Build the fall words on your magnet tray!
–>This activity is totally a repeat from last year’s apple center, because it’s just so fun and it’s always great to practice spelling! I didn’t want to buy a bunch of magnetic letters, so I just wrote the words on index cards, cut out the letters, and put magnet tape on the back! Super simple and cheap! And obviously, you can save them from year to year to use again! You’ll also need some sort of magnetic tray – I got this pizza pan from Dollar Tree and she uses it for all of her magnetic activities, including building sandcastles, which she loves.

8. How many cups of apple “tea” mix? Find and bury treasure!
–>Again a repeated material from last year’s apple center, I simply took a bag of green decorative fish tank rocks from Dollar Tree and added some Black Apple Tea leaves to it to make it smell like apples. We didn’t know that she has Anosmia back then… (Anosmia = no sense of smell.) To extend this activity this year, I took the rock/tea mix and put into a small container and provided her with measuring cups to measure with, and a couple of fall shaped mini cookie cutters to bury and then dig around for. She loves digging in the rocks, and will bury and find and rebury and find the cookie cutters over and over again.

This apple activity box has already brought us HOURS of fun, and I just created it this week. It’s sure to be a hit well into early October, when I plan to take them out and convert the box to a pumpkin activity for Halloween/Thanksgiving! I hope you enjoy the ideas… I’d love to know how you put them to use with your kids! Please share! If you’re not following my Facebook page, please be sure to click over and “like” the page and then share your photos and ideas anytime! 🙂

Calendar Art… It’s Time!!

If you’ve been following my blog for a while, you already know about the Christmas gift of the century that Becca and I created last year for her Pappy, PawPaw, and Daddy. I nearly killed myself trying to get it all done in time. So I decided to blog about it starting back in January, and start working on the art work – and give you ideas so that you could create your own calendars with your kids. If you didn’t see the original post, it’s here.

Maybe you’ve been working on your amazing artwork all year right along with us, or maybe you’re just now getting started. The beautiful thing is, it’s still August. YOU HAVE TIME. If you haven’t started yet, TODAY is the day! It’s TIME!! If you’ve got your artwork ready, and you’re just waiting for the calendar printout I promised, it’s HERE! Click HERE to download your FREE 2016 printable calendar ready to print out and stick in those calendars.

In a couple of weeks I’ll sit down and get to the nitty gritty of actually how I put them together. Because you’ll want to know the lessons I learned from my mistakes, I’m sure. 🙂

My challenge for myself this year has been that I did a bunch of art with Becca early in the year, and I just flat out haven’t been brave with Grayson really yet. So in the next few weeks, I’m going to bring out some of our favorite art painting techniques and let Grayson try them! So for those of you with Baby Bees, you’re about to see this mama get really brave… It’s Toddler Painting Time in the Hinnant House! My goal is to have enough artwork to make every third month a collage of Grayson’s art. Next year we’ll start in January with both of them and do every other month in the calendar as work from each child. This year Becca will be a lot more involved in making the collages, too. I’m really excited about starting on them – I’ve gotten a few of them started with her over the course of time, but haven’t fully finished any of them. This is such a fun project, and I’m excited about planning an art time into our “school” day each day – for both kids.

Here are links to some of our favorite “Fun with Art” ideas that we’ll be revisiting in the next few weeks with Grayson:
Painting With Cars
Kitchen Brush Flowers
An Invitation to Scrape

Plus check back here next Friday for a super fun idea for Toddler Bees AND Big Butterflies that uses those millions of toilet paper rolls you throw away every week!!

The DoSeum – A Mom’s Look Inside

This is not an affiliate post – it’s just the honest opinions of a mom who is an annual member of the DoSeum and has visited on MULTIPLE occasions.

This post has been a long time coming… I believe we’ve been to the DoSeum now about ten times. I consider myself to be well educated on the ins and outs… so here goes!

