The Cricut Card Elves Strike Again

The children received another homemade holiday card in the mail (see the Halloween cards here). It was sent to the children by Ava's godfather and designed and made by his girlfriend with her cricut machine. It is adorable.

She also had a brilliant idea. While she was cutting the pieces to assemble the turkey for the front of the card, she made extra pieces (a little larger). Then she put together two assemble-your-own-turkey activity kits for the children. They are so excited and can't wait to make their own turkeys. Michael insists his is going on the wall in his room. Ava hasn't stated a preference yet, but I suspect she'll copy her brother.

(Thanks for the card! It is lovely.)

Sand on the Light Box: Storytelling

After we finished making our sand shapes the other day, I decided on a whim to use the light box / sand combo to do some impromptu storytelling. The first story that popped into my head was Goldilocks and the Three Bears. The children loved it! Now, keep in mind that I draw about as well as your average 4 year old, and yet somehow even my stick drawings in the sand on a light box are entrancing to young children.

Here are a few pictures I snapped during the storytelling.

Goldilocks

The Three Bears taking a walk in the forest.

Three hot bowls of porridge.

Goldilocks testing the three chairs.

Goldilocks waking up to see the three bears looking down at her.

The story reached its natural end and I was encouraging the children to do a little free play in the sand before it was time to put everything away. Most of my attention was on Ava, but then I realized that Michael had been busy. Next thing I know I turn my head and see this:

Everything you see there he drew on his own. Then he told Ava and I the story of Mama Cat and Michael Cat who had to go out and take their dog to the vet. While they were out a little girl from their village went into their house, sat in one of their chairs and ate up all their food... So, yes, his story was closely modeled after Goldilocks and the Three Bears, but I was very impressed with both his drawing and storytelling nonetheless.

Sand on the Light Box: Pre-Writing

I sat down on the computer and made some simple design cards. I intended to print them on cardstock and laminate them, but ran out of time so I just printed mine on regular paper.

Then I set up the two light boxes with the translucent shallow boxes and sand. I held up one card at a time and encouraged the children to try to copy the design in the sand. I gave feedback, tips, and encouragement as necessary. Michael could copy all of the simple shapes on his own and did pretty well with some tips on the more complex shapes. Ava was able to copy the very simple shapes on her own, the intermediate shapes with some tips, and the complex shapes with a lot of assistance.

This is an excellent activity for developing pre-writing skills. Pre-writing skills develop the fine motor strength and control necessary and the hand-eye coordination for writing without actually holding a writing implement (crayon, pencil, marker, etc.).

Here are the cut out cards and some examples of the children's copying. Michael used the orange sand and Ava used the blue.

Ideas to expand this activity:

1. Have the children name the shape (if it is simple) or name the shapes that make up a more complex shape. For example, "This is a square with a plus inside."
2. Show the card and ask the child to make a big, medium, or small version.
3. Add something to the picture. For example, show the oval and ask, "Can you draw this oval with a triangle on top?" (or underneath, or to the left, or to the right, etc.)
4. Subtract something from the picture. For example, "Can you draw this house without the roof?
5. Show two cards and ask them to draw both in their sand box at the same time. They will need to learn, through trial and error, how big to make each and how to leave room for the second while making the first.

Puffy Paint on a 3D Cone

I was inspired by a couple of ideas I found on pinterest.

Source: delawarecountymoms.com via Jamie on Pinterest

Source: housingaforest.com via Jodi on Pinterest

First we made our own "puffy paint" combining equal parts flour, salt, and water (we used 1/3 cup of each to make about 5 oz.) and then mixing in some liquid tempera to color. The children chose to make red, purple, and orange. I then used a funnel to put the paint in small 2oz squeeze bottles.

I then set the kids up with some white cones I had made from cardstock and trimmed so they would stand up straight. I also taped them to a base to catch spills and keep them from tipping over while they were being painted.

