Sun Prints

As we get started on our space unit for the summer, we began with the sun.

We read a book about the sun


And then we did an experiment with solar paper, which I ordered off of Amazon for super cheap.




We gathered leaves to put on the paper and inserted it into the frame.



After putting it in the sunlight for about 1-3 minutes, the blue began to fade to white.


Quickly, we took it out of the frame and put it into a tray of water for 1 minute.


As the afternoon went on, the blue came back and deepened as time passed.

Paper Ornaments

We usually make salt dough ornaments for Christmas gifts and for our tree. This year, I decided to try something different. We made pressed paper ornaments. It was really simple, and best of all, not tempting to eat...BLEH!


We started out by tearing 3 LARGE sheets of construction paper into small bits and placing them into a food processor or blender.


Next, we added a 1 1/2 cups of very hot water to the blender and let it sit for 5 minutes.


We preheated the oven to 200 degrees and placed a towel on a plate with a paper towel over it. Then we carefully chose a cookie cutter shape for our ornament. We chose an angel.


Turbo pressed the pulse button on the blender for about 30 seconds just so that a good pulp was created. Turbo touched it, but was pretty much finished after this, as getting messy was NOT a part of the deal...Ahhhh me...


Scoop out the mixture and put it into a sieve to squish out the remaining water. Of note, don't make it too dry otherwise the paper won't stick together and keep its cookie cutter shape.


Using your fingers, squish in the pulp so that every inch of your shape is filled. I didn't fill it to the brim, as I wanted to make a few more shapes than it was called for (they said 3, I was able to make 5).


Then carefully poke out the shape onto a cookie sheet and "bake" it in the over for 2 hours or until it is dry, light and firm at 200 degrees.






Like I said, don't get too much moisture out or it will fall apart!



Glue a ribbon/string with hot glue on the back, add glitter before baking or after and give away!

Tot School: Apple Craft

Tank's apple craft was really simple to do. Using a hole punch, I punched a bunch of holes in a sheet of card stock. Using tape, I taped it to a sheet of paper. Then, giving Tank some red pain, he smeared the paint over the holes. Tactile touch with both the paint and the holes in the cardstock.

Here is the finished product!

Tanks' First Christmas Craft

Last night, the family decided to do a Christmas craft. Now those of you with boys, and maybe even some girls, know that this is no easy task. Add a 1 year old to the mix and a quirky 5 year old, and you have a recipe for disaster. Fortunately, our Christmas trees turned out great, and our carpet was spared of green splatter paint.

First, we taped paper to the table. Actually, it was a white paper lunch bag, but that was all I had. Then we put blobs of paint on the paper and asked the boys to spread it around. Making it a bit more challenging, I asked Turbo to stay in the lines of the tree. Tank did great! He didn't any of the paint! Not that he didn't try!


Then we traced their hands for the ornaments!

Tank's Creation:


Turbo's Creation:

Letter H

This morning was like trying to pull teeth to get Turbo to follow his morning plan after the crazy, hectic schedule of the Thanksgiving weekend. After conceding to mama, (whew!) he sat down and got to work. This was only after I changed positions with him as me the student and he the teacher. A mama's gotta do, what a mama's gotta do....short of duct tape!

We did a review of his letters. I'm not too confident in some of them, but I figured we would go back and review them after a week or so. Gives him enough time to get back into the groove of things.

I introduced a new letter, the letter H. This is what was produced:







After learning two new vocabulary words, HORSE and HOME, we made a HOME for his art project. I think his handwriting, (for even TURBO) is coming along nicely.

Apple Turkey

Probably the only healthy thing that he will ingest this Thanksgiving weekend....

Handful of Thanks

We put off school this morning, to do a Thanksgiving craft. Usually, we have done a million and one crafts by this time of the year, but this year hasn't been average in any way to say the least.

I found a great website, No Time For Flashcards, that gives great ideas for crafts. This was one of them.



Using craft foam, we traced his hands, he cut them out and glued the pieces together to make his own turkey.

When asked if he wanted to write the word, Turkey, he was more than willing. Using my writing as a guide on a different sheet of paper, this is how it turned out. Not too shabby, eh?

Leaf Men

Last week, we went out for a quick walk around our complex in search for some great leaves that had fallen. Our mission was to create Leaf Men.