We’ll get the negatives out of the way real quick – auto flush toilets in a children’s museum are just a crazily stupid idea. LOTS, maybe even MOST kids are freaked out by auto flush toilets. Bad choice. And then there’s the workability of the exhibits. They’ve been open only since June 1st and in two months time there are already multiple issues with exhibits not functioning properly (for example one of the computer touch screen check-out booths in the Little Town HEB wasn’t working this morning, causing lots of frustration). But that’s it. That’s all I’ve got for you in the way of negatives.

So now – for all the things I love love love about the DoSeum! Let me just start with walking in. The funhouse mirrors are just that – super fun. Giggles always start our visit off on the right foot. I love that there are so many different areas for us to explore – I plan our visit each day so that we explore one specific area, but we always enjoy the front – the mirrors, the pulleys, the big interactive video screen, the wind tunnel (Becca LOVES putting on the butterfly wings and “flying”!!), and the Kaleidoscope.

I love that there are lots of tables both inside and out to eat – and that while we have the option of purchasing food, we can bring our own food. (Have I mentioned what a picky eater I’m raising… she thinks that going to the DoSeum MEANS eating peanut butter crackers she’s made herself and fruit packed in her lil lunch box.) Hand washing stations at various heights are readily available as well.

There are two huge outside play stations. We have not yet played in the sand (my kids honestly don’t know that area exists b/c I have a thing about sand + water + my car…), but they have really enjoyed the water fountain and little river. They are anxiously awaiting the opening of the giant treehouse (which I think is totally amazing – it’s constructed for handicapped children to be able to join in the play, too with fabulous wide ramps all the way up!!!), and I know they’ll love playing in there as well.

The other outside play station has a giant spider web, log pile, obstacle course that ends in a giant slide, and… a huge water play area. With water wheels and plenty of places to experiment with the various ways that water moves, it’s just a simply amazing out door play space, perfect for any explorer – from just a few months old to the oldest visitors.

Which is where I’ll pause – Cody and I LOVED our date night – #ReDoRecess, they called it, or #NightAtTheDoSeum – a night just for kids ages 21+ – where we got to have the run of the place! We had a blast playing all over the place for a couple hours, and are looking forward to the next adults only event!
11811572_1667181053497185_5065488900645456456_n Here we are sitting in one of the incredible outdoor chairs, made from a huge old gnarly tree! There was plenty of room for both of us!

Taking a step back inside, we explored the spy academy on our date night, and determined that for older kiddos with an extreme interest in spy stuff, and the attention span to go with it, this is an absolutely incredible area! Perfect for your upper elementary and middle school students, or even older, there are so many activities to do, you could easily spend a couple of hours just inside the spy academy!

Becca’s got a couple of favorite areas, but one of them is definitely the little town. When we go with our babysitter, we split up – she follows Becca, and I go with Grayson to the baby area. Then we switch. Because following Becca around is dizzying! I love the fact that there is a DoSeum employee at the entrance to this area, so that if she does happen to get away, she’s not going to go far – she can’t leave that area without an adult. I’ve also been impressed that every time we’ve gone in, the attendant has made an effort to really match us up in his/her mind and also stands next to the strollers and sees which one is ours. Just that little added sense of security that I really appreciate. Inside the little town, everything is on a little kid scale – a fabulous grocery store, a trolley, a bank, a restaurant, vet office, construction site, car wash, post office, and airport complete with a boardable/”flyable” airplane that even has luggage and a “TSA” security station! As a mom, I appreciate all that she learns about the various occupations, and I also appreciate the fact that there are employees and volunteers constantly walking the floor and putting things back in place (esp in the grocery store and restaurant) so that new kids coming to that area can find what they need. I also love love love the garden in the center for babies. It’s gated, and has lots of fun sensory activities on the wall, balls and soft toys to play with, etc. All in all, the little town is fabulous!!

