A childhood list

95) Cereal Box Notebook with Crayon Holder

2012-02-23T14:28:00.000-05:00

My Spring fever is now in high gear and as a result I found myself cleaning out the pantry yesterday. When I was done the kitchen floor had a heaping pile of empty cardboard boxes. A quick visit to Facebook and I had found the perfect project for all my empty boxes. These little notebooks with crayon holders from Under The Sycamore were so cute and perfect for The Bean who is obsessed with coloring. They used store bought mini notebooks and covered them with paper, which looked great. But since I had a pile of cardboard I opted to make a few notebooks myself. I begin by cutting the cardboard boxes down to just the front and back rectangle. I then cut some paper down to the same size. I found two binder clips and clipped the paper in between the two pieces of cardboard. I then drew 5 dots along the top as evenly spaced as I could with just eyeing it. Next I got my awl, a tool used for drilling holes into layers of paper, and one of my favorite multi-use tools around. (It is great for getting small toys out of vents, just for future reference and pretty inexpensive.) I drilled the five holes all the way through the cardboard and paper, the awl makes this very easy. Then
using a piece of embroidery floss and a large eyed needle I bound the book together using the Japanese Stab Binding method. Read here for full directions. This technique is tricky the first time but after you do it a few times it is very quick and easy! Once the book was fully bound, I cut off the extra thread and the book was good to go. I then took one piece of elastic band (like the kind you would use for sewing) and hot glued the ends so it would fit around the front cover. I hot glued another piece of elastic onto it leaving little loops to hold the crayons. The hot glue was very easy and has stood up to a lot of use by a not particularly gentle 20 month old. We found some crayons to put through the loops and
voila! A new travel sketchbook for The Bean. She loves drawing in her sketchbook but maybe likes taking the crayons in and out of the holder even more.

39) Hunt for Signs of Spring

2012-02-22T14:06:00.000-05:00

While it is technically still February, it feels more like April today. After a morning of playing outside without our coats on, I am definitely thinking Spring. I have lived in Baltimore long enough to know that a March blizzard is always a possibility, but all those little signs of Spring are starting to get me excited! The other day we went on a walk (just around our neighborhood) looking for Spring. At first we just spotted a few snowdrops and then we came upon this whole yard of beautiful purple Croci (is that the plural for crocus, I am not sure but I like it so I am going to leave it.) The inspiration for our Spring walk came from this great book Project Garden: A Month-By Month Guide to Planting, Growing and Enjoying All you Backyard Has To Offer By Stacy Tornio. The book is filled with activities, recipes and info about what is in season every month. It even has a page about the different flowers growing that month with pictures so you can identify them! There are lots of projects in this book I can't wait to try, when Spring really does arrive. In the meantime I am off to start thinking about what we should grow in our garden this year...

39) Water Balz Experiement

2012-02-21T14:23:00.001-05:00

We have played with water beads before and loved them so when I saw these Water Balz by Dunecraft at the grocery story for $1.99 I thought we would give them a shot. They come in a small package with about 8 little balls. We took them out and put them in a bowl of water on our kitchen counter. Every few hours we came back to check on them, and took a picture. The Water Balz grow in water like water beads, they are the same consistency as water beads, but they grow much, much larger then water beads! After about 24 hours in the water they were slightly larger then a golf ball. The Bee and the Bean loved them, and because they were so big I wasn't worried about someone putting them in their mouth like I often am with the water beads. The best part is that after 24 hours I took them out of the water and left them on a plate on the counter. After a week of sitting there they had shrunk back down to their original size (although a few had broken while we were playing with them.) A few days ago we put them back into water and they grew again. I am not sure how many times they will dehydrate and rehydrate but for the price you could always get more!

94) Recycled Sweater Hats

2012-02-20T21:36:00.001-05:00

It is very possible that I may write about making winter hats from old sweaters and taking a walk to find spring flowers in the same week. I know this seems a little silly but that's the kind of winter we have had. Despite the fact that we have had very few really cold days (and I am not complaining) we have had plenty of oppurtunities to wear our sweater hats. Inspired by the book "Handmade Home" By Amanda Blake Soule, I made these hats a few months ago from an old sweater we had. I love working with felted sweaters, they are very easy to use, easy to cut, easy to sew and easy to add needle felted decorations. For the full directions and pattern check out Natural Home and Garden or the book. I honestly did not use the patterns from the book, I just sort of eyeballed it, using one of the girls hats to help figure out roughly how big the hat should be. I saw these cute owl hats on Pinterest and this great tutorial for how to make pom poms (which have since been one of my favorite things to make.) The hats were very easy to make, and there are so many different things you can do with them. I think they will become a new yearly tradition just like our Sweater Mittens!

1) Inspirations: Things to Look At

2012-02-19T22:04:00.000-05:00

One of my goals this year is to be an explorer of the world, a lofty goal that I came up with after reading the fabulous book "How To Be An Explorer of The World: Portable Life Museum" By Kerri Smith. As part of this goal I have been trying to be more aware of the things that inspire me and finding more inspiration everywhere. So to help me out with this I am starting a new addition to the list, the Things to Look At: Inspirations category. I am going to attempt to write a post every week about inspirations I have found both in the virtual world of the Internet and the real world. So without further ado here is my first week.

1) Moments Big or Small: Who new fungi could be so inspiring but on a recent walk with the girls around the block we found this fungi growing on an tree stump. We stopped and looked at it for a long time! Who new fungi could be so inspiring and so beautiful.

2) Things to Do: I love these Interactive Mandalas from The Artful Parent. What a great way to work together on a single work of art without loosing individual contributions. Reminds me of the Exquisite Corpse's.

3) Stuff to Make: My Exquisite Corpse thought brought me to this site This Playground and their exquisite corpse blocks. I would love to make these for the girls!

4) Books to Read: Check out these beautiful Exquisite Corpse's from Random House illustrators!

9) 6 Favorite Fairy Tales With a Twist

2012-02-17T14:13:00.000-05:00

You know how as a kid certain things go over your head and you usually just remeber the fun and glamorous parts, but then as an adult you look back with grown-up eyes and realize how much you missed as a kid. My example of this is that I recently watched "The Sound Of Music" as a grown-up, and when my husband came into the room I said to him "There are Nazi's in The Sound of Music?" If you have ever seen the Sound of Music you know that the Nazi regime moving into Austria is pretty much what the story is about, but as a kid I glossed right over that. I can however sing almost every song from the movie despite not having even seen it in 20 years. This is also how I felt the first time I read a fairy tale to my daughter. I thought oh perfect "Little Red Riding Hood" until I got to the part where the wolf eats her and her grandmother and the woodsman cuts them out of the wolfs stomach with his axe! I had some how forgotten that part. Despite the darker side to fairy tales there is a reason these classic stories continue to be read generation after generation, they are good stories. They have good characters, bad vs evil, lessons, drama, mystical creatures and great plot lines that make you wonder what is going to happen even if you have read the story 100 times before. So it is no wonder that these stories are retold again and again. Here are a few of our favorite fairy tales with a little twist:

1) Each Peach Pear Plum By Allan and Janet Ahlberg- A perfect introduction, for little ones, to the classic fairy tale characters. On each page you have to spy the fairy tale favorites as they intermingle eventually all coming together for pie.
2) Waking Beauty By Leah Wilcox- A twist on the classic Sleeping Beauty in which the prince trys to wake the sleeping princess up in every other way possible in an attempt to not actually have to kiss her! This one makes me laugh out loud every time we read it.
3) The Three Snow Bears By Jan Brett- A slight location change for the classic "Golidlocks and The Three Bears" brings the story to the far north where a girl named Aloo-ki happens upon the igloo of three polar bears. I always love Jan Brett's illustrations, filled with so much detail to look at.
4) The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs By Jon Scieszka- The fairy tale of "The Three Little Pigs" told from the wolfs perspective, he claims it was all a misunderstanding. Another one for a good laugh!
5) The Princesses Have a Ball By Teresa Bateman- In the classic story of "The 12 Dancing Princesses" the girls mysteriously wear out their shoes every night by dancing. In this version the princesses wear out their shoes playing basketball. The Bee really likes this one.
6) There's a Wolf at the Door By Zoe Alley- 5 wolf related tales in a graphic novel style, oversized book. Although this one is probably most enjoyed by kids in the 6-9 range the Bee definitely liked it and Alley's other book There's a Princess in the Palace was a big hit too!

38) Walk the Line

2012-02-16T13:31:00.001-05:00

Anyone who has spent any time with little kids knows that it is always the simple things they love. Give a kid an elaborate present and they want to play with the box. I sometime forgot this, but fortunately I have the Bee and Bean around to remind me. Last week the Bee put a piece of tape on the floor. She and The Bean then spent the longest time playing with this piece of tape on the floor. The walked on it like it was a balance beam, jumped over, put things on it. So the next day we made another line a little longer, going from one side of the room to the other. We also added a little zag to this line. Again the girls spent a ton of time playing with the line. The Bean loved laying on the floor lining up all her people.

20) The Day in the Life of The Bee's Hair

2012-02-15T13:15:00.000-05:00

Last summer I wrote a post documenting what happens in 24 hours in our playroom. My best friend Emily jokingly suggested that I write a post documenting a day of The Bee's hair (which starts the day in a nice braid or ponytail that slowly unravels as the day goes on), which i thought was a brilliant idea. So for her birthday, I put together a post doing just that. Yesterday when the Bee woke up I fixed her hair, just like we do every morning. Then every hour or so I took a picture of her. While I fully expected to see her hairstyle slowly deterirate, I was surprised by what her facial expressions show about her day too!

93) Needle Felted Heart Sweater

2012-02-13T22:33:00.000-05:00

I have to start this post by saying that it took me longer to chase the Bean down to get a picture of her in the sweater then it took to actually make the sweater. A few weeks ago I saw this awesome sweater on Pinterest, and had to give it a try. I used an old sweater the Bean already had, a heart shaped cookie cutter, some red wool roving (we also already had) and a felting needle and pad. I put the heart cookie cutter where I wanted the heart to be on the sweater. I then placed the roving into the heart and begin felting with the needle. I had to do a few layers of roving to fill the heart shape but the whole project took probably less then 10 minutes. The felted heart looks so cute and is perfect for valentines or any other day!

92) Birthday T-Shirt for Dad

2012-02-13T14:05:00.000-05:00

For us February isn't just abut Valentine's it is also about birthdays. This week alone we have 5 family members with birthdays! Over the weekend we celebrated the birthday of one of our most favorite people, The Bee and Bean's Dad. The girls have been talking for weeks about how they wanted to make him a present. So we went with something we already knew he likes, t-shirts! We got a plain blue t-shirt at the store. I then found a piece of cardboard and put it inside the shirt between the two layers of fabric. I gave the girls two sharpie markers one black and one white. They then drew their own designs on the shirt. The only thing I told them was to only draw where the cardboard was so that the marker didn't bleed through. To make the design a little more interesting I placed the cardboard a little off center. The girls drawings looked very cool and their dad was so excited about his new shirt, especially because it was made just for him, with lots of love!

91) Valentines

2012-02-10T13:45:00.001-05:00

I will start by saying that I am now and have always been a complete sucker for the kid made valentines. Even before I had kids, I always loved those little hand drawn hearts my students would give me for valentines. So then it should come as no surprise that we made valentines this week. It was a perfect activity that allowed The Bee to cut and paste (what she truly loves to do) and The Bean to color (what she truly loves to do.) We begin with just some plain white little heart cards that I got at Micheal's and we laid out all the pink, heart, glitter materials we have and went to town. We used some heart paper punches for cutting hearts from our Valentines doily paintings. The Bean mostly used markers and some random Dora stickers we found. The Bee is in love with the "beautiful" pink glitter glue we had and I just sat and watched how even though they both had all the same materials to use they picked and used totally different things. Our finished valentines will be heading out soon to spread a little valentines love!

90) Cloud Dough

2012-02-09T15:09:00.002-05:00

One can only play with play dough so much before you need to change it up a little. I say that with all the love and admiration of someone who has played with play dough several times a week for the last three years. This Fall I saw a few of my favorite blogs writing about Cloud Dough, an easy to make dough that feels light and fluffy. So I figured this week we would shake it up a little and give it a shot. Cloud Dough is unbelievably easy to make, and you most likely already have the ingredients in your house. We started by digging out a large plastic tub and putting it on the table. The Bee then helped me scoop out 6 cups of flour and pour them into the bin. I pulled all the flour into a little mountain, made a well in the middle and poured in one cup of vegetable oil. I mixed it together until the oil was fully blended. Once mixed the dough has the feel of flour, but the oil makes it stick together. It is perfect for smushing in your hands, or making shapes with cookies cutters and cups. The girls both loved this! They played for the longest time and made the biggest mess. Our kitchen floor was covered in Cloud Dough (despite their best attempts to keep it in the bucket) but because the dough clumps to itself it was actually surprisingly easy to clean up. And it was so fun to play with it was really worth the mess!
Here is a few links to some of the blogs that inspired our Cloud Dough play:
Tinkerlab
Flights of Whimsy
Imagination Tree

37) Play Hide and Seek

2012-02-08T14:17:00.004-05:00

So what kind of childhood list would it be if we didn't include playing hide and seek! Hide and Seek, is to me, the quintessential childhood game. As a kid I spent hours playing it with whoever I could convince to play with me. Recently I have been back to playing lots of Hide and Seek, since the Bee and Bean discovered that it is their new favorite game. I love playing this game with them, they always hide in the same spaces and giggle loudly when you come within 50ft of where they are hiding. They count to 10 with their eyes wide open but still squeal with surprise when they find me. Here is a picture of the Bean "hiding", notice she didn't put her snack down to play.

36) Make Butter

2012-02-07T14:12:00.000-05:00

Last Summer my sister sent me an email that just said "This is exciting" with this link. When I opened the link and found a post titled "Make Your Own Butter" I quickly realized what was so exciting. The post described how to make your own butter in 20 minutes using two ingredients, so easy even my 3 year old could do it! I recently remembered the email and thought we should give it a try. We bought a small container of heavy cream at the grocery store and poured half of it into a glass jar, put the lid on and started shaking. We took turns shaking, danced while shaking, jumped while shaking and sang while shaking. I will say that I probably did a majority of the legitimate shaking and my arms were tired. In about 15 minutes I could no longer hear anything sloshing around in there, so we shook for a few more minutes and then took the lid off for a peak. Our heavy cream had formed a largish clump. We had a little extra liquid that we poured out of the jar and were left with a rich, creamy butter. Our first batch was sort of the consistency of a light whipped butter, which I love. Later we made another jar and shook it for even longer and this time the butter was a thicker, heavier consistency. Both were delicious so I think it is up to your preference or arm strength!

89) Paper Bag Wind Socks

2012-02-05T20:10:00.000-05:00

Despite all my best intentions I frequently find myself at the grocery store without my reusable bags. Which means that we have a stack of brown paper grocery bags that I keep meaning to do something with. So when I read about Tinkerlab's Paper Bag Creative Challenge I knew it was the perfect opportunity to find something to do with all our bags. We begin by just opening up a few bags and laying them on the table. I put out some drawing materials (chalk, crayons, oil pastels) and the girls just drew while we brainstormed what we could make our bags into. The Bee then wanted to paint them with watercolors and while painting she came up with the idea for making the bags into a kite. Which was a great idea, but since we didn't have all the stuff to make a kite I suggested making a windsock instead. She was very excited about this idea. So after the paint dried I gave her a pair of scissors and she cut up one side of the paper bag almost all the way to the top creating a fringe along one edge. I then wrapped the bag around on itself creating a round form and stapled it. We stapled the handle of the bag down to keep the round shape. I then tied a piece of yarn to the handle and we went out to fly them. The Bee and Bean held the strings and ran with the windsocks behind them. The air got caught in the center opening sending the windsock flying into the air and the cut fringe blew in the breeze. The girls were amazed by how the windsocks flew. When we were done we hung one of them on the back porch to blow in the wind and the other we brought inside to fly another day.

