Letter of the week – Cc is for Caterpillar Balloon Painting

Inigo loves painting and playing balloons. I thought the balloon caterpillar painting would be a great idea to do for our letter of the week series. 

We’ve done a lot of activities for our Cc is for caterpillar so I guess injecting some messy free art activity would be our best bet! For our Cc for Caterpillar Art Session involves two things Inigo love- painting with balloons and The Very Hungry Caterpillar!

Materials:

• Balloons
• Markers
• Googly eyes
• Popsicle sticks 
• Glue
• Green, Blue and Red Tempera Paint

  
How to Make the Balloon Painted Caterpillar Craft

• Squeeze tempera paints onto a paper plate or other surface that’s easily accessible to little hands. We used red, green, and a dab of blue.
• Dip the balloon into the paint and stamp them onto your paper to create a caterpillar.
• Use a black marker or crayon to draw legs.
• Cut off small pieces of purple craft stick and glue onto your caterpillar for antennae.
• Add some googly eyes to your caterpillar. 

So naturally we spent an entire day discussing not only the book but caterpillars too! 

Letter of the week – Bb is for Bubble Wrap Beehive and Fingerprint Bee Craft

Today, Inigo was a buzzy bee. Bb is for bumblebee is in full swing and we’re already having so much fun!

When we started our bumblebee series, we discussed that bees live in hives. I showed him the picture of the hives. Then I realized creating a hive of our own would be a great arts and craft for our series. 

I’m always keeping bubble wrap in our house, aside from they are Isabelle’s favorite activity. I knew that there are lot of possibilities to use this plastic in our activities.  

Using a rolling pin from his playdough set, we wrapped the bubble wrap around it and taped it down in a couple of places so that it would not fall off, dab some paint in paper plate and then rolled it on our paper. 

At first, I thought, this will be an epic fail because the bubble wrap we used did not actually make a pretty cool honeycomb on our paper, so I asked Inigo to smudge more bubble wrap to create a pattern. 

To finish our beehive, we used brown marker and draw the outline around the beehive. Cut out a small little door with brown paper and glue it on.

Then with our yellow tempera paint dab, Inigo painted his thumb and stamped it all around the beehive. The paint dries quickly so I draw the little bee’s features!

I totally love how this craft came out….so cute!   

How we study during exam week..

I got the email from Kuya Angelo’s school that we can now access the End of Year school performance online.

I was so excited to see how he performed in the class so I hurriedly log in to my GLG account. 

Allow me to share the comment of his adviser. Sorry for bragging! ☺️I’m such a happy momma!😛 I’ll not post his grades nahiya ko eh! But he got straight A and A+. 😄 

Ok going back to my title post. Quick share lang how we studied during the exam week. In his school parents recieved an email mga 2 – 3 weeks before the scheduled date. 

Exam week starts May 25 – June 04. One subject per day and in the email there were pointers to review. Everyday there’s a reminder on what subject needs to focus. The child will bring revision worksheet as well so even if you have no time to check your email you can still review the child.

My son is into visuals so I made posters for his English subject.This helped him to easily grasp the concept of Noun, Adjective and Verb.

         

For his Science exam we made an artwork on how the plant grow. I let him use the paint and once dry I asked him to write the stages on how flower blossom and how plant grows.   

         

This strategy makes our life easier. And really works on him. How about you mommies what’s your tip on keeping your child study habit?   

 

Yay or Yey! Learning through play activities…

When Inigo started to show interest about structured play I made sure that everyday is a learning experience for him.

But not all the time he’s in the mood. So in just a snap my original plan will quicly change depending on what keep him more interested. So you see it’s always a child led teaching method. I don’t force him because I want him to enjoy and I want him to know that learning is fun!

Most of the invitations are hits but there are failed like the following:

1. Painting using cork- After some dabbing of cork to the paint he ran away and never return. 😁   

 2. Paper Plate Tree using leaves – When he started to used the glue he’s unstoppable! He doesn’t like gluing the leaves but he loves squeezing and squirting the glue bottle.   

  3. Matching Shape – Ok! OA na ko dito. This is inaapropriate for his age. But I just want to see if he will like it!  

4. Color Sorting and Matching Shoes – He loves daddy’s shoes and everyday he’ll ooen the shoe rack and ilalabas niya lahat ng shoes.    

   

Learning through play – Painting with Car Toys..

It was a hot day and though were itching to get out we couldn’t really get out of the house and go somewhere.  Instead I created an invitation and did what we do best – play with paint.
    

Who wouldn’t like cars?! Inigo is in to cars right now and I must say that they are his favorite toys! 

That’s where the idea came from when we find another way to use them in our daily activities
    

We have painted with cars before with Kuya Angelo. of course we had fun back then; it is a kids classic. 
    

I set out a variety of vehicles toys we own along with some fluorescent paint. IKEA Mala paints can make vibrant prints.

Cars and paints ” mommy gets a gold star”!😝

     

Every activity involving paint becomes a sensory activity, right?  

  

 

Learning through play – Fork Tulip Painting Kid’s Craft

Inigo is such a trooper and has lots of energy. He always wants to move and play around. In fact he loves to scattered the toys all over the house. To divert his energy I am trying to create an invitation a.k.a activity that doesn’t look like serious teaching. I love early learning activities. I love the idea of learning through play. 

