A Pumpkin Party Weekend

After a fun trip to the pumpkin patch last week, we're planning a family fun night to carve our pumpkin. But with a little time to spare on a long weekend I decided to invite my girls to a Pumpkin Party Weekend. We'll be working on activities inspired by the following great ideas I've found in my Google Reader this week.

Pumpkin Alphabet Matching from The Activity Mom

Changing Jack-O-Lanterns from Ramblings of a Crazy Woman

Water Bottle Pumpkin Jack-O-Lantern from The Amazing Mess

5 Little Pumpkins from The Activity Mom
Newspaper Ghosts from Serving Pink Lemonade
Bean Skeletons and Macaroni Spider Webs from The Activity Mom (but I think we will try outlining our spider webs with string)
My friend Emily brought some adorable Hot Dog Mummies to the Sweet Bee's preschool party. This is what we'll be having for dinner on Halloween night, along with the Spooky Jello-Jigglers, and some Halloween themed pasta if I can find it at the store (thanks Courtney for the idea).

I don't think we'll get to it this year, but some time I would like to try the Frozen Banana Ghost Treats from No Time for Flashcards.

What are your favorite pumpkin activities?

"First School" Lesson Plans: Activities for 2-3 year olds

We've been "back-to-school" for almost two months now, and I finally feel like things are settling down as we have figured out our routine. Things have fallen into place so nicely, in fact, that I even had time to make a plan for the learning activities that I want to do with the Sweet Bee. She just turned three years old this week, so I'm calling it "First School". Here is the focus for each day at a glance:

Monday: Letter of the Week
Tuesday: Social-Preschool with friends
Wednesday: Number of the Week
Thursday: Color /Shape of the Week (alternate weeks)
Friday: Creative art, seasonal theme, playgroup

Here is a detailed breakdown of what I plan to do each day.

Letter of the Week
Introduce the letter: use a letter grab bag with the various letters we have in the house (foam letter, blocks, magnet letter).
Read a book that connects with the letter.
Create letter artwork, see No Time for Flashcards for inspiration.
Color a basic letter poster for the wall, add a letter sticker (the posters I use are the Uppercase A-Z Worksheets from Confessions of a Homeschooler).

Number of the Week
Introduce the number: use a number grab bag with the various numbers we have in the house (foam number, blocks, magnet letter).
Read a counting book.
Use the counting cups to count a snack (cheerios, crackers, grapes, etc).
Play a number/counting game.

Color of the Week
Create a color poster using crayon, colored pencil, marker, paper scrap, paint, etc.
Go on a color hunt and search the house to find the color.
Read a book and look for the color in the pages.
Free art using the color (and others, too).

Shape of the Week
Introduce the shape using the felt shapes. Play a matching game.
Create a shape poster by gluing small colored shapes on a larger shape.
Go on a shape hunt and search the house to find the shape.
Cut the shape out of play dough or cookie dough.

Creative and Fun
Create or play something fun. A good day to do seasonal projects (ex. Halloween or Christmas).
Playgroup with friends.

As we go along, I'll share the specifics of what we actually did in each lesson (ex. which books we read for letter X, the number game we played with number 3, the creative letter artwork we did for letter L, etc). Watch for the details in future posts. These activities would be fun (and educational) for most 2-3 year old children, and adaptable for other ages as needed. My five year old likes to join in whenever she can!

There are a lot of great resources available when it comes to planning a preschool lesson. These blogs are my favorites and first places I look for inspiration:

No Time for Flashcards
Confessions of a Homeschooler
The Activity Mom
Chasing Cheerios
Teach Mama

Glowing Faces in a Jar (and other Halloween Fun)

Last year, my Halloween Project To-Do List included making glowing jacks from Not So Idle Hands. It didn't happen last year, but the girls and I had fun making them last week.
Supplies
glass jars
tissue paper
mod podge
black spray paint
Halloween face template (found here)

You can find the detailed tutorial here, but it's pretty simple. Cut your tissue paper into strips, apply mod podge to the jar, attach the strips, then attach the faces.