35) Make Milkshakes

2012-02-05T13:24:00.000-05:00

Unfortunately we have had a lot of sick days around here lately. Lots of ear infections have meant lots of medicine which has meant lots of milkshakes. While the milkshakes started as a way to sweeten the having to take medicine deal, they have since continued just because they are delicious. Our current favorite milk shake concoction is chocolate banana. Here is our official recipe:
a few scoops of vanilla ice cream
enough milk to cover the ice cream
chocolate syrup (a lot)
two ripe bananas
Add all the ingredients to a blender and blend until smooth.
What is your favorite kind of milkshake?

88) Milk Carton Bank With Bottle Cap Coins

2012-02-03T13:03:00.002-05:00

Money has been a frequent topic of conversation at our house latley. The Bee is just starting to be interested in the concept of money and how much things cost. However I never actually have bills and coins, so teaching her about money has been a little tricky. To help with the coin concept we made our own coins out of bottle caps. I painted the caps different colors and then wrote the amount with sharpie. We used a juice carton for the bank, which I cut a slot into and the Bee painted. I am not sure how much it matters to her that the "coins" are different but she and the Bean have loved putting them into the slot.

34) The Sketchbook Project

2012-02-02T09:32:00.001-05:00

I have lots of reasons why I enjoy writing this blog but the number one reason is that it forces me to do, make and think creatively every day. I have found that since we started this I have become more confident in my ability to make things mostly because I have had more experiences making stuff. I have found myself thinking more creatively because each new idea or inspiration leads to a another idea or possibility. All of this has also been rubbing off on The Bee and Bean. The Bee now often comes up with her own projects. Yesterday she found some old shoes in her closet and asked if she could decorate them, sure, I would have never thought of that, but why not. So with all this in mind, I signed our family up for The Sketch Book Project. I purchased a $25 dollar sketchbook in our family's name for the holidays. We have until April 30th to work on our sketchbook and do whatever we want to it. We will then send it back to The Brooklyn Art Library where they will archive and display our sketchbook along with 5000 other artists sketchbooks. I love the idea behind this project, but mostly I love having a communal family sketchbook. While I obviously could just have a sketchbook without being part of this project, I have found that having some kind of structure or reason is helpful in getting us going. We leave our sketchbook in the kitchen and work on it whenever the mood strikes us. Sometimes we work collaboratively, sometimes just by ourselves. On one page I have been drawing the girls as they are eating dinner. On anther we have been collecting stickers found randomly around our house. My hope is that we will continue to have a communal and even personal sketchbooks long after this project is over. I think keeping a sketchbook is a great practice that I myself want to get better at, and a great way for kids to have a go to place for their ideas, drawings, scribbles and experiments.

19) Baltimore Treasure Map

2012-01-31T13:20:00.000-05:00

I was reminded of all the great treasures Baltimore has to offer at last weekend's Baltimore Treasure Map Play Date. I loved seeing what the kids came up with and the finished map turned out so cool. Thanks to (Cool) Progeny, aMuse Toys and Classic Play for including us in this fun project! Doesn't the Bee look good in a beehive?

87) Oil and Paper Window Garland

2012-01-30T14:21:00.000-05:00

Here is why I love this project: 1) we had all the stuff to make this already in our house and within easy reach 2) Both The Bee and The Bean could make and enjoy making these. I got the inspiration for this project from E is for Exploration and since we are starting to think valentines we decided to go with heart shapes. I begin by cutting a bunch of hearts out of colored construction paper. In this case the cheaper the paper the better. I then poured a little vegetable oil into two small plates. I gave each of the girls a few hearts, a plate of oil and a q-tip. They then painted the oil onto the heart with the q-tip. When on the table this looks a little like you set some fries on your art project but when I hung them in the window Ta-Da! They look beautiful! The oil makes the paper translucent, letting the light through sort of like stained glass.

86) Coffee Filter Flowers

2012-01-29T21:34:00.000-05:00

We don't actually have a coffee maker that uses coffee filters anymore but since they are very cheap and you get something like 500 in a pack, they are definitely worth keeping around. Not to mention that there are lots of cool things you can do with them. The Bee and The Bean are big fans of coffee filters and mostly love cutting them up or drawing on them but last week we made them even more exciting by dying them. We stayed with our food color trend by adding some food coloring to a little water in muffin tins. I then folded a bunch of coffee filters into triangles, the same way you would if you were cutting snowflakes. The girls then dipped the folded coffee filters into water. The coffee filters suck up the water and food coloring, making it look really cool. If you dip into multiple colors you get a nice blending, which the Bee was very excited to discover. After the girls had dipped all the coffee filters we unfolded them and let them dry. The Bee and I then made a few of them into flowers by folding them back into triangles and twisting the pointy end. We made the bloom by pulling the pieces of the coffee filter apart a little and the stem by twisting a pipe cleaner around the end. The Bee also cut up some of the dyed coffee filters to use in a collage, her favorite go to activity. Our beautiful flower arrangement is now sitting on our mantel and the best part is I don't have to remember to water them!

85) Snow Spray Paint

2012-01-28T21:22:00.003-05:00

Hard to believe one week ago today this is what our backyard looked like, especially since today was a beautiful day in the upper 50's. Last Saturday was our first real snow of the winter and The Bee had a fabulous time playing outside in all her snow gear. To add a little color we filled up some water bottles with water and a few drops of food coloring. As a side note color week should have really been called food coloring week, you should see our hands! The Bee loved spraying and watching the colors soak into the snow. She was all about layering and blending colors. By the time she came in our yard looked like a colorful masterpiece!

8) 8 Colorful Children's Books

2012-01-27T13:21:00.001-05:00

Mouse Paint By Ellen Stohl Walsh- The tale of three mice who take a dip in some paint and then discover they can mix colors together to make new colors.

In A Blue Room By Jim Averbeck- We recently took this book out of the library and I love it. A story of a little girl who is not tired but her mother gets her ready for bed one sense at a time.

A Day With No Crayons By Elizabeth Rusch- After drawing on the wall Liza looses her crayons and discovers that the world is filled with colors she can use to make art! I love paint and crayon color names so this book makes me giggle.

My Many Colored Days By Dr. Seuss- A Dr Seuss classic all about associating colors with feelings.

Little Blue and Little Yellow By Leo Lionni- Although this is a long standing classic it is new to us and we have been loving the story of best friends little yellow and litttle blue.

Color By Ella Doran, David Goodman and Zoe Miller- I am still swooning over this book, click the link to read my full length ode.

Planting A Rainbow By Lois Ehlert- Beautiful illustrations of all different flowers in every color of the rainbow. One of my personal favorites especially in the winter when I need a little spring!

Double Pink Kate Feiffer- For all the pink lovers out there (this is one of the Bee's all time favorites) the story of Madison who loves pink so much she wants everything to be pink.

84) Sharpie Tie-Dye T-Shirt

2012-01-26T18:03:00.003-05:00

When I was a kid every summer we would tie-dye with my dad. We would use rubber bands to tie up the fabric and then dip it into dye. My sister and I loved it! We made tie-dye shirts, tie-dye bags and even tie-dye socks. As much as I love that dip-dye method, it is really messy and maybe a better outside summertime activity when the girls are a little older. So in the meantime I thought the Bee might be into tie-dying with sharpies. This is an easy fun experiment with super cool results. We started by getting out some sharpie markers (the more colors the better), some rubber bands, a plastic cup, rubbing alcohol and a syringe. You also need some kind of fabric to dye on.
I had recently been on a baby clothes clean out so we used some old white onsies (you know the ones that are so stained they are beyond handing down.) I placed a plastic cup under the fabric and wrapped a rubber band around the mouth of the cup. The Bee then selected some sharpie markers and begin dotting. After some experimenting we found that dotting the fabric with the markers makes the coolest patterns and was the easiest for The Bee to do. Once she was finished dotting I filled a syringe with rubbing alchol and gave it to the Bee. She squirted the rubbing alcohol directly onto her drawing. The color immediately began spreading out, running into each other and blending. It really is pretty cool to watch. After making a bunch of circles we left the fabric to dry. I then cut out some circles and used fabric glue to glue them to a white shirt, The Bee already had, to cover up a little stain. Side note: It may have been better to sew them on but my sewing machine was still under a pile of junk at the time and the glue just seemed a lot easier and worked fine.

10 Stops on Our Baltimore Treasure Map

2012-01-26T13:29:00.002-05:00

We are getting ready for This Saturday's Treasure Map Playdate at aMuse Toys in Quarry Lake. For all the details about the playdate and to come join us checkout (Cool) Progeny and Classic Play. To get ready the Bee and I started discussing all our favorite Baltimore places. We came up with a top ten list (in no particular order):

Cylburn Arboretum- A little nature retreat right in the middle of the city, perfect for a picnic or afternoon hike.

American Visionary Art Museum- Our favorite place for kid art inspiration.

Rawlings Conservatory- A perfect way to spend those winter gray days.

Patterson Park Playground- What could be better then a Baltimore themed playground!

Maryland Science Center- Dinosaurs, experiments and our personal favorite a giant water table.

Storyville- Perfect place for little ones to play and explore.

Maryland Zoo in Baltimore- Our favorite place for a little monkey business.

32nd Street Market- We go for the muffins and coffee but you can also get great produce there.

Port Discovery- Three story climber, Ancient Egypt and an art studio!

Baltimore Museum of Art- our favorite place for looking at art and playing in the sculpture garden

Come Saturday to aMuse Toys from 2-4 to share your favorite Baltimore people, places or things and help us make "Baltimore's Biggest Treasure Map"

33) Jello Stacking

2012-01-25T13:41:00.000-05:00

Last week I was reminded why jello remains a long standing kid favorite. It is such a bizarre consistency that it is really hard not to stick your fingers in. It jiggles, it wiggles, it comes in bright beautiful colors. Really what more could a kid want, oh right for it to be deliciously sweet. Add that in and you have come up with the perfect kid food! The Bee and Bean had never had jello before but we had a box of Knox gelatin so I figured we would give it a shot. The Bee and I followed the directions on the back of the box: Mix four packets of gelatin with one cup of cold juice. Then bring 3 cups of juice to a boil. remove from heat and mix with the cold juice and gelatin. We then divided our gelatin mixture into two bowls and added green food coloring to one and red food coloring to the other. We poured the mixtures into glass baking pans and put them in the fridge for a few hours. After they had fully chilled we took them out and cut them into blocks.Then the stacking challenge begin. The Bean was all about building towers, then laughing hysterically when the tower would tip over and bounce across her plate. The Bee worked on building houses. To my surprise I had to remind them both that they could actually eat the jello too!

32) Cornstarch Color Mixing Experiment

2012-01-24T13:46:00.001-05:00

A new favorite book in our house is Mice Paint by Ellen Stohl Walsh. The book is a charming tale of three mice who inadvertently discover that they can mix paint colors to make new colors. The Bee and The Bean have been requesting this book for over a week, so I thought they might enjoy a little color mixing of their own. We attempted to do the Rainbow In A Bag project from The Artful Parent a few months ago, only to find that I hadn't fully read the directions and didn't have all the ingredients. So instead we did another similar project that turned out well but didn't totally have the color mixing component that this project did. So this time, armed with the right ingredients we gave it a go. I begin by mixing 1 cup of cornstarch, 1/3 cup of sugar and 4 cups of water into a saucepan over medium-high heat. I then stirred constantly for a few minutes, this is one of those things were you stand there and think this is not working, this is not working and then all of the sudden it is done. The mixture very quickly coagulates and becomes the consistency of Vaseline. At which point you want to take it off the heat and give it a second to cool down a little. We then divided the cornstarch mix into three separate bowls and the Bee added food coloring making one bowl red, one bowl yellow and one bowl blue. We then took three plastic bags, in one we put a little red and a little blue, in the other we put a little blue and a little yellow and in the last we put a little yellow and a little red. I then turned the bags over to the Bee and Bean to mix and mash to their hearts delight. The thing that make this project so fun is that while the cornstarch mix is very soft and pliable it actually takes a while of pushing and mushing to mix the colors so
in the meantime you get this beautiful variation of color in the bag, that truly looks like a rainbow! The Bee and Bean spent an impressively (at 3 and 1 they don't always have the longest attention spans) long time playing with these and I have to say I was really as mesmerized by the colors as they were.

83) Colorful Ice Sculpture

2012-01-23T12:47:00.003-05:00

We finally got our first real snow this weekend! To celebrate we made some fun ice sculptures to add a little color to the white and gray landscape. We begin by pulling out the large collection of fun shaped ice cube trays, which we have actually never used for ice despite having them for years. The Bee then helped me mix up some water with food coloring, which we poured into the molds. Since I knew it was going to be so cold out we just left them on cookie trays on our back porch over night and found them fully frozen, along with everything else, in the morning. We dumped the colorful ice out in the snow, which was a work of art in itself. The Bean and Bee then picked up all the colorful ice cubes and put them into a bunt pan and a cake pan. I then filled both of the pans the rest of the way with water before leaving them on the back porch for the night. I wanted to make ours hanging sculptures so we used the bunt pan and for the cake pan I put a plastic cup in the middle before pouring the water in so that it would also have a hole to hang by. The following morning we brought the sculptures in, dipped the pans quickly into warm water and then the sculptures easily slipped out. The Bee was amazed by the ice although the sculptures were quickly starting to melt in the house, so she didn't get to look to long. I quickly tied a rope through each of the sculptures and we hung them outside. They look beautiful in the snow! I am curious to see what happens to our sculptures today and tomorrow when the temps here are supposed to be in the 50's.

82) Pipe Cleaner and Bead Mobile

2012-01-21T13:20:00.004-05:00

Inspired by our trip to The American Visionary Art Museum and particularly the bead and wire sculptures of the artist John Landry, The Bee came home and wanted to make her own sculptures. We got out some pipe cleaners, popscicle sticks and some brightly colored wooden beads. I showed The Bee how you can attach two pipe cleaners by wrapping them around each other and left the rest to her. These are my favorite kinds of art projects, the ones where you (the grown-up) have no intentions or plans and just provide a little knowledge and some materials to see what the kids come up with. These are also the projects at our house that always turn out the best. The Bee decided that her sculpture should be a hanging so we rigged a little hook out of pipe cleaners and hung it in the play room.

49) American Visionary Art Museum

2012-01-20T21:44:00.000-05:00

This morning we took a field trip to one of my favorite places for good art inspiration. The American Visionary Art Museum is located on Key Highway at the foot of Federal Hill. The museum houses over 4000 pieces of visionary art, a kind of art made by someone who is not necesarrily an artist with art training and often uses unconventional materials. To give you an idea, one of the pieces the girls were most fascinated by today was the Lusitania by Wayne Kusy a 16 foot boat made from 194,000 toothpicks. Some of our other favorite pieces have been a bench made of whoppee cushions, the large collection of mechanical toys and the junk robot family. I have taken the girls several times to visit and every time they love it. There is so much to look at, the art is very colorful and often very childlike. I also love that so much of the artwork is made from every day materials. The Bee was so inspired by these sculptures by an artist named John Landry made from wire and beads she made her own sculptures when she got back home.

