Help Hunter Blast Leukemia

 Soon after I started blogging, I met Mandy who blogs at Bona Fide Mama.  Her son, Hunter, is six years old and was recently diagnosed with ALL leukemia.  He will need a bone marrow transplant.  Please visit his Caring Bridge page to read his story.  If you have a blog, please consider grabbing a "Help Hunter Blast Leukemia" button from my sidebar and posting it on your blog.

If you would like to send Hunter a note, please send it to:

Hunter Jones Room 6421 6B
Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital
2200 Children's Way
Nashville, TN 37232

Crayola Color Wonder

Do you use Crayola Color Wonder products?  I would love to know what you think of them.  We are certainly not afraid of making messy art, but sometimes mess free art is necessary!  My children have been using some of their products for a long time now, and I have been happy with them.  We recently received a box full of cool Color Wonder products from Crayola that we have never tried before.  We received a Color Wonder Lap Desk, the Color Wonder Stow and Go Studio, Color Wonder finger paints, Color Wonder Story Stampers, and a package of Color Wonder paper and markers.  I just want to clarify that we have tried the paper and markers before, but not the other products.

We have a few vacations coming up, so I am saving some of these products to try while we are in an airport and on an airplane for one trip and in the car for the other trip.  I will let you know what I think of them after those trips.

I could not resist trying at least one product now, so C and R did some Color Wonder finger painting.  The set came with the plastic hand paint palette with five different colors of paint.  The paint is a clear, fast-drying gel that feels like paint.  The colors only appear on Color Wonder paper (a package of Color Wonder paper is included in the kit).  There is also a finger cleaning sponge to use between colors.  C and R had a great time finger painting.

Here is the art they created:

This is R's art

 This is C's rainbow creation

I am happy with this product.  I was surprised to see that a tiny bit of the "paint" goes a long way.   I also liked that this kit came with the double-wide Color Wonder paper sheets.  There are twelve sheets in the kit, so you can create twelve large paintings or even cut the paper in half (it is folded so you can cut along the crease if you want to double the amount of pages) and create twenty-four paintings.  C and R gave the Crayola Color Wonder Fingerpaints two thumbs up!  If you are interested in buying Color Wonder products for your child, click here for a printable coupon.

Here is some information about the products we received:

• Crayola Color Wonder Lap Desk provides a large, hard-top surface for kids to create on the go. The sturdy desk has a built-in handle and a soft detachable pillow that can be used as a storage unit for Color Wonder markers and paper. The Lap Desk is equipped with 12 re-stickable pieces of Color Wonder paper to keep kids´ drawings in place and 5 Color Wonder mess-free mini markers in red, orange, yellow, green and blue.
• Crayola Color Wonder Fingerpaints & Paper make the once impossible possible - fingerpainting in the car! The set includes clear, fast-drying gels that feel just like traditional fingerpaint. The set comes with 5 mess-free colors (red, yellow, green, blue and orange) in a hand-shaped storage container, a built-in finger cleaning sponge and 12 extra-wide sheets of Color Wonder paper. When kids are finished painting, they simply snap the fingerprint lids closed and paint stays fresh and ready to use again!
• Crayola Color Wonder Markers and Paper includes 5 Color Wonder markers and a 24-page Color Wonder drawing pad where your kids can create anything they want while you´re on the road!
• Crayola Color Wonder Stow & Go Studio provides a solid, compact drawing surface with stay-put clips that can secure a single piece of paper or an entire Color Wonder activity book. Kids will enjoy creating with mess-free Color Wonder markers that make colors magically appear on special paper and reveal special hidden surprises.
• Crayola Color Wonder Story Stampers includes 5 Color Wonder markers in red, blue, green, purple and orange, a Color Wonder stamp pad, 6 sea creature stamps, and an 18-page coloring pad with undersea background settings. Each setting is unique, so every page will inspire a different fish tale just waiting to be told! Kids´ imaginations will take them beneath the sea as they stamp color sea creatures using the colorless Color Wonder stamp pad to create innovative stories and scenarios then can then color in. It's like high tide for your imagination!

The Crayola Color Wonder products and information were all provided by Crayola through MyBlogSpark.  My review, however, is based solely upon my experience with the product and the opinions of my five year old son and four year old daughter!

Lines That Wiggle

This week we enjoyed reading Lines That Wiggle by Candace Whitman.  This is a very colorful book that explores many different lines in fun, simple ways.  There are lines that sway, swirl, zigzag, and more.  C and R really loved that all of the lines were glittery and raised.  They insisted upon tracing each line with their fingers before turning the page.  It took a long time to read the book this way, but that is okay.  I was happy they were enjoying the book.

Our art project for this book began with them making lines with glue and then sticking yarn to the glue lines.

When the glue dried, they painted over and around the yarn.

The idea for this art project came from the book, Art With Anything:52 Weeks of Fun Using Everyday Stuff by Mary Ann F. Kohl.

I am linking this post to stArt (story + art = a great start) at A Mommy's Adventures.

