Potato Pumpkin Stamps

That's right....more pumpkins!  We're kinda obsessed over here!

This is another fun little pumpkin craft and all you need is a potato, paint and paper!

Start by slicing the potato in half and then carving a face on the potato halves.

Then invite your child over to paint the pumpkin face with your orange paint.

Then stamp away!  

You really had to have just a little bit of paint and push pretty hard to get a good pumpkin face, but it was fun anyway.  Painting with food is always fun, right???

Happy crafting!

Simple Pumpkin Craft

Well, it's officially October and pumpkins are popping up everywhere!  

This is a fun little pumpkin activity we've done a number of times already this year.  My wall in my kitchen is covered with cute little pumpkins.  This is a great activity for small kids and big kids alike!

Supplies needed:

paper

orange paint & paint brush

black construction paper

glue

Put a little bit of paint in a cup and then invite your child over to paint a "pumpkin" on a piece of paper. 

For my son (22 months...yikes), I painted a circle for him and then let him paint inside the pumpkin.

Then cut out your faces for your pumpkins.  (I just cut a variety of shapes for eyes, noses, months and stems.)

Then let your kids decorate their pumpkins anyway they like.

(This month soon became a pumpkin crown).

Letter D: Lots of Dots

Anna and I are making an ABC book this year to continue practicing letters and their sounds. 

For letter D, we made lots of dots!!

Anna used my circle punches to make large and small dots.

Cool confetti!!

Then we added some glue to our paper and glued down all our dots!

ABC Pizza Craft

This fun little activity is from No Time For Flashcards!

It was a great learning activity to do while my little guy took a good afternoon nap. 

We didn't have a pizza box handy so I cut a circle from one of the many cardboard boxes we have lying around.

Anna added some "sauce" with her red crayon.

Then we added some glue and put on our letter "pepperonis".  We talked about each letter and it's sound as she was putting it on our pizza.

Then we added our "cheese" and "green peppers".....

Yum!!

What Can You Make With A Circle: Preschool Journal

I blogged about our preschool journal last week and thought I would share one of our recent entries.  For this particular day, I drew several circles on two pages of Anna's journal and invited her over to "make" these circles into anything she wanted.  

She wasn't quite sure what I wanted her to do at first, so we talked about what things we saw in the room that were round or circular and then we started brainstorming about other things that are round.  

After the first circle, she was pretty good to go and got to work "making" the circles into different things.  She pretty particular about "mixing colors" so she had me draw an additional yellow circle because she really wanted to add a sunshine.

After she completed each circle, she had me spell out the word so she could write down what they are....I told you the girl likes to write!!

She made:

person

sun

ball

balloon

bowl

It's an easy activity that really gets your child to "think outside of the box".  Give it a try!!

Kids Art Kit: Finished Mini Album

Earlier in the week I shared the Kids Travel Art Kit I put together for our beach trip.  It was a perfect way to have some down time in the afternoon rather than watching television.  

When I got back home, I put added our photos into the book to create a simple, but fun mini album.

Here are some of our pages...

I love how each page is totally handmade and unique!  And I love including all of Anna's fun artwork.  I'm sure she'll love looking back on it when she's older!!

Counting Apples Activity

We've been doing lots of apple crafts lately so I decided to add some fun apple learning to the mix.  

I made up these little cards for my daughter one evening when I was bored! 

I cut out tree trunks and tree tops and add a "dot" to each tree top to represent an apple.  Then, on the bottom of the card I wrote a number.

I adhered the tree tops using velcro dots (love those things!)

Then I set them out for Anna and let her match up the number on the bottom of the card with the correct number of apples on the tree top.

Numbers 1-6 were pretty easy for her, but I had to remind her to slow down and put her finger on each "apple" as she was counting.  She tended to go a little too fast....

But it was fun, and she was learning.  That's all that matters!!