81) Valentines Doily Printing

2012-01-19T13:44:00.000-05:00

The Bee is all about Valentine's Day or as she calls it "Love Day." So we have started our Love Day crafting a little early. On our last trip to the store we picked up some heart doily's. I wasn't entirely sure what we were going to do with them, but I thought they might come in handy when it came time to make valentines. Then while looking through the book Paper Scissors Glue By Catherine Worman

I discovered a great section on doily printing. I recently got this book and it is filled with lots of great ideas that I can't wait to try! I set up for this project very similarly to how we did our post-it stencil painting. I taped a large sheet of paper to the table with painters tape. I then made painter tape donuts (when you curl the tape in a circle) and put them on the back of the heart doilies. The Bee stuck the hearts where she wanted all over her paper. Once the Bee had placed all her hearts, I poured some red and pink tempera paint onto a plate and she started painting the whole paper with our DIY Paint Brushes, which are perfect for stencil painting. When she was finished she peeled off the hearts leaving a super cool intricate pattern on the paper. She and I have been discussing cutting up the painting and using it to make valentines cards for her friends.

31) Blow Bubbles in Your Milk

2012-01-18T14:40:00.002-05:00

One of the best parts of childhood are the little discoveries. Those moments of finding something new, cool, interesting or exciting. Feeling like the first person in the world to ever realize that something so cool could happen. I love these moments! The other day The Bee had one of these moments when she discovered that you can blow bubbles in milk. She was sitting at the table in the kitchen drinking milk through one of the Magic Milk Straws she got for the holidays. The Magic Milk Straws are pretty cool in themselves since they seem to magically make plain milk taste pink and if you read Charlie and Lola books you know how important pink milk is. However the straw was not what had her screaming in excitement for me to come see, it was the bubbles. She was so excited about how her cup was almost overfilling with bubbles, to which I could so clearly hear my mom yelling at my sisters and I to stop blowing bubbles in our milk, and had to overcome the immediate mom urge to say the same thing. She then asked how come you blow bubbles in milk? I had no idea why, so of course we had to check it out on the Internet. It turns out it is the proteins in milk that cause the bubbles. We even found a cool experiment, which we didn't try, but sounded like fun.

30) Paint Cookies

2012-01-17T13:47:00.001-05:00

The only way to make painting more fun is to add cookies! I mean really how can you go wrong with delicious brightly colored paints, a paint brush and a blank sugar dough canvas. We started our painted cookies by making a sugar cookie dough, which I will confess was just a box mix. We then rolled out the dough and used our heart cookie cutters since it seemed the most seasonally appropriate of all the cookie cutters we have. I then mixed up the "paint" using 1/2 stick of butter, 1/3 cup of milk and a teaspoon of vanilla in a sauce pot over a medium heat. Once those ingredients had all melted together I took the pot off the heat and mixed in confectioners sugar until it was the consistency of tempera paint. I then divided the frosting up into small plastic cups and added a few drops of food coloring to each one. The Bee was in charge of the mixing and with in just a few minutes we had a beautiful palette. After the cookies had cooled I set up both the girls with a plate and a brush and they got right to business. To my surprise neither one of them tried to put anything in their mouth, which is ironic because this is the one time they could have. The Bean only made it through painting one cookie before she started eating, a girl after my own heart. I only painted one or two before I gave over to the temptation but the Bee diligently painted the rest of the cookies only taking one quick break to sample her art. I was so impressed by how beautifully these cookies turned out, I don't think the photo really does it justice. The cookies were also delicious, the "paint" added just a little sweetness and you could probably add a flavoring like lemon to give them even more zing!

80) Chalkboard Book

2012-01-16T13:06:00.000-05:00

I have recently succomb to the "I can't believe how big my baby is" mom freak out. It started when I realized that The Bean's hair was long enough to put in pigtails (it's always those little moments that make you realize) and really hit home the other day when I went through and boxed up all the baby toys and books. I will try and refrain from becoming a blubbering "what happened to my baby" mess and will instead focus on the positives. As I went through and boxed up all the baby stuff I held onto one of the larger board books that the girls have outgrown. I recently saw a chalkboard board book by Creative Kismet on Whipup, that I thought I would try and make for the girls. We already had some chalkboard paint left over from our magnetic/chalkboard project, so making the book was an inexpensive and easy project. As always I didn't actually read the directions until I was done, but Creative Kismet, begin by sanding and priming the pages. I did not do this step. I simply painted each page with the chalkboard paint using a foam brush. As a result, each page did take a few coats of paint and so the whole project did take a few days because I had to let the paint dry some between each coat. After I had painted all the pages I then put a strip of colorful duck tape along the binding of the book to prevent the paint from cracking and peeling there. After the book was all finished, I used a trick my sister told me about, and rubbed each page down with the side of a piece of chalk and then wiped it down with a cloth. This step makes it easier to erase later without leaving marks behind. Then I got out the chalk and turned the book over to The Bean. Since she is so young I just left the pages empty but you could paint or draw some activities into the book for older kids. Both girls have been giving the new board book some attention and I am thinking it might be a good on the go activity!

79) Cow Parade

2012-01-14T09:00:00.000-05:00

A few years ago in Baltimore their was a public art project called The Crab Town Project. Artists from all over the city decorated cast fiberglass crabs. The crabs were placed around the city in public places and then auctioned off to raise funds for the city schools. A few weeks ago The Bee spotted one of the crabs and was very curious about why it was there and how it was made. So when we got home we looked at the Cow Parade website. The Cow Parade, the original project that inspired The Crab Town Project, is an on going international project that has now taken place in over 50 cities. Artists of all kinds are selected to transform the fiberglass cow form however they choose. The website has images of many of the cows and The Bee and I enjoyed checking them all out. The whole conversation made me think that we should try our own cow parade. So I traced a cow form onto cardboard and cut out several cows. A few days later The Bee painted each cow a different color using acrylic paint. I then gave her sequins, tissue paper, glitter glue and googly eyes and left her to decorate the cows on her own. She spent a long time carefully decorating each of the cows. When she was done I cut small strips of cardboard and slid them into a slit at the foot of each cow, so the cows would stand up. The girls then played with the cows setting them up to form their own parade.
If you would like to join our cow parade, simply make your own cow form out of cardboard, then decorate any way you would like. Send me a photo of your cow at gillharveyk@gmail.com.

78) Snow Dough

2012-01-13T10:35:00.000-05:00

While we haven't actually had any snow here yet, it definitely feels cold enough today. Which means another day of playing indoors. So I thought it would be a good day to try out Snow Dough or Clean Dough. I found this recipe in one of my favorite books First Art: Art Experiences For Toddlers and Two's By MaryAnn F. Kohl. Mary Ann Kohl has many great books about making art with kids and if you are looking for a book of fun activities to do with young kids (and sometimes even older kids) I highly recommend checking her out! To make the snow dough you need 1 bar of ivory soap (grated with a box grater) 1/3 cup of borax, 2 rolls of toilet paper and enough warm water to mix it all together. We started by unrolling the toilet paper into a large plastic tub. The look on The Bean's face when I handed her an entire roll of toilet paper and told her to unroll it was priceless! Needless to say the girls loved this part. After they had unrolled all the paper into the tub we added the grated soap and the borax. I then slowly poured in warm water a little at a time. I gave the girls some wooden spoons and a potato masher to mix up the mixture. Once it was all mixed together it really has the consistency of snow (or paper pulp), which is why we started calling it snow dough. The soap made it smell good too. You can press it together to form shapes, smush it or stick stuff into it. I gave the girls some plastic spoons, plastic cups and bowl, straws and a few toothpicks. They had a great time making pretend ice cream, a birthday cake and we even made a few snowman. After they were finished, I took the dough and put it into a Ziploc bag, According to the directions it is good for a few days if kept in an airtight container. If it starts to dry out you can just add a little more water to rejuvenate it.

29) Pipe Cleaner and Colander Play

2012-01-12T13:27:00.001-05:00

For the most part The Bean is a pretty good independent player, but she has something against playing independently while I am cooking. I am not sure what the reason is but she always chooses the minutes while I cam trying to get dinner together to attach herself to my leg. So I am always on the hunt for something she can do in the kitchen that will give me a little time to make dinner, but still allow her to be close by. A few months ago I shared a post about sorting spoons, which has greatly improved the quality of dinner at our house. So when I saw this idea from The Imagination Tree, I thought it might be a good one for our pre-dinner repertoire. I recently bought some pipe cleaners from the $1 section at target, and I used one of the colanders we already owned. I gave no explanation just put the stuff on the floor and she dove right in. She was very focused on getting the pipe cleaners into the hole. When she had gotten them all in she carefully took them out and started again. This was a great exercise for her fine motor skills and we had a delicious dinner!

18) A Family Studio Space: A New Place to Work Part 2

2012-01-11T21:48:00.000-05:00

When we moved to our house almost 2 years ago, we set up the extra bedroom as an office space. At the time I was working, had an 18 month old and was very pregnant. So I pretty much just filled the room with all the stuff that didn't have a place and closed the door. Opening it only to shove more stuff in. This summer when I made the decision to stay home, I realized that one of the main factors in making that work would be having a place to work, not just for the kids but also for me. So I turned my sites on the overflowing "office." After several months, many, many trips to Ikea and countless pins on pinterest we finally have a family studio space that I love! The room has three main purposes: 1) storage for art and office supplies, 2) a place for files and papers and 3) a space to work for both kids and adults.

1) Storage for art and office supplies:
I had to get a little creative to for storage, we have a lot of art and office stuff and the room is not that big. I also wanted to make sure that everything was easily accesable, so that it would be an enticing space. I started by putting all our art supplies in small, clear plastic bins and labeling them. I put two bookshelves in the room and put the kid friendly supplies on the lower shelves and non-kid friendly supplies higher up. I also put things like beads, buttons, and spools of thread into clear plastic and glass jars. I love the color they add! For my tools and supplies that I didn't want in the reach of the girls, I hung from an inexpensive system from Ikea. A variety of storage bins hold sciscors, sharpies, sewing tools, ribbon, tape and other supplies. Even the girls work table has storage for their art supplies and a place to hang their art work. You can read more about their works space here.

2) A place for files and papers
Along one wall of the room is a large, long series of tables and shelves from Ikea. The pieces all fit together to create a large work space with the added benefit of built in storage. On the far left there are two file drawers and some more shelves for storage bins. On the table space above is room for storing current papers and paying bills.

3) A space to work for kids and adults
While we use our kitchen table for a lot of our art work, I wanted to have a designated space for in process projects. For me, I really wanted a place for my sewing machine! While I know the sewing basics, it is something I would like to get better at, but lugging my sewing machine out of storage always seemed like such a chore. Since having the sewing machine out in a designated space I have already used it several times!

On the walls:
I wanted to make sure that the room had space to display family artwork and saw a great idea for hanging art with wooden hangers on Babble. I thought it was perfect. We already had the hangers so I hung them with nails and choose some of the girls larger paintings. Also on the walls we have our magnet/chalk board that the girls can play with and our felt ball garland.

So here is the thing, you don't have to have a designated studio space to make art, by yourself or with kids. We spent the last few years making great art on our kitchen table. However, having a space dedicated for making stuff has it's perks, some I expected, some I never would have thought of.
Here are some of the perks:
1) Having an organized space and materials makes doing any project, especially spontaneous projects a lot easier. I am much more likely to do a project on my own or with the girls if I don't have to go digging around for the materials.
2) A dedicated space means that you can work on projects longer. One of the down sides to always working on the kitchen table is that you can only work until the next meal. The studio allows us to set aside projects and come back to them when we have the time.
3) Some times the best inspiration is a material or object. Having all the art materials out and visible means that sometimes we walk into the room board and get inspired to color by seeing the crayons.
4) Having one space for the whole family means that I get to do some of my own work too, well in theory. But it does mean that the girls and I can all be in the same room each working on something that interests us individually.

77) Take Out Lid Tambourine

2012-01-10T21:44:00.000-05:00

Last week we got take out for dinner that came in these great plastic containers. I wasn't exactly sure what I could make with them, but I held on to them (much to my husbands chagrin) because I was sure they could be used to make something fun. The next day I took the two lids and and laid them on the table. I put a handful of plastic pony beads onto one of the lids. The I ran a bead of hot glue all along the edge of the other lid. I placed the two together and gave it a moment to let the glue dry. I then handed the lids to The Bean who needed no instructions about what to do with it. She begin happily shaking and banging her new tambourine as she marched through the house!

3) What's On Your Childhood List: Make a Pinata

2012-01-08T21:34:00.000-05:00

What's On Your Childhood List:
A Guest post from Stephanie @Neuroses Galore

Pinatas are always a part of birthday parties at our house. At this point, we have a hook permanently affixed inside our house just to hang them! One day I came across a used copy of Pinatas by Virginia Brock and thought hey, why not?! It seemed like something fun we could do all together and a great way to save fifteen bucks!

The foundation of the pinata is just simple papier mache but papier mache is not for the faint of heart. What a (very serious) mess! Messy but fun and not hard at all. Luckily we needed a strawberry pinata for a Strawberry Shortcake themed party and a simple balloon shape lends itself nicely to that.

We wrapped the balloon in two-inch strips of torn newspaper dipped in a paste made from two parts water and one part flour. We covered the whole balloon in two or three layers of paper strips except for a small opening in the top large enough to fit the candy through.

We let the balloon dry for 24 hours before popping and removing it. We wrapped the shape in twine like a present to make a harness with a loop at the top for hanging. Then we mixed up another batch of paste and stuck small squares of colored tissue paper on all around the balloon and let it dry again over night.

On the day of the party all that was left to do was add a few finishing touches, the candy and then to give it our best shot! So much fun!

About Stephanie:

I'm a mom to two (soon to be three!) terrific little girls in Baltimore. I'm a teacher and a lawyer by trade and

now that I'm grown up I'm trying to figure out ways to merge what I love about those two

professions. When I'm not in full time mommy mode I consult for the Baltimore City

Public Schools in the Charles Village neighborhood to improve the schools’ capacity

to engage the community and market themselves and I teach pre

school at Community Play School, a child-centered and individualized arts-enriched

program inspired by the Reggio Emilia method. I like making stuff too. You can see

some of my work in One Yard Wonders and in Fabric-by-Fabric One-Yard wonders

which just released and, of course, on my blog neurosesgalore.com. But most of all I like having fun.

Thanks to Stephanie for sharing What's On Your Childhood List! If you have something on your childhood list you would like to share send me an email: gillharveyk@gmail.com or check here for more information

28) Squeeze Oranges for Orange Juice

2012-01-06T21:48:00.001-05:00

On Tuesday we spent a sick day in our pajamas with the poor Bean who was under the weather with a cold. As often happens her cold turned into an ear infection and before I knew it our sick day had turned into a sick week. The Bean was kind enough to share her cold with her sister. So by Friday, a sick day, which had seemed so fun on Tuesday was definitely loosing it's charm. Yesterday in an attempt to find something to do and maybe get a little additional vitamin C into everybody, we made orange juice. I bought a hand juicer a few months ago at Ikea for just a few dollars and on my last trip to the grocery store I bought a big bag of juice oranges. After cutting the oranges I gave the Bee a quick demo on how to squeeze the orange and then let her take over. She pushed, twisted, banged and squeezed the oranges. It only took two oranges to make a small glass, but she probably juiced 5 oranges total, just because she was having fun. When she was done we each had a delicious glass of fresh squeezed OJ! I felt better about getting two sick kids to drink something healthy and she felt better about having made it all by herself!

76) Shaky Bottles (Discovery Bottles)

2012-01-06T14:07:00.000-05:00

I have seen lots of cool posts about all kinds of discovery bottles that I thought the Bee and Bean would really like. So on my last trip to Trader Joe's I bought a 6 pack of water bottles. At first I thought we might just make one at a time, but once we made the first one it was so much fun that we
made all 6 in one day! The Bee and The Bean have both been all about these bottles. The first one we made was the glitter bottle, which the Bee introduced to her dad as the shaky shiny bottle and the name stuck in our house. We now refer to all six bottles as the shaky bottle collection. The girls love them, they carry them around the house shaking them. However, their most favorite thing is to play with the whole collection. They line up all the bottles, stack up all the bottles, or even put them in a bag. I also have to add that I have even found myself playing with them. They are so mesmerizing, it is hard not to pick them up and shake them. So here is the full shaky bottle collection with a little description on how we made each one:

1) The Shaky Shiny Bottle:
Fill the bottle with water almost to the top, add glitter and shake. I have also seen this refereed to as a timeout bottle used to help kids calm down. I can definitely see where this would
work!

