Harry Potter Party!

We celebrated Owen, Anna and Lily’s birthdays with a Harry Potter party.

As the guests arrived we put on the Sorting Hat and sorted them into the houses.  They picked a card to tell them which house they were in.

I cut these cards apart and mixed them up.  Each card says the name of one of the houses and a characteristic of that house.

I also found this fold up cootie catcher that you could use to sort the people.

Then their wand chose them.

Each party guest decorated a cardboard Treasure Box.

After adding a lock they could choose different clipart pictures or draw their own decorations on their boxes.

 

 

Here are the tickets for the train – I ran these back to back on cardstock.

The children made their own golden Snitch by gluing wings onto a gold Christmas ball.  You could also use Ferrero Roche candies.

 

They also made Flying Keys.

They balanced pieces of a pool tube on their heads like Erumpent horns.

The guests made bead necklaces with the colors of their favorite house.

For the skill of Transfiguration the children wadded up foil to make creatures or animals.

Then we went outside to use the Mirror of Erised.

And of course – we played Quidditch!

I also printed off a Harry Potter I Spy that I found online.

 

After a pizza lunch the children enjoyed ButterBeer Fudge, a Hedwig cake or cupcakes topped with Harry Potter chocolates.

 

 

They each chose a stuffed owl to take home.  They all had lots of fun!

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Star Wars Party

This week we had a Star Wars themed birthday party for three of my grandchildren, Owen turning 10, and twins Anna and Lily who just turned 8.  My assignment was to come up with a game, a craft and a birthday cake.  It’s so much fun to be included in their celebrations!

First we hid pictures of favorite Star Wars characters around the backyard.

 

We numbered the pictures and cut them apart, then hid them in non-conspicuous places.  Each child was given this check off sheet where they were to write the matching number by each character.

The other side of this character check off sheet contained the activities the children needed to “master” to become Jedi warriors and receive their own light saber.

The kids had lots of fun completing these activities.

They built towers taller than themselves.

They ran down the ladder, placing one foot in each square.

They stepped on wooden blocks to follow a path that ended at a play structure they climbed through.

We found some little shooters that you squeeze and shoot out small circle disks.  The kids tried to get the disks through the holes in our board.

We set up a course of cones that they had to run in and out of – like figure 8s.

They balanced a Star Wars paper plate on the end of a foam pool noodle and walked a premarked distance.  This was a little tricky because there it was a bit windy, but they had fun anyway.

Probably their favorite activity was using these foam dart guns to knock a Storm Trooper off the table.  We glued a Storm Trooper head onto a few styrofoam cups and set them up on a small table.  Again, the wind was a little problem, blowing the cups off the table, but they still loved this.  Here are the Storm Trooper images we used.

When the children were done, and the light sabers had been awarded we headed inside to make Star Wars sock puppets.

I wanted to give the kids some ideas to get started, so I printed off this sheet of different kinds of Star Wars puppets to help them think about what they wanted to make.  I provided white and black socks, adhesive felt and foam sheets, pom poms, popsicle sticks, jiggly eyes, pipe cleaners and Tacky Glue.  Children’s Fiskar scissors cut through the felt pretty easily.

I am not a cake decorating expert so I frosted it and put borders and the children’s names on the cake.  Then I gave the birthday children Lego Star Wars characters and small vehicles and they set them up on the cake.

I just realized I didn’t get any pictures of the 2 boys at the party!  They were a bit outnumbered by girls this time!  But I think they all had lots of fun.

Minion Day!

Last summer a local church advertised their Vacation Bible School with a large inflated Minion and a big sign that said MINION CAMP!  It looked like so much fun that my grandchildren asked me to make our own Minion Camp, and it was lots of fun!

Here is the list of our activities!

We started the day with group games – our group included 5 of my grandchildren ages 4-9, oh – and Papa!  The first game was actually created by 5 year old Nora.  3 of the children were Minions, 2 were Bananas and Papa was Gru – who tried to catch them as they ran from one line in the driveway to the opposite.   There were a few safety zones created by red mats.  When the children were tapped by Gru they helped try to catch the others.

Lots of running, laughing and  squealing – very fun!  Here are the pictures for the headbands.

For our next game, Marshmallow Catch, the children were paired with a partner and took turns tossing mini marshmallows into each other’s Minion Cup.

