Preserving Leaves and Leaf Activities

We are lucky to have some really beautiful trees in our neighborhood.  Like most kids my 2 love to rake the leaves into big piles and jump in!  We've also taken walks trying to find the prettiest and biggest leaves.   Most of the time though the leaves we bring home dry up and that's that, goodbye leaves.  I wanted to try and preserve some of these beauties and here's what we have tried.

• Glycerin and water - learn how to preserve leaves this way by visiting Home Science Tools
• Ironing the leaves between wax paper - learn how to preserve leaves this way by visiting Home Science Tools
• Melting wax - learn how to preserve leaves this way by visiting How Wee Learn

So far my favorite and the easiest was melting an old candle and dipping the leaves into the wax.  So easy and quick to dry.  They turn out soft and smell pretty from the candle too!  

Glycerin and water is also easy but I'm impatient and preserving leaves this way takes about 3 days or more. But if you have the patience to do it this way they really turn out soft!

The ironing and wax paper method, for me, was my least favorite as the leaves still seemed to dry up rather quickly.

Once your leaves are preserved, have some fun!  Here are a few leaf activities we enjoyed.

Leaf Turkey - This craft is super simple and the turkey looks adorable!  Their's something about turning leaves into creatures that puts a smile on my face, they're just so darn adorable.  We also made leaf creatures a few months back and I smiled every time I looked at them!

Here's what you'll need to make a Leaf Turkey:

• 2 Maple leaves
• Construction paper
• Googly eyes
• Foam triangle for nose
• Red foam piece for wattle

We have the foam that self sticks which I love so no glue other than for the googly eyes was needed.  We are just hanging our Leaf Turkey on our fridge but this could also make a cute Thanksgiving card for a friend or family member.  

Here's another way we played with our preserved leaves:

Leaf Tracing - We have a forsythia bush in our backyard and let me tell ya these leaves are so pretty. They go from green to brownish burgundy to bright yellow.  My 4 year old spent almost an hour picking and sorting through these pretties!  I thought up this next activity to keep my 4 year old busy as I was preparing dinner.  I took some of the leaves that we dipped in the candle wax and I traced them onto a piece of paper.  I then gave my daughter a pile of leaves and asked her if she could match the correct leaf to the tracing.  She really took to this activity and after she matched the first few she asked for more.  Then she asked if she could trace like Mommy.  This turned out to be a really fun activity and  the bonus is that it worked on fine motor skills too!

We haven't done it yet but since we have so many different kinds of leaves, shapes, sizes and colors we are  also going to try sorting them.  

We've paired our leaf activities with these fun books:

I would love to hear how you and your children enjoy the beautiful fall leaves!  Leave a comment below or visit us on Facebook!

Tea Time Pretend Play and Bunnies for Tea Book

My daughter is only 4 but she has already enjoyed lots of 'pretend play' tea parties.  Playing tea party is one of the things she asks to play almost more than anything else. When she was about 2 years old we purchased a Fisher Price tea set which has been great and which she has had alot of fun playing with.

Tea anyone?  She LOVES her tea hat too!

One day my neighbor was purging some of her daughters things and offered us a cute tea basket that was barely played with and was A-dorable!  When I showed it to my daughter she was in love!  This is a 'big girl' tea set which we've used for lots of tea time and picnics.

This past Easter one of the books my daughter got in her Easter basket was Bunnies for Tea by Kate Stone.  We've read this book almost as much as we've had tea time!  It's a cute book about three bunnies all dressed up in their fanciest clothes and getting ready for a tea party.  It has a sweet rhyming text with pretty illustrations.  The book is also shaped like a teacup and has a little 'handle' to carry along!

Keep in mind playing tea time doesn't have to include either of these tea sets or any at all!  Using the imagination is truly the only thing your little one needs to have fun!

Be Thankful Bucket

Throughout the year it's important to teach your children to be thankful.  Thanksgiving gives us even more of an opportunity to talk about and to show thanks.  Both of my children are now at an age where family traditions are beginning  to have more meaning.  My son at 9 has already been enjoying some of our traditions but now that my daughter is 4 they can both enjoy them together.

