She's Crafty

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Have I mentioned how much my 4-year old LOVES Dinosaurs?  Seriously, this kid breathes dinosaurs 24/7. Sometimes I wonder if he is really a Tyrannosaurus Rex reincarnated as a little boy. His love for dinosaurs goes beyond just playing with the billions of plastic prehistoric creatures we have laying around the house, but he also creates his own dinosaurs with random things he is playing with. Like his crayon dinosaur pictured below.


And this magnet dinosaur he made on the fridge with the letter magnets.


And he is even really skilled in making dinosaurs out of his blocks. Those teeth are killer right?! I seriously don't hoax him into this, he does it all on his own.


So in honor of my cute Luke we made paper plate dinosaurs yesterday. Here he is holding his dinosaur this morning while still in pajamas eating his bowl of cereal. He slept with this cute creature last night believe it or not.


Andy didn't sleep with his but I made him hold it so I could take a picture of him too. haha Yes, I'm a crazy photo Mother.  :)


They love to line them up on the stairs so that I almost trip walking over them going up and down. They even bring down some of their plastic dinos to interact with the paper plate ones.


Here's a close up of the dinosaurs. This is Luke's Stegosaurus.


Of course I couldn't resist making one myself because I'm cool like that, so here is my Brontosaurus.


Andy's Stegosaurus.


What makes these so cool is that they are put together with brads so the legs, tail and head are all movable.


This is not the first time we've made these dinos. It's probably about the 6th time. We even made them for my boys Dinosaur Birthday Party in January and it was a hit with all the kids who were at the party. I just had the kids color a paper plate with markers while we were waiting for everyone to get here and some Mom's helped me put them together at the end of the party.

Want to know how to make these fabulous creatures?? I wish I could take all the credit, but sadly I cannot. I learned how to make these from Kids Craft Weekly and luckily, they have a FREE TUTORIAL that you can use. The only difference in my dinosaurs is that I added a wiggly eye on the face, and cut a slit open for the mouth. My kids requested these changes and I love their ideas.


This craft can also be paired with some super cool dinosaur books. We read them on a daily basis at our house but here some of our favorites.

This isn't one of our favorites, but we happened to read it last night since Luke picked it out at the Library. "The Magic School Bus Flies with the Dinosaurs" It explains how some birds came from dinosaurs.

 WE LOVE all of the "How Do Dinosaurs" series by Jane Yolen & Mark Teague. We actually own several of them and they have been really helpful in teaching my kids not to play with their food & to try everything on their plate, how to be helpful in cleaning up their bedroom, and lately for Luke, how to SHARE with friends. I highly recommend these stories if your preschooler loves dinosaurs.

Luke's personal favorites is "Oh say can you say Di-no-saur?" Dr. Suess book by Bonnie Worth. It's a fun book that teaches you some of the names and facts about common dinosaurs.

If you make your own paper plate dinosaurs, I'd love to hear about it.

I'm Linking up to THESE wonderful Parties.

Happy Prehistoric Crafting!!

PS-I am subscribed to Kids Craft Weekly Newsletters but I haven't received any for about a year. So I don't think she isn't doing it anymore. Just thought I'd let you know if you decide to sign up and nothing comes in your email.

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So I'm a day late posting my usual weekly story time & craft. I've been away enjoying the mountains of Star Valley, Wyoming with my family and just returned last night. A couple weeks ago I saw the most adorable Firefly craft at No Time For Flashcards using Band-Aids and I knew I had to try it out with my kids. Luckily, I had the perfect book in mind to go along with it.

Eric Carle's stories are so creative and are a MUST for Preschool. Eric Carle describes his book "The Very Lonely Firefly  is about belonging. We all want to belong to a group, a family, our own fellow creatures." After talking about the meaning of the story we set out to make our own firefly families.


Mine turned out differently than No Time For Flashcard's simply because I couldn't find yellow Band-Ads, but we made some adjustments and I am very pleased with our take on the fun craft.