You can be pretty creative with these. I didn't have any orange paper for the traditional pumpkin look, so we used green, white and yellow for a more monster/ghost/creature theme. I just printed the faces off on regular white paper and regular black printer ink, but once the mod podge was applied they looked pretty good. I chose to spray paint the lids black for the finishing touch, but you could do green for pumpkins, or add some ribbon or tulle.

Don't forget the candles for the finishing touch! (Actually, I bought a cheap pack of the little tea-lights that you can turn on and off, so I don't have to worry about flames and little people).
Here are a few other seasonal Halloween activities I plan to try this year:

Monsters! Monster shapes from Little Page Turners
Bottle Cap Spiders from Silly Eagle Books
Building a Skeleton from Chasing Cheerios
Marshmallow Ghost from No Time for Flashcards
Festive Silhouettes from Serving Pink Lemonade

Here is a link to the fun Halloween projects we did last year.

As is our habit, we're reading books!

Too Many Pumpkins by Linda White

10 Trick-or-Treaters by Janet Schulman

What Halloween fun do you have planned?

General Conference Links

This General Conference Weekend has really crept up on me, I can't believe how fast the month of September has flown by. Actually, the six months since the last session of General Conference have flown by--our baby was just 2 days old then, and now he is sprouting 2 teeth!

Sadly, with a husband out of town on business this weekend, I'll be "attending" (read: watching at home) conference alone with 3 children under the age 5. So the following links are where I'm looking to keep the kids busy and somewhat quiet!

The first place to start is always Sugardoodle.net. She has links on her home page to the best resources for General Conference. I am excited about her most current packets, since you have four choices to find the one that best matches your child's interests. Be sure to visit her General Conference page for loads of ideas.

But if you don't have time to sort through her massive list, be sure to visit My Favorite Resources for a General Conference Weekend. I compiled all of my favorite ideas for April 2010 (including the General Authority tie coloring page), and the links are still good.

New this round, I'll be trying the temple lacing card from A Little Tipsy. I think that will be perfect for the nearly 3 year old Sweet Bee.

Edited to add: Saturday I discovered a few more activity and coloring pages on Prepared LDS Family. The Ant Bug loves mazes and dot-to-dots, so these links will help supplement our packet this weekend.

I hope these links and packets help your kids to stay busy and somewhat quiet. Enjoy your Conference weekend!

A Preschool Lesson Plan with a Dinosaur Theme

The Sweet Bee is participating in a co-op preschool this year, with 5 other children. She loves to go to school each week and play with her friends. Since the children are all 3 years old (or nearly so), the mothers of the group all agreed that focus of the group would be mostly fun and social, with some learning thrown in too. I was excited to host this week, and I thought I would share my lesson plan with you.

We focused on Letter D and Dinosaurs (I made sure to allow plenty of noisy roaring). Most of the items are pretty self-explanatory. I found the song lyrics and the coloring pages online doing a Google search. The craft project was mostly my creation; it went over really well and it was fun to see the variety in the finished products.

9:00-9:20 Play Time/Free Time
Puzzles, Blocks, Little People, Lacing shapes

9:20-9:30 Circle Time
Good Morning Song
Calendar—Talk about the day, the month, and the date.
Weather –look out the window and discuss what the weather is like.
ABC song-sing while doing something silly like jumping up and down, clapping hands, swimming our arms, etc.

Introduce letter D. Place letter D objects in a grab bag for the children to take turns choosing one. Use letter block, foam letters, magnet letter, D poster page and D sticker page.

