Gifts from the Kids

Personalized Calendars

This is an excellent gift for kids to give to Dad or Grandparents or anyone, really.
I make mine on Kodak.com and I'm always very pleased with the results. Of course there are lots of other places that do this, too, but I'm partial to Kodak. :) I've been doing this every year since James was born and each year I make 3 copies of the same calendar - one for James to give his daddy and 2 others for James to give to grandparents. And at $20 a piece, it's a fairly inexpensive gift that's packed with smiles and will last the whole year. Oh and bonus - it makes an excellent keepsake!

This year I think James will actually be able to help me make the calendar. He can choose the pictures and I'll click them into place. The beauty of the calendars is that you can personalize them, too. You can add special dates, quotes or personal messages.

I'm sure there are some crafty mamas out there who can come up with lots of ways to make a calendar by hand, too! I just chose to go the electronic route because the quality of the pictures and durability of the calendar are a bit better this way. :)

Photo Books are a another lovely, personalized gift. Perfect for anyone. Little ones love looking at pictures of people and places they know!

Again, I make mine through Kodak.com because I like their book options. This one I made using the Eric Carle theme because James, like a billion other kids in this world, loves the What Do You See series. I used the caption spaces to write a "story" so we can read it to him. I made another smaller book from our trip to the Turks & Caicos this fall. He loves looking through these books.

The Business of Commenting

Ok, so this has nothing whatsoever to do with Christmas or kid's activities or anything like that. But please, have a quick read because I would be SO grateful if someone out there could help me!

First let me just shamelessly admit that I LOVE receiving comments. They are like little presents in my inbox and I get really excited whenever I see a new one.
I know, I know... I shouldn't care about what people think, but I do! Like most bloggers, I put a lot of time and effort into my blog and it's awesome to get feedback and encouragement. Yes, I blog for me, and yes, I'm blogging to keep a journal of what I'm doing with my son, but I'm also blogging for all of you! Sharing ideas, spreading the word about good books, toys, etc. I know not everyone is into leaving comments, and that's ok too.
Personally, I love commenting on blogs. I'm a chatty person by nature and when I find a blog that "speaks to me" I feel like I need to comment back. Which leads me to my point... (ha! and you were beginning to wonder if there was one!)

My need to comment is being seriously cramped by Blogger. There are certain commenting formats (the ones unlike my own) which I, for whatever strange techie reason, canNOT comment on. And this is extremely frustrating, not only because many of the blogs I want to comment on are awesome, but also there are blog owners who've commented on my blog and to whom I'd like to say thanks. Sometimes I luck out and people will post their email in their profile and I'll send my comments that way. Other times I just plain ol' have no way of getting a hold of these lovely people.

I've reached out to Blogger no less than 5 times to find out why I can't comment on those formats. Their answer?

(imagine the sound of crickets here)

The only responses I've gotten were from other bloggers who have the same problem. So, since Blogger isn't interested in helping, I'm reaching out to any of you who know of a solution. (fyi, I've readjusted my settings several times, but nothing seems to work.)

With all that said, there are a handful of blogs I just want to give a shout out to - blogs that I really, really enjoy and would love to comment on, but can't. And, on the off chance the owners are reading this, they will no longer think me rude for not commenting or replying to their comments.

Our Cup of Tea
A Mommy's Adventures
Our Worldwide Classroom
Izzie, Mac & Me
Chasing Marcus
The Activity Mom
Quixotic Life
Explorations

I appreciate any solutions, tips and, of course, comments you may have!! Thanks!!!

Fun Facts:
16 = # of times the words 'comment' and 'blog' (or some variation of them) were each used in this post.
{Yes, I over use words often. I'm ok with that.}

Christmas Came Early!

Look what arrived in the mail today!!!

A BIG box of FUN!

My dear bloggy friend, Susan (All About the Journey), took pity on me when she read this post about my lack of craft resources here on the island. Not only did Susan offer to send me things, she asked for my wish list and then went to great lengths to shop around for the best deals. She also took pictures and video of everything she found so I could "approve" the purchases first! Needless to say I "approved" everything - being an arts and craftsy mama herself, she knew just what I would like. :)

Here are a few more pictures of my loot...Cookie cutters galore, buttons, beads, felt, pom-poms, stickers, etc., etc., etc.! I can't wait to put it all to use!

