Tubs of paint make me happy. So I was giddy to pull O's out this week when it was time to make a little craft for our upcoming lessons about "greater and less" in math. Who knew math could be such fun? Bleh. Last year, I pinned these "Math Munchers" from one extra degree: confessions of a teachaholic. In grade school, I remember making the < > marks, then drawing my own teeth on them. Sometimes, I even added 3/4 of a circle to make the signs look like Pacman. I'm sure I wasn't original in doing so. It made sense because Pacman would always want to eat the bigger of two numbers, right?! So would Math Munchers, of course. So I took a little of one extra degree's Math Munchers idea and, well, added some teeth. Using jumbo popsicle sticks, paint, glue, "googly" eyes and white construction paper (oh, and shipping tape - I'll explain that shortly), O and I set out to make some Math Monsters. O chose the color schemes and decided to make one red with green polka dots. He said he made it for his baby sister because poppies are red with green stems. A time-saving tip: Use the eraser-end of a pencil to make polka dots. For even tinier dots, use the "butt"-end of a small paintbrush or even the tip of a pencil - just wipe it off if you want to use the pencil again. I love how O's Math Monsters turned out: I cut triangles out of white construction paper for teeth. But knowing everything has to be durable around here, I needed to strengthen them up a little. Flouride wouldn't work. And I don't have laminating sheets on hand. I avoid contact paper whenever possible. Clear shipping tape to the rescue. It's simple: Just lay one piece down, sticky side up, lay down whatever small item you're wanting to protect, then lay another piece of the shipping tape, sticky side down, on top. Smash and rub together, and the tape serves as an instant protector and strengthener. (Is that even a word?) The "Equals-to" sign is connected by both halves of a smaller popsicle stick, which O painted white. We glued them to the back and then hid them from the front with (now strong and protected) teeth. I had to stop for a moment and question if my son is a genius when he insisted on placing the googly eye on the corner of his < and > monsters. I had envisioned the eye a little more toward the center of the top stick, which is the reason we needed two symbols - one for "greater" and one for "less." But his decision to put the eye where the sticks meet means we only needed one because < can flip to >. If you think about it, the way I had envisioned it would not have worked that way. Apparently, I'm not smarter than a first-grader. Now armed with an extra Math Monster, O gave his poppy-inspired monster to Poppi. She didn't want it. She just wanted her mom. I told y'all. I wasn't exaggerating. (But please note, for the record, she is wearing clothes.)
Watch for the upcoming pattern release for this outfit!
Let this spicy-sweet Sriracha tofu with crispy edges take your tastebuds on a delicious vegan journey.
These photos are from my niece Nicole. She has given me permission to share these with you! These are Joseph and are from the Willette Ch...
Daddy is even learning a thing or two in music class. This is a güiro, a percussion instrument that Madison will be playing at the upco...