Sharing Time-each child shares what they brought that starts with the letter D.
9:30-10:15 Lesson Time
Dinosaur Dig (outside)
Have a container of sand to dig through and find a hidden dinosaur. (Two beach buckets of sand, with 3 small dinosaurs hidden in each)

Song (to the tune of Mary Had a Little Lamb)
Dinosaurs were very big
Very big
Very big
Dinosaurs were very big
Very, very big

Read a dinosaur book: Dinosaurs, Dinosaurs by Byron Barton

Song (to the tune of "Did You Ever See a Lassie?", have the children stand and move left and right)
Did you ever see a dinosaur, a dinosaur, a dinosaur?
Did you ever see a dinosaur go this way and that?
Go this way and that way
Go this way and that way
Did you ever see a dinosaur, go this way and that?

Song (to the tune of “This Old Man”, use actions and roaring)
This T-rex, this T-rex, he goes tromping all around,
With a stomp and a tromp and a (clap, clap, clap)
This T-rex is tromping on!

This T-rex, this T-rex, he goes roaring all around,
With a grump and growl and a great big (Rroarr!)
This T-rex is roaring now!

Craft Time
Color a dinosaur shape, glue on googly eyes and spikes.
Need: glue sticks, crayons, markers, googly eyes, triangle shaped colored paper for spikes, dinosaur shape (cut out of cardboard) for each child.

10:15-10:30 Snack Time
Meat eaters vs. Plant eaters
Hot dogs on a toothpick, dip in ketchup
Broccoli trees and baby carrots, dip in ranch
Cheese cubes
Water, juice to drink in sippy cups.
Napkins

10:30-11:00 Free Play

11:00-11:30
Read books: How does a dinosaur...various by Jane Yolen, Oh My Dinosaur by Sandra Boynton
Color dinosaur pictures
Dance and sing to dinosaur songs, and fun wiggle songs from the preschool playlist

Gloop

For one of our date nights, the Sweet Bee and I made Gloop.
Gloop is a wonderful hands-on sensory activity that most children will enjoy. Most kids I know love getting their hands dirty, so just relax and enjoy the texture, and don't worry about the mess in your kitchen. Better yet, do this activity outside!

This was the recipe for Gloop that I started from:

1 cup cornstarch
1 cup water
food coloring (optional)

We started mixing it together with our hands, but at this point it was pretty runny. We just kept adding cornstarch until we got the consistency right (probably another cup), so you might want to start with less water. We chose to make ours light green.
The Sweet Bee had a great time squeezing, pulling and letting the gloop drip through her fingers.

If you store it in an airtight container you can use it again. We just added a little more water, and the Ant Bug spent an hour playing with it the next afternoon.
After two days of use it had kind of a funny smell, so I wouldn't recommend keeping it for too long. But it was cheap, creative entertainment while it lasted!

Colorful play dough

Once you have children over the age of one, play dough is one of those essential items that you really should always have one hand. Our supply was running low recently so I decided to try a new recipe. The kids and I were very pleased with the results.

The recipe I used came from Rockin' Granola:

2 Cups flour
4 T cream of tartar
2T cooking oil
1 C salt
2 Cups boiling water
Put all ingredients except water in a large bowl. Pour water over the mix and stir it with a spoon. Knead it with your hands (careful! Its hot!) and maybe add a little more flour if it is too "soupy" ... keep at the kneading until it is the right dough consistency. Store in an air tight container (we keep ours in the fridge and it lasts for a couple of months)

This basic recipe will make nice soft dough that looks like this:

Soft, but a little boring, right?

It's easy to spice things up by adding color.

These four colored balls were made using Kool Aid packets. Rockin' Granola walks you through the steps, but it's pretty simple. Just divide the dough into sections, pour on the Kool Aid powder, then work the powder into the dough until it is all absorbed. You can wear gloves if you are worried about your skin changing color in the process, but I didn't have that problem.
The Kool Aid powder also makes it smell delicious! This is really nice playdough to work with, nice and soft and too sticky. We made ours about a month ago and it is still going strong.

If your children prefer to eat their play dough, then you might opt for the edible peanut butter play dough version.

