Good Times

This is the swingset my mom and Marilyn got Samir for his birthday. This is also the reason we are outside EVERY day!

Samir is quite the baseball nut! We've only ever been to one baseball game, but I plan on taking him to some more over the summer.

This picture really has nothing to do with being outside, but I just love his little smile!

I found this splash pad for Samir at Toys R Us. He loves to play in it, we love to cool off with it!

Lake Fort Smith

Britney and I decided to take the kiddos to Lake Fort Smith for a hike, picnic and swimming. First I should inform you that it was around 100 degrees that day. Second, the trail is NOT suited for a stroller :) I demolished that poor thing! Maybe we'll stick to easier trails for now and wait a few years so Samir can walk more of it on his own.

This was pre-hike, before heat stroke!

The Lake

Samir hanging out in the stroller

Love this picture of the two of them!

In the kiddie pool

Lounging

Mr. Cool! we have a picture of Samir's Uncle Amine with glasses on like this, and I think Samir really resembles him in this picture!

The end of the day :)

Art 101 Week Two

Our first activity this week was drip painting. To do this, you need a dropper or straw (depending on skill level), watered down paint, paper and preferably something to put the paper in.

Then all you do is use your droppper to suck up some paint and then squirt it onto the paper. The farther away, the better the results!

Finished product

Samir started Mother's Day Out this week and attends on Tuesdays. He also moved up a class and has new teachers and a few new procedures. One of these procedures is napping on a mat and not in a crib. Needless to say, his first day he didn't take a nap. This activity was perfomed with a sleepy toddler, so we kept it simple!

I found this kit at target for $2. Samir loves cats and dogs and I love magnets, so it was a good match!

He worked hard for about 20 minutes, then fell asleep not long after :)

On Wednesday we tried marbled paper with shaving cream. I have found a few different ways to make marbled paper and we'll be trying them all over summer break. To make it with shaving cream, you use an old cake pan and fill it with shaving cream. Then you drop some food coloring in and use a popsicle stick to swirl it. We didn't have popsicle sticks, but we did have plastic silverware.

This was our first pan.

Use a heavy paper (we used posterboard) and sit it on top. You'll have to mush it a little bit to pick up all the colors. If you lift it up and aren't happy with the results, just place it back down and mush a little more.

As you pull it out of the pan, wipe off the excess shaving cream on the side of the pan.

To make more, just squirt a little more shaving cream on top of what you have and repeat.

The next day we did our Father's Day gifts. I made a coupon book that had coupons for things like car cleaning, dog walking, uninterrupted naps and golf games. I used card stock as a cover and stitched up the side to make it into a booklet. Then we decorated it.

I had to help Samir with the front so it would look like grapes :)

This was our first time using a stamp pad, so on the back I let Samir go to town with his own inspirations!

We also decorated a coffee cup that I picked up at Michael's for $1.50. I wrote "#1 Daddy" on it and then let Samir decorate the rest. We filled it with chocolate to give to Oussama. 

Our last activity this week was making colored pasta. I found the recipe on the internet. Use 1/4 cup alcohol, 10-20 drops food coloring and half a cup pasta. I eyeballled it and was pretty happy with the results. I gave Samir the job of shaking the bags which he seemed to enjoy! You're supposed to let it soak for a minute, but I think ours was more like 5 minutes. The worst that could happen is your pasta gets more color! 

We used elbow macaroni, alphabet pasta, penne and some type of tube pasta. I want to use these for some art projects next week, but am also taking them as a distraction on vacation. Samir can get some fine motor skills practice stringing them on yarnand the whole family can have some lovely jewelry too :)

After they soak, dish them out with a slotted spoon and let them dry on paper bags. The recipe called for on hour drying time, but I left them overnight. Once again, what's the worst that could happen?

Traveling with the Kiddos

As our vacation approaches, I'm getting a little more antsy about traveling with a two year old all that distance! I'm sure it will be okay and we will all survive, but the less frazzled nerves, the better! In an effort to come up with some things to keep Samir occupied (and give me that sense of being in control!) I searched the internet. Well folks, I'm here to tell you there's not a lot out there to keep toddlers entertained! I found a great website that had some good ideas: http://www.momsminivan.com/ It has ideas for babies, toddlers and big kids. I plan on borrowing the idea about wrapping small toys, so kids think they're getting presents on the trip. I also found a few things on http://www.nickjr.com/ Most of these ideas were for a little bit older toddlers, but there were some for the two year old set and a few I think I can adapt.

I used Microsoft Word to create a simple scavenger hunt, with pictures, of things that Samir recognizes.

I put this, as well as everything I'm about to show you, in page protectors inside a three prong folder. We have some wipe off crayons that I'll take so Samir can write and wipe to his little heart's content!

Next I made two matching games for the folder. I did shapes and colors, but you could do pretty well anything. The alphabet is a little much for Samir and he can only count to four, so that ruled those out.

