Thursday, August 4, 2011

creations...

i made another dress...



for my sweet little niece...

i used two t-shirts... attached the cut pieces and shirred the top.  added a pocket with a freezer paper stencil, and some liz scott fabric scraps for the straps...



and here are my cute little nieces... just precious.  lots of hugs to you both... and your little sister :)

Wednesday, August 3, 2011

ball maze...



we've had two large cardboard tubes sitting around the house from some oilcloth i purchased a few months ago...

they've gone from room to room, inside and outside... serving as tunnels, ramps, amplifiers...

i started wondering what else we can do with them.

leo was a little concerned at first, since he wasn't quite sure he wanted to cut it up.  but once reassured we still had one left that wouldn't be cut, he was intrigued.

we gathered some materials... (i think i went a little overboard with the saw... a utility knife worked just fine.  better, even.)



cut the long tube into smaller sections...



and then cut those sections in half...



then hot glued them onto a large piece of cardboard.



we gathered random things we thought might roll... (i had a pretty good suspicion that one of the things in that bucket wouldn't roll, but leo just wanted to make sure...)


climbed up onto the stepstool, and tried it out!



in the end, the ping pong balls and the wooden balls worked out the best...



some larger things needed to be pushed along...



once leo added the tunnels, the ping pong balls were the only ones to make it through.


a great activity for shape identification, predictions (will it or won't it roll?), gross motor (we eventually tried to throw the ping pong balls onto the ramps from a distance), and just some general fun!

Monday, August 1, 2011

rainbow clothespins...

i got these at the dollar store awhile back... thinking they could be used for some fun activity...


we pulled some out the other day, and played a color matching game...

simply grab a bunch of clothespins (you could even just paint some wooden ones various colors... a much eco-friendlier way to go than the plastic ones!)...


and search throughout the house for matching colors!






a great activity for color identification and fine motor skills!