Materials you will need:
-Black sheet of construction paper
-yellow and white crayon
-colorful band-aids
-plain band-aids
-glue
-wiggly eyes
-yellow puffy paint


Directions:
1. Draw a moon and stars on the left corner of your black sheet of construction paper.

2. Place your regular Band-Aids on your paper to make the Firefly bodies.


3. Take the colored Band-Aids and place them over your Band-Aids making an X to form the Firefly wings.



4. Dab some glue on the top of the Band-Aids and put the wiggly eyes on.



5. Use the yellow crayon to draw antennae on the Fireflies. We also filled in more stars around the Fireflies at this point but I didn't take a picture of it.



6. Use the yellow puffy paint to paint the bottom of the Band-Aids to make them glowing.


7. You can be done at this point, but we decided to use a fine tip black marker to add some details to the face. Andy wanted me to make one of mine a girl and the others boys.



I think they turned out darling! My kids loved this craft, and why wouldn't they since ALL KIDS LOVE COOL BAND-AIDS!! Heck, even I love cool Bandaids and that's why I couldn't resist making one of these for myself.


Here is Andy's masterpiece...


Here is Luke's masterpiece...


He had some trouble making the stars but he was insistent on doing them all by himself so I was very proud of him. I love his balls at the ends of his antennae, very clever!

If you try out this craft, I'd love to hear about it.

Linking up to THESE Parties this week.








Happy Reading & Crafting!!

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My boys were super cute sharing a dentist chair while getting their teeth cleaned. (Ok, this really happened a couple weeks ago, I just forgot about it until I downloaded my pictures, haha) They think it's super cool being able to watch a movie laying down.

Unfortunately, we some have cavities....CRIMINY!! I have been letting Luke brush his own teeth because I THOUGHT he knew what he was doing. Lesson learned!


We had a fun family walk to the park....


Where Luke practiced being a ball hog....(I never knew he could kick around a soccer ball so well! Can't wait to get him on a team next year.)


Lila discovered she wants to be a big girl and follow everything that her big brother's do.


She was so cute following Luke around trying to get the ball.


Andy and Luke discovered they could hoax Lila into doing things they didn't want to do, like climb under this tree to fetch the ball. (So rude I know!)


She was such a little champion getting that soccer ball out!


And then just like that...Big Brother's stole it away and forgot she even exists! (So sad, huh?)


But Mommy and Daddy came to the rescue and she did get to take a turn...


Why is it that every time you ask your children to sit down and smile pretty so you can get a cool picture in front of the pretty mountain view, you get something that looks like this?

Apparently Luke thinks Andy has cooties and refuses to sit next to him. Can't we all just get along??

Lila had her first experience running through the sprinklers....

We bought this house as a foreclosure and the yard is not exactly glamorous so don't judge. We've been trying to pull out small sections of these weeds that have infested our grass (that's why it's not mowed), but it hasn't really been successful. We finally have our front yard looking good but the back yard is a totally different story!


Judging by the expression on her face, I think she liked it. Lila also learned how to clap this week. Every time she hears someone say "Yeah!" she walks around in circles clapping. It's pretty darn cute if I say so myself!


Andy and Luke continued to drive me crazy by finding this mud hole to sink their feet in and make a mess. Deep breath....Boys will be boys!


I've been working on the silent "e" concept with Andy this week in his reading and he has done really well grasping the concept.

Luke continues to learn how to write his letters and all their sounds. I have been behind on this with him since this past year has been consumed so much with being sleep deprived with Lila, but he is really catching on quickly and doing great!

I spent a lot of my time this week trying to get the house all clean and in order and laundry done so we could take off for the weekend stress free to enjoy a Family Reunion. So yes, I pretty much wrote this post early and scheduled for it to post today because right now I am totally up in the serene mountains enjoying some much-needed fresh air and laughter with the people that I love!


2 years ago on our Summer Trip....My boys are all grown up now!

Happy Fourth to All!!!