My Family

For the month of February we talked about love and our families.

• We did rainbow names with our last names. (This is a before and after example of what we did using my first name.)I gave each child an outline of their last name. The dots and arrows helped the kids know where to start the letter and which direction they should move their crayon first. They wrote their name inside the outline with one color of crayon. Then they repeated the process four more times to create a rainbow effect inside their name
• We made books about each member of our family. The kids drew a picture of them and under their picture I wrote something that they like to do with that member of their family. Above each picture, we wrote that person's name.
  
• We made thumbprint family portraits. We practiced writing the words My Family and each child made a family portrait using ink pads, their fingers, and a pen.

M is for . . .

Marble Mazes

Music and songs like 5 Little Monkeys and the Muffin Man

Magnets

If You Give a Moose a Muffin

For letter M week we read If You Give a Moose a Muffin and then made blueberry muffins for our snack.
Yummy!

Puzzle Piece Hearts

We made our moms puzzle piece heart pins for Valentine's Day.


I got the idea from Family Fun Magazine and then we tweaked it a little bit. We made the project two different ways: The first time we made it, I cut out card stock hearts and then cut out the middle so that it would look like the picture on the website.
But after we tried it, the card stock wasn't sturdy enough for the kids to take it home before it dried. So the next time we tried it, I cut out hearts with card stock and glued them to cardboard, but I didn't cut out the middle so they look like the pictures that are above. The next time we do it, I think I will use the cardboard and the card stock and cut out the middle because once they dried, they were very cute. Okay, enough rambling, here's the project:

Here's What You Need:
Red spray paint
20-25 puzzle pieces per heart
white glue
pin backing (we used the kind that are self adhesive)
cardboard
red card stock

Here's What We Did:

1. Take out all of the edge pieces of the puzzle pieces and spray paint red. (You could also spray paint it after the pieces are glued together.)
2. Cut out heart shapes from the red card stock and glue to the cardboard.
3. Use exacto knife to cut out the middle of the hearts leaving a thin heart outline.
4. Glue red puzzle pieces onto heart shape with white glue.
5. When dry, put pin backing on the back.

If you want to, you could attach it to a valentine with sentiments like I'm going to pieces over you or you'll always have a piece of my heart.

There are a lot of variations to this project. Instead of a pin, you could add a magnet, or you could add a sting to use it as a Christmas ornament. It could also be a cute picture frame.

Lady/Lovebugs

For Letter L week we talked about lady bugs. But since it was close to Valentine's day, we made lovebugs instead of ladybugs.
They served the dual purpose of being cute and being Valentine's card holders.
We also made ladybugs for snack. We used grapes, halved strawberries, toothpicks, and mini chocolate chips.

For the Valentine's Holders, Here's What You Need:
3 paper plates
Red Tissue paper
Heart cut outs
Construction Paper
1/2 Pipe Cleaner
Googly Eyes

Here's What We Did:
1. Cut one of the plates in half and decorate the back side with hearts.
2. Staple it to the front a full plate so it makes a pocket.
3. Cut out a face from the third plate. Draw a mouth, glue on a construction paper tongue, and glue on the googly eyes.
4. Tape pipe cleaner folded in half to the back of the face and top with hearts. Glue onto the body.
5. Cut out and glue heart shaped tissue paper wings to the back of the body.
6. Cut out and glue construction paper legs to the back of the body.
Optional: Punch a hole in the top so that you can hang up their card holders.

Marbled Paper

A fun and easy project that the kids loved. It's a great way to explore mixing colors although all my kids ended up choosing the same colors. : )


Here's What You Need:
Shaving cream
Food coloring
Popsicle sticks
Paper

Here's What We Did:

1. Spread some shaving cream on a table (I covered mine first because it makes a big mess).
2. Put a few drops of food coloring in the shaving cream.
3. Use the popsicle stick to spread around the colors.
4. Press construction paper on the shaving cream and put aside for a few minutes.
5. Wipe off the shaving cream from the paper and tadah!