2) The Colorful Shaky Bottle:
Fill almost to the top with water and add colorful beads, we used plastic pony beads. This is one of my favorites. I love the colors and the beads seem so oddly suspended in the water.

3) The Crayon Shaky Bottle:
Shave crayons with a pencil sharpener and add the shavings to a bottle almost filled to the top with water. This one is fascinating to me because some of the colored crayons sink and some float. Perhaps the inspiration for a future experiment!

4) The Shaky Wave Bottle:
Fill the bottle 1/4 of the way with oil and add 5-10 drops of food coloring. Then fill the bottle 3/4 of the way with water. I found this bottle has more of a wave look if you don't fill it all the way to the top.

5) Shaky Water Bead Bottle:
We played with water beads a few months ago but on a recent trip to the dollar store we found the kind that start dry and grow with water. After hydrating the water beads we added some to the bottle filling the rest of the bottle with water. I also added a few drops of food coloring for the contrast. This bottle looks so cool in the sunlight! The water beads look like glowing orbs.

6) Shaky Farm Animal Bottle:
We have had these small plastic farm animals for a long time. They always make me nervous because they are so little I worry about the Bean choking on them, but they were to cool to throw out. They fit perfectly into the bottle. I then filled the rest of the bottle with hair gel (also from the dollar store)

After filling each bottle I ran a bead of hot glue around the inside of the cap before screwing the cap back on. (thanks Anne:)

For more ideas about making discovery bottles check out these great posts:
Kinderfriends
The Crafty Crow
Family Fun
Growing In Peace
Modern Parents Messy Kids

27) Take a Sick Day

2012-01-06T09:00:00.000-05:00

Yesterday we took a sick day. While it was really only The Bean who was sick, The Bee and I were more then happy to hang out all day in our pajamas with her. After a really busy few weeks with all the holidays it was nice to just have a day of nothing. We celebrated our sick day by staying in pj's watching The Red Balloon and eating Rice Pudding. I am not sure why but rice pudding always seems to me like the perfect thing to eat on a sick day. We actually tried a new recipe yesterday from an baby/toddler cookbook called "The Big Book Of Recipes For Babies, Toddlers and Children" By Bridget Wardley and Judy More. The recipe calls for:

1/3 cup short grain white rice
1/4 cup light brown sugar
4tbsp golden raisins
21/2 cups of milk
2 tsp butter
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
Of course I can never actually follow recipes precisely so we used basmati rice (cause that's what we had), no raisins (cause raisins in rice pudding are gross) and I used cinnamon instead of nutmeg. You mix all but the butter into a ovenproof dish, then float the butter on top and put into a 300 degree preheated oven for 2 hours. This is the slow and low method! However it was well worth the wait, The Bean and I loved it. The Bee, ate some but was not quite as sold as we were, however her loss is my gain! What is your favorite sick day food?

7) 25 Books About Artists and Art History For Children

2012-01-05T09:00:00.000-05:00

1) Almost Famous Daisy By David Kidd
Daisy travels the world looking at art for just the right inspiration for her own masterpiece.
2) When Pigasso Met Mootise By Nina Laden
Fictionalized story about the friendship between the two artists. This is one of the Bee's all time favorites!
3) Art Dog By Thatcher Hurd
Funny story about Arthur Dog, a museum guard at the Dogopolis Museum Of Art.
4) Touch The Art Series By Julie Appel
Pop Warhols Top , Make Van Gogh's Bed , Catch Picasso's Rooster, Feed Matisse's Fish
Great board books where kids an actually touch the works of art. The actual writing in the books is not the best but the interactive images more then make up for it!
5) Babar's Museum of Art By Laurent De Brunhoff
Tour the museum of art and check out the Babar version of famous works of art.
6) Action JacksonBy JanGreenberg
A kid sized story about the artist Jackson Pollock
7) Degas and The Little Dancer By Laurence Anholt
A great fictionalized story of the little dance that inspired Dega's famous sculpture
8) Look! Look! Look! By Nancy Elizabeth Wallace
Three mice learn to look at art
9) Museum ABC By The Metropolitan Museum Of Art
Learn the abc's through images from works of art from The Met
10) Mini Masters Series By Suzanne Bober
In The Garden With Van Gogh, Dancing With Degas, Sunday With Seurat, Sharing With Renoir, Painting With Picasso, On The Island With Gauguin, Dreaming With Rousseau, Quiet Time With Cassat
Small board books filled with great images of the artists works. We always keep these in the car since they are small enough for travel but have enough to keep kids interested.
11) Counting With Wayne Thiebaud By Susan Goldman Rubin
Count the scrumptious looking goodies in Thiebaud's paintings. (board book)
12) Andy Warhols Colors By Susan Goldman Rubin
Board book teaching colors through the graphic images of Andy Warhol
13) Matisse Dance With Joy By Susan Goldman Rubin
Words about movement paired with the moving images of Matisse's work (board book)
14) Jacob Lawrence In The City By Susan Goldman Rubin
The sounds of the big city illustrated with paintings by the artist Jacob Lawrence (board book)
15) The Great Migration By Jacob Lawrence
Written and illustrated by the artist Jacob Lawrence
16) Life Doesn't Frighten Me By Maya Angelou
Written by the poet Maya Angelou and illustrated by the artist Jean Michelle Basquiat
17) Sandy's Circus: A Story About Alexander Calder By Tana Lee Stone
A fictionalized story about the artist Alexander Calder and his amazing wire circus
18) My Name Is Georgia By Jeanette Winter
A biography of the artist Georgia O'Keefe for kids
19) Uncle Andy's By James Warhola
Written and illustrated by a nephew of Warhol, he also wrote a second book called "Uncle Andy's Cats"
20) Why is Blue Dog Blue? By George Rodrigue
Written and illustrated by the artist George Rodrigue
21) Linnea In Monet's Garden By Cristina Bjork
A young girl visits Monet's Garden there is also a video of this book.
22) Tar Beach By Faith Ringgold
Written and illustrated by the artist Faith Ringgold
23) The Art Book For Children and The Art Book For Children, Book Two By Phaidon Press
Large beautiful art history books filled with images of all kinds of art from all time periods with prompts for kids looking at the images.
24) M Is For Masterpiece By David Domeniconi
An alphabetic tour through art
25) How Artists See Series By Colleen Carroll
How Artists See: Families, How Artists See: The Weather, How Artists See: Feelings, How Artists See: Play A large series of books that selects artwork based on a theme.

2) What's On Your Childhood List: Obstacle Course

2012-01-03T14:26:00.000-05:00

For the holidays we received "52 Activities for You and Your Toddler" cards by Lynn Gordon. The cards have a lot of great ideas for engaging and playing with your toddler, something that we are especially looking for as it gets colder and colder and we have more time indoors with Panda, our 20 month old son. Today we played "Over the Mountain"

Over The Mountain (in my words)
Materials: Cushions, Pillow, Chairs, Blankets

1. Set up materials in a path around the room. Start simple and increase as ready.
2. Help your child do a variety of activities- jump off cushions, jump from one cushion to another, run around pillows, walk backwards, go under tunnels...
3. Lead your child around the course and vary your actions each time. Then switch and let them lead you.

We used our large sofa cushions and a blanket to set up the obstacle course. First we walked around the pillows and then climbed from one pillow to another on feet and then on all fours. We also rearranged the pillows with gaps in between and walked in and out of the gaps. Panda loved this activity, he enjoyed climbing on the pillows the most. He even got some of his stuffed animals to accompany him on his journey. We also set up chairs and placed a large sofa cushion on the chairs, which created a tunnel! This was a very fun activity and Panda took a great afternoon nap after this.

Thanks to Allie for sharing What's On Your Childhood List! If you have something on your childhood list you would like to share send me an email: gillharveyk@gmail.com

75) Post-it Stencil Painting

2012-01-01T13:49:00.000-05:00

A few weeks ago I ran across these post- it letters in a clearance bin at the store. I had nothing in particular planned for them but the pack included the whole alphabet and I was confident we could find something fun to do with them. So when the Bee suggested painting the other day I got them out and we gave them a shot. She selected to only use the M. I am not sure why but I wasn't going to argue. After laying the M's out on her paper, she selected some paint colors that I poured out onto a plate. The she started painting using some of our DIY paint brushes and some foam rollers. I mentioned that she could paint right over the letters and then got distracted by The Bean for a few minutes. In true kid fashion, she had taken my directions literally and had painted only over the letters. When I explained that she could paint the whole paper, and not just directly over the letters she immediately grabbed the roller and filled the whole paper. The magic part was after she finished painting and she peeled up the post-its to reveal the white letter underneath. She was amazed at how that had happened!

17) Become an Explorer of the World and Other Goals

2011-12-30T21:41:00.000-05:00

I don't normally do new year resolutions. Mostly because I usually don't follow through and then I start the new year off on a bad foot. I do however like the idea of new year as a time to reflect on the past and think about what you want from the next year. So here are my goals both personally and for this blog.

1) Become "An Explorer of the World"
How is that for a lofty goal. For the holidays I received an Amazon gift card, and used it to order a bunch of the books I have had on my wish list / to read list for a while. Not that I think 2012 will bring me a lot of extra reading time, but I am excited about some new inspiration. The book I was most excitedly awaiting came yesterday, How To Be An Explorer Of The World: Portable Art / Life Museum By Keri Smith. While I haven't finished the entire book yet I am already very inspired by it! So I am making one of my personal, family and blog goals to become an explorer of the world. To quote Keri Smith if "You are an explorer. Your mission is to document and observe the world round you as if you've never seen it before. Take notes. Collect things you find on your travels. Document your findings. Notice patterns. Copy. Trace. Focus on one thing at a time. Record what you are drawn to."
2) Find out what's on other families "Childhood Lists"
For me one of the best parts about blogs is sharing. Learning new stuff, finding things I would never have found on my own and meeting new people. So that said this year i want to find out from other families " What's on Your Childhood List?" I am hoping others will share the stuff they do, the things they make, the places they go, the books they read or their own moments big and small. You don't have to have a blog (although you could) to participate. All you have to do is send an email to gillharveyk@gmail.com with the following information:
In the subject line: What's on Your Childhood List?
The category that you are writing about: Stuff to make, Places to go, Things to do, Moments Big and Small or Stuff to Read.
A short description (no more then 300 words) clearly written.
1-3 photo related to your post.
I have a few families who have already expressed interest but I hope to hear from more, so if you are interested, or even just have an idea you were thinking about send me an email.
3) Project 366
I just found out about this project and I love the idea. The premise is to take a photo everyday for 366 days starting today, January 1st. I am thinking of using this project to document our exploration of the world (see goal 1.) For more info on the project check out this site or this one. The project is open to everyone and it is not to late to join! They also have abbreviated versions and variations of the project if everyday is too much.

What are your goals for the year? How do you stick to your goals?

26) Make Popcorn

2011-12-30T20:03:00.000-05:00

When I was a kid my dad used to make popcorn on Thursday nights and we would watch the Cosby Show. It was by far one of my favorite nights of the week! The thought of this memory from my own childhood combined with a present day craving for popcorn made me suggest the idea to the Bee. She hasn't eaten a lot of popcorn because there are all kinds of rules and pediatric guidelines these days against young children eating popcorn but at 3.5 I thought she was probably big enough that we would give it a shot. We made the popcorn the old fashioned and way more exciting way. We begin by taking out a large soup pot and lid. We poured in some popcorn kernels, I am sure there are some measurement guidelines but we just eyeballed it, pouring enough to cover the bottom of the pan. We also poured in a little oil. I turned the burner on medium-high and put the lid on top of the pan. Every so often I gave the pot a little shake so the kernels wouldn't burn. The Bee stood on her step stool and we watched. I couldn't help but think of the old saying " a watched pot never boils" because it did seem like we stood there a long time waiting for something to happen. I'm sure you can imagine the "is it popping yet?" on repeat, but in reality it was just a few minutes. The Bee and I watched through the glass lid and once the first kernel popped they all started popping. The Bee was delighted as the pot begin to fill up with big, fluffy white pieces of popcorn. I sprinkled a little salt (because really popcorn without salt is just not worth eating) onto the warm popcorn and tossed it into a bowl. The Bee and I then sat down for a little popcorn and chocolate milk party and discussed how amazing it was that these soft pieces of popcorn started out as such hard kernels!

74) Cardboard Tic-Tac-Toe Board

2011-12-29T20:18:00.000-05:00

In the last few weeks, The Bee has begun to show an interest in playing games. She gets that you should take turns, and that there are rules to games, although she often likes to make up her own rules. So it seemed like a good time to introduce her to tic-tac-toe. We have been on a cardboard kick this week so we stuck with the trend by making the tic-tac-toe board and pieces out of cardboard. I started by taking a large flat piece of cardboard and measured out 9 equal squares. I then selected two colors of duck tape and taped each square to make the checkerboard pattern. To even out the edges of the squares I used a thinner black electrical tape along the edges to form a grid. I then cut 10 rectangles out of cardboard. On one I drew and X and cut it out on another an O. I then traced each one onto 4 more pieces of cardboard and cut them out. Then it was time to play! The Bee picked the rules up quickly and was totally into blocking me from getting three in a row. She liked alternating between being the X's and O's. The Bean watched the game with interest and was in charge of holding the extra pieces. I was pleasantly surprised that she didn't try and take the pieces off the board. I loved that the board was big enough for the three of us to sit around it. It made learning and playing the game with little ones a lot easier.

The cardboard X in process

The tic-tac-toe board in process

73) Cardboard Play House

2011-12-28T20:39:00.000-05:00

Today was our first day back to our previously scheduled programing, after all the holiday festivities. When I asked the Bee what she wanted to do today, she told me she wanted to make a house. So using the huge pile of cardboard we have amassed in the last week, I built the girls a very simple cardboard playhouse. It had a roof and walls on two sides with a half wall on the back. After a while of playing we added a little half wall to the front too. The Bee also suggested that their house could use a little decoration so we got out some crayons and colored tape and the girls worked on the interior design. Well I m sure the structure will not be permanent (it's sitting right in front of our front door) it certainly provided a full afternoon of fun!

16) The Life and Times of Prince Eric

2011-12-26T14:03:00.003-05:00

I am always fascinated by how kids react to something new and how long it takes for their fascination to run out. So when The Bee received a Prince Eric doll at an early Christmas exchange and was immediately smitten, I started chronicling. For two full days he accompanied her everywhere, ate with her, slept with her and played with her. The photo of him on top of the TV is her attempt to prevent her sister from getting him. Unfortunately for Prince Eric Christmas day came and he lost out to the fascination of all the new things. Did your kids get a favorite holiday present? Was it the one you expected them to be most excited about?

72) 30 things To Do With Cardboard

2011-12-25T12:00:00.000-05:00

My back porch is currently a maze of cardboard and it's not even Christmas! So I am starting to think about what we can do with all this cardboard. I am sure some of you have a similar situation so I figured I would share some cardboard ideas. The first 15 are ones from our blog. The next 15 are ones I found around the web that I can't wait to try!

