Calendar of Activities: September

Here is what our calendar looks like for September.  As mentioned in the post about Our Fall Schedule, I am trying to be super prepared and organized when it comes to activities, crafts, baking, etc.

We always run smoother with some type of schedule.  

I don't have a "time" picked out to do these activities...we will just play each day by ear.  Some days we may not do the activity and some days we may do more than one.

Some of the things I will do with my daughter, Anna, while my son takes his afternoon nap (games, baking, etc...).

Anna is in preschool three days a week so I wanted to make sure we have lots of fun things planned for her when she gets home and while Drew naps.

I have included links to each of the activities (if I had one) so you can play along with us if you'd like.  To make it a little easier to read, I have listed the activities by the day of the week/type of activity (i.e. Monday's: Play dough).

Most all of the activities require very little materials, which I like.....and most are easy and fast to throw together!

Mondays: Play dough

Play dough Monsters

Glitter Play dough

Ice Cream Play dough

Apple Pie Play dough

Tuesdays: Baking

Sugar Cookies

Blueberry Oatmeal Muffins

Banana Bread

Easy Apple Muffins

Wednesdays: Painting

Mini Watercolor Book

Mess Free Finger Painting

Painting Faces with Googly Eyes

Fall Tree Cork Painting

Thursdays: Craft

Letter Pizza

Cheerio Bracelet

Bird Feeders

Autumn Leaf Craft

Fridays: Games

Popsicle Matching Game

Family Memory Game

Hide-n-Seek

Candy Land


I hope some of you will join along with us this Fall for our activities!  Drop me a note and let me know if you are playing along!  Everything is always more fun in a group, right??

xoxo

Watercolor Resist Paintings

Anna and I had fun doing some watercolor resist paintings the other day!  

I started out by drawing and writing some different things on pieces of white paper with a white crayon.  Be sure to press down hard enough so the crayon will be on the paper.

Then I handed Anna our watercolors and some water and told her to find the secret messages and pictures!

She loves trying to figure out what was on each page!

Here are our "secret" pictures.

So easy, but fun!

It could be great for learning your name, sight words or just for fun!

goodbye summer.

Preschool and our fall schedule starts next week!  Can't believe Summer has already come and gone.  Looking forward to cooler weather, changing leaves, family time and football games.  

goodbye summer.

hello fall.

Making Faces

If you've been following along, you know that most of our house is in disarray with packing, packing and more packing.  Which means that this crafty momma has had to think out of the box for our arts and crafts activities.

This is another one of those activities that requires very little supplies, but is fun for everyone.

Using one of the rolls from our bubble wrap package, Anna dipped the tube in paint and then stamped circles all over her paper.

Once the circles were dry she decided she wanted to make some faces in the circles, so I said...why not???

She is at that stage where she loves to draw her self portrait so these are all pictures of her.  I love that she is starting to add ears, hair, eyebrows and chins...

A simple activity using common household objects!  Easy enough for this momma!!

Our Fall Schedule

I don't know about you, but our days always run much smoother when we have a schedule or something planned.  "Just go with it..." days don't really seem to work for us.  

So...in order to be ready for our preschool year and this Fall, I am putting a lot of up front work in and am planning out our days.  

I'm going to try to "stick" to some sort of schedule of activities so I can be more prepared.  I love spontaneity but that doesn't seem to always fly with my kiddos.  We aren't stuck to this schedule, but if nothing else comes up, I will have a go to if needed.

Our schedule will be as above:

Mondays: play dough day.  

I plan on making a new batch of play dough with the kids and having a fun little activity for them to do.

Tuesdays: baking day

On Tuesday, I plan on having a fun little cooking activity planned for the kids.  Sometimes we will just make something easy or sometimes I will have an activity or book to go along with the baking day.

Wednesdays: painting day

Watercolors, finger paints, bubble painting..something like that.

Thursdays: craft day

I'll have a fun little craft planned for us on Thursdays.  Most likely I'll pick one of Allie's fabulous ideas over at No Time for Flashcards.