This year I wanted to document in some way the things we are thankful for.  I wasn't sure how we would do it until I was getting ready to toss an empty ice-cream container into the recycle bin.  Yup, that's when the light bulb went off!! This container is not like the average containers from the grocery store but more of a plastic bucket from a local ice cream parlor.  I thought the container would work perfectly as our thankful bucket!

Because this is a craft I wanted my children to take a part in from beginning to end I let them have full rein with it.  I gave them stickers and crayons and set them free!  The only things I did was stamp out the words THANKFUL FOR on each side of the container as one side is decorated by my son and the other by my daughter.  We also wanted to use some ribbon to cover up the rim of the lid so I used the hot glue gun for that and also to adhere some letters on the top of the lid that say BE THANKFUL.

my son's side of the bucket

my daughter's side of the bucket

Because we do alot of crafts I've seen the ones that are just not a hit and others that the kids really get into.  I'm happy to say that this is one they really got into!  The kids enjoyed using their favorite stickers and my 9 year old enjoyed drawing some pictures and writing his name.  Once the bucket was decorated (but before I added the letters on the lid) I asked my husband to make a slit on top of the lid so we could just slip our thankful notes inside. 

So here's what we'll do, we will be writing down one thing we are thankful for each day leading up to Thanksgiving.  Than on Thanksgiving day we will read all the notes aloud hearing what everyone is thankful for......I can't wait!!

I hope this tradition will be one that my children remember for years to come and one that they may even share with their own families one day.

Turkey Tin Hidden Messages

This Thanksgiving I wanted to make a turkey that shows what my children are thankful for.  I also wanted to show other members of our family what my children are thankful for about them.  Since my Dad and Step Mom live 12 hours away from us and we don't get to see them that often I wanted to do this activity for them first.  During our visits the kids have so much fun with their Grandparents and they leave taking alot of memories with them.  Here's what we did:

Somewhere along the line my husband got his hands on a bunch and I mean a bunch of these cute little tins.  I thought the tin would be perfect for this craft because I could hide our thankful messages inside.  First, I covered the tin with brown book cover craft paper.  I would have used regular brown construction paper but had none on hand so I opted for the next best thing.  School glue worked fine for this part.

Then I cut out feathers from construction paper and wrote on them what the kids told me they were thankful for, in their lives.  I really loved this part!  And I'm seriously not bragging when I say my son wanted to keep telling me what he was thankful for but we ran out of room.  That's ok as we have another activity that starts this week where he will have 25 days worth of writing things he's thankful for!  Anywho, back to this activity.... I used a hot glue gun to stick on the feathers, added some googly eyes, nose, wattle and feet.

Making our turkey was fun but this next part was the hilite!  I asked my kids what they were thankful for, about their Grandparents and each of them started sharing right away! It was really great hearing what they are thankful for about them!  It warmed my heart so much and I know it will for my parents too!  Ok, so I wrote what the kids were thankful for about their Grandparents on a piece of white paper.  Once finished I cut out pieces of the paper and asked each of my children to sign their names to it. This way when their Grandparents read the little notes they will know which child said what.  I had my 9 year old write his name underneath the message and had my 4 year old write her name on the back.  With just learning how to write her name her letters tend to be big so this gave her more space.  I folded up all the thankful messages and put them inside the turkey tin.

Now my parents will have a cute little turkey that they can display through Thanksgiving and then read their Thanksgiving messages on Thanksgiving day or whenever they choose. I thought this was a nice way to include my children's grandparents in on our Thanksgiving holiday even though we will not get to physically spend it with them.

One last thing I did before shipping off our turkey was adding the initial of my children's names on the backs of the feathers.  I wanted their Grandparents to know which child shared what they are thankful for and thought this would help.

Materials needed to make your own turkey tin:

• Tin or cup/container with a lid
• Brown construction paper or brown craft/book cover paper
• Various color construction paper
• Foam pieces for turkey's face (beak and wattle) or you can use construction paper
• Googly eyes
• White paper
• Crayon and/or Marker

How do you include far away relatives into your holidays ? I would love to hear about it, please share in the comments below!