1) DIY Castanets
2) Sculpture Letter
3) DIY Texture Combs for Painting
4) Recycling Bin Robot
5) Make Your Own Stamps
6) Cardboard Box Lite Bright
7) Juice Box Stacking Blocks
8) Texture Printing
9) Rain Stick
10) Cardboard Mailbox
11) Cardboard Connectagons
12) 6 Bean Bag Games
13) Play with a Box
14) Squirt and Roll Painting
15) Build a House Magnets

More Cardboard Links:
ikat is a blog that is my complete cardboard inspiration! anything you want to know about making awesome stuff out of cardboard, including this post: How to Work With Cardboard

What Can you Make From Cardboard and What Can you Make From a Cardboard Box both great lists from the Crafty Crow

Cardboard Guitars that you can really play from Make It and Love It

How to Make a Cardboard Box Car from Parenting

32 Things to Make From a Cardboard Box from Tip Junkie

Cardboard Cell Phone from Make and Takes

Cardboard Loom Weaving from Montessori World

24 Cardboard Box ideas from Tinkerlab's Cardboard Box Challenge

Cardboard Tree House from Disney Family Fun

Beautiful Cardboard Playhouse from El Hada De Papel

Ball Ramp from A Happy Wanderer

Cardboard City from Whip Up

Cardboard Castle from lilla a Design

71) Build Your Own Cardboard House Magnets

2011-12-22T21:37:00.000-05:00

A few weeks ago I made Marvelous Magnet Mansions for our new Magnetic Chalkboard. The Bee and The Bean liked the magnets but really lost interest in them after a few days. I think the main reason for the loss of interest was that there wasnt much interaction to them. So I wanted to try again and make something that left the building to them. We started with a large piece of cardboard and some paint. The Bee painted the cardboard and when it was dry I cut it up into some smaller rectangles, triangles, half circles and a few other shapes. I then drew a variety of different houses and roofs onto the cardboard with black sharpie. After sticking a piece of magnetic tape on the back of each piece I gave them to the girls. They have had a great time mixing and matching the roofs and houses to create their own buildings and villages.

70) Peanutbutter, Pretzel and Marshmallow Chocolates

2011-12-22T14:35:00.000-05:00

Normally about this time of year we make a big batch of cookies for friends, neighbors, holiday parties and of course Santa. This year though we made cookies a few weeks ago for a cookie exchange. So I was on the lookout for something a little different to make. I saw a this fun recipes from Bellissima Kids for chocolate bark and was surprised to read how easy it was to make. I figured we would give it a shot really. It seemed to me when you are covering a lot of stuff in chocolate it is kind of hard to go wrong. I started by giving The Bee and The Bean each a ziploc bag of pretzels to smash. They had a blast crunching up the pretzels both with their hands and with rolling pins. While they were smashing, I melted a bag of chocolate chips in a double boiler on the stove. I simultaneously melted a 1/2 cup of peanut butter in the microwave for 30 seconds. Then poured the melted peanut butter into the chocolate and stirred the pretzels and some chopped up marshmallows into the mix. The whole mix went right onto a cookie sheet covered in wax paper. I smoothed it out into a somewhat even layer and then let it cool in the fridge for an hour. After it had cooled I chopped it into squares and if I don't eat them all I am going to put them into small takeout cartons for gifts. We also made a few other types of chocolates in the same way, one with crushed candy canes, one with dried cranberries and one with pretzels and white chocolate!

69) Gift Labels

2011-12-20T14:32:00.002-05:00

We have now entered the wrapping stage of the holiday season at our house. This stage is always made more complicated by the fact that it is not something The Bee and The Bean can really help with. So to involve them a little more I put them in charge of our gift labels. I gave them each a page of adhesive address labels, like the kind you would use in your printer. I then put out some star stamps and some red paint for The Bean and a gold stamp pad for The Bee. They both stamped all over the papers. Once they were dry I used a black sharpie to write To: and From:. The ideas for the wrapping and beautiful tinfoil ribbon came from a great tutorial I saw today via C.R.A.F.T.

48) The Rawlings Conservatory and Botanical Garden

2011-12-19T20:13:00.000-05:00

We have a few friends that love to visit The Howard Peter Rawlings Conservatory and Botanical Gardens in Druid Hill Park, and after our first visit last week, I totally understand why! Located just a little past The Maryland Zoo in Baltimore, The Rawlings Conservatory is a beautiful glass building originally built in the 1880's. The conservatory has several rooms including a palm house, desert house and tropical house with a beautiful Koi pond. In addition, they have several seasonal events that change throughout the year. We got to see their Holiday Poinsettia Show and Train Garden which will be on display through the beginning of January. The conservatory is a nice warm treat in the winter and just the right size for visiting with young children. The Bee loved the Koi Pond and The Bean was fascinated by the largest cacti I have ever seen. We will most definitely be visiting again soon! The Conservatory is open Wednesday through Sunday 10-4 and although it is free there is a recommended $5 donation.

68) DIY Castanettes

2011-12-18T19:58:00.000-05:00

Back in the day, you know before Pinterest, I used to look through books and magazines for ideas and inspirations, and one of my favorite go to's was 365 Days of Creative Play By Sheila Ellison and Judith Anne Gray. I was given this book many years ago, by my friend Debbie, who buys the book everytime at she sees it at a yard sale. While the book was originally published in 1987, it is by no means outdated. Mostly because the creative play ideas are so simple, they are timeless. I pulled the book out the other day and the first page I opened was 357 Bottle Top Castanets. This seemed like the perfect project for us because 1) we love anything that makes noise and 2) We had all the materials right there. To make the castanets I cut a strip of cardboard slightly larger then my bottle caps, hot glued the bottle caps to either end of the cardboard and then folded it in the middle. I made two one for each of the girls and within just a few minutes they were both happily clicking away. I was a little worried that The Bean would have trouble pushing the caps together but she was a pro and happily spent much of the afternoon walking around the house clacking. The Bee liked the clacking but also found other things to do with her castanets, see the picture above. One note of warning, these were not built to last, within a day of play the cardboard was starting to tear and the caps were coming off. However, they were so easy to make and provided so much entertainment I have no problem making them again!

67) Clothespin Snowflake

2011-12-16T21:29:00.001-05:00

Last year we made these clothespin snowflakes for our friends and family. They were easy to make, look great and can stay up all winter (or maybe even all year, like the one in our kitchen.) To make one snowflake we used 8 popsicle sticks, 8 clothespins, two wooden circles or large buttons, one safety pin and lots of hot glue. We started by gluing four popsicle sticks to each of the wooden circles. I then glued the two wooden circles together to make the snowflake shape. Next I glued a clothespin on the end of each of the popsicle sticks so the push clip part was towards the center and the open mouth part was towards the end. Once everything was glued together I glued a safety pin into the center to run a ribbon through so the ornament can hang. I painted everything white and added a large button to the center just for decoration. The finished ornament can hold photos, cards or even hang in the kitchen to hold recipes!

66) Photo Shape Book (Inspired by Tana Hoban)

2011-12-15T22:00:00.000-05:00

Inspired by our Tana Hoban books The Bee and I recently went on a hunt through our house, searching for shapes. We started with our floor which is squares, and before we knew it we were finding shapes everywhere. The Bee did the shape finding and I did the picture taking. The Bean joined the trek, although she didn't quite understand what all the commotion was about, she liked wandering around the house. The whole adventure lasted probably 20 minutes but in that time we took 32 photos of circles, squares, rectangles, ovals and diamonds in our house. I took all the photos and put them together in a book. I was going to just print it on the computer but I had a good coupon code to Shutterfly and was ordering some other photos so I just let them do all the work. A week and a half later and we received our very own shape book, filled with our very own photos of shapes from our very own house!

25) Grow Paperwhites

2011-12-15T21:49:00.000-05:00

We recently borrowed the book Paperwhite By Nancy Elizabeth Wallace from the Library. A super cute story about Mina who grows Paperwhite bulbs with her neighbor to bring a little spring inside. As I am not a winter person and start missing spring in November, they thought of bringing a little spring in is really nice. So a few days after we read the book, when we saw some Paperwhite bulbs at the farmers market we gladly bought 6 to take home. It has been a long time since I grew Paperwhite bulbs, so I had to do a little research first. I read that Paperwhite bulbs don't need dirt to grow, the roots will grow in just water. So we filled two containers with some rocks from our backyard, a job The Bee and The Bean were happy to help with. One bulb we put into a glass mason jar so we could see the roots growing. The other 5 bulbs we put into a tin pail we had. After placing the bulbs into the rocks we filled the containers with water up to the base of the bulb. The directions I read about forcing Paperwhites said to let them sit in a shady spot until the roots start to grow and then move them to a sunny spot. Our bulbs have just started rooting so we are moving them to their new sunny home today. The Bee keeps checking on them, so I think she will be so excited when they actually start growing. I will post some more pictures as they grow and maybe a plea for help if they don't. Wish us luck and check back for an update!

47) 34th Street Lights

2011-12-13T21:52:00.002-05:00

Last night we took a quick detour on our way home to stop and see the lights on 34th Street. Located in Hampden, this block of 34th street is famous for it's lights. Every house has a different display and strings of lights run from rooftop to rooftop crossing the street. The displays are all different and totally uniquely Baltimore. A hubcap Christmas tree was one of the girls favorites. There is a full calendar on the website but essentially the lights go up the last week of November and are up till New Years daily from dusk until 10pm. We went early on a Monday evening and had no problem finding a spot to park, but I know it can get very crowded on weekends!

65) Bubble Wrap Printed Wrapping Paper

2011-12-13T14:19:00.001-05:00

I'm not really sure how people with kids did holiday shopping before the internet but I am very glad to not be one of those people. Needless to say we have been getting lots of packages at our house lately. With lots of packages comes lots of bubble wrap, so yesterday we used our bubble wrap to make our own wrapping paper. I started by rolling out a long piece of paper onto our table, we buy rolls for just a few dollars from Ikea and use them for everything. I then poured some washable paint onto plates and gave the Bee a roller and a bunch of pieces of bubble wrap. We have actually done this before so she knew to roll the paint onto the bubble wraps and print it paint side down onto the paper. She printed the bubble wrap a bunch of times on the paper as well as painting the paper with her roller. We are hoping to print more paper later this week and use the paper to wrap some of our holiday presents!

6) Tana Hoban Books

2011-12-11T22:00:00.000-05:00

I first learned about Tana Hoban books a few years ago from an incredible Kindergarten teacher I worked with at the time. She had a huge collection of them in her classroom and I found myself as fascinated with them as her students were. I quickly begin collecting her books for my classroom and then for my own kids when The Bee and Bean came along. The Tana Hoban books have been as much a hit in my own house as they were in the Kindergarten classroom. Tana Hoban, was a photographer and author who published many children's books in the 70's. Her books are almost all photographs of everyday stuff with titles like "Is it Red? Is it Yellow? Is it Blue?" that give you a clear idea what the book is about. There are not a lot of words in her books, just simple prompts giving the reader some ideas of what to look for. Since the photographs are so engaging words aren't really necessary. The thing I love most about her books is that you can look at them again and again and never grow tired of them. They are also great books for kids of all ages, younger kids may try to find simple shapes or colors while older kids might count objects or tell stories. Since the books were made in the 70's you can occasionally find a relic of the time in her photos but because she mostly takes photos of everyday stuff the picture are still pretty timeless. The best part of her books is how they encourage kids to look at everyday object and scenes in a different way. Once you read her books you start noticing shapes, colors, letters or shadows everywhere!

64) Popscicle Stick Bracelets

2011-12-11T14:09:00.000-05:00

When I saw these popsicle stick bracelets from Craft Affection I knew they were the perfect project for my fashion conscious 3 year old. I also love any project where we already have all the materials at our house. To make these cuff bracelets you begin by taking popsicle sticks (we had these fun colored ones) and soak them in water for a few hours. After soaking, the popsicle sticks can bend without breaking. Carefully curve the popsicle sticks into a cup and let them dry. We left ours to dry overnight. Once they are dry you can easily pull them out of the cup and they will maintain their curved shape. Since our popsicle sticks already had a color (although the color did run a little in the water) we just glued buttons, beads and cut paper right onto the Popsicle stick. For the cut papers The Bee used some paper punchers we have to punch shapes out of patterned paper, which we glued onto the bracelets. I then put a coat of Modge Podge right onto the bracelets just to seal them a little. They were super easy to make, look great and would be fun gift!

63) Cinnamon Playdough

2011-12-09T21:32:00.000-05:00

We have been doing a lot of play dough playing around here lately. Partly because the weather has us spending more time inside and partly because it is an activity that both The Bee and The Bean have been interested in. The Bean has finally moved past the phase of putting the play dough in her mouth, which also makes the play more enjoyable for everyone. Since we have been playing with play dough so much lately, I thought we would mix it up a little by making cinnamon play dough. We used a basic play dough recipe we have tried a few times and seems to work well:
2 cups of flour
2 tablespoons oil
1 cup of salt
4 teaspoons of cream of tartar
2 cups of warm water
mix in a pot over med/high heat and keep stirring until the dough forms.

To this recipe we added 2 Tablespoons of cinnamon. Cooking the play dough made the whole house smell good and the cinnamon was the perfect accompaniment to the cold weather and holiday decorations. The girls loved the cinnamon smell. I was a little worried that the cinnamon might tempt The Bean to put the play dough back in her mouth but fortunately it didn't. We have a plastic bin of play dough toys that we have gathered over the last few years. Filled with some stamps, cookie cutters, plastic utensils and a variety of other odds and ends this bin has plenty to keep the play dough interesting.

62) Salt Dough Hand Ornaments

2011-12-07T21:44:00.000-05:00

Every year since The Bee was born we have made a handprint ornament of some type for each one of the grandparents. I love these ornaments, looking back each year at the past ornaments and seeing how much the girls hands have grown is one of my favorite parts of the holidays. In the past I have really been the one who made the ornaments but this year I wanted to involve the girls (at least the Bee) in making them. My favorite projects are always the ones that everyone can do and this was a good one for both the toddler and preschooler. We used salt dough to make our ornaments and both The Bee and Bean had a blast playing with the dough. This was our first salt dough experience and I was pleasently surprised by how easy it was to make. We used a recipe I found on All Recipes but the recipe is very simple, four cups of flour, one cup of salt and enough water to form a dough. The Bee helped me mix up the dough. I then gave some to the girls to play with while I traced their hands onto a rolled out piece of dough. They also cut out a few ornaments with cookie cutters. We put the hands and cut out ornaments on a cookie sheet and baked them in a 350 degree oven for over an hour. Since our ornaments were on the thicker side I flipped them half way through. When they were done and cooled, The Bee painted them with a glitter acrylic paint, which she selected and loved. The acrylics worked great on the salt dough and while we had to be a little extra careful with them, The Bee handled the challenge well. Before baking we made holes in the hands using straws and will thread a ribbon through them before we wrap them up.
p.s. if any of our grandparents happen to be reading this, just act surprised okay?

I have recently seen a bunch of great posts filled with fun ideas about what to do with salt dough here are a few cool ones:
Elegant and Detailed
Decorated with stamps
Food Ornaments
Painted with Watercolors
Candy Canes
Messages with Alphabet Stamps

15) The Whys

2011-12-07T20:38:00.001-05:00

We are full force into the "Why" phase at our house and I have to say that I love it. While I could do with a few less actual whys a day, I do love the wonder part. Hearing what the Bee is thinking about as she begins to comprehend the how and whys of the world is amazing. She so often comes up with things I would have never thought of and as a result her questions often catch me off guard. For example a few weeks ago while in the car I was focusing on traffic and directions when The Bee from the backseat asked " How could I get a fairy godmother?" I was stumped and unprepared, however I wanted to make sure to honor her question with an answer. This scenario has happened a lot lately, and has led me to come up with a few tactics to help out with the Whys.
1) Find the Answer: Fortunately we live in a world of the Internet where the answer to any question can usually be found in just a few minutes. The Bee already knows that if you don't know you can Google it. We have also been enjoying the site Wonderopolis a lot lately, it is a great resource for all kinds of whys. With information, images and often a video clip it is a good way to answer a question. I also like the old fashioned, look in a book method. We have a few good books like The Way Things Work By David Maccauly or Almost Everything By Joelle Jolivet that have great images that can answer lots of questions.
2) Try It: I am a big believer in the best way to learn something is by doing it. So if the question is something that can be answered with an experience I always like that method. However, this method is way easier said then done. The Bee frequently asks me questions that I could easily give her the answer to and move on. It takes way more time and effort for me to stop, not answer and let her figure it out herself. I know that her figuring it our herself is much more valuable so I am working on trying this route more often.
3) Ask the Question Back: When all else fails I ask the question back. Especially when it is one that really has me stumped. I often find that the answer The Bee comes up with is way better then anything I would have said anyway.
How do you handle the Whys at your house? What are some of the questions that have stumped you most?