Fridays: game day

On Fridays I plan on having some type of fun game planned.  I'll probably use some of the store bought games we have on hand and then supplement with other "homemade" games I find/know (like "I spy" or "Hide and Seek").

I'm getting my calendar all ready and plan on sharing it here on my blog later this week so you can follow along with us if you'd like!!  If you don't already, follow Playing House on Facebook!  I post all my blog entries there so you'll hear about it right away!!

xoxo

Alphabet Busy Book

Since I was on a book kick this week, I decided to share an ABC busy book I put together for my daughter.  We keep this book in the kitchen and she usually pulls it out to "practice writing" while I get dinner ready.  Sometimes she does all the pages and sometimes she does just a few.

All of the pages are free printables from 1+1+1=1.  I slipped each letter page into a clear page protector (I got mine at Wal-mart) and then put all the pages in a three ring binder.  I added a pencil pouch that holds all the dry erase markers, as well as an eraser and some pom poms (which we also use as erasers).

The book has been great for keeping Anna's little hands busy!!

Beginners Word Book

And the books just keep on coming.....

This word book was completely inspired by Anna one afternoon.  

I obviously love to make mini books and have been on a little crafty spree lately making mini picture albums of our vacations and special events.  Anna decided she wanted to make her own book so I grabbed some craft supplies for her and let her lead this fun little task.

She picked out her cardstock papers and I cut them in half to have two pages per sheet.  Then using my sewing machine we sewed right down the middle to make a little book.

Using some letter stickers I had, Anna named different things she wanted to draw.  She helped me find the correct letters to spell out the words and then she drew her picture on the paper.  

Of course, Ariel just had to be in the book!!

Then she made some random faces in the book...

And drew her self portrait too.

We added the abc's on the back just because.

DIY Shapes Book

Can you guys tell that I love mini books???  

This is another little book I made mainly for my 20 month old son to take on our vacation trips, but my three year old has definitely enjoyed it as much, if not more than my son!!

All of the shape book printables are awesome and are from here.

Instead of using a binder, I just laminated my pages and used book binding rings (which can be found in the office section of Wal-mart for super cheap).

To keep all of the shapes together, I used a page protector I had on hand.  It's hard to tell in the photo below, but all the shapes fit nicely into the page protector and are easy enough for little hands to grab and pull out.

We love this book!  And like our Dress Up book, it's been a hit with car travel this summer!!

Let's Play Dress Up Travel Book

I wanted to share a sweet little dress up book that I made for my daughter to take on our travels this summer.

Anna is all about dress up and pretend play right now and this book is just perfect for her!

All of the little printables came from Babalisme and are just too cute!  I used some of the same printables in our DIY Quiet Time Book.

Here are the different "dolls" I included in our dress up book.

After I printed off all the dolls and accessories on card stock, I laminated everything and attached velcro dots to both the dolls and accessories so they could be "dressed up".

My daughter has truly enjoyed this little book!!  And it has been just perfect to take on vacations and car trips!!

Mini Masterpieces Photo Book

This art book has been on my to-do list for quite some time and I am just tickled pink that it is finally completed!!  

Liz Tamanaha from Paislee Press teamed up with Shutterfly to offer this awesome mini masterpiece book.

I save most all of Anna's artwork in some form.  If the piece is no larger than 12x12, I either keep it in her art box or use it in our Project Life album.  Some of the larger pieces, three-dimensional pieces or just random pieces I photograph and keep an electronic copy.

All of the "masterpieces" I included in this book were photographed and then uploaded to Shutterfly just like any other picture.  I tried to scan a few art pieces in, but I found that the quality of the photographed art was better than the scanned art.

I also used some random pictures of her creating her "masterpieces".  

These are pictures from "My First Book" that Anna made last year.

All in all, I am over the moon with this super adorable album!  I love how all her artwork from age 2 is kept nice and neat in this simple album.  I can't wait to make another one for age 3 and then for my little guy once I get a good pile from him!!

If you have tons of artwork floating around your house I highly recommend photographing it and making your own mini masterpiece album!!  So fun!!

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