Mincecraft Cupcakes

When it comes to birthday cakes or cupcakes I prefer to diy.  One minor problem I have is I'm not artistic so I don't seem to do well if I have to hand draw anything!  That being said, I look for the simplest way to make my kids their cake or cupcakes while still looking fun and festive.

My son just celebrated his 9th birthday and since he's a Minecraft fan I searched the world wide web for something that I could pull off.  Thanks to the Party Animal I was able to use a free printable to make my son's Minecraft cupcakes.

Making these cupcakes is super simple, here's what to do:

• Bake cupcakes according to your boxed cake mix
• Use vanilla frosting and add some green food coloring to it
• After cupcakes are baked and cooled ice them up and add the Mincecraft toppers using either cake pop sticks or toothpicks.

Since I already had some cake pop sticks that were leftover all I needed to buy was the cake mix and icing!  I used my printer and voila, Minecraft cupcakes!  I opted not use the printable for the cupcake holder part only because I already had some green cupcake holders.

These cupcakes were super easy to do and put a smile on my son's face!

Halloween Sensory Bin

This is a super engaging and fun activity to set up in anticipation of Halloween! At the time I made this bin my son was 9 years old and my daughter was 4.  Because of the gap in age the activities I share may not always be suitable for both of them.  However,  this is one they both really, really enjoyed.  Actually, much to my surprise my almost 9 year old stayed with this sensory bin longer than my 4 year old!  It was interesting too seeing which part of the sensory bin drew them in.  My daughter was automatically drawn to the gems and after a few minutes of the bin asked for the bottle we use when we play with water. She began filling up the bottle with the gems that she found hidden in the bin.  My son on the other hand also went to the gems but the bigger ones and began counting them out and telling me how much 'money' he had.  I love watching and listening to their play to see where an activity, especially with sensory bins, will take them.

My son filled the little pumpkins and also counted and sorted the jewels the coins and the plastic skull rings. 

My daughter played with the activity for a fair amount of time.  However, the gems caught her attention which must have made her think of her marbles because she was off on her own using her tongs and adding marbles to our sensory bottle.  

The best part for me though was watching both of my kids enjoy an activity together.

Here's what I included with this bin:

• Split Green Peas
• Plastic Pumpkins
• Pom pom's
• Skull rings
• Bat rings
• Plastic bugs
• Googly eyes
• Spider stickers
• Gems
• Coins
• (the gems and coins were after thoughts because I remembered how much my kids have liked them in other sensory bins)

Close up of our bins contents

These were extra's that were available if the kids wanted to add more in.

Hush Little Ones Book Activity

One of our favorite books especially at bedtime is Hush, Little Ones by John Butler. This book engages the child with beautiful illustrations and simple verses that tells about animals getting ready to fall asleep. We just worked on the letter H with our homeschool preschool and I used this book for one of our story time sessions pairing it with this activity.

 The idea  was to work on my preschoolers comprehension while also continuing to learn our letter sounds.  I started off by finding pictures in some of our Kids National Geographic magazines and also on the internet of animals that were in the book, which were 11 total. I cut/printed these and did the same for animals not mentioned in the book then laminated all of them.  Since I didn't want to just lay out the pictures on the table I used a piece of cardboard, stuck some velcro tabs on the board and on the laminated pictures.  I thought this way would make the activity more interactive.  The last thing I did was use some cardstock to make uppercase and lowercase letters on.  These would be used for my daughter to place on the animal whose animal name started with that letter sound.

We were ready to play!  The first thing I asked my daughter was to look through all the animal pictures and to stick onto the board the animals that are in the book.  Like I mentioned earlier I included all 11 animals in the book but also included 8 other animals not included. She did great!  Their were a few that she wasn't sure what the animal was like the kangaroo and whale but other than that she only included the animals in the story and knew which ones were not part of the story.

Once finished with this part we did a simple math where I asked her to count each animal and then we moved on to letter sounds.  After saying the name of each animal she had to place the card with the correct letter on top of the animal picture with that letter sound.

My preschooler stayed engaged and interested all the way through this activity, yay!!  And now I have a 'book board' that I can use again and again for other activities similar to this one!