The parachute is always fun.  This time we also tried tossing Minion beanbags and a small Minion ball – and we also tried to keep them on the parachute!

The next game was Minion Hole Hula Hoop.  This was a variation on Freeze.  I played music from Despicable Me movies and the kids danced around.  I would call out various directions – like “Blue hoop – both hands!”  or “everyone into a hole!”  or “everyone in the silver hoop.”

When they all had to fit inside one hoop they had to cooperate and balance!

The last group game was Minion Math.  I wrote numerals on a large cardboard.  The kids stood around the outside of the cardboard – 2 at a time dropped a Minion beanbag on a number.  The next child made up a number sentence (equation) using those numbers.  When it was 4 year old Max’s turn we asked him to name some of the numbers instead.

I wanted to make a Minion lunch but couldn’t think of many things they would all like.  I did make Minion finger jello and found these Minion fruit snacks.

 

For dessert I made cupcakes that really didn’t look much like Minions.  For a birthday party a few years ago I made Twinkie Minion cupcakes that looked much better – but the kids weren’t big fans of the Twinkies.

In the afternoon the kids completed the rest of the activities in any order they chose, they each had a check off sheet to keep track.

 

I bought some wooden circles and squares and spray painted them blue and yellow.  Before Minion day Owen drew Minion faces on the yellow circles and bananas on the blue squares.  Then we drew a tic tac toe board on the driveway.

The kids love to play in water so we hooked up this waterboard.

I bought a Minion coloring book at Dollar Tree and cut apart all the pages.  The kids had lots of choices to color – watercolor paint, colored pencils, markers, or crayons.

I pulled out a Minnie Mouse Hopscotch rug and used the Minion beanbags that I made – but Owen decided to make it more complicated!

For Measuring Minions I made them each a Minion ruler and recording sheet.  They had to find 6 things to measure and record.

Bean bag toss is always fun!  To make the game last longer I had them graph how many they got into the basket each time for 5 turns!

My favorite activity was Make Your Own Gameboard.  I copied a few different gameboards on cardstock.  I also printed some typical game directions like – lose a turn, etc.  I got a bunch of Minion stickers from Dollar Tree and provided markers to decorate the boards.  I gave them each items for each player to move and a die.  You could also use coins or buttons.

There are many free gameboards online – I just did a search and found lots!

I also found this Minion Cootie Catcher online!

I had already spray painted some rocks and the kids decorated them with paint pens.

The rest of the activities were things I purchased for the kids to use.  I found a new (to me) website named Hollar that had a great sale (really cheap!) on Minion card games and MegaBlocks.

And at Dollar Tree I found a set of Minion Colorforms – some of the kids had never used Colorforms before!

Of course we had to have prize bags too!  I got some fun Minion toys from the Hollar site.

It was a really fun day!

Bones!

Halloween is a great time to talk about how skeletons are not just a scary decoration, but really part of our body.

One of my favorite things to do around Halloween was to teach my Kindergartners the BONES Song by Dr. Jean Feldman.  You sing it to the tune of Macarena.  If you would like to hear it, I found several examples on YouTube by typing in Dr. Jean Bones Song.

 

Here are the words:

My Kindergartners would touch each part of their body as they sang the words.  The best part was when parents told me their kids would sing this when they visited their Pediatrician!

Here are a few fun skeleton books:

We also made these big skeletons and posed them in funny ways around our classroom.  Sometimes we cut the sides of of the paper plate faces to look more like skulls, but I kind of like the round, happy look!

I liked this project so much I still use it to decorate for my grandchildren!!

Have a happy and safe Halloween!

Birthday Time!

Our twins and their big brother all have birthdays within a week,  The celebrations lasted about a month!  So much fun!  They included a Mermaid/Pirate pool party, an all out bash at a local indoor playground/arcade/crazy place, and finally a family party at home.  They had a lot of discussion trying to choose a theme for the at home party and decided to make it all about their favorite stuffed animals – Pink Bunny, Blue Dog, and Reglar Sheepy (the favorite among a slew of sheep, spelling of Regular is intentional!  Others are Flat Sheepy, Nana Sheepy, Lavender Sheepy… can’t remember them all!)

We started out by following animal footprints as our guests entered the house, and completed an obstacle course.

