Rainbow craft, motoric skills,activity with colours

Today on our way to the nursery Karolina and I saw a huge rainbow. So bright, and so close. At the beginning it was from one side of the car windows, then we turned and it was just opposite us. We were driving towards the rainbow. It impressed Karolina a lot and she remembered how one of her favourite cartoon characters Minnie Mouse was talking about rainbow. Karolina has a book about it as well and the thematic of her 2nd birthday was just about Minnie's rainbow colours (with balloons). So, my little gem was laughing the whole way and speaking sth on her own language as I understood it was kind of her description of it.

All what's happened insipired me today for one craft work with Karolina. We decided to make our rainbow, improving knowledge in colours and motoric skills while working with scissors and scotch band.

I prepared example in advance that she could see what we were going to do. And by that sample I asked her to repeat which colours are in rainbow and to find them from the majority we have.

For this craft we needed:
1) blue card board (for the sky)
2) cotton balls (for clouds)
3) pipe cleaners of different colours
4) scissors, glue, scotch band

First Karolina glued the surface of the cardboard to stick the cotton balls.

Then she chose pipe cleaners of each colour in a correct order, and started to stick them with a scotch band. Here it was the most exciting part for her to cut the band and then to stick it.

After she finished with pipe cleaners, she decided to put additional clouds around... as didn't want to finish the craft-)))

And here is the result of a hard work

Looks a little bit abstract but very cute, I guess. And what do you think???

Thank you for reading:-) Stay with us...

Caterpillar activity for toddlers

Tomorrow is the last day of the summer already. Time goes so fast. And almost all days we spent outside with Karolina, playing with the sand or sea water, swimming, building sand castles or sth what reminds castles-))), etc. And not so much time we did craft things which I, honestly speaking, missed. 

Today we had to spend time at home, waiting for a visit, and meanwhile not to get bored we opened our treasure box with all materials for crafts and looked what we had there. It turned out ...we had a lot-)))) since the last purchase was just before summer began.

In July I was in a kindergarten in Germany where a Summer Festival took place. So, the idea of our craft work today I saw there - colourful caterpillars which kids made themselves as a part of their perfomance during singing. I liked them so much that today it was clear for me what we will do with my daughter.

What do you need:

1) kitchen tissue roll
2) green paper (or several colours as you wish) and 2 pieces of cardboard
3) pompoms
4) googly eyes
5) pipe cleaners
6) glue, scissors

How you should do it:

1) You glue the roll and wrap the paper around. Don't forget to glue the paper as well, as it must sit fixed. You can make several colours, just what you imagination tells you=)))

 

2) Make 6 (or 8 ) holes in the roll with scissors where you can put in the pipe cleaners as the legs of the caterpillar. be sure that the holes are on the same level and big enough that it will take not so much time.

3) Take 2 pieces of green cardboard which play the role of tentacles of caterpillar and stick them from inside of the roll on its place.

4) Stick googly eyes, and a nose from pompom. You can also decorate the caterpillar with pompoms around the head that it looks funnier.

 5) The last step is alternative. If you want you can use a plastic stick as a holder of  the caterpillar. We stuck it, but later Karolina took it away. 

                                              


As I didn't do with Karolina such things long time I can see what a big step she did in her development. She holds more sure the glue stick and works with it, she knows what to do when I tell her to glue some parts and right now she is rather fancy about cutting the paper with scissors what she didn't do before. Of course it is just the beginning but I think in a short time she will do it very well-)))

P.S.  3 hours later Karolina took out all pompoms from the caterpillar, its eyes and nose. So...I think it is very useful-)))we can reuse them for more craft works-)))

P.S. Don't forget to thumb up if you like this post. You can share it with your friends and post on Facebook timeline your craft work as well. It would be nice to see another caterpillar- a new friend of ours. Like it, comment it, and tell please- if our caterpillar reminds you the real one? lol=))) 

Activity for toddlers from boxes, or what to do on a rainy day

First of all I would like to ask you to forgive me for my disappearing. I am away from home, travelling with a visit to my family, and unfortunately it was not possible for me to be so often in Internet as I wished.  Right now I am still somewhere but not on sunny Cyprus, and here, where I am staying now, it is raining already for some days. On the one hand it is nice that I can take rest from the heat and enjoy fresh and cool air as I will get the whole portion and "joy" of high temperature in a few days. On the other hand we have to stay at home with my kid and hide from the rain. So, here is a big task for me to keep my darling away from getting bored .

I've noticed how interested Karolina is hiding sth, and searching for this, or how much she likes taking items from one box to another, it keeps her busy rather well. This time simple boxes from frozen food, juice and shoes helped me a lot. 

                                        "Knock, knock, who is there?"

  I took a box from frozen food (yes, yes, and don't laugh about that, all we know that children are sometimes more interested about things from the kitchen than expensive and beautiful toys) which I could find at home, I mean my staying place. Cut out a small "window" of a square form, put there small toys, different objects, and closed it. Karolina was occupied for rather long time with it, taking out the items and putting them back, shaking the box, and what a smile she gave me when took out minnie mouse, which she adores, or Cheburashka , other cartoon character from Russian film, etc.

  "Multifunctional shoe box: Pencils inside of the box game and Ramp for cars"

Later, when it stopped being exciting, Karolina demanded a new entertainment from me. Here I saw a shoe box.  I cut out 3 holes of different sizes in the cover of the box: the biggest one, middle one and the smallest one.

Stand the cover in the middle of the box, the part from Karolina's side filled in with pencils, markers, a toy car, and a lego brick.

Then I asked her to give me through these holes the objects. At the beginning it was working just like a mail, then I gave her a task to give me a marker through the biggest hole or the middle one. I also changed the task for a giving me a car, that she will feel the difference in sizes, the same repeated with a lego.

 

In this was we tried to learn with her the difference what is bigger and what is smaller. I helped her in it with the timbre of my voice: the highest pitch- for the smallest hole and the lowest pitch - for the biggest one. 

After that, Karolina was interested just in painting over this box cover, which kept her rather long as well-))) it was like a board for painting. 

here you can see the result of her painting and then she played herself hiding and taking out the pencils

                                                   "Car ramp"

The last what we did with this poor shoe box is a funny car ramp. I put it upside down, then flattened out one of the ends of the cover over it. Taped it that its fixed strong enough, and here you go - cars are waiting already on the top to slide them down. Karolina likes cars now a lot, she learnt the word "AUTO", which means a car in German, and always repeats it.

To make the game more interesting with different obsticles for the car or may be for the driver Karolina, I cut out gates from juice box and the car must drive through them what also works on motorics of the child. Sliding down the cars is also not so successful at the moment, Ive noticed that Karolina doesn't realise yet where the front of the car is and how to direct it. So, such kind of fun car ramp is not only a game, but a good exercise.