A few of our favorite songs and finger-plays

I tend to go in phases when it comes to doing songs and finger-plays and rhymes with my children. We will be really good and do some every day for awhile, and then we fall out of habit and don't do any for awhile. But with more time at home feeding and snuggling with our new baby, we've all been enjoying the songs and rhymes again. Here are some of our current favorites:

Creepy, Crawly
Creepy crawly little mousey.
From the barn in to the housey.
In the pantry, on the shelf.
Find some cheese and help yourself.
Nibble, Nibble, Nibble.
(Start your fingers at their toes and walk them up the body until they reach under the chin. Tickle under chin for the Nibble, Nibble, Nibble).

Hickory Dickory Dock
Hickory Dickory Dock,
The mouse ran up the clock.
The clock struck one,
The mouse ran down!
Hickory Dickory Dock.
(Use your imagination with your fingers and tickles to go along with this rhyme).

Here is a Beehive
Here is a beehive
but where are all the bees?
Hidden inside where nobody sees.
Watch, and you'll see them come out of the hive.
1...2...3...4...5! Buzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz!
(Make a fist with you hand to make a beehive. As you count open up one finger at a time, then tickle for the buzzzzzzzzzzzz).

The old woman who lives in a shoe-Our favorite variation
There was a wonderful woman who lived in a shoe.
She had so many children, she knew just what to do.
She hugged them, she kissed them, she tucked them in bed.
I love you, I love you, is what she said.
(Sprinkle with lots of hugs and kisses)

The Grand Old Duke of York
Oh, the grand old Duke of York he had ten thousand men
He marched them up to the top of the hill
and he marched them down again.
When they were up, they were up
and when they were down, they were down
and when they were only halfway up
they were neither up nor down.

I Had a Little Turtle
I had a little turtle
His name was Tiny Tim
I put him in the bathtub
To see if he could swim.
He drank up all the water
He ate up all the soap
Now he's stuck in bed
with a bubble in his throat.

Bubble, bubble, bubble,
Bubble, bubble, bubble,
Bubble, bubble, bubble,
Bubble, bubble, POP!!

Froggies--Mm Mm Ah (thanks to this site for the actions)
Mm(blink) Mm( stick out tongue) went the little green frog one day
Mm(blink) Mm( tongue) went the little green frog
Mm(blink) Mm(tongue) went the little green frog one day
So they all went Mm(blink) Mm(blink) Ah( tongue)

Now
We all know frogs go ( clap) LAH dee dah dee dah (wave hands to side like hula), ( clap) lah dee dah dee dah ( wave), ( clap) lah dee dah dee dah ( wave) We all know frogs go LAH (clap) DEE DAH DEE DAH (wave)
They don't go Mm(blink) Mm(blink) Mm(tongue)
(Most times instead of the clap we do kisses. This is a favorite bedtime song for the Sweet Bee).

Five Green and Speckled Frogs
Five green and speckled frogs
Sat on a speckled log
Eating some most delicious bugs
YYYYUUUUMMMM YYYYUUUUMMMM

One jumped into the pool
Where it was nice and cool
Then there were
Four green speckled frogs
GGGGLLLLUUUUBBBB GGGGLLLLUUUUBBBB
(Repeat in descending order.)

5 Little Monkeys
5 little Monkeys
Sitting in the tree.
Teasing Mr. Alligator,
"You can't catch me!"
"You can't catch me!"
Along comes Mr. Alligator
Quiet as can be…and
Snatches! that monkey right out of that tree!
(Repeat in descending order)

Five Little Ducks
Five little ducks
Went out one day
Over the hill and far away
Mother duck said
"Quack, quack, quack, quack."
But only four little ducks came back.
(Repeat in descending order. When you get to none, end with...)
Then the big Daddy duck said
"QUACK, QUACK, QUACK"
Five little ducks came waddling back!

Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star
I'm sure you know the words to this one, but at our house Daddy likes to include random "shooting stars!" for excitement.