61) Pasta Snowflake Ornaments

2011-12-05T21:21:00.001-05:00

Shortly after decorating our tree I undecorated the bottom 1/3, or to be more accurate The Bean undecorated the bottom 1/3. I am sure we are not the only family with a partially undecorated tree. It seems inevitable that any toddler would want to touch a shiny, pretty decoration on a cool tree right at their height in their house. Really, I wouldn't mind her touching the tree and decorations so much if they weren't glass and I wasn't so worried about them breaking and hurting someone. So to remedy our unbalanced tree situation, we decided to make some ornaments that were a little less fragile. The inspiration for these ornaments came via Pinterest, of course, from Katy Elliott: Home+Art+Food . We actually made the ornaments last week with the help of our friend Debbie. She and I did most of the gluing, using pasta wheels and tacky glue. The Bee made a collage gluing pasta to paper and The Bean had a blast sorting dry pasta into an ice cube tray. Debbie and I enjoyed making a variety of snowflake patterns and Debbie even came up with an awesome tree pattern. Once the glue had dried, I took the pasta ornaments outside and gave them a coat of silver or red spray paint. Then came the real fun, the glitter! Glitter is not my favorite but I knew The Bee would love it. So we set up a glitter station, she first painted each ornament with modge podge and then dipped them into a plate of glitter. She had the best time and despite her best attempts made the biggest mess. There was glitter everywhere, but I figure sometimes a little mess is worth it. I was able to vacuum up most of the glitter and we all just looked a little more festive for the rest of the day. After the glitter and modge podge dried I just attached wire ornament hooks on the snowflakes and hung them on the tree. They look great, and I have no worries about them getting broken. They are surprisingly durable and we can always make more!

24) Bake Bread (No Knead Recipe)

2011-12-04T20:30:00.001-05:00

For the last few years my sister has been making the most incredibly beautiful and delicious breads. She make all kinds and we are always happy to be the taste testers of her newest recipes. While she claimed baking bread was very easy, I am not a baker, so I was pretty content just to eat hers. Then last winter she sent me this "No Knead" bread recipe, saying she thought the Bee and I might enjoy making it. The recipe is very easy and actually only calls for 4 ingredients, 3 cups of flour, 1/4 teaspoons of yeast, 1 1/4 teaspoon of salt and 1 5/8 cups of water. You dump all the ingredients into a mixer, this is The Bee's job, and mix up until the dough is formed. You then cover and leave in a warm place for 12-20 hours. After the dough has rested you take it out, shape it into a ball, place on a cutting board and cover with a dishtowel covered with flour and leave to rest for another 2 hours. Then preheat the oven and a large heavy pot like a dutch oven, at 450 degrees. When the dough is ready place it in the pot, cover with lid and bake for 30 minutes, then remove lid and bake for another 15-30 minutes until the bread has a nice brown crust. The beauty of this recipe is that it is so easy to feel like a super accomplished baker. Just to show you this picture here is of the first loaf we ever made. Once you make your first loaf you can start adding and changing the recipe. Our favorite is to add a few teaspoons of honey to the water and then 1//2 cup of almond meal, which makes a hearty, slightly sweet bread. We usually polish off the bread within a day or so but if you don't you can use it to make croutons or bread pudding! A nice loaf of bread could be a great holiday gift or a fun thing to bring to a party. One warning, making bread is addictive, once you get started it is hard to stop.

46) Enoch Pratt Free Library Annual Book Sale

2011-12-02T13:57:00.001-05:00

The Enoch Pratt Free Library Annual Book Sale is one of my favorite events of the year. The book sale is held the first weekend in December at the main branch of the Enoch Pratt on Cathedral between Mulberry and Franklin Street. The building alone is worth a trip with its beutiful architectural details, but we go for the books. The sale starts at 10am on Friday and runs through Sunday afternoon. In the main hall of the library they set up tables filled with books on every subject including, childrens books, art books, travel books, fiction, non-fiction and a lot more. All paperback books are 50 cents and all hardback books are $1.00. To just put this in perpective we bought well over 30 books for $22.00. The sale itself is an experience, I always think of it like the Filenes basement bridal sale of books. People come with huge bins and carts and go home with hundreds of books. My most favorite part of the sale though is coming home, dumping all the books on the floor and checking out our haul. The girls and I spent a long time this morning looking at all our new books, so excited for some new reading!

60) Plastic Baggie Art

2011-11-30T21:55:00.001-05:00

Recently we learned about mixing colors and The Bee is now an expert on the subject, in a way that only a three year old can be. So I thought she would enjoy this experiment I saw on The Artful Parent called a Rainbow in a Bag. Except that I did something that I am often guilty of, I didn't read the directions. If I had fully read the directions I would have seen that the project used cornstarch, which of course we were out of. However, I had already mentioned the project to the Bee, so I had to improvise. I am happy to say our improvisation went very well. Inspired by our Bathtub Paints, I poured some clear hand soap into a plastic bag. Then guided by the Bee we added a few drops of food coloring in to the bag. We mixed one with yellow and red drops and one with red and blue drops, then sealed the bag closed. The Bee then smushed the bag all around mixing the colors up. She was delighted to see the new colors form! After the colors were all mixed up she spent some time drawing into the bag with her finger. This would probably be a fun way for an older child to practice writing their letters, but she enjoyed making shapes and lines. I do hope to try the Rainbow in a Bag project but in the meantime I am glad that to say that our improvisation led to a good discovery!

23) Fort Drawing

2011-11-30T21:31:00.001-05:00

The dining room table fort continues to be a favorite in our house. So last Saturday when I came in to find the Bee and her Dad laying under the dining room table I wasn't the least bit surprised. However when I saw them both laying there with there arms up like this I was a little confused. My husband then proudly showed me the new addition to the fort. I want to say here that while I always thought my husband was cool, his coolness level went way up at this moment, since this was all his idea. He had taken a long roll of paper and taped it to the underside of the dining room table. He and the Bee were laying on the floor drawing on the ceiling. At the moment I came in they were discussing potential names for their fort to draw on the paper. Both the Bee and the Bean have been into the new fort drawing idea and the best part is that since it is under the table I am not worried about if they get some on the wood or having to put it away!

59) Felt Ball Garland

2011-11-30T13:04:00.001-05:00

A few years ago my friend Genie introduced me to the world of felting. Prior to this I had no idea about felting and it seemed like a very daunting task. However, what I quickly discovered is that felting is very easy, so easy even little kids can do it! The basic idea with felting is that you are taking wool fibers, called roving and rubbing them together under warm water so that the fibers shrink and intertwine to form a piece of felt. This week the Bee and I did some felting. This is a great activity for toddlers and preschoolers, it involves playing in the sink with soap and water and there is no way to mess up, because the more they play with the fibers the more felted they get. Felting is also a great way to teach kids about the process of taking sheep's wool and turning it into felt and yarn.
To make our felt ball garland, we begin by selecting some wool roving. If you don't have wool roving you can get it at most craft stores (Michael's, Jo-Ann's) in any specialty wool shop (there are a few great ones in Baltimore) or online. Roving is basically dyed and combed sheep's wool and comes in any color you could possibly want. We selected some warm colored roving for our garland, since I wanted it to be something that could be up for the holiday season but also stay on display for other times of year. I then separated strands of roving into clumps and wrapped the clumps around each other to form loose little balls. Then I added a little soap, we just used dish soap, to the clump and begin rolling it between the palms of my hand. If you have ever made balls like for cookies, meat balls, or even play dough, it is the same technique. I then rinsed the ball under warm water and rolled again repeating the process until I had a little felted ball. The Bee did a few balls but was mostly interested in playing with the ones I had made and making her own stuff out of the roving. I set a cutting board in a bowl of warm water so she could explore with the roving. She really liked rolling it out, like a worm and ended up with a bunch of felted strands, which look really neat. Once we had made a bunch of little balls, which doesn't take very long but does give your arms a good work out, we strung them together with a needle and thread to make a garland. The garland is currently hanging on our fireplace mantle but I hope to hang it upstairs once the holiday is over. I should also mention that there is a much easier way to make felted balls in mass, using an old stocking and your washing machine. I have used the washing machine technique before and it works great but is not nearly as fun for 3 year olds!

22) Roll, Bounce and Kick

2011-11-28T21:35:00.001-05:00

Despite the fact that we spent our weekend hanging Christmas decorations, we spent yesterday afternoon running around outside without our coats. There is something about a 70 degree day in the winter (or almost winter) that seems so special. We took two large rubber balls into the yard with us and had a blast rolling, bouncing and kicking the balls. I took some photos of the girls but needless to say every one was a blur. Which I guess is a sign of a fun afternoon!

58) Bathtub Watercolor Paints

2011-11-26T21:00:00.001-05:00

A few months ago we made some bath tub crayons and while they worked, they were not making the bathtub masterpieces I had hoped. Recently The Bee has been playing with a paint brush and foam paint roller in the bathtub. She loves painting the water on the walls and sides of the bathtub. Yesterday watching her do this made me think, how fun would it be if I could make some real bathtub paints for her. I went back to the bathtub crayons and thought what if they were liquid. I poured some clear Method hand soap (but you could probably use any clear soap, even a shampoo) into small plastic containers. Next I added a few drops of food coloring to each container. I then showed The Bee the new bathtub paints, she was so excited! The paints are actually very beautiful, and remind me of watercolors the way the colors blend together. She loved painting on the wall, tub and even her own arms. I loved that we just rinsed everything off at the end of the bath. I should add that I tested the paints out on our tub first just to make sure it didn't stain, I always worry that food coloring will stain. Especially an old tub like ours, but that hasn't been a problem.

57) Magnet Chalk Board

2011-11-25T21:22:00.001-05:00

Lately we have been all about magnets, mostly because we have been all about our new magnet chalkboard. Originally this was a leftover back from a Ikea Billy bookcase that has been hanging around our house for a while. I took the large piece of wood and gave it three coats of magnetic paint and three coats of chalkboard paint, both of which I bought at the Home Depot. I had never used the magnetic paint before and was amazed when it actually worked, although there is definitely some magnets that work better then others. I am not sure if that would have been better if I had used more layers of magnetic paint or if that is always the case. However, most of the magnets we have put on it have worked great. To test it out we made some fun popsicle stick magnets. We started by choosing some colored popsicle sticks and drawing patterns on them using black sharpie marker. I made two of each color/pattern, so we could play some matching games with them. I then stuck small pieces of magnet tape on the back of each end of the stick. The Bee and Bean have found lots of uses for these magnets matching them up, making trains, lines and suns with them. The magnet board is hanging on the wall in our office/art room and has been a great activity for The Bean when The Bee and I are working on a project that she is not quiet ready for yet.

45) Quiet Space

2011-11-25T20:04:00.001-05:00

I have spent the last few minutes hemming and hawing about which category to put this post in. Ultimately I decided it should go in the Places to Go category because this has become a destination in our house. I started working on this quiet corner a few months ago after reading a post on Let the Children Play about creating a place for peace. As a teacher I always had a quiet place in my classroom. I love the idea of having a area that kids can retreat to when they need to think, rest, or just decompress. However it never occurred to me to have one in my home, but once I started thinking about it I realized that The Bee and The Bean could benefit from a quiet place too! As a toddler and a preschooler they are often dealing with conflict, frustration and over stimulation. So teaching them to take time in a quiet space now to deal with those feelings is a skill they can benefit from now and in the future.
To build our quiet space I put all my best DIY skills to the test. I started the space by creating a canopy that can close to give the space a little more privacy. I begin this venture by hanging a heavy duty hook from the ceiling. Then using landscaping tubing (which we had in our garage but you could get at any hardware/home improvment store) I made a circle and taped the ends together with duct tape. I then screwed four screw into the top of the circle.Next I used a heavy duty string, cut four equal pieces which I tied to the screw then to the hook in the ceiling. Once my hoop was balanced and hanging I took the curtains I found at Ikea and ran a string through the tabs. I tied the string to the hook hanging from the ceiling and repeated the step for the other curtain. When the curtains were securely hanging from the ceiling I then sewed the two curtain together along the top portion so that they would stay over the hoop. To keep the curtains open I put two 3m hooks on the wall to use as curtain tie backs. I wanted to add some things for the girls to do in the quiet space, so I spray painted a few spice racks, also from Ikea, and hung them to hold the books. I originally saw this idea on Pinterest via Ohdeedoh. I then hung an abacus and made the collage numbers for a little decoration. A little floor mat and a few pillows and we had a new quiet space. The girls have already spent a ton of time here. They have used it as a place to play and as a place to read or sit quietly.

The landscpe tubing was soft enough
to easily push the screws in.

Sewing the curtains together at
the top helps to hold them closed
over the hoop.

Spice racks hold a lot of books and display
covers making it easy to find the book you want.
Faux metal 3M hook can easily be removed without
messing up the wall.

The abacus and numbers provide a few more
quiet activities to do in the space.

56) Marvelous Magnet Mansions

2011-11-25T12:58:00.001-05:00

The Bean has a new word, it is house. She loves to say it and finds houses every where. Inspired by her new word I made the girls some house magnets with the leftover shrinky dinks from our sun catcher. The idea for the houses actually came from one of our current favorite books This is The House That Jack Built by Simms Tabback. The book is a beautifully illustrated rendition of the classic children's rhyme and a fun one to read aloud to kids. The front and back pages of the book are filled with illustrations of all different kinds of houses. The thing I love most about the illustrations is how simple they are, the houses are all made using basic shapes like squares and rectangles. Using the illustrations as my inspiration I begin drawing houses with black sharpie marker right onto the shrinky dink plastic papers. Drawing the houses was fun, since I was just using simple shapes they were very easy to draw and I had a blast adding little details to each house. Once I was finished drawing the houses I colored them with crayons, cut them and placed them on a baking sheet. I then put them in a 350 degree oven for just a few minutes. The one thing you do want to watch in that the shrinky dinks don't curl and stick to each other. If they do start to curl and stick just pull them apart quickly while they are still hot and stick them back into the oven, the heat will flatten them back out. The shrinky dinks only take a few moments to shrink and cool very quickly. Once they had cooled I cut small pieces of magnet tape for the back of each house and stuck them on the fridge. Both the Bee and The Bean have loved aranging the houses and now the Bean gets to practice her new word every time she comes into the kitchen!

55) Patterned Collage Numbers

2011-11-23T14:13:00.001-05:00

I have been working on a new quiet/reading space in our house and while it is almost done it needed a little something else. So inspired by an abacus hanging on the wall, I made these collage numbers using patterned paper. I started by taking a bunch of small inexpensive frames from ikea and spray painted them all black. Then took a bunch of patterned papers and separated them into neutral patterns for the background and colored patterns for the numbers. To make the numbers I used a good, old teacher trick, taking 3x5 index cards, I drew each number into the rectangle, making sure my number touched all edges of the paper. This trick ensures that all the numbers are the same size. Once I had drawn all the numbers, I cut them out and traced them onto the colored pattern papers and cut those out. When the numbers were finished I inserted the neutral background and colorful number into the frame. Then using strips of Velcro I hung them on the wall. They were just the finishing touch we needed. Check back soon to see a full post about our new quiet/reading space.