At date night we explored the light and sound area. We haven’t taken Becca there yet because of her sensory issues with auditory defensiveness and also her extreme overexcitabilities regarding low lighting. We both had a blast in there, and think she’ll really enjoy the shadow play and light table activities. We’re looking forward to bringing her to one of the sensory evenings that they have for kids with ASD, SPD, and other sensory issues. Get this, parents – they have sensory evenings where they provide headphones/earplugs, sunglasses, and have special signage to warn adults about sensory issues that might be found in certain areas. Lighting is different for these nights (not as dark), and everything caters to our kiddos who have special sensory needs!!! Isn’t that just amazing? It’s finally a museum that truly caters to ALL of our kids!

We briefly visited the “Imagine It!” area with Becca, but she wasn’t fond of the sounds there – again, this would be a great place for her on sensory night – but she did go nuts when she saw the room FILLED with books. Pretty sure she would live in that room if she could! She’s also enjoyed using the story starter prompts to tell stories, etc. Definitely so much there for aspiring writers to enjoy!!

And ya’ll, that’s just the downstairs!!! Seriously – there’s a whole second story! The engineering section upstairs is just amazing. Places to build with all kinds of different materials, to test out different materials to see how to make them fly, etc. And then there’s what Becca calls the “Ball Room” – where balls shoot through tunnels of air directed by different knobs and levers that the kids can adjust. It can be a super high action, rockin’ place. I chose to stand by the door (it’s a small enclosed space, which is FABULOUS!) so that she can run and explore and always knows exactly where I am. She can’t leave without me, and has a tiny tad of freedom to play til her heart’s content.

Also upstairs is a huge social studies area where kids can build mini cities, practice putting a giant foam US puzzle together, learn about energy usage in homes, and explore various info about the continents of our world and view different globes.

Did I mention there’s a set of stairs that make noises when you step on them? Oh – and a separate glassed in baby play room that’s just for babies? Impressed doesn’t even begin to cover it. Glad to be annual members? Oh yeah.

I’m just not sure what I’m gonna do once school starts and my 12 yr old set of wonderful, helpful hands is back in school and can’t come with us every week to help me wrangle my two lil Explorers!! (Oh – and get this – I was able to add her to our family annual pass for just $15… and it’s only $11 for a one day admission… talk about a fabulous deal! We’ve been pretty much every week this summer!)

Ready to plan your visit? Check out their website here: http://www.thedoseum.org You won’t regret it!

Animal Play Boxes for Baby Bees

This entire week, enjoy posts for your Baby/Toddler Bees
(under age two)! Come back each day for new and exciting ideas for your little ones!

In my never-ending saga of attempting to find sensory activities for Gray that he won’t harm himself with, I decided to try making him his own little habitat boxes like I’d made for Becca, except with toddler-friendly items inside. For his birthday party, (which I will hopefully eventually blog about!) I purchased a set of large safari animals, that he had been really enjoying playing with. And Becca had some large dinosaurs she never played with any more. I thought there had to be some solution. And there was. Enter tissue paper and Easter grass.

I had some nice photo storage boxes I had bought at one point online for the specific purpose of doing some sort of sensory bins at some time or another… and decided this was the time. I dumped a bag of green Easter grass (the paper kind) into one and put the three large dinosaurs in it. Not only does he love digging through the grass, he loves the dinosaurs. He makes the cutest “ROAR” and has had the dinosaurs fight each other a couple of times. He’s 350% boy.

So for the safari animals, I took some green and blue tissue paper and folded it over several times (so it makes a good crinkly noise) and taped it securely all the way around inside to the bottom of the box. Then I added the animals. He likes to make them jump up and down on the crunchy paper, and also marches them around on the hearth quite frequently.

Both of these boxes are stored up high, out of reach, and they are activities that he plays with independently from his sister. She has her own activity boxes, but tends to want to play with whatever he has at the moment, so I store them in a special place and let him play with them when she’s in her room. I think he not only enjoys the activity of the sounds and textures in the boxes, it’s fun to have a special activity to play with just Mommy.

Stop by tomorrow for my post about “The Reality of Toddler Sensory Play…” and come get ready to get messy!