We ran into a problem right away. The paint wouldn't squeeze. I found a small pair of embroidery scissors and managed to make the holes larger and that worked for a while. We continued to have trouble during the activity with the holes getting blocked by small lumps of paint or because the paint dried up in the tip. We would shake and tap the bottles and I'd use the scissors to clear out the tips of the bottles and that helped. I honestly think the children would have played much longer if we hadn't had the technical difficulties though.

My only suggestion would be to use squeeze bottles with much larger holes than ours - perhaps ketchup style holes. Or just use a paint brush.

They had a blast though. From the start of the project (making the paint) through then end of painting the cones, the kids were engaged for a full hour and a half.

If You're Happy (Emotions Version)

I was first introduced to this idea several months ago by our Parents as Teachers home educator. I wanted to make our own version and couldn't remember the details so I did an online search for "if you're happy emotions" and found two helpful resources. This page shows the basic lyrics and some visual cue "faces" you can make. Another page gave me the brilliant idea to simplify the lyrics to make them more accessible to children with speech delays. Here's the project.

If You're Happy Song - Emotions Version with Visual Cue Cards

Making the Cue Cards

Group Planning

I sat down with the kids and drew a happy face. I asked them how the person felt and they responded "happy." I asked them "How else can people feel?" They responded "sad" and I asked how the face would be different if the person were sad. They told me a frown (and demonstrated for me). I made a sad face with a frown. We then worked together to discuss, demonstrate, and draw the other four emotions (sleepy, surprised, scared, and mad). We also chose the color for each emotion. I let the kids choose and so our colors are a bit unorthodox.

Make and assemble fronts and backs of Cue Cards

I then drew the faces on the circles and wrote the matching emotion and action on the back as a cue for myself when I was holding them up for the kids.

Identify Emotions / Sing the Song

There are a wide variety of activities to do with these cue cards.

1. Adult hold up the cards and leads the song.
2. Distribute the cards to the everyone (we had two each) and take turns holding one up and letting the person holding the card be the leader.
3. Use the cards to help the children learn to identify emotions (without singing) in flash card mode.
4. Have the children mimic the facial expression of the card you hold up.
5. Let the children make an expression and you try to guess which one they're making by holding up the matching card. They get to tell you if you're right or wrong. Get it wrong on purpose sometimes so they can enjoy telling you no.

Song Lyrics

You sing the song to the tune of If You're Happy and You Know it Clap Your Hands. If you are a teacher, parent, or early childhood educator who has no need to simplify the lyrics, just use the original wording. I'll give the simplified version in a bit.

Here are the originals:

1. If you're happy and you know it clap your hands...
2. If you're sad and you know it say "boo hoo"...
3. If you're mad and you know it stomp your feet...
4. If you're scared and you know it say "oh no"...
5. If you're sleepy and you know it take a nap (or close your eyes, or make a yawn)...
6. If you're surprised and you know it say "oh my"...

Here is how to simplify the lyrics:
If you are doing this activity with children who have speech delays, slow it way down and encourage them to sing along. (Or at least repeat "boo hoo," "oh my", and "oh no" when cued.) Once they have learned the song encourage singing by doing the activity where they get to hold the cue cards and lead the singing in turn.

If you're happy, happy, happy clap your hands.
If you're happy, happy, happy clap your hands.
If you're happy, happy, happy clap your hands, clap your hands.
If you're happy, happy, happy clap your hands.

If you're sad, sad, sad say "boo hoo".
If you're sad, sad, sad say "boo hoo".
If you're sad, sad, sad say "boo hoo", say "boo hoo".
If you're sad, sad, sad say "boo hoo".

And so on...

SLP Notes: This activity is great. You hit speech, language, vocabulary, and pragmatics all at once and can emphasize whichever is most important for your goals with a particular child. It can be adapted high (original version, fast pace, child led). It can also be adapted at a mid-level (modified version, medium pace, cued verbal participation). It can be adapted very low as well with modified version, slow pace, and only gestural participation or cued vocalizations (yawn, crying, snoring, exclamations of fear or surprise) to work on turn taking. Even using the activity to draw the child's attention to your facial expressions could help you work on eye contact if your goals are at that level. For vocabulary you get the emotions themselves, but also the parts of the face including eyebrows and terms like smile and frown.