21) Sort Spoons

2011-11-21T21:55:00.001-05:00

Getting ready for Thanksgiving means spending a little extra time in the kitchen. While I actually love cooking with my kids, I find cooking with my kids around to be one of the hardest things. So I am always looking for something the girls can safely do in the kitchen. Especially for the Bean who always keeps me company while I am working in there. So our most recent kitchen time activity has been sorting spoons. I take the plastic silverware caddy out of the dishwasher along with a handful of plastic spoons. The Bean loves putting all the spoons in the slots, dumping them out and sorting them again. This job keeps her busy for quite a while and the best part is when she is done, I take the caddy with spoons and stick it right into the dishwasher! What jobs do your kids enjoy doing in the kitchen? How do you keep kids busy while you are cooking?

54) Clothespin Wreath

2011-11-20T19:41:00.001-05:00

We are excitedly getting ready to have our family over on Thursday for Thanksgiving. As part of our preparations we made a new clothespin wreath, that we will use as a thankful wreath on Thursday. I have traced and cut out copies of the girls hands on brown, yellow, red and orange construction paper. Everyone at our Thanksgiving will be invited to write or draw what they are thankful for onto one of the hands. We will then clip the hands onto our wreath! When Thanksgiving is over we will have one clothespin wreath that we will use as an advent calender taking one piece of paper off each day. Our other clothespin wreath hangs on our front door and we use it to hold and display all the holiday cards we receive.
The clothespin wreath is very easy to make and both the Bee and Bean helped in making this one. We started with two large packs of wooden clothespins. You can find clothespins at any supermarket or dollar store. I then took a wire hanger, unraveled it and bent it into a circle. Wrapping the ends together to hold the shape. I then dumped out all the clothespins, which the girls loved playing with. We begin clipping the clothespins onto the wire. You want the clips to hang from the center hole so that you can still open and clip something into the clothespin. It took approximately 90-100 clothespins to cover the entire wire hanger. I then took a ribbon and tied a loop to hang the wreath by.

20) Play Computer

2011-11-19T14:13:00.001-05:00

While cleaning up this week I discovered an old and long forgotten computer keyboard. I pulled it out, laid it on the table and within moments both the Bee and Bean were excitedly typing away. To make the keyboard a little more exciting I found a piece of cardboard and propped it up with a cardboard strip to make a computer screen. It is funny that this new toy appeals to both girls but for very different reasons. The Bean enjoys pressing the buttons and hearing the clicking noise of the keys. The Bee however likes to work on the computer like a grown-up. This afternoon I came in to find her sitting at the table in front of her computer. When I asked her what she was working on she told me she was video chatting with her friends.

53) 5 Presents Kids Can Make for Grown-Ups

2011-11-17T20:08:00.001-05:00

A friend and I recently had a discussion about what to get preschool teachers for the holidays. I told her that as a teacher my favorite holiday presents were always the ones that came from the heart and were clearly kid made. Last year the Bee and I made presents for her preschool teachers. She took such pride in making them and was so excited to give them to her teachers. She loved telling them all about how she made them, and it made the present even more special for both her and her teacher. Since the holidays are rapidly approaching I thought I would share five kid made (or mostly kid made) projects that would also be fun presents for teachers, grandparents, aunts, uncles or any other grown-ups. Click on the links below for the full description and how to of each project.

1) Fruit or Herb Soap: We actually made these at the end of last school year for the Bee's teachers and they loved them. You can use any fruit or herb and pour them into any shape mold. I recently saw some cute snow flake plastic molds that would make fun winter holiday soaps!

2) Letter Sculptures: Made from recycled cardboard, plastic cups and brown paper tapes, these sculpture letters are easy to make and there are so many things you can do with them. I made the form for our letters, but older kids could definitely make the letter with little help. Once the cardboard letter is made there are so many possibilities with how to decorate. You can paint, decoupage, color, etc and kids can really take charge of the decorating! The letter would look great on a teacher desk or bookshelf.

3) Milliflore Bead Necklace/Bracelets or Ornaments: We made these this summer with a group of kids ranging from 3-12 years old and everyone of them was able to make their own and had a great time making them. Using a clay like sculpey or fimo you can use the milliflore technique to make beads that can be strung into a bracelet or necklace. You could also use the same technique to make larger ornaments or decorations.

4) Shrinky Dink Sun Catchers: This project is quick, easy to make and looks really impressive when it is done. The Bee did all the coloring for this project and got a huge kick out of watching the shrinky dinks in the oven. The finished sun catcher looks beautiful hanging in a window or could make a cool ornament for a tree.

5) Sandbox Plaster Cast Hands: We are about to make these as our annual grandparent ornament. Every year we make an ornaments for the girls grandparents and this year we are going to make the plaster casts of their hands. Fun and easy to make these can easily be made into ornaments simply by sticking a straw into the plaster while it is drying and then running yarn or ribbon through the straw to hang with. I like the sand on the hands but you could also paint them for a more festive look.

Here are a few more ideas that could be really fun:
- holiday mix CD with you child's artwork on the cover
- cookies, getting kids to help bake and decorate is always fun. Or just have them decorate a special box or tin to put cookies in.
- decorate a ceramic pot with paint or markers and then put in a plant, seeds or even candies.

Do you have any favorite kid made holiday projects? What is the best kid made present you have ever received?

52) Squirt and Roll Painting

2011-11-16T21:23:00.000-05:00

We had a great time today making a huge mess! Another rainy day and two grumpy little girls with runny noses meant that we needed to have some fun and shake it up a little. So we begin by taping some large sheets of paper to the table. I then got out some jars of almost empty tempera paint and added a little water to each jar, just to make the paint a little more runny. Next I pulled out several medicine syringes, the kind that now come with every bottle of children and infants Tylenol, so needless to say we have quite a few. I filled the syringes up with paint and gave them to the girls. The Bee was beyond excited to squirt hers out on the paper. The Bean wasn't able to squirt hers by herself but thought it was hysterical when I squirted it out onto her paper. After they had squirted some paint onto their paper I gave them each a piece of a cardboard tube. I had wrapped a bunch of different sized rubber bands around the tube to create some fun textures. I originally saw a version of this using a rolling pin on Irresistible Ideas for Play Based Learning . The Girls then rolled their tubes all around the paper, mixing colors, splattering paint and making patterns and textures. The Bean also found other uses for her tube stamping the end of it and talking through it like a bull horn, both of which she thought were pretty funny. The finished paintings turned out beautifully but even more importantly we all had a lot of fun and were all a little less grumpy by the end!

51) Sculpture Letters

2011-11-15T14:35:00.000-05:00

The Bee is becoming more and more interested in letters, particularly what she calls "your letter" meaning the first letter of your name. She likes to ask people what their letters are and loves when they have the same letter as someone she knows! So to encourage the letter interest I thought it would be fun to make "your letter" sculptures for the Bee and Bean. I have made these before with 3-5th grade students and originally saw this project in the Dick Blick catalog a few years ago. The also have the project on their website with a helpful video. This is another one of those projects I love because most of the material I already had on hand. I started by taking an empty cereal box and opening it into a flat piece of cardboard. Then on the front of the box drew the letter I wanted, in this case an N. Next I cut out the N and traced it onto the back of the box. I then had two identical cardboard N's. To make the sculpture 3-dimensional I used small plastic dixie cups I had leftover from a party, you could also use plastic condiment cups. I layed the cups out on the N, alternating direction (up and down) to add some strength and stability. Once I had layed them out I glued them down with Elmers glue, and then glued other N on top to create a sandwich. Once the glue had dried, I was ready to wrap the sculpture. To wrap the sculpture I used brown paper packing tape, this is pretty inexpensive and can be found in most office supply stores or even sometimes at the post office. One roll goes a long way, so you probably don't need more then that. To use the tape you tear or cut off pieces and then dip a sponge in water, ringing it out to get the sponge damp. Then run the damp sponge along the sticky side of the tape to activate the glue. Wrap the tape around the form, being sure not to pull to tight, and smooth down with your fingers. The corners and edges can be a little tricky to wrap but if you think of it like wraping a present and fold down or cut off edges were needed it is pretty easy. Also know that you are probably going to put another layer on top so any bumps or lumps won't be as noticable. You want to wrap the entire letter, with 1-2 coats of brown paper tape and let dry. Once the letter is dry the real fun begins, you could decorate the letter however you want, and there are so many possibilites. I wanted to make sure that I chose a decoration technique that the Bee could do, so I got out some green tissue paper, which she and I tour up into little pieces. For her this could have been all we did and she would have been happy. I then poured a little Elmers glue into a bowl and mixed it with a little water, just enough to make it spreadable with a paint brush. I showed the Bee how to paint the glue onto the surface, then put a piece of paper down and paint over top with the glue again. She picked this up very quickly and was off. The beauty was that she couldn't mess up. The more wrinkles and layers the better it looked. She worked for a long time and when she lost interest I finished the hard parts like the corners. After letting the glue dry I added a quick coat of Modge Podge just to keep it all together and give it a little sheen. The finished letters are going on display in the girls rooms.

5) Books We Spend Hours Looking At

2011-11-14T22:37:00.000-05:00

For the last few months we have spent a lot of time just looking at books. Particularly large books with very busy illustrations filled with lots to look at. I can remember loving these books as a kid, sitting up in bed long after I was supposed to be sleeping, studying Richard Scary books and discovering new details I hadn't noticed the first 100 times I looked at the book. I love looking at these books with the Bee too. Sometimes we play "I Spy" and sometimes we take turns describing what we see to each other. However, my favorite part of these books is that they never grow old, we keep coming back to them time and time again, discovering that we never run out of something new to look at.

1) Zoo-ology- By Joelle Jolivett
This over sized book is hard to fit into a book shelf but perfect for spreading out on the floor. Every page is over filled with incredible illustrations of every kind of animal you could every think of. A great resource for learning about new animals, at home or at school, for kids of all ages!
2) Almost Everything - By Joelle Jolivett
By the same author this book is also filled with beautiful illustrations. Each page has a different theme and is filled with tons of pictures about that theme. For example on the page about transportation there is illustration after illustration of different types of transportation from around the world and through out time. This book is also over sized and great for sitting together and looking at.
3) The Art Book for Children By The Editors of Phaidon Press
Both The Art Book One and Two are filled with images of works of art that you can't help looking at. From sculptures to painting from Cave Painting to Abstraction the works of art are accompanied by some information about the art or artist. I often find that the text answers the questions that the Bee asks or provide a great starting point for a conversation.
4) In the Town All Year Round By Rotraut Susanne Berner
While I love all the books in this post this one is most definitely my favorite. The book follows a small town through the four seasons of the year. Each season shows the same scenes from the town but with the people doing stuff specific to that season. One of our favorite things to do in this book is to select a character and see if we can find them on each page, you become amazingly connected to the characters in this town and I find myself talking with the Bee about them as if they are old friends of ours.
5) What do People Do All Day? By Richard Scarry
This classic has been a favorite for generations, and continues to be a hugely popular book in our house. We love looking at all the jobs that people do, seeing how plumbing works and how they make bread. Filled with words and pictures this is a good book for identifying and games like "I Spy."

50) Contact Paper Collage

2011-11-13T11:50:00.000-05:00

I am always on the lookout for a good art project for the Bean. She is 17 months and still puts a lot of stuff in her mouth so it can be a little tricky to find something that she is interested in and is safe for her. So today for the 30 Days of Hands on Play Challenge to make sticky art I was excited to find a project perfect for her. We started by rolling out a sheet of clear contact paper on the table, sticky side up. She kept touching the paper and then pulling her fingers off and looking at them. She was fascinated by the sticky paper. I then gave her a bunch of pieces of cut and torn construction paper. She quickly discovered that if she put them on the contact paper they would stick. Once she was done putting papers on I took another piece of clear contact paper and covered her collage. The final result was a great bean made collage that looks beautiful in the window!

19) Play with Pots and Pans

2011-11-10T21:48:00.000-05:00

Recently the Bean has been quietly sneaking away to the kitchen to pull all the pots and pans out of the cupboard every chance she gets. Every time I come in and see her on the floor surrounded with the pots and pans it makes me smile. Playing with pots and pans seems like such a classic childhood activity and in watching her play I can see the appeal. The pans are large, they make loud noises and there are lots of them. However I think the most appealing thing to her is the different sizes. She loves stacking the pots into one another and trying to find the right lid to fit each pot. Do your kids play with pots and pans? Do they have another house hold item they love to pay with?

18) Dig in the Dirt

2011-11-09T21:13:00.000-05:00

What started off as a chore I have been putting off for weeks turned out to be a morning of fun, sensory play. If you have been following the 30 days of Hands on Play todays challenge was to play in a sensory tub. We took that challenge outside using the garden as our sensory tub. This past spring and summer we grew a vegetable garden that has long since passed it's prime and become an overgrown mess in our backyard. We went outside with the intention that I would do some work in the garden and the girls would play in the yard but as always happens we all ended up in the same place. It turned out the Bee and The Bean were awesome helpers. They had a great time digging, raking, filling up containers with dirt and dumping them back out. They also helped me to pull out the plants and weeds and put them into the wheelbarrow. We spent a lot of time sifting dirt and looking for left over tomatoes and carrots in the soil. When it was time to come in for lunch we were all a mess, always a sign of a good morning!

17) All About Playgrounds (playground day, playground tour and playground sites)

2011-11-09T13:22:00.000-05:00

Playing at Glasgow Park in Delaware
on our Playground Tour Road trip!

For the last few moths we have been on a Playground Tour, visiting over 20 playgrounds in the Baltimore area. As you can probably imagine, we have learned a lot about playgrounds along the way! so I thought I would share some of our favorite playground resources.
The Playground Tour has been a lot of fun! It has given us something to do, gotten us to spend time together outside, taken us to new places we may not have visited otherwise and introduced us to some new friends along the way. If you are in the Baltimore area and looking for a playground to visit here is a complete list of the playgrounds we have visited on our tour: http://childhoodlist.blogspot.com/2011/09/28-playground-tour-2011.html
Each stop includes a few photos and some info about the playground as well as a link for directions on how to get there.
If you are not in the Baltimore area but are looking for some playgrounds in your area check out Here are some resources for you:
Kaboom: is a website where you can find playgrounds by location. You can also read reviews of the playground and see pictures. Kaboom has a free playground app, that is very handy for finding a playground when you are out and about.
Playgroundology and Playground Chronicles: Great resources for all things playground! On the left hand side of both sites you will find playground sites and blogs dedicated to playgrounds.

100+ Top Resources for Play: This site actually has a list of 300 (and growing) sites about play. A great resource for anyone interested in play.

So if you are thinking about doing your own playground tour or just getting out to visit a local playground here are a few more resources that you might want to check out:

5 reasons to take a playground tour: 5 reasons why to go on a playground tour

M Is for Monkey Bars: Getting Ready for Writing: a great post from Moving Smart about the importance of playground play for the development of muscles and motor skills that are important in writing.

Playscapes: A Blog About Playground Design: Look at all these cool playgrounds from all over the world!

Active Kids Network: A site all about outdoor play with resources for starting your own outdoor playgroup, and outdoor play ideas for all seasons. Next week (November 14-21) they are celebrating "Everyday Is Play Day" and encouraging families to play outside everyday, going on a mini playground tour could be a fun way to spend time outdoors everyday!

Finally have a playground play day. Last weekend we invited a bunch of friends to come play with us at our local playground. It turned out to be a beautiful day and we had quite a few friends come out and play. We had a great time and it was such a fun and easy event I hope to do it again soon!