What better way to spend a hot, summer day – than doing some crafts together! I wanted to incorporate some different and unique types of art into Inigo’s crafts, so that he didn’t feel like it was the same ol’ thing again! I think I accomplished just that too. 

Today I’m going to share how we used the wooden fork to create a wonderful painting.

For these crafts, you will need the following:

• Tempera Paint
• Wooden or Plastic Forks
• Paper Plate
• Paint brush
• Water bottle (optional)

  

For this activity, since he’s only 18months old I helped him out a little bit while talking and explaining what colors we are using. If you have older child,you can let them do it all themselves, it really is up to how you want it to come out in the end!But this is really quite simple though!

STEP ONE: While I was preparing for the activity I asked to give to me the colors that he like us to use. While he’s giving it to me I’m talking to him and I’ll tell him “ok you want to use red color, nice choice! Then I’ll asked him again to choose one more so on and so forth. The idea is helping him to express himself since he can’t talk yet and to increase his vocabulary.

After selecting which paint colors to use I pour a little of each color onto paper plates.

  

STEP TWO: Dip the forks into the paint and press them onto the canvas. Let your child decide how many flowers and where to put them – you will add stems later!

  

I am not after the end product but on the process. So since he’s still baby (awww) his attention span is still short. So in between activity he will still do other things which is quite normal for his age.

While doing the Fork Tulip Painting he took one of his favorite book and tried to look for Mickey Mouse.   

   After reading he went back again and this time he wants to use the water bottle.    

 

I wanted him to create more flowers but he chose to have less – he needed to have his “creative freedom” I guess!

  

When he finally decided that he doesn’t want to continue I helped him to add the stem and vase.

That’s it! These are what our final picture looked like:   

  

I displayed his artworks where he can easily see it and show to his dad and Kuya. 

I love how a simple cutlery can turned into masterpiece. And the idea of using different things to paint with rather than just a paint brush is amazing! 

 

 

Sunday Happenings

Whoa! it’s Sunday again. The weekends always go by too quickly! We debated going to the park or not but decided to stick around the house.
It’s Kuya Angelo’s Midterm Break.That means he’s off for the entire week and I need to prepare more activities than letting him watch Disney Channel.

So I decided to spend our Sunday afternoon with some fun art activities.

We used water color and water based tempera paint. And just let them doodle whatever they have in their mind. Kuya Angelo draws transportation theme while Inigo enjoyed the water and brushes..hehe

When the boys are done we started to clean up and I let them have free play.

But since malapit na yung Spelling competition I also prepare activities for him to practice the spelling.
This time instead of dictation and writing the correct spelling I let him circle the correct ones. I am planning to dedicate the week of reviewing him. Ay sus mas kabado ako ngayon kasi kalaban niya ibang school na.

That’s all for now! I’ll try to post more often.

A is for Apple painting and stamping

After the awesome writing and counting lesson we also tried to used apple for a more fun filled activity.

I chopped the apple vertically and little A
got started right away – dunking and stamping, dunking and stamping, again and again. Then we used the Q-tips for adding the leaves.

And then he started to draw apple tree, I was so amazed that he was like demonstrating on how to paint apple tree. He was so sure that if we mixed green and red it will be brown color. And that what he used for the trunk, and then he added nest and birds and apples. I was just watching him as he was enjoying the day.

The end result {besides a toddler with multicoloured hands}? A beautiful masterpiece that could be hung and displayed or used to wrap a gift.

Pre – Writing Skills – Painting with Q-Tips

Once again we’re at our favourite activity, painting. Today it’s painting with Q-Tips (cotton buds)

And I’ve included our favorite activity to hone Angelo’s writing skills.

 We got out our washable paint and some q-tips and I’ve pre-written his name for him to trace.(I’ve got this brown paper from Homes R’ Us – it’s actually wrapping paper)

This fun activity provides an opportunity for Angelo to learn how to write his name.  I wrote his  name on paper with a marker.  Remember to write the first letter using a capital letter then the rest in lower case.  I let Angelo trace over the name with the Q-tips.  By repeating this activity, he will begin to understand the strokes on how to write his own name!

It was fun and easy.

It wasn’t crazy-messy, which was a bonus.

When he’s done he went straight to our easel and he was so excited to write his name.

Skills Learned:

• Fine Motor
• Eye Hand Coordination
• Pre-Writing

Happy Writing everyone!

The Lorax Handmade Puppet

Hello dear!

I hope everybody is having a great weekend.

Ours is busy, like always, but it’s also fun!

Today I am sharing with you how we made our Lorax Handmade Puppet.

Easy peasy activity for a toddler who loves Dr. Seuss.

Materials needed:

An orange paper plate or construction paper
Q – tips or cotton buds
Googly eyes
yellow construction paper for the moustache

Instructions:

1. Trace a circle into the paper and cut.
2. Let the child paint the paper with Q-tips.
3. For the moustache- You can use child’s handprints, either with yellow construction paper or paint. Ours is from little A’s 3rd birthday party photobooth props.
4. Once completely dry, glue the googly eyes and the moustache.
5. Add the popsicle stick.
6. Have fun!