White Coral Bells
White coral bells
Upon a slender stalk
Lilies of the valley
Deck my garden walk
Oh, don’t you wish
That you could
hear them ring.
That will happen only
when the fairies sing.
(We sing this song every night as a lullaby, because of the reference to Lilies.)

And just a few more that I'm sure you know: Eensy Weensy Spider, This Little Piggy Went to Market, Hickory Dickory Dock, There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly, Old Macdonald Had a Farm, The Wheels on the Bus, My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean, and Head Shoulders Knees and Toes.

With all of our songs we include actions and hugs and kisses wherever possible. Maybe if I feel brave enough I'll post a little video clip of some of these songs in action! I would love to hear your favorite songs and finger-plays. Please share them with us in the comments!

Peanut Butter Playdough

After a well-child checkup at the doctors office my girls needed a fun activity to take their minds off of the pain and terror of their immunizations. We opted for edible fun!

We found this simple Peanut Butter Playdough recipe by Jane on Make and Takes.

1 cup peanut butter
1/2 cup honey
2 cups powdered sugar

Mix ingredients in a bowl and you’re done! Store in an airtight container or plastic baggie with air sucked out of the bag. (Quick tip: Spray your 1/2 cup with oil before measuring your honey and the honey will pour much easier.)
This recipe had a great consistency and was not sticky. It was also quite tasty! We love peanut butter at our house. I held the Sweet Bee off from tasting it as long as I could, since once she had a bite she just wanted to just keep eating. Guess what we had for lunch that day?!
As you can see in the pictures, we like to use cookie cutters with our playdough. A few years ago we purchased a set of 100 cookie cutters. Storing the set is kind of bothersome, but we have shapes and letters and numbers for all seasons and any mood that we happen to be in. We also do a good amount of sculpting and cutting (plastic knives are great tools).

Standard Unit Blocks—out of felt!

I'm taking a partial maternity leave from this blog as we we recently welcomed a sweet baby boy into our home. So today I am happy to be sharing a guest post from my sister-in-law Tiffany.

Nurture Mama has shared some great activity ideas with felt. I’ve enjoyed doing some of them with my children. In fact, one of my older daughters made felt food for her younger sisters for a Christmas gift. For a guest Nurture Mama post I wanted to share something fun and simple I made with felt years ago.

One of my favorite childhood toys was a set of wooden building blocks. I’ve since learned they’re called standard unit blocks because they are uniform sizes--one rectangle block is the same size as two square blocks and so on. We played with those blocks in endless creative ways.

Many years ago—for a little something fun I decided to create felt building blocks. My little girls could use them for two dimensional play on a flannel board. Younger children have fun putting the different shapes and colors on the board and comparing and matching. Older children will build elaborate houses and patterns.
Felt Building Blocks are simple to make. I think all those years ago I cut them out with scissors, but with a cutting mat and a rotary cutter they would be simple to make in very little time. There are a few standard shapes you want to have in your felt block set.

Rectangle: 4 inches by 2 inches
Tall rectangle: 4 inches by 1 inch (half of a regular rectangle)
Square: 2 inches by 2 inches
Little rectangle: 2 inches by 1 inch
Triangle: cut a rectangle diagonally into two right triangles
Arched rectangle: cut a small half-circle out of one side of a rectangle
From colorful felt cut several strips 1 inch and 2 inches wide and then cut down to 2 and 4 inch lengths. So simple. Beyond these basics there is no limit to the sizes and shapes you can create!

Tips for making a flannel board
Several years ago we got two lovely flannel boards from my mother-in-law. So, I’m not an expert on flannel board making! But, as I look at the boards she made it shouldn’t be too difficult. To make your own board you will want a large piece of neutral colored felt, a sturdy board (heavy cardboard, foam core or masonite board), spray adhesive, and some strong, wide tape. Decide how big you want the finished flannel board and cut the board to size. Cut the felt 2 inches larger on all sides than the board. Spray the felt with spray adhesive and smooth it on the board. Tuck the felt to the back and miter the corners (clip a section from each corner) so it will lay flat. Secure the felt to the back with tape. The boards I have are about the size of a poster board—you could also make a small individual size board.