49) DIY Texture Combs for Painting

2011-11-08T20:21:00.000-05:00

These DIY Cardboard Painting Combs were easy to make and perfect for little hands to paint with. Inspired by plastic painting combs I have seen before, I took pieces of heavy duty cardboard and cut them into small rectangles. I then cut the edge of one side of the cardboard, making a variety of different combs with different thinnesses and thicknesses. Next we put some paint into a tray and dipped the cut edges into the paint. The Bee then ran the comb along the paper creating a striped texture. She then painted on the paper with a brush and tried running the comb through the painting which created some cool lines and patterns. While I made them with the intention of using them to paint lines and textures the Bee quickly came up with her own preferred method. She painted directly onto the cardboard and then used the cardboard combs like a stamp! This also created some cool textures and patterns and I loved seeing her own creative technique!

14) A New Place to Work

2011-11-06T22:14:00.000-05:00

We are currently in the process re-doing the office/craft/everything else room in our house. While the rest of the room is still a work in progress, the kid part of the room is mostly done. Up until now we have been making all our art at the kitchen table, which has been fine but also has it's drawbacks. The biggest one being that it is hard to explain to a one year old in her booster seat that we don't eat crayons only to sit her in the same seat a few hours later and ask her to eat something. So one of my biggest objectives in this space was to have a place for the girls to work that was just for them. We have had this great Svala table from Ikea for the last few years. The table has served many purposes and was definitley worth the $19.99 price tag. However as the girls are getting bigger I have found that it is hard for them to sit at the table with all their papers and materials and still have room to work. So to solve this problem I found some utensil holders at Ikea that fit perfectly onto the side of the table and are a great storage space for crayons, markers and other materials. To attach the utensil holders I nailed two nails into the side of the table and then slipped the nails through the slats of the utensil holder. I can easily remove the the utensil holders if we didn't want them there, which is a really nice option. I love having the art materials right there for the girls to use without taking up all their work space and in a place that they can reach without even getting up, it makes cleaning up super easy! I also wanted to add a place to display art work and dry wet paintings, so I was very excited when I found the Pressa hanging dryer, also from Ikea. I hung it over the table and love how it looks like a chandlier dangling from the ceiling. It has been great and easy way to store wet artwork. The room is still a work in progress and I look forward to finishing (and sharing) the rest of the room soon. But in the meantime, I am happy that the girls now have a place of their own.

48) Mitten Sweater

2011-11-05T14:44:00.000-04:00

November is the kind of month where I never know how to dress my kids. Often too warm for a coat but too cool for just a sweater, I find that I spend most of the month with a bag full of sweaters, coats, hats and mittens just in case. So when I saw this idea for a Warm Hands Sweater on the blog Elsie Marley who saw it on the site Oeuf (I always want to give full credit to my inspirations) I thought it was the perfect answer to my November clothing dilemma. Not to mention so cute! I found this striped cardigan at a thrift store, then used some scraps of felted sweaters I had left over from our Felted Sweater Mittens, for the pockets. I started by tracing our mitten templates onto a one of the felted sweater scraps and cutting them out. If you don't have mitten templates check our post on Felted Sweater Mittens to see how to make them. I then placed the mitten cutouts onto the sweater to get the right placement. Next I used a felting needle to tack them down in place. If I had been using a wool or even partially wool sweater I could have just needle felted the mittens onto the sweater and been done with it. However the striped cardigan I selected was 100% cotton so the needle felting just tacked them in place, you could also just pin or glue them into place. Once they were tacked down, I quickly stitched them on, using a back stitch all around the border. The Bee has already worn this sweater, frequently sticking her hands in the mitten pockets, to keep them warm while looking cool!

layout mittens on sweater

Trace mitten pattern onto felted sweater

Tack down with felting needle

Put hands in mitten pockets to keep cozy warm

16) Play Pretend Islands (30 Day to Hands On Play Challenge)

2011-11-04T14:35:00.000-04:00

Inspired by the 30 Days to Hands on Play Challenge by Hands On: As We Grow and The Imagination Tree we started this morning playing pretend islands. Every day these two blogs are giving a different activity or prompt that anybody can do and encouraging parents to spend 15 minutes of uninterrupted time playing with their kids. We have been following along and playing everyday and loving it. I have to say that I normally am not the best about playing with my kids. I am good about taking them places and coming up with stuff for them to do but when it comes to actually sitting down and playing, I'm not so good. So this challenge has been really good for me. In just 4 days I have already noticed some changes. The daily challenges have forced me to focus on what I am doing and enjoy the time I am playing with the girls with out thinking about dishes laundry or email.
This morning the Bee and Bean were already in their dress up clothes before they had gotten out of their pj's and looking for something to do so I suggested we play pretend islands, the day 4 prompt. We decided to make our islands out of the pieces of a foam play mat. After just a few minutes of jumping from island to island to stay out of the water, the Bee suggested it might be better it we built a boat. So we put the pieces of the mat together to make our boat. We then spent a long time rowing the boat, fighting off crocodiles and pretending to sleep and snore as we floated down stream. One of my favorite parts about this challenge is that it gives an open ended starting point and some dedicated time to see where our imaginations are going to go!

44) Rockfield Park Creative Playground

2011-11-03T14:10:00.000-04:00

Our Playground Tour is starting to wind down as Fall is quickly becoming Winter, last week it snowed here! However we have a few more playgrounds we want to visit and so we have been taking advantage of whatever nice Fall weather we have to get out and play. This week we went to a beautiful playground in Belair called the Rockfield Park Creative Playground, located right next to John Carroll High School. The playground is just a little further out then Annie's playground, so it is a little bit of a drive but another super cool playground worth the trek. We immediately started referring to this as the castle playground because it has all these wooden towers, and since Rapunzel is one of the most talked about people at our house, that made this playground even more popular. There is plenty to do at this playground and while it is sort of divided into a bigger kid and smaller kid areas it is all open making it easy to see kids wherever they are. There is a large sandbox, lots of slides, two sets of swings, a xylophone, tire tunnel and lots of cool bridges and climbing areas. Overall this playground is probably geared more towards big kids, however the girls found no shortage of stuff to do. The morning we went the playground was empty and the girls had the run of the place, I am not sure if it gets more crowded later on, but that made it nice them to check everything out. We talked to another mom there who mentioned that Annie's playground is being renovated and so she has started coming to this playground instead. If you are in the Belair area or looking for a little trip out of the city, this is a really fun playground to check out!

Follow this link for a full list of the playgrounds from our tour: http://childhoodlist.blogspot.com/2011/09/28-playground-tour-2011.html

47) Chihuly Inspired Shrinky Dink Sun Catcher

2011-11-02T14:05:00.000-04:00

When I was a kid we had Smurf shrinky dinks and I thought they were the coolest thing ever, so a few years ago when I found shrinky dink paper I was very excited! The original inspiration for this project came, I believe from a magazine, several years ago. I have done this project many times and in many variations with kids I have taught but have been dying to do it with the Bee and The Bean. The project is inspired by the artist Dale Chihuly, a glass artist from Washington state who makes incredible blown glass sculptures and instillations. If you have never see his work check out his site, it is amazing! So instead of making our sculpture out of glass we used plastic. We begin with blank shrinky dink paper, you can get this at a lot of craft stores or online, and then colored our paper using markers and crayons. The thing I really liked about this project is that anyone who can scribble can do it. We put out several sheets of shrinky dink paper and the Bee, Bean and I all took turns coloring on it. The more colors, layers and patterns the more interesting your finished sculpture. Once we finished coloring I cut the paper into a bunch of random, organic shapes. The more wiggly the shapes the better. I then placed them onto a baking sheet and stuck them into a 350 degree oven. Next comes the fun part, you have to carefully watch them and wait for them to start curling. If you have ever done shrinky dinks before you know that the plastic curls up before flattening back out and shrinking. In this case you want to pull the plastic out when it starts to curl up. When you pull the curling shrinky dinks out they cool in just a second, freezing them in these beautiful curling shapes. In the past I have made these into ornaments and pendents by putting a hole in them before I baked them or magnets by sticking a piece of magnet tape on the back. However this time I thought I would make them into a sun catcher for our kitchen window, so I hot glued all the pieces to a clear plastic plate. Then hot glued a paper clip to the back of the plate, ran a piece of fishing line through it an hung it in our window. It really is beautiful and looks a lot like glass when the sun comes through! The girls think it is very cool and have enjoyed checking it out every time they come to the sink.

46) Recycling Bin Robot

2011-11-01T20:52:00.000-04:00

We made our recycling bin robot to be part of an exhibition of robots at Lilla-a-Design. The exhibition is currently on display and there are so many great and different robots in the exhibition it is definitely worth checking out. We begin the project by just talking about robots. I wasn't totally sure how familiar the Bee was with robots, but she quickly reminded me about a little wind-up robot we had that became the inspiration for our project. I then took a bunch of stuff out of our recycling bin and lay it on the table. The Bee selected the large cereal box for the body and a smaller plastic container for the head. She then choose some plastic caps for the eyes, nose, mouth and the robots buttons. While she did the parts selection i hot glued as instructed. My favorite part of watching her build the robot was that she kept standing up to look at her own body to see what else her robot needed. I had to give her a little help with the legs and suggested gluing two cups together to make legs strong enough to hold up the body. While i finished gluing the Bee spent some time cutting beautiful hair out of paper, it was very important to her that her robot have beautiful hair!

13) 10 Ways to Engage Kids in the Creative Process

2011-10-31T21:48:00.000-04:00

Lately I have been doing a lot of thinking, reading and talking about creativity. Partially because it seems to be a topic a lot of people are thinking about these days (with good reason) and partially because it is the theme for the conference I went to today. The key note speaker at the conference was Sir Ken Robinson, who is an author and speaker on the subjects of creativity and education, among lots of other stuff. Since the conference was for independent school educators he focused his talk on educators and the structures of the current education systems. However, as a mom a lot of what he was saying applied to home life too. He spoke about how as educators it is important to listen to children, respect what they know, and paying attention to the talents and interests that they have . He also spoke of the process of learning as an organic process not a linear event. Near the end of his presentation Ken Robinson told a fabulous story about Bart, a boy who grew up in Oklahoma and discovered at a young age that he was able to walk on his hands almost as well as his feet. Walking on his hands was a fun party trick, however Bart's mother saw this and started taking her son to a gymnasium. He talked about how excited Bart was when he came to the gymnasium and how he had a sense of being in the right place. Ken Robinson then shared that Bart later went on to become a gold metal Olympian who married Nadia Comaneci and now runs the Bart Conner Gymnastics Academy in Oklahoma. While I loved this story, my favorite part was his point, which was this, Bart's mother could never have known that would be the out come for her son. What she did know was that her son had a talent and interest and so she found a way to support that. He then said that one of the most important jobs of an educator, and a parent is to "teach kids to understand the world within them."
The reason I attended the conference was actually to give a presentation with a dear friend and colleague (seeing Ken Robinson speak was just a perk) entitled: "Art Cards: The Creative Process in 3x5." The presentation was about a system we used in our art classroom over the last few years using index cards in place of journal or other method to allow kids to think, plan, experiment, explore and reflect. We presented this method using the creative process as a guide. There are many variations on the creative process but the one that we used was inspirations, ideation, implementation, reflection and presentation. The creative process is a series of steps you go through in any creative activity, i.e. making something, writing, problem solving, or even dancing. The process starts with an inspiration, the thing that makes you want to be creative to begin with. Then comes ideation, the brainstorming or planning step where you start thinking about what you are going to do with that inspiration. Next comes application and implementation, the actual act, if you are talking art this would be the process of making. Finally comes reflection and presentation, thinking and sharing what you have made or done. The creative process to me always feels very scientific and academic, but it really is true, even for a 17 moth year old. Although a toddler doesn't care about word like ideation they do go through the process, seeing something of interest, checking it out and thinking about what they can do with it, then trying something before running over to his or her parent to share their discovery. In fact I think the creative process is a very natural thing for little kids (perhaps why I love being an art teacher and a mom) my biggest concern for my children and maybe even for myself is how to retain that natural creativity, the innate creativity and curiosity that most kids have. I think one of the answers suggested by Sir Ken Robinson may be to help children find what they like, what they are good at and do it.
So after all my thinking about creativity here are 10 ways to engage kids in the creative process:

1) Listen to the kids, follow their interests and ideas.
2) Let kids find out what they are inspired by and then help them to find more of what inspires them
3) Teach kids that creativity is a process and that means that it isn't always perfect and simple but that you have to try, experiment and mess up along the way.
4) Teach kids that creativity isn't just about art, or making stuff
5) Support your kids interests, even if they are different then your own (or your own ideas about how your kids should be)
6) Provide a way for your child to explore and experiment, for some kids this means writing, others drawing or moving, but a way for them to work out their ideas.
7) expose your kids to lots of creative forms so they have a chance to figure out what interests them most.
8) Give kids time to reflect about and think about what they did or made.
9) Proudly display or share your child's creativity, this will give them confidence and let them know you support their interests.
10) Everyday and every kid is different. Go with were you kids are at that particular moment or stage even if that is different everyday.

What creative things do your children like to do? How do they like to let their creativity shine?

15) 6 Bean Bag Games

2011-10-30T13:29:00.000-04:00

Last week we made these fun and easy to make balloon bean bags. I didn't really have any specific ideas about what we would do with the bean bags, so I took my cue from the girls to see what they would do with them. After a few (rainy) days of playing here are 6 bean bag games that we have enjoyed.

1) Hopscotch- We made a hopscotch board using painters tape on the floor in the Bee's bedroom. The girls then used the bean bags to mark which squares not to jump in.

2) Collecting- The Bean is all about collecting so her favorite game has been to walk around with a plastic basket and collect all the bean bags only to then dump them back out on the floor and start again.

3) Hide-n-Seek- Just like an easter egg hunt the girls have been hiding the bean bags around the house and then finding them again.

4) Sorting Box- Using box cutters, I cut several squares into the bottom of a cardboard box and the girls had a great time putting the bean bags into the holes and then lifting up the box to find all the bean bags inside.

5) Bowling- This game could be done with lots of objects, but we selected to use plastic Little People since we have a good collection. We lined the little people up on the floor, a job the Bean really liked and then rolled the bean bags to knock them down like bowling pins. The girls thought that knocking over the little people was hysterical and got a huge kick out of this game.

6) Toss- The Bean was not as interested in this game, but the Bee really liked the challenge of getting the bean bag into the basket.

My favorite part of these games is that the girls came up with most of these activities with very little direction from me and in the process came up with many more creative uses for the bean bags then I would have on my own. Do you have bean bags at your house? What games do you play with them?

14) Play Hopscotch

2011-10-29T20:55:00.000-04:00

I feel like most of my posts lately begin with a comment about how poor the weather has been and today is going to be no different. In fact, today it is snowing in Baltimore, in October! This is a first for me and I have lived here a long time. So needless to say the early winter weather has moved our play indoors. However it has not stopped us from playing one of our favorite outdoor games, hopscotch. I wanted to give the girls a chance for some physical play inside so using blue painters tape I layed out a hopscotch board on the floor in the Bee's room. The wood planks in our floor helped me to get the squares even and straight and the whole thing only took me about 10 minutes to do. Before I could even get all the tape down the girls were hopping. The Bee and The Bean don't really care about the real rules of playing hopscotch and are most interested in the hopping. They enjoyed coming up with their own rules, putting the balloon bean bags we made the other day into a square and then hopping in all the squares except the one with the bean bag. For the Bean, hopping is a skill she is just learning so she has really loved this new game. Last night before bedtime, the Bee (always looking for another bedtime stall tactic) had the whole family in there taking turns jumping!