My all-time favorite thing:
This little gumball machine. A gift from Susan. It's just one of the many extras she added to the box. {Honestly, have you ever known anyone so kind?! Bless her heart.} See her post here about how she has used this. James will love it!

Never in a million years would I have imagined blogging would introduce me to such kind and thoughtful people.

Thank you so much, Susan! You're the best!

Quick Holiday Activities

I put together a few activities for James to do tomorrow. Each of these took me only 5-10 minutes to assemble. Easy peasy!

Tree Matching
I found this cute clip art on Microsoft Word, but you could use any clip art resource. You could even draw and color the trees yourself! Just need two of each picture, one set to act as a control chart and the other for matching.

Holiday Matching or Memory Game

(click picture for larger view)

This is slightly more challenging for little ones in that there's no control chart. They have to sort through both piles to find a match. We will do this activity on a mat so James has enough room. This could easily be adapted to a memory game by simply mixing the whole lot of picture together and turning them over face down.

Winter Sequencing
I bought these die-cuts at the local teacher's supply store for 50 cents, but you could use some of the clip art you created for the above activities (you'll just need to print a bit extra). You could also use stickers and attach them to cardstock, or you could use wrapping paper or again, you could draw and color your own pictures. There are LOTS of options. :)

Tot School - The Letter P

I decided to take the next few weeks off from letters in order to focus on Christmas!! I have LOTS of fun Christmasy type things planned and I'll still link up to TS to share some of what we've done each week.

So, onto Pp, our last letter of the year! There are sooo many things you can do with P, and narrowing down our topics was tough. We started off making our usual letter crafts...






Art & Music:
We made a purple P with pink polka-dots and a puzzle P. (say that 5 times fast!)

We went to a couple of Christmas parties this week and James made some crafts.

We listened to lots of piano music. Oh how I wish I had my piano here - I used to teach lessons and I would love to be able to teach my own child how to play!

Letters & Numbers:
We read In The Pond, by Anna Milbourne and our P book from the AlphaTales series.

James worked on the P drawer from our alphabet box (pumpkin, piano, penny, pig, penguin, present, paperclip). He loves these drawers!!

James did lots and lots of counting this week. This kid is crazy about numbers and is working hard to count to 30. Let me clarify that we aren't drilling the numbers into him - he is just SO curious about them and wants us to count with him all the time. We counted the ornaments on the tree (96!), we counted toes and fingers, we counted pinecones... the list goes on. I hope his love of numbers stays with him throughout his life!

Science & Nature:
I'm planning on spending a week or two on space & astronomy in the future, so we didn't focus a whole lot on planets this week. We did, however, revisit the huge planet mural we made in September.

The moon. It has just finished its lunar cycle and oh my word has it been a hot topic with James. Every night he wants to go out and see the moon. I took this shot of the moon at my photography class this week. James liked the real thing better. ;)

Practical Life:
Pouring peas.

Making mini pizzas! James thought this was the BEST. He enjoyed taste-testing many of the ingredients and then took to blowing cool the pizza when it was finished. :)

Lacing green and red pasta.

Open and close activity was a big hit this week. I put a smooth pebble in each box for an added surprise. :)

Other activities:
We explored a pomegranate. Such a yummy fruit! Such a pain to peel! James pigged out on the juicy seed pockets. (btw, can you tell this pic was taken with an SLR? SO much cleaner than a point & shoot!)

James decorated his little Christmas tree. I put several tiny ornaments in a box and throughout the week he'd take them off the tree and put them back on again.

We played with the peppermint scented playdough I made this week. James couldn't stop smelling the dough and got such a kick out of the Christmas themed cookie cutters! His favorite was the star - he kept singing, Twinkle Twinkle. :)

These gift boxes were a learning tool in disguise! I bought them because I needed the large box, but James got a hold of them and I found him doing this. There were 4 small boxes nested inside of the larger box. Also, each box had its own pattern with a matching cover - a built in control of error!






Finally, we hunted high and low for some pink items. I was surprised we came up with as much as we did!

Click on the button to the left to see what others are doing with their children!