It’s almost March 2nd and I am continuing the series “All Things Dr. Seuss” with projects and pictures of how my child’s school celebrates this wonderful day! I would love to hear how you and your children celebrate Dr. Seuss’s birthday! I have been a member of the PTO since my son started kindergarten. By being […]
Tubs of paint make me happy. So I was giddy to pull O's out this week when it was time to make a little craft for our upcoming lessons about "greater and less" in math. Who knew math could be such fun? Bleh. Last year, I pinned these "Math Munchers" from one extra degree: confessions of a teachaholic. In grade school, I remember making the < > marks, then drawing my own teeth on them. Sometimes, I even added 3/4 of a circle to make the signs look like Pacman. I'm sure I wasn't original in doing so. It made sense because Pacman would always want to eat the bigger of two numbers, right?! So would Math Munchers, of course. So I took a little of one extra degree's Math Munchers idea and, well, added some teeth. Using jumbo popsicle sticks, paint, glue, "googly" eyes and white construction paper (oh, and shipping tape - I'll explain that shortly), O and I set out to make some Math Monsters. O chose the color schemes and decided to make one red with green polka dots. He said he made it for his baby sister because poppies are red with green stems. A time-saving tip: Use the eraser-end of a pencil to make polka dots. For even tinier dots, use the "butt"-end of a small paintbrush or even the tip of a pencil - just wipe it off if you want to use the pencil again. I love how O's Math Monsters turned out: I cut triangles out of white construction paper for teeth. But knowing everything has to be durable around here, I needed to strengthen them up a little. Flouride wouldn't work. And I don't have laminating sheets on hand. I avoid contact paper whenever possible. Clear shipping tape to the rescue. It's simple: Just lay one piece down, sticky side up, lay down whatever small item you're wanting to protect, then lay another piece of the shipping tape, sticky side down, on top. Smash and rub together, and the tape serves as an instant protector and strengthener. (Is that even a word?) The "Equals-to" sign is connected by both halves of a smaller popsicle stick, which O painted white. We glued them to the back and then hid them from the front with (now strong and protected) teeth. I had to stop for a moment and question if my son is a genius when he insisted on placing the googly eye on the corner of his < and > monsters. I had envisioned the eye a little more toward the center of the top stick, which is the reason we needed two symbols - one for "greater" and one for "less." But his decision to put the eye where the sticks meet means we only needed one because < can flip to >. If you think about it, the way I had envisioned it would not have worked that way. Apparently, I'm not smarter than a first-grader. Now armed with an extra Math Monster, O gave his poppy-inspired monster to Poppi. She didn't want it. She just wanted her mom. I told y'all. I wasn't exaggerating. (But please note, for the record, she is wearing clothes.)
Oh my, it is nearly two years later and I am FINALLY posting pictures! I have seriously got to get a handle on that! We have SO much fun putting together our Epic vacation bible school every year and I wanted to share with you what we have been up to! With it nearing VBS season again I thought I would take a trip down memory lane and share with you some great ideas that you can use for your own VBS! This year (2014) the theme was Wilderness Survival. The vision was to decorate the church with both desert and jungle themes! This was my first time in the role of "lead decor" and I had NO idea what I was doing (picture having to keep this all in fire code, yikes!) but luckily it all came together in the end! I will try to explain my technique for making things as I go... Here we covered the wall in kraft paper (Lowes or Home Depot in the painting section). Using tan wall paint and a large rectangle sponge, we "stamped" the wall to create bricks then went back and outlined sections in dark brown to make them stand out. It goes really fast if you stick to groupings of stone instead of every single one. The "sand" is just tan fabric by the yard from Joann's. I believe we ordered a few bolts online. The camel prop was ordered from the VBS catalog (we have since created out own VBS curriculum). The rocks are painted pieces of styrofoam. Keep going to see how we did the palm trees and vines. This large hallway I wanted to look like a cave! We used brown paper bags (amazingly cheap on dollartree.com) and crinkled them up and stapled them to the wall. WARNING: this took forever so I would suggest you stretch them as your staple to cover way more wall with less bag. And MUCH less staples! The effect in here was amazing! Here are our palm trees! We used pool noodles to create these. Cut a hole in a box a tad smaller than the noodle (so it stands up), cut the bottom off brown paper bags, and string them onto the noodle! I put a large paper plate on top to tape the leaves to. The leaves are just traces and cut from a roll of non-fade green paper. Drape the base in burlap or tan fabric to look like sand. That last picture is of our class photo