NOTE: I tried attaching the velcro to the sheet protectors with tacky glue, but found low temp hot glue worked best. You could also buy the sticky back velcro, but I didn't have that on hand.

The next activity I found on Nick Jr.'s website. It's essentially a coloring sheet with a beach back ground to start you off. Since we're going to the beach I thought this was especially appropriate!

I also plan on dyeing some pasta and taking it along with some string to practice fine motor skills. This is the link that shows how to dye pasta: http://www.ehow.com/how_4790167_dye-pasta-crafts.html 

I want to make a "find" bottle. To do this, you fill a clean bottle with rice and various small objects for the kids to find. I'll make a list with pictures of what's in there, but I'm betting Samir will just like turning it around and finding things.

I'm having my mom (because I can't sew!) make a fastener blankie for Samir. All this is basically is a blankie with various fastener type things on it for small fingers like buttons, snaps, ties, etc. You can buy these, but I think it will cheaper to make. I'll post a pic when it's done.

I recently made a clipboard for Samir so he has something to put paper on for our trip. I found a cheap one at Target then picked out some scrapbook stickers I thought he would like.

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I'll be adding more to this post as I find it, so check back!

Art 101

As many of you know, during the school year Samir attends daycare full time. Now that we're both out for summer, I wanted to keep some of the structure from daycare and create some memories for us. I stumbled upon several websites, one of them being The Artful Parent (go ahead, google it and take a look! I promise you'll love it!) I decided to undertake the task of doing an art/craft project with Samir every day for the summer. Here's the ones we did this week, with instructions. Feel free copy or adapt as needed for the kiddos in your life!

Tie Dye

This was kind of a preliminary run before we do real tie dye on clothing later this summer.

Pretty basic stuff....you put a paper towel on a piece of foil or wax paper. We had more foil, so that's what we used. The idea is just to have something underneath so it doesn't bleed everywhere. Next, you drop food coloring straight from the bottle all over the paper towel. I guess there is such a thing as too much, but I encourage it to be a trial and error type of thing-it's more fun that way!

Then you use a dropper and drop water all over the paper towel so the color bleeds. The original posting I borrowed this from recommended using a straw and covering one end to transport and drop the water. That was a little over the two year old's ability though.

Our finished towels!

Art Apron

After the tie dye, I decided Samir REALLY needed an art apron. So I made it one of our activities! I was planning on buying the apron at Michael's or Hobby Lobby, but lucked out and found this one in the dollar bins at Target. Score! I had some fabric paint left over from a project I did with my students, so I put his name on it and then let him go to town decorating it.

Salty Watercolors

I loved this one! I actually had to buy watercolors for this one. Why had I never tried them with Samir before? Easy use, easy clean up! First you squeeze glue all over a piece of paper. I recommend poster board or card stock because regular paper doesn't hold up well to all the liquids. Then you dump salt all over the glue. I put the paper in an old cake pan for this so Samir could do it all.

Next you pull out the watercolors and go to town! To make it easier for Samir, I put drops of water in the watercolor tray so it was already really liquid-y and ready to go.

Older kids will be a little more advanced at this. Essentially you want to put the watercolor to the salt and see it spread through the crystals. Samir did okay with this on the first one, but then kind of scrubbed the second. Again, perfectly okay, just a different effect.

When they dry, you have a crystalline effect! So pretty in my book!

Flubber

A co-worker had made this with my students before school let out and they loved it. So this one pretty well spans the ages in likeability! There's lots of flubber recipes on the internet, but this is the link to the one we used http://www.ehow.com/how_2087562_make-flubber.html

All you need is borax, school glue and water. And food coloring if you want to color it.

A note for the mommas: flubber is super fun to play with and much easier to clean than play-doh!

Moon Prints

The website I found this on called these moon prints. I'm assuming because the effect is similar to the craters in the moon.

Brush Mod-Podge (or watered down school glue) all over a piece of paper. Again, I recommend posterboard because this is a lot of liquidness! Then rip and crumple up tissue paper and put it all over the glue. Let dry a few hours until tacky, or overnight for complete dryness. You can use printed or colored tissue paper if you want, the end result will just look a little different.

Now, paint the the tissue paper. You can use a brush or finger paint. I was feeling adventurous and chose finger paint.

I took this picture in an effort to show you the craters. This was really so abstract and embellished, I think it would be pretty darn cute framed!

Marilyn's Visit

We were so excited to spend some time with Aunt Marilyn, but as always, her visit just wasn't long enough. It's a good thing we will see her again in five weeks for the family vacation to Myrtle Beach! These are some of the pictures from the day she left.

Self portrait

Marilyn, Grandma Bertha, Mom and Samir

Mom and Grandma Bertha

Marilyn and Grandma Bertha

Marilyn and Mom

"Family is the most important thing in the world"- Princess Diana