Letter F

To continue in the spirit of not going in order, we have hopped to the letter "Ff". At first, Turbo didn't know who Frankenstein was, (good job mom) so why not introduce him? (not so good mom!) Anyways, explained a bit of who he was, and we made our own Frankenstein. Not that I had the correct colored construction paper, mind you. So we did the next best thing, we improvised. I did have green construction paper, but not black. To get our color black, we practiced our painting skills. Cutting, pasting, and facial space placement was worked on as well.

Next, we moved on to our "Paint-In-A-Bag-Taped-On-The-Sliding-Glass-Door" contraption and worked on writing the letter "Ff".

This was our "MASTERPIECE" when we were all done.



Hmmm, maybe I will sit down and watch the original "Masterpiece" of Frankenstein.

And then maybe follow it up with Young Frankenstein!

Letter W

With fall setting in and Halloween less than a week away, I decided to skip our schedule of letter learning all the way to "Ww". To keep Turbo's interest, we made a Witch and a Web...plus added a spider!



For the witch, I used my artistic ability, to draw her profile and had Turbo cut her out. Then he glued her face and her hat onto another piece of paper. Once that was finished, he added eyes, along with a googlie eye, colored her lips red and added some warts to her nose and chin. For the tactile part, I asked him to make squiggles (ya like that...squiggles) of glue so that he could paste yarn for her hair. He wasn't too into that because that would mean getting his fingers sticky and messy. So, I had to help.



Here, I made dots to help him with writing. To connect the dots helps him to see how a "W" is correctly written.


For the spider web, I asked him to make the same squiggly lines for the web. Now, if I had thought ahead I would have looked for my glitter to find that it was all gone, so I would have planned something else. However, this was not the case for today. While Turbo is make glue squiggles I realize that I don't have glitter, and I have to improvise. With what? Might you ask?

CAKE DECORATING SUGAR SPRINKLES.
That's right, ladies and gentleman, you can lick our spider web for a sweet treat! (but I don't recommend it. Neither does Turbo, or course, this recommendation came after he tried it.)

Then we added a spider with a bunch of googlie eyes, and labeled our art!

Marbled Pumpkins - Fall Craft

It is getting so late in the month for us to just begin to do Fall crafts, but we finally did our first one!


We cut out some pumpkin shapes, both big and small, and we taped them into a baking dish with squirts of paint in the corners. Next, we added a marble, and Turbo was to shift the marble around the pan picking up paint and painting his pumpkin!

Next, we did smaller ones, and hung them on a piece of string that we are going to use for a garland on our front door. Not too shabby for a fall craft!

Letter O

Therapy was later in the morning today, so we finally had some time to do some schoolwork. It has been forever since we did anything, so I figured, lets have some fun and maybe implement some therapy activities. Not to my surprise, did school go 1,000 times better than we have ever had before!

We started out by making the letter "O", both lower case and upper case. Then he stamped smiley faces on them, much like the letter "O", a smiley face has an "O" shape. Then I had him color the "O"s using a vibrating crayon holder. He liked it a lot. I did notice that when he used the marker to trace the lines, that he held it in his fist rather than in a pincher grasp. Evidence of hand fatigue when he writes.



Then we set up a relay race of shorts. I placed the cut out "O"s at one end of the room, and then had a bowl full of Cheerios on the other end of the room. He had to run back and forth between the two to glue on the Cheerios. It took some time, but completed the activity and without complaint!

Afterwards, we had some Cheerios in the bowl left over, so I decided to work on some math. We glued the remaining on the paper, practiced using our best GUESSTIMATE on how many were left, then we numbered them so he could practice writing his letters. As you can see, this is where I lost him.
He decided that he didn't want to write anymore, so I had to finish. I am pretty sure I messed up when I showed him how to correctly write the number 4 and then again the number 6. I should have just let him move on without saying a word. AHHH...live and learn.

Something to work on more on, writing from top to bottom. He is sequentially out of order when he writes as he constantly wants to write from bottom to top and every which way. Comes with time and practice.

We finished up snuggling on the couch reading some books. Not to much in the way of school, but we did fit some it! YEAH!

I also rescheduled our therapy sessions so that we can go later in the day. It works much better for Tank in that he gets a nap in the morning, and now Turbo and I get some school and quality time in together. Ahhh...much, much, much better!

Letter E

Here is our Kindergartener!







Ee is our letter for the week. Although this week has been busy with the holiday, MOPS and hanging on to the last bit of summer, we were able to squeeze in some school.

Here, Turbo is using clay to form the Letter E on a printed card. He really enjoys doing this kind of stuff.




He also likes to do crafts, so we made an elephant out of a toiletpaper roll and added ears and googley eyes.

Isn't he cute?