Preschool Craftiness

Another idea I had for Leyla was to buy a box and label it "CRAFTS" and then stuff it with all kinds of paper, markers, glue, glitter, and fun craft stuff. I looked up a TON of activity ideas on Pinterest and pre-school teacher websites and was inspired. I have made her a few activities and we have done several. I was extremely happy with the result because she really pays attention, enjoys them, is learning, and is distracted for a good while from the TV!

Here are a few of the activities I have made her that are my favorites.

 This is her felt faces book. I wanted to make felt faces and found this book design on Pinterest. It was too cute. I had to sew it all by hand because I don't have a sewing machine, but it really wasn't that difficult and turned out super cute. There is a pocket pouch for all the different pieces - I simply cut out a bunch of pieces that could be used for eyes, ears, mouths, noses, hair, hats, etc. There are four faces: one green, one orange, one white, and one brown. The green and orange are obviously for making silly monster faces :)

This is another one I spent a lot of time on. I made several different colored shapes and used them to form images like the one shown. I took pictures of each one and then cut and pasted them onto index cards, laminated them, and put them on a key ring. The shapes are laminated and have little magnet strips on them. The idea was to buy her a magnetic clipboard or dry erase board so that the pieces would be easily contained (like for use on the plane...). For now she just uses them on a cookie sheet. There are several images: caterpillar, butterfly, train, boat, sun, flower, house, clown, fish, castle, etc.

 I just made this one a few days ago and Leyla loves it. She was so excited she wouldn't stay in her seat! She kept jumping up and down every time she matched the letters right, saying "It fits! It fits!" All I did was draw on one half of an index card, a letter, and on the other half, images that began with that letter. Then I cut them in two pieces randomly to make "puzzle" pieces. She recognizes the A and B, but she names all the pictures, and fits them together easily just looking at the shapes - she is really good at puzzles.

I love this one! I took old bottle caps - we drink way too much coke and save all the bottles under the sink, so I had several to use (Marcos takes them to the mountains or recyces them). All you do is cut out images in foamy and glue them to the bottle cap. I had to make a stamp pad because I couldn't find one with multiple colors, but the stamps work really well! Pretty amazing, that simple to do. I made shapes and letters ABC and numbers 123.

These are two Christmas crafts we did today, on the fridge. Reindeer with her foot and hands, and a Christmas tree with her cut out hands.