Here is another online tutorial for making a flannel board.

Tiffany’s greatest joys in life come from her family and her faith. She lives with her dear husband and 6 cute kids in Texas. She loves to read, bake, and stay in touch with family. She tries to find and focus on the joy in the journey and blogs about it at This Journey: with joy wend your way.

My favorite resources for a General Conference weekend

"Decide now to make general conference a priority in your life. Decide to listen carefully and follow the teachings that are given. Listen to or read the talks more than once to better understand and follow the counsel" (source).

One of the greatest blessings of being a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is being able to hear living prophets and apostles speak. Our family has a tradition of watching all four sessions of General Conference at home, but we make use of a lot of activities to keep our children interested and occupied for the eight hours.

A General Conference weekend scene, October 2009.

Be sure to check out the 2010 General Conference Packets from Melanie at Sugardoodle.net. She puts a lot of effort into her work, and her packets are always excellent. She has different versions for junior primary and senior primary and youth.

The 2010 Apostle Cards are available here, along with suggestions on how to use them. You could use the cards to play Don't Eat the Prophet, or play the game with the original prophet cards.

LDS.org's General Conference packet is a great resource for older children to take notes on the talks.

Fun with stickers: Remove the poster from the most recent conference Ensign. Hang it on the wall, and then the children get to put a sticker on the picture of whoever is speaking.

A few years ago we had a lot of success teaching the Ant Bug the names of the Apostles by singing their last names to the tune of 10 Little Indians. Unfortunately, with the changes in the last few years the names don't have quite the same flow. Here are a few other tune suggestions that you might like to try for Family Home Evening.

There are quite a few variations available when it comes to coloring books. This Conference Coloring Booklet is great, but I also like these versions that fit two pictures per page ( packet by Erin and packet by Debbie).

Here is a link to an LDS Bingo game. You could use this during conference sessions and have your children mark off the words as they hear them mentioned. We like to use M&Ms or skittles for game pieces.

A Little Tipsy put together a General Conference themed Easter egg hunt coloring and cutting activity. A great way to combine both special events in the weekend.

And a session of General Conference would not be complete without coloring the General Authorities ties!

The Ant Bug's completed ties from October, 2009.

Be sure to visit the General Conference page on Sugardoodle.net for more ideas. This is a wonderful resource, thanks to the contributions of so many people.

Our activity packets for April 2010. Each child has her own folder, and then I have a general folder for the whole family with additional coloring pages and games and the apostle cards. Add in crayons, scissors and glue and we are ready to go!

A Tree is Nice

In January we discovered a delightful book. It is a Caldecott Medal winner from 1957.

A Tree Is Nice by Janice May Udry

“Trees are beautiful. They fill up the sky. If you have a tree, you can climb up its trunk, roll in its leaves, or hang a swing from one of its limbs. Cows and babies can nap in the shade of a tree. Birds can make nests in the branches. A tree is good to have around. A tree is nice.”

A Tree by the Ant Bug

Reading this book inspired us to paint our own beautiful trees.

A Tree by the Sweet Bee

A Tree by Nurture Mama

Another Tree by the Ant Bug

The Ant Bug said "A tree is nice because...it gives shade. If it has bumps, you can climb it."

When it comes to planning activities for my children, I follow a predictable pattern: read a good book, sing a song or two, then do a craft project (although we don't always go in that order). With a little creativity, most children's books can easily inspire an hour or two of fun.

Valentine Activity Round-Up

We are having a nice quiet week: hurray for no appointments or meetings! Which means we've been spending some spare time working on fun Valentine crafts.