Caps for Sale - Day 3

We are currently enjoying Caps for Sale by Esphyr Slobodkina.  Day 1 with this book involved reading and retelling the story in various ways, Day 2 was all about learning activities related to the book, and Day 3 included monkey games and monkey snacks.  I should note that even though I am calling this "day 3," the following events happened over the course of several days.

First, we played Monkey See, Monkey Do which is basically follow the leader but it was mostly silly faces for us.

Then, we played Monkey in the Middle.  Two people throw a ball back and forth with one person between them (the monkey in the middle) trying to catch the ball.

If the monkey in the middle catches the ball, the person who threw the ball becomes the monkey in the middle. (Why do my boys love to go outside with only socks on their feet? )

Our monkey snacks consisted of:

Bananas on a stick rolled in chocolate and sprinkles (those sprinkles were all over the floor!) and then frozen.  These came out okay, but not great.  The bananas were a bit mushy and the chocolate fell off.  If you know where I went wrong, or if that is just the way they are, feel free to leave me a comment.

I also made caps.  I don't know if they really look like caps, but it was the only thing I could come up with and the kids were nice enough to tell me they looked like caps. 

I layered two mini vanilla wafers with a dot of frosting in between, and used another drop of frosting to stick a candy "button" on top. 

I have the ingredients for monkey bread, but we haven't had a chance to make it yet.  I'm hoping to get to it soon! 

I have really enjoyed our Caps for Sale unit study.  I love extending the fun beyond the pages of a book!

Marbled Paper Birthday Cards

Do you remember when C and R were playing with shaving cream and food coloring?  They had a lot of fun with that.  The shaving cream was so pretty that we decided to save some of it in the form of art.

It's super easy to do, and you can use the finished product as a birthday card (well, that's what we did).  First fill a tray with foamy shaving cream. I buy trays like the one in this picture from Dollar Tree (I should be compensated for all the times I mention that place in my blog!) and we use them for all sorts of craft projects.  Most of the time, I just rinse out the tray and use it again for a different project; they are very durable, just label them with a Sharpie so that you don't accidentally use them for food later.

Add some food coloring and get your hands in there swirling it all together.

When you get a design that you like, take a piece of white card stock or poster board and press it down on the shaving cream.  Lift the paper off carefully.  You can then either leave the shaving cream as is on the card stock or you can swirl it around a bit more to make it look the way you want it to look.  When satisfied, leave the shaving cream on the paper to dry.  This is what our paper looked like as it was drying:

When it was dry, I just brushed off the dried up shaving cream and this is the final result:

It takes a long time to dry, but when it is done, you have beautiful paper that you can fold in half and use as a card!  We had two birthday parties over the weekend and the birthday girls each received one of our homemade cards.

If I give my children frozen lemonade...

they will want to make homemade lemonade. (Note the frozen lemonade in their hands as they juice the lemons)

Once the lemonade is made, they will want to make lemonade popsicles.

This will remind me that making homemade lemonade and making popsicles are both on the summer bucket list, so I will have the children check off those items on the list.

When they see the list, they will remember that making homemade face paint is on the list and they will want to do that the next morning (they really wanted to do it that minute, but were willing to compromise!).

(R is not allowed to use nail polish, so she was thrilled to paint her nails with face paint!  It reminds me of the boys who are not allowed toy guns so they turn everything else into guns when they play.)

The food coloring in the face paint will remind them that they like to swirl food coloring in shaving cream. (They also made marbled paper; that will be in tomorrow's post.)

When they are covered in face paint, shaving cream, and food coloring, they will decide to run through the sprinkler ball in their pajamas. (I wonder what the neighbors thought as this all went on at 8AM.)

Then they will be cold and want a warm bath.  After the bath, they will want frozen lemonade, and if I give my children frozen lemonade they will want to make homemade lemonade to go with it.

Thank you, Laura Numeroff for inspiring this blog post.  If you do not know who Laura Numeroff is, she is the author of the amazing "If You Give" series of books, including If You Give a Pig a Pancake, If You Give a Moose a Muffin, If You Give a Cat a Cupcake, and more.  You can click on her name or the titles of the books to find more information.  We are big fans of her work, hence the blog post.

We Made a Cloud!

I recently read about the book, Shapes in the Sky, A Book About Clouds by Josepha Sherman on the Almost Unschoolers blog.  The book is probably better for children about seven or eight years old, but it is short enough that it managed to hold the attention of C and R.  I think the page with ice cream and dragon shaped clouds helped a lot.  I also tried to read about the different types of clouds with great excitement in my voice - not sure if I was fooling anyone with that.  

At the end of the book, there are directions to make your own cloud.  First, put some ice cubes in a metal bowl.  Then add one inch of warm water to an empty jar.  Bring the bowl of ice, the jar of water, and a flashlight into a dark room (we were in a tiny bathroom).  Place the bowl of ice on top of the jar and shine the light toward the top of the jar. 

A cloud forms near the top of the jar as the warm water evaporates, rises and then condenses. 

Hmmm...I thought it was neat.  I think my children expected something more; they seemed to want the cloud to be more tangible.  I think this means that in the end it was a great lesson.  Clouds are not cotton balls or swirls of whipped cream in the sky.

I am linking this to Science Sunday at Adventures in Mommydom.