I planned a game, a craft and a step by step drawing activity for each animal.  Here are the drawings:

The first game we played was Pet Shop Escape.  I used clipart to make necklaces, either a sheep, dog or bunny.  Each child chose one and sat on a colored foam square that were placed in a circle.  If any of you remember a very old game called Fruit Basket Tip Over – this game was a variation of that.  We called out 2 animals, for example “bunny and sheep.”  All the children wearing either of those necklaces got up and changed places.  Sometimes we called only one animal at a time.  When we said “Pet Shop Escape” all the kids got up and scrambled for a different colored square.

 

The next game was Bunny and Carrot.  I cut out a felt carrot and glued a picture of a bunny (on cardstock) onto a popsicle stick.  The kids sat in a circle.  I chose Lily – my bunny lover – to go first.  She took the bunny and went around a corner where she couldn’t see.  I gave the carrot to one child and we all hid our hands in our laps so she wouldn’t see who was holding the carrot.  We called her back by this chant:

“Bunny, Bunny!  Come and see!  Who has the carrot?  Is it me?”

She came back and guessed one person.  We told her if she was hot (close to the person) or cold (far away.)  She had 3 guesses.  Then the person who had been hiding the carrot became the bunny and the previous bunny chose who would hide the carrot.  We did it again and again until everyone had a turn.

The final game was “Who Let the Dogs Out?”

This was a take off on musical chairs.  I didn’t want anyone to get eliminated so everyone sat in a circle and passed a bag (decorated with a dog) around as we played the song Who Let the Dogs Out on an ipod.  When the music stopped the child holding the bag opened it and took out a candy kiss.  I planned to put small toys in the bag but realized it would take them a long time to reach in and choose – the same candy for everyone made it fast and simple.

Here are the pictures I used for the Bunny/Carrot game and the dog on the bag.

For the Sheep project the kids used a straw to blow bubbles into a small container of water, dish soap and a small amount of paint.  I put the container into a disposable pie pan to catch the overflow.

Next they gently pressed a paper containing a large cloud shaped sheep body onto the bubbles.  They repeated blowing and pressing until the body was filled with bubble prints.

 

Then they cut out the body and a pre-printed head, and cut 4 legs for their sheep; and glued it all together.  They added fiberfill for a tail and cottony top of the head.

 

Here are the sheep heads we used.  At school I would have the kids cut and create their own heads but our group included several preschoolers so I printed them.

We used a melting tray for the Bunny project.  I got this warming tray as a wedding gift in 1972.  Never used it until I found out what a great tool it is for melting crayons when I started teaching Kindergarten.  Easily found at garage sales now!

I guess it has seen better days but still works fine.  These trays are electric and meant to keep food warm at a buffet.  I always caution children not to touch the surface and use it with supervision, it gets quite warm but would not cause a serious burn – and they love it!

I peel crayons ahead of time (this goes fast if you slit the paper with an Exacto knife.)   I usually turn up a corner of the paper for the kids to hold onto so the paper doesn’t move while they are coloring.  They need to begin coloring a little slowly until the crayon starts to melt.  It makes a neat effect, looks like wet paint, but it hardens immediately when you remove it from the warming tray.  I printed off a selection of bunny pictures for them to color.  At school I sometimes covered the tray with foil and let the kids draw on the foil, then laid a paper onto the foil to make a print.

Here are the bunny picture choices:

Our dog project was a puppet on a popsicle stick.

I found the idea on Pinterest – they used a paper plate, but I know it can be tricky to glue stuff onto the ruffled edge of a paper plate so I cut out circles from cardstock instead.  I made a sample dog and they were free to create any kind and color of dog they liked.

Of course every Birthday party needs cake so I made Dog and Sheep cupcakes and Bunny shaped brownies.  They were a hit!

We went outside for a little parachute play – including bouncing and tossing stuffed dogs, bunnies and sheep!  Another fun day playing with my grandchildren!!

Nana Camp – Bear Week!

Brown Bear, Brown Bear was a fun way to start our bear week.  I found these wonderful pictures on pinterest – check out the site to download them if you’d like!  I put magnets on the back and had Nora and Max put them up on the board as we read the story.  We reread it all week!

I reduced the pictures and printed them off in a strip.  The kids cut them apart and helped put a small magnet on the back of each of their pictures.

Another fun idea from Pinterest – on the site they glued a strip of velcro along the length of a paint stir stick, I only had sew-on velcro so I used magnets instead.