area! The vines were my favorite craft! We used plastic table cloths from the Dollar Tree in a couple of different shades of green. These were really easy and each table cloth yeilds a ton of vines. Fold your tablecloth the long way a few times will it is about 5" wide. Trim the sides so you end up with long strips. Cut diagonal lines to the middle. TIP: make sure you stagger them so you dont ever cut all the way through! And even if you do you can always use short vines too! We used these EVERYWHERE! They were great fillers and really tied the theme together! As you will see in the second picture, we also used nets and hula skirts (dollartree.com) everywhere! The monkeys were also ordered online and below I will tell you how we made the rope vines... These rope vines were made using cut, twisted and staples brown paper bags. If I did this again, I would use skinny strips of rolled kraft paper instead. If would have gotten done much faster! We stapled leaves (again cut out of the non-fade paper) when we were done. These also went everywhere and were great for covering large expanses like the ceiling in the cafe. We also wrapped them around the check in area. Also on the ceiling you will see colorful paper lanterns. These are from Oriental Trading Company. This giant tree was my biggest project! The frame is made from PVC. It ended up being 12 feet tall! We used the rolls of brown kraft paper here as well. It is simple... roll it out, wrinkle it up, stretch it out, and tape it on top to bottom! The last picture shows you what it looked like from the inside. The branches were made the same way but left wrinkled and twisted. I wanted to add more but we ran out of time! This hallway is always the kids favorite. The black light hallway! Luckily one wall was already dark, the other we wrapped with a roll of black non-fade paper. The volunteers had fun make fish, octopus, turtles and other sea creatures using white paper and fluorescent paint! These were then stapled onto the wall. The floor was covered in clear balloons that we squirted with the florescent paint on the inside. The jellyfish are paper lanterns lightly painted with fluorescent paint, with streamers and white string hanging from them. The ceiling also had streamers and nets. The openeing to this hallways was made to look like a waterfall. We used clear celo wrap, paper bags (done in the same way as the cave hallway) and the flowers were made using more non-fade paper. And because the nursery kids are important too... we gave them a little decor!
Are you ready make the cutest paper craft ever? You are going to want to hurry and add this paper hot air balloon craft to the top of your to-do list because it is absolutely
The Lorax is one of Dr. Seuss’ most beloved classics. Not only is it a great story for all ages, but it focuses on a nature theme. In my humble opinion, it’s never too early to introduce conservation practices to your children. Whether you teach preschool or 4th grade…or even homeschool...you ca ...
Free church bulletin board ideas are always in high demand. Check out these 11 fun free church bulletin board ideas!
We have been building up to show the entirety of a Mermaid Party. You have seen the Mermaid Tablescape and the Mermaid Menu with tutorials for it all. I hope that has been helpful as you may be planning your own under the sea themed party. Today I’ll be bringing it all together and show...Read More
Bible story: Pharoah puts Joseph in charge. (Genesis 41:1-40) Bible verse: "In his grace, God has given us different gifts for doing certain things well." (Romans 12:6) When we last saw Joseph, he had helped two fellow prisoners, a baker and a cupbearer, understand their dreams. They were supposed to remember Joseph's help, but the baker was executed and the cupbearer forgot his promise. That means Joseph was left in prison. When our visitors tried to visit Joseph in prison tonight, he wasn't there! We found him in the palace, and it was there that he told us his story: Two years after helping the baker and cupbearer, Joseph was still in prison. The forgetful cupbearer, however, was in Pharoah's court. When Pharoah had two dreams that no one could interpret, the cupbearer remembered Joseph. Pharoah called for Joseph, and he was able to use his God-given ability to tell the Pharoah what his dreams meant. Pharoah was impressed! He gave Joseph much power and responsibility. Because of his gifts from God, Joseph was able to help Pharoah see Egypt through seven years of famine. God still gives each person unique abilities, and they're all useful for serving Him. Let's celebrate the abilities God has given us and work to find ways to use them for His work.
When I started planning the murals for my classroom walls, I received all sorts of feedback on social media. My initial sketches and ideas inspired a dozen conversations about what else would be fu…
These photos are from my niece Nicole. She has given me permission to share these with you! These are Joseph and are from the Willette Church of Christ VBS 2013. Again, they are not mine, and so I am just showing you the photos, and I do not have any info on how they were done. They are to give you ideas for decorating! THANKS for sharing, Nicole!
Featuring Dr. Seuss projects, party ideas, children's books, DIY crafts and activities