Felt Friends

That's what James calls them anyway. :) These are SO easy to make and lots of fun to play with. I know these could be made into a game or learning tool but I decided to just keep it simple. For as we all know there's loads of learning that happens through play anyway!

I took a snap shot of each "friend" for James to use as a guide if he wants to. And so he doesn't get too overwhelmed with all the little pieces, I'm going to put each friend and their snap shot into individual pouches and have them available to James to choose and play with whenever he wishes.

Button Tree *repost*

Now that it's December and Christmas ideas are flying around the blog scene faster than Santa's sleigh, I thought it would be a good idea to do a quick repost about the little Button Tree I made last month.

This is a great way for little ones to practice their buttoning skills. Also, the buttons and lights (felt circles) are color-coordinated, offering a fun lesson in color matching!

I wish I could offer a tutorial, but the truth is since I thought it up in my head I just kind of winged it. It's really self explanatory... just cut up some felt, attach a few buttons, stuff it, sew it all together, and voila! And I'll say this, if I -the one who's afraid of sewing machines- can do it, you can too!

Let me know if you make one - I'd love to see it!!

Let the Countdown to Christmas Begin!

My parents were really big on traditions, especially during the Christmas season. I knew when I was young that when I had children of my own I too would pass on these traditions and start some new ones as well.

Now that James is 2.5 I think he's ready to experience some Christmas fun! I have to say, I'm just giddy with excitement for him - I think he's going to get such a kick out of everything I have planned!

In addition to our usual Christmas traditions (decorating the tree, drinking cocoa while watching Christmas movies, driving around looking at lights, etc.), we'll be adding these next two to our list for years to come...

25 Books for Christmas
I got the idea from The Picky Apple. Here's what you do: individually wrap 25 Christmas themed books, number them (this is optional of course) and each night have your child open one for the family to read together. How awesome is that? It incorporates so many things I love - family time, books, Christmas, and wrapping presents!

If you don't have very many Christmas books, do what I did and check out your local thrift shop or 2nd hand bookstore. I really lucked out and got 19 books for a grand total of $1.50!! Of course some are more used than others, but James won't care.

The Advent Calendar
I bought this years ago - long before we were blessed with James and I'm thrilled to finally put it to use! I was very inspired by Nicole's post and decided to incorporate aspects of it into our calendar.
The pockets are fill with little baggies and inside each baggie is a sticker, some M&M's and a short prayer. James is sticker crazy and I'm sure he won't object to the M&M's, either! The prayer is my favorite part - admittedly, while we whole-heartedly believe in and love God and consider ourselves spiritual people, we don't actually do a whole lot (outside of attending church) with James. This is an excellent way to bring Christ into our home each and every day this season. Going forward, I plan on doing something similar to this with James throughout the year, so he's always reminded of God's love.

Can I just tell you how much fun I had putting all of this together?! All my husband said was, "wow, that's a lot of work", but to me it isn't work at all! James is SO worth the effort and, like I said, I've been dreaming of doing these kinds of things since I was just a girl. :)

Update: I wrote this post a few days ago and we've since implemented both of these traditions and let's just say they've been WELL received by Mr. James! He asks about the Advent calendar all.day.long. and tears into those wrapped books like a pro!

December Sensory Tub & Playdough - Christmas

I LOVE this time of year and am so excited to get going on all the fun holiday activities & crafts! I'm hoping to blog a bit more often to get in all I want to share. :)

First up... homemade playdoughI scented the dough with peppermint extract - yum!! James is going to be SO excited to see (and smell) his new red dough and Christmas cookie cutters.

Next... the Christmas sensory tub! I've been so anxious to make this since I planned it out months ago. :)
Truth be told, it didn't turn out exactly as I expected. I planned on making red and green rice, but I just couldn't get the colors I wanted and instead the rice looked more like something for Easter. So, I went with just plain white (think snow). :)

Here's what I put in the tub:
White rice
Colored jingle bells
Mini candy canes (pipe cleaners bent and curved)
Bowtie pasta dyed red
Buttons
Pom poms
Mini wrapping bows
Tiny (fake) tree lights
A wee little angel
2 "boxes" (Santa and Christmas tree) - James is going to LOVE these!
And finally a little present, which I wrapped. I put a jingle bell in it so it makes noise when James shakes it. :)

If any of you end up making a sensory tub, let me know - I'd love to see it!