I think I will be able to reuse this stick to retell other stories too!  They loved having their own small version.

I copied these images onto cardstock and we played Memory.  I colored mine but if you want the children to concentrate more on the shapes than just colors you could use them in black and white.  Or it might be fun to ask the children to remember what color each animal was in the story.

Goldilocks and the 3 Bears!

I read a couple of versions of the 3 Bears story, and used these pictures to retell it on the magnet board.  I taught the children a simple song that told the highlights of the story too.

Song – 3 Bears – tune of 3 Blind Mice

3 Brown Bears

3 Brown Bears

See all the beds

See all the chairs

The mama cooked in a big round pot

The papa’s porridge was much too hot

The baby bear always cried a lot,

3 Brown Bears

After singing it all week I made a book for the children using this song and the pictures from the magnet board.

Because they had been singing it with the pictures they could turn the pages and “read” it too.  Nora was even pointing to some of the words.

I made a Goldilocks pointer for each of them by gluing her onto a popsicle stick.

We had fun playing 5 Bears in the Bed too.

I enlarged these a little for my magnet board, and copied these for the children to color.  Nora cut her own.

You probably know this song (chant)

5 bears in the bed and the little one said

I’m crowded, roll over

So they all rolled over and one fell out

4 bears in the bed …

1 bear in the bed and the little one said

I’m lonely!

We sang it with hand motions and took the bears off the bed as we sang it every day too.

Of course we had to do it with Teddy Grahams too!

We used our new table for pudding paint.  The kids helped me mix up some instant chocolate pudding.  I put a few spoonfuls on the tray and let them play – and then lick their fingers!

When they had had enough fun we made a print of the pudding by laying this bear shape onto the pudding and gently pressing it down.

I wanted to cut out the bear shape but decided I liked the words at the top too!

It was a Bear-y fun week!  (sorry)

Mother’s Day Project

Aren’t these adorable magnets?  Last year I made some refrigerator magnets using cute scrapbook paper and glass “gems” I bought at Michael’s Craft Store.

These gems come in two sizes, but I only used the smaller ones.  I think these larger ones would work well too!  For my project I used a scrapbook circle punch and glued that picture on the flat side of the glass gem.  My creative daughter in law, Sheri, made this project much more adorable by using pictures that my grandchildren drew instead of the scrapbook paper!

First she traced some circles and asked the children to draw a simple picture inside.

 

Then she laid the pictures on her printer/scanner and reduced them to the size of the glass gems.

She used Modge Podge to glue each picture onto the flat side of a glass gem.  These need to dry well before moving onto the next step.

We both tried to hot glue the magnets onto the back of the pictures but found that this strong glue works much better.  An adult really needs to do this step, children should not use this glue.

You might want to set these on waxed paper or parchment paper to dry, just in case there is a drip of glue that might stick to other paper.  Also you have to space them apart to dry because these magnets tend to stick together!

Sheri found the cute flowers at a craft store too, they came in different colors and sizes.  When she glued a flower behind each magnet they were even cuter!  They look so cute on my refrigerator!

Hope you all find ways to celebrate the mothers in your life, and have a wonderful Mother’s Day yourself!

 

Christmas Crafts!

We had a fun craft day at Nana’s house today!  In case you are looking for a few festive ways to interact with your little ones and create keepsakes and memories, I thought I would share a few!

 

This was probably my favorite from today!  I sent some recent photos to Costco and had them enlarged to 8 x 10.  After trimming each face I glued it onto posterboard.  The kids added gold hand print antlers, red noses, and their signatures!  They are precious!  Trying this with the 2 and 3 year old tomorrow!

I found these empty bulb shaped ornaments at a craft store.  The kids filled them with glitter pom poms, curled ribbons, small pieces of scrapbook paper, sparkly pipe cleaners and foam cubes with letters on them.

I bought these red chargers at Dollar Tree.  Regular acrylic paint worked great to make the reindeer handprint.  The kids added black feet with their pointer finger in paint, and the face and antlers with a Sharpie.  I think I might go over the Sharpie writing with glitter glue to make the black show up a little better.  Also maybe a thumbprint tail?  The kids used a small circle sponge in white paint to make the dots.

Each child took 3 tongue depressors (wider than popsicle sticks) and glued them together at the corners.  The trunks are brown posterboard that I put through my crinkle machine.