Science on the Light Box: Baking Soda and Colored Vinegar

Light Box Science: Baking Soda and Colored Vinegar

I grabbed one light box and the translucent tray to go on top. I also got out some baking soda, food coloring, and four 2 oz squeeze bottles filled about halfway with vinegar and gathered the children around the light box on the kitchen floor.

We reviewed what happened when we mixed water and oil on the light box (they stay separate). I explained that this time we were going to put colored vinegar on baking soda. I let them taste the vinegar and the baking soda. They claimed they liked both. I had them make a guess about what would happen when we dripped colored vinegar on the baking soda (their guess was that the baking soda would get wet and turn colored).

We chose four colors of food coloring and colored the vinegar in the squeeze bottles. I also used some leftover colored water for contrast. I sprinkled a rather thick layer of baking soda in the translucent tray and began by dripping some colored water on the baking soda and asking them to tell me what happened. They decided that the baking soda was wet and colored just like they guessed.

Then we tried the colored vinegar and got colored bubbles. We decided that when vinegar combines with baking soda we get a different reaction than when water mixes with baking soda. Vinegar makes bubbles and water does not. That was as complex as we got.

They were quite impressed and couldn't wait to play themselves. I handed them squirt bottles and let them begin.

Ava discovered that if she mixed yellow and blue she could make green bubbles. That was a lot of fun. The next time I try this activity I think I'll give each child three bottles with red, blue, and yellow and encourage them to mix colors as they go.

At one point the first tray of baking soda was completely saturated and I quickly rinsed it out dried it. We distributed a much thinner layer the second time and tried to make actual designs.

Cleanup was as easy as rinsing the tray out and drying it with a cloth.

Science on the Light Box: Oil and Colored Water

Light Box Science: Oil and Colored Water

I grabbed one light box and the translucent tray to go on top. I also got out some cooking oil, food coloring, and four 2 oz squeeze bottles filled about halfway with water and gathered the children around the light box on the kitchen floor.

I asked them what happens when you mix food coloring with water. They replied that the water gets colored. "True," I said. "So, water and food coloring mix well together?" They agreed. We then colored each of the four bottles a different color.

Then I poured enough oil into the tray to completely cover the bottom and let them touch and explore the texture of the oil. After a few minutes I asked them what they thought would happen when we put the colored water in the oil. They guessed that the oil would "get colored." I said said, "Let's see." I put a few drops in and we talked about how water and oil don't mix well and so the droplets of water stay suspended in the oil. Then I just let them play. They had so much fun.

They were tentative at first, getting the feel for the squeeze bottles (it was the first time we used them) but soon the tray began to fill with tiny droplets of colored water. It was quite pretty.

They discovered they could make their dots bigger by putting several drops in the same place and even blend colors by using two or more colors in the same dot.

We found we could make two dots side by side that were "friends" until one inevitably got too pushy and absorbed the other. That was a very cool effect and the kids reproduced it many times.

Finally, before cleaning up, I let them get their hands back in. Ava just enjoyed the sensory experience. Michael noticed he could disturb all the big dots and make them into itty bitty tiny ones and enjoyed destroying every big dot he could find.

Cleanup was as easy and rinsing the tray out and then using dishwashing liquid to get the oil residue out of the tray so it would be ready for the next experiment.

Light Table Fingerpainting and Prints

In honor of all the people stopping by from ohdeedoh.com to check out how we made our homemade light boxes, I'm doing a post about another activity we did on our boxes.

Light Table Fingerpainting and Prints

Our light boxes are made from plastic storage bins, so we can get messy on them without worrying about damaging them at all so we didn't need to start by protecting the table. I began by filling an ice cube tray with blue, yellow, red liquid tempera paints. Then we mixed green, purple, and orange as well. At that point I sat back and watched the kids explore finger painting on the light boxes. They began conservatively with one finger and small dots and smears. They worked up to multi-finger rainbows and two-handed smearing of the entire surface.

Then, to continue their interest in the project I taught them how to make prints by pressing pieces of white tagboard onto the light table and then peeling them back up. They loved it. They explored different color combinations and patterns and compared the results before deciding on their next experiment.

We didn't stop until we ran out of time and the kitchen was pretty much a disaster. However, as messy as it looked, the paint rinsed right off of the lids of the bins and out of the ice cube tray in about 5 minutes. Then I let everything dry and picked it all up at once. So the cleanup didn't take long at all.

As a side note, I have succeeded in getting Ava so used to painting that she now doesn't hesitate to dive into paint with her fingers as long as she has a towel nearby to frequently wipe her fingers with. Big sensory/OT success there.

You might also be interested in the following posts:

More Light Table Activities

Homemade Light Boxes

Salt Art

Busy Book / Quiet Book Chalkboard

More Light Table Activities

Light Table Sand Art

We took a shallow translucent box and sprinkled some colored sand (of the type used to fill sand art bottles)on the bottom. We placed that box on one of our homemade light boxes. It was beautiful. Then we used our fingers to draw in the sand. The children loved it. They played over half an hour making designs on their own. We tried two different colors.

When they tired a bit of playing on their own I decided on a whim to use it to illustrate a story. I told the story of Goldilocks and the three bears. When we talked about the three bowls of porridge I made a table and one small bowl in the sand, one medium one, and one large one. I did the same for the three chairs and the three beds. The children loved it! Then I attempted a modified version of Hansel and Gretel and we made a trail of breadcrumbs through the sand forest. It was a nice language arts extension activity for the sand art on the light table.

Light Table Silly Spheres

I'm not sure what to call these. We got ours from a teacher supply store and they were called Slippery Spheres (I think). I called them silly spheres with the children. I think they are the same thing you can buy at craft stores that some people use to fill vases. Ours were tiny little plastic beads that absorb water until they are something like 100 times their original size. I got them because I thought they would work well with the light table and they would be a good sensory experience for Ava.

Eventually I want to work up to making a lot of them and having the children actually submerge their hands in them, but I started slow. This first time we just took a few of each color and watched to see what would happen to them if we put them in water. Once they were finished growing they were cool and wet and squishy. They bounced if dropped onto the light box. The kids would let them "swim" in their cups and then dig them out with their fingers and play with them on the light table for a while before returning them to their cups to swim some more. Michael liked to pretend that they were alive and tiny creatures he was taking care of. Ava accidentally squeezed one too hard and squished it. We threw that one away.

Supposedly you can leave them out to dry and they will return to their original state for you to use again in the future. 8 hours later, ours are only a little smaller. I'm beginning to wonder if that part is actually true. Even if not, it was still a great activity and I'm looking forward to revisiting it with a greater quantity of the silly spheres next time.

Salt Art

These turned out beautifully.

1. First you take watercolor paper and let the children drizzle glue all over the paper.
   
   
   
   
2. Then you have them sprinkle salt over the glue until the glue is completely covered with salt.
   
   
3. Count to 20 or sing the ABC song to let the glue set a bit and then shake off excess salt.
4. We let ours dry for a couple of days but I've read that you can just go ahead and move to the next step immediately if you like.
5. Put liquid watercolors in an ice cube tray. We have red, yellow, and blue. We used those to also make orange, green, and purple. (You could also use water colored with food coloring.) Put one eyedropper in each spot.
   
   
6. Let the children drop the watercolors onto the salt trails using the eyedroppers. The salt trails will wick away the paint. They loved this and it really encourages fine motor control because it works best if they only dispense one drop at a time.
   
   
7. Admire end result and place somewhere to dry.
   
   
8. [Optional]When children want to continue using eyedroppers and watercolors provide additional paper and show them how they can use the eyedroppers as tools to make lines from the drops of paint.