We counted hearts, from Chasing Cheerios.

We made hanging heart garlands, from Skip to My Lou. Our version was a little simpler. Using the method described here, I folded scraps of Valentine colored paper in half, drew half a heart, and the Ant Bug cut them out. Then we just attached them to pink yarn with string and taped them from our ceiling.

We made paper hugs, from No Time for Flashcards (pictured above). This activity was really fun. The Ant Bug added a hat and a skirt and legs to her hug. The Sweet Bee wanted to do another and contented herself with large dollops of glue and googly eyes.
We got 20 valentines ready for a preschool class. Nothing too creative here, we just bought a box from the store, but the Ant Bug did match up stickers and got lots of practice writing her name.
We made hearts with glitter and glue, from No Time for Flashcards (pictured above). My girls loved this activity and stayed crafting for nearly an hour, but I have to warn you: glitter is not for the faint of heart. I gave the girls each a cookie tray for holding their paper to use to help contain the glitter, but we still ended up with glitter everywhere. Anyone have any tips for making glitter projects less messy?!
The heart cookie cutters were fine to start with, but we moved quickly to painting glue with a cotton swab, and eventually to just squeezing the glue directly onto the page and dumping glitter.
We raided our recycle paper drawer and they created a lot of masterpieces.Thankfully, the Ant Bug was very eager to use the vacuum to help me clean up!

We bought some heart shaped message candies.
I plan to use these a few different ways:
Counting, from Ramblings of a Crazy Woman.
Heart Patterns, from Teach Mama.
Tic Tac Toe Hearts, from Alpha Mom.
Love Letters, from Love Actually.

We plan to make our traditional sugar cookies and decorate them with friends on Friday.

Here are a few more we'll squeeze in if we get the chance:
Dance streamers, from Chasing Cheerios (for a Fun Friday Family Night).
Valentine Treasure Hunt, from Serving Pink Lemonade and also Teach Mama.
Heart Family, from Cakies.
Heart shaped animals, from Make and Takes.
Heart shaped pizza, from No Time for Flashcards.

Hearts and Love for February

February is a fun month because there are so many activities you can do related to hearts and love. The Ant Bug has been cutting out hearts for the last five days and pasting them around our house.

This year we decided to be a little more festive and make a Valentine's banner. I found a heart template online, and started tracing and cutting out the hearts on pink cardstock. I wrote the letters and the Ant Bug outlined them with our glitter gel pens. I had planned to make the hearts more like conversation hearts (I LUV U 4 Ever), but as the Ant Bug and I started spelling it out, she was concerned that we were spelling love the wrong way so we decided to be correct in our spelling. Once the glitter was a little dry, we punched a hole on each side of the heart and threaded some pink yarn through, then tied the whole garland to our banister.


I think my girls love Valentine's Day because we get to use pink a lot!

Last year I wrote about my favorite Love Books for Parents and Children. They are books perfect for snuggling and might even bring a tear to your eye. Here are few more to add to the list:

I Love You, Stinky Face by Lisa McCourt

How Do Dinosaurs Say I Love You? by Jane Yolen and Mark Teague

What Do You Love? by Jonathan London

Looking for more Valentine's Ideas? Be sure to check out Make and Takes--Marie has been posting many heart-based treats and crafts. I'll be trying a few of her fun ideas in the next month, starting with heart shaped toast.

A Fancy Party for a Five Year Old

The Ant Bug recently turned 5 years old and she had her heart set on having a party with friends. She enjoys the Fancy Nancy books, so we went with a Fancy Nancy theme. This theme works well for little girls, because at that age it is so fun to dress up and be fancy. I searched online and found a lot of good ideas, and here is how it all turned out.

The Invitation
Printed on fancy paper and tied with a fancy pink ribbon

Text:
Anwyn is 5 and FANCY !

You are invited to a soiree (that’s fancy for party)

Saturday, January 23rd at Anwyn’s house (address)