PS: I added a new slideshow to my sidebar - it shows many of the trays I've made during our Tot School journey thus far. Check back often as I'm always adding more!

Tot School - The Letter Q

Hope you all had a lovely Thanksgiving holiday! We spent lots of time relaxing and enjoying our family and the nice 4 day weekend my husband had off from work - it was wonderful to have him around so much!

We did do some Tot School stuff earlier in the week though - this week we hung out with the letter Qq...

Art & Music:
We made a "quilted" Q. James wasn't really interested in placing the squares, but was more than happy to be on glue detail, so we worked as a team that way. :)

James painted with Q-Tips. This was a big hit!

Aside from our weekly Kindermusik class, we didnt' do much in the way of music. Well, unless you count listening to TONS of Christmas music!! We set up our tree this weekend and had a blast dancing around to Charlie Brown - James thinks it's hilarious when Mommy and Daddy get jiggy with it!

Letters & Numbers:
We read a.lot. of Thanksgiving books as well as the Q book from our AlphaTales series. James played with one of his alphabet puzzles and also worked on a simple Q sounds matching game I found on Kidsoup.

I got this pumpkin pie counting activity idea from Kidsoup. It's meant to be used with a pair of tongs, but James couldn't be bothered, so he used his hands instead. He did a great job putting the correct number of cotton balls (whip cream) in the pie tins.

I made these turkey manipulatives for James to sort into popsicle holders. He loves these and really enojys lining them up and counting them.

Science & Nature:
We went on a nature walk to collect leaves for a rubbing project I had planned (and never got around to doing). James was fascinated by all the different trees. We saw an avocado tree full of avocados, a palm tree full of coconuts and a Kisskidee sitting atop another trees (don't know what kind it is - if you do, let me know!).

Practical Life:
James has gotten really good at washing his hands, so I thought it was high time he wash something else... a mini pumpkin! He l.o.v.e.d. this and spent a good 30 minutes scrubbing this little pumpkin clean!

I pulled out the ol' button turkey. James is getting a bit better at buttoning, but still has a ways to go. He's more entertained with the turkey itself. Wait till he sees the button Christmas tree I made!

Quesadilla starts with Q, so I thought it would be fun for James to make a quesadilla all by himself! Well, I prepped everything and put it in the microwave, but he sprinkled the cheese on the tortilla and added the top tortilla (after taking a bite out of it 1st) when he was finished. Yum!

I saw a link on Activity Mom's blog to get this cute Max & Ruby placemat. James is a big fan of M&R, so I knew this would go over well. I set up a basket of table items for him to practice with. He liked this so much he did it many times over.

Other activities:
We tried money sorting. (yes I washed the money 1st!) James usually likes to play with the coins in my purse, but for some reason he just wasn't digging this activity. He looked at the coins and got a kick out of how Bermudian coins have pigs, birds, and fish on them, but that was the end of it. Ah well, we'll try it again another time.

I special ordered pegs just like these from the States because I could not find them anywhere on the island. So, they arrived and I packed them away for Christmas, and then wouldn't you know I found them at a flea market for 50 cents the other day! James LOVES these things!! I highly recommend them!

I printed out this Thanksgiving sequencing activity from Kidsoup (my go-to place, can you tell?). James did a great job at this and I plan on doing more of these kinds of things in the future.

James (and his fake gecko) enjoyed the last week of his autumn themed sensory tub. On Tuesday I'll post my Christmas tub!

You'll never guess who came to Bermuda last week - The Queen of England! And during our Q week, too! What a treat! Of course we (and everyone else on the island) went to see her at Dockyard. We got pretty close to her, too. :)

We spent Thanksgiving at the beach, enjoying the sun, sand and a picnic. It was so relaxing!
Despite our taking a few days off for Thanksgiving, we managed to have a fun-filled Tot School week! Some people have asked me how we fit everything in each week and the truth is I'm always surprised at how much we get done. I never push any of the acitivites on James and we always do things at his pace. Fortunately he wants to do Tot School stuff all the time. I just have to make sure I'm organized and ready to go with activities!

Click the button to the left for more Tot School ideas.