 

Then they painted the “trees” green.  After they dried the kids added buttons and foam stars on top.

 

You might have seen these thumbprint reindeer.  We made individual ones for each child, but I wanted one with all 5 grandchildren on it.  I started with a clear ornament and coated the inside with white paint.  Details were done with a Sharpie.

Equal parts cinnamon (from a dollar store!) and applesauce makes a wonderful dough.  After cutting out the shapes I used a straw to make a hole so these ornaments can hang on a tree.  They take a couple of days to air dry.  I borrowed this photo from Pinterest because I didn’t have one of my own.

I used to make these as parent gifts on white muslin fabric when I was teaching Kindergarten.  I sewed a casing at the top and hung it from a small dowel.  So cute!

These handprint snowmen have gotten very popular.  You just paint the child’s whole hand white, then hand them an ornament and help them gently close their hand so each fingerprint can become a snowman.  After the paint is dry details can be added with Sharpies.

 

Another photo that I borrowed from Pinterest, but I loved doing this craft with my Kindergartners too.  I used to print them on light blue paper, then laminate them.  Instead of drawing on the eyes we used to glue on jiggly eyes and a real pom pom on the hat.

It was a really fun day, making Christmas memories with my grandchildren.  Owen really loved the crinkle machine.  He left this crinkled sign on my door before he went home.

Super Heroes!

The Commerce Township Library started off their summer reading program with a really fun Super Heroes Day!

 

There were lots of fun activities and projects.

They provided precut masks that were cut out of different colors of thin foam sheets.  Small holes were punched on each side and elastic string was tied onto each hole to hold the mask on.  Lots of great materials were provided to decorate the masks – stickers, foam stickers, markers – but the FAVORITE was glitter glue!

The kids loved putting on these “HULK” type gloves and crashing through cardboard blocks and large Legos.

They were also invited to draw any type of Super Hero they wanted to.  Anna drew Super Blue-y – based on her favorite stuffed dog.

I loved these capes made from brown paper grocery bags.  These were also precut in a simple cape shape and ribbon ties were attached at the top.  Larger stickers were provided, along with markers and more glitter glue!

I’m always happy when they include movement activities in the fun.  They taped and tied red string in a crisscross design to make a pretend laser course for the kids to crawl through.  Another fun detail was the Super Hero duct tape they used to hold the string in place!

Thanks Commerce Library, for another great day!

The Pigeon Party!

Our family spent another fun evening at Commerce Township Community Library celebrating the Pigeon, and other favorite Mo Willems characters.  If somehow you haven’t met and fallen in love with these books, take some time to look at them.  All of my grandchildren love them, from 15 month old Max to 6 year old Owen; and I know they will keep enjoying them for a long time.

Here are a few that were on display at the Pigeon Party.  Our favorites are probably Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus and Knuffle Bunny, but we haven’t read them all either!

They began the special evening by reading a Mo Willems book and giving the children a chance to try out some special dances:  Piggie Jiggle, Twist and Snout, Air Piggie, Shakin’ Bacon, Happy Hooves, Elephant Slide, The Shy Guy, The Funky Trunky, Jumbo Gumbo, and Rob-Gerald 3000.

After dancing the families were free to explore all the great centers that were set up around the room.

The kids loved making paper bag puppets, they could choose either the Elephant or Piggie.

 

 

 They had fun pretending to be the duckling or the pigeon trying to “eat” a cookie.  The head with an eye was glued onto a spring clothespin and the children counted how many pom poms they could pick up.  Some of the pom poms were decorated to look like chocolate chips – or nuts?

The illustrations in the book Knufflebunny, and Knufflebunny too are photographs with the characters drawn into the scenes.  For this activity the children chose a large photograph and colored and glued on any characters they liked.  There were lots of background photos to choose from, as well as a whole bunch of characters.

The children enjoyed trying to walk carrying a paper nest filled with plastic eggs on their heads.  I am not sure which book this is from!  I need to check it out!

This Mad Lib activity was great for the school aged children who attended.  Even the little ones could make suggestions to fill in the blanks.

I loved seeing what all my grandchildren drew and wrote in their cartoons.

 

 

The children had fun making play dough clothes to cover up the Naked Mole Rat!

There are lots of wonderful ideas for extensions of more Mo Willems books on Pinterest, and also on Mo Willems’ website.  Thanks again Commerce Library!