Tinker Lab #1: Dr. Seuss

Ever since Earth Day and trying to think of ways to reuse items we would normally toss into the trash can or into our recycling bin I had been tossing around the idea of building “tinker lab” kits for my 4 year old. They are basically a bunch of items I set aside for future projects, scissors, glue and tape and instead of telling her what to do I just told her use her imagination and create whatever she wanted.

At first she was a little leery and said she didn’t know what to do but she quickly got into the spirit of things.  For this kit this is what I set out for her:

She started off making whiskers here for her Cat in the Hat:

I stepped back and just watched what she did without giving her any direction and she amazed me.

When she finally finished her Cat in the Hat she asked for my help in cutting the pink ribbon to “frame” her picture and she also requested some dried macaroni for the cat’s face but otherwise that was the extent of my help. I actually think she did a pretty darn good job making her Cat in the Hat from memory.

Sometimes I get so caught up in creating projects for my daughter to do and telling her the steps that I forget just how creative kids can be when you let them be in the driver’s seat.  She enjoyed this tinker lab so much we did another one later that night with a robot theme (post on that will be coming) and we also painting a “flower” using some cardboard and a straw.

She also cracked me up today when she decided she was going to tape this up on the wall and watch Cat in the Hat “on tv” and sat in a chair looking at her picture.  I asked her if the Cat in the Hat show was interesting and she said “not really, he’s just staring at me.” LOL. It made me wonder what she was expecting or thinking when she did this.

Friday Featured Product

There are only a handful of products I love enough that I really suggest to friends and family so I thought what better way to spread the word than mentioning here.  So for the next few Fridays I am hoping to highlight some of my favorite products for families with kids. Note: I either purchased these items, borrowed or was given them as gifts from families and friends.

Today I wanted to highlight the game Mr. Pencil Saves Doodleburg that came with my daughter’s Leappad.  She got one for Christmas and she cracks me up whenever she tells me what she is playing because she says the name of the game with such gusto.  Sometimes I ask her where she learned something and the answer is “Mr. Pencil saves Doodleburg!!!” with both arms raised up in the air.

She loves this game and I’ve sat down with her a few times to watch her play because she’s always coming up with the most amazing, random comments that she says she’s learned from this game.  It focuses on skills like writing letters, numbers, tracing lines, drawing, colors, etc.  One day I was driving her to school and she tells me “Mommy, you are the left side of the car and I am on the right side.  That means we are sitting diagonal!”  I asked if she learned about diagonals at school and she said no it was from “Mr. Pencil saves Doodleburg!!!”  She’s gone on to mention learning about mixing colors, drawing various shapes and a couple nights ago she even started giving me a lesson about animation.  She, my 19 month old and I were doing some painting on scrap pieces of cardboard and I drew an ocean with fish jumping out of it.  Looking at the picture she tells me “Mommy, you can draw more frames so it looks like the fish are really jumping like in an animation.”  This shocked me because at 4 we have never talked about how cartoons are animated or about different frames that make up an animation.  I thought maybe this was something new that she was learning at school but nope, she shocked me again saying she learned this from Mr. Pencil Saves Doodleburg.

After all of these comments she has been making about what she has learned from this game and what she remembers even after not playing it for awhile has made me a huge fan of the game.  If you have a preschooler or a slightly older child (it’s rated for 4-7 year olds) then I highly suggest trying this game out.  It teaches some wonderful concepts, the letter and shape tracing has really helped my daughter slow down and really focus on what she is writing and things like colors, color mixing, etc really has helped reinforce what she is learning in preschool as well.  Definitely a 5 star game in my book!

Get Out and Play-Outdoor version of “angry birds”

Since my parents bought our family an iPad2 for a group Christmas gift Kaitlyn has been hooked on Angry Birds.  I don’t want her to spend too much time on the computer and she loves being outside so I was trying to think of a fun way to bring Angry Birds to her without being in front of a computer screen.  Well, remember those cardboard boxes I mentioned that we had piled up from my online Christmas shopping?  They wouldn’t all fit in the recycling bin so they were piled up outside waiting for the next pick up.  I decided to start stacking them up and placing some of the kids’ foam bowling pins on them and let them have at it.

She loved it and was so excited.  She even got into making her own set ups with the boxes and pins.

My son also really got into it as he started off innocently enough picking up the balls she threw…

Then he decided it was a fun obstacle course…

Then it quickly turned into could Kaitlyn knock down the pins before he disassembled the boxes and ran off with the pins and boxes?

It was so much fun to do and it kept the kids occupied for a long time.  So if you need something to get the kids outside and away from the computer why not give it a try?  I think I’m actually going to miss the cardboard boxes when they are gone.

Not a Box by Antoinette Portis

This was a book we actually got last  year and have just revisited after doing some re-organization of my daughter’s book shelves.  It’s a fun book about all the things the rabbit is using his “not a box” for.  He can be putting out the fire in a burning building, in a rocket ship, on the top of a mountain, etc.  The illustrations and text are simple but so much fun for the kids to go through as they start imaging what the box could be.  Definitely a great book to pick up for the kids with the active imagination.

And since I did most of my holiday shopping online this year we ended up with a ton of boxes so here are a few of the “it’s not a box” things my kiddos came up with.

They were playing around in this Target box while I worked and one side busted open so they turned it into a bed.

Then came the Amazon box that became their “house”.

My daughter also decided her care bear needed a bed that had a leash attached to it and then proceeded to drag it all over the house.  Of course this led to some arguments once my son wanted to get into the action and have a turn dragging it around.  Not quite sure why that was so interesting to them.  It also led to a late night box search as she had decided to use my pillow as the mattress as her “mattress”.

Then right before the holidays we got a kids picnic table in this huge box (not sure why they sent it in such a big box).

Kaitlyn wanted a train which I didn’t even know how to start so I figured well how about some windows.  Of course both kids had to help “decorate” while I was cutting.

The kids were just having too much fun bouncing around inside of the box that the “train” never got very far but when some friends came over they still had a fun time riding the train.

My friend even got involved by “punching” their train tickets.

Later on we also served “ice cream” and “donuts” to customers through the window.  It was actually kind of funny how much fun the kids had with this box since we ended up returning the picnic table.  The better toy seemed to be the box.

All in all boxes were probably the most played with items on the holiday season.  Check out our:

• Lightning McQueen cardboard car
• Santa mailbox
• Christmas cardboard house

November is Picture Book Month-Our Picks

November is Picture Book Month so I just wanted to mention some of the recent favorite books of my 4 year old daughter.  I also have some links of some picture book activities we have done so far at the bottom of the post.

Kaitlyn’s Favorites:

Jan Thomas

I couldn’t pick just one because she has really enjoyed the three books I’ve already brought home for her.  My 16 month really enjoys them as well as he likes looking at the pictures and watching my daughter and I act out parts of the book.  The ones we have read and love so far are:

 

From Beach Lane Books

Another author favorite is Mo Willems. We read a Mo Willems book at least every other day and usually more often.  Even my 16 month old gets into it and cracks everyone up because he just loves saying “aaachooo!” after reading Pigs Make Me Sneeze so often.  Our favorite Piggie & Gerald books are:

 

From Hyperion Book CH

Our latest finds are the Eileen Christelow Five Little Monkey Books.  I picked up Five Little Monkeys Reading in Bed at the latest NCIBA conference and it was so cute.  My daughter loves it and I have to admit I may even enjoy reading it a tad more than she does.  She immediately wanted to read more about the monkeys and I had to do enter a slew of library book requests for more of them.  Another fun one that is perfect for helping with counting is Five Little Monkeys Go Shopping.  This book has us laughing out loud and we had to read it several times in a row.

From Clarion Books

Past favorites have been:

We’re Going on a Bear Hunt by Michael Rosen & Helen Oxenbury from Little Simon

Check out our activity for We’re Going on a Bear Hunt

 

Not a Box by Antoinette Portis from Harper Collins.

Because we all know how much kids love cardboard boxes.

 

Go Away, Big Green Monster! by Ed Emberley from Little, Brown and Company.

Helping kids overcome their fear of monsters.  Activity posted here.

 

Press Here by Herve Tullet from Chronicle Books

Press Here Activity

Other Book Related Activities:

• Pinkalicious Experiment
• Eight Spinning Planets Craft Acitivty
• I’m The Biggest Thing in the Ocean Arts & Craft
• Rhyming Dust Bunnies Flash Cards

It’s Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas

Can you believe Christmas stuff has been in the stores since before Halloween?  Well, I finally decided why not just jump straight into it since money is tight and I wanted to give the kids something new to do.  I pulled out some left over boxes and Christmas wrapping paper I had bought on clearance last year and decided to try my hand at making a cardboard house.

While I was working on this the kids had a blast with some of the packing materials from the paper shredder box my parents had bought.  My daughter made these “bumper cars” for herself and her brother and even utilized some Halloween masks a friend had given us.

I covered up the boxes with some wrapping paper to give it a festive look.  Made some window frames, some Christmas presents and snowmen.

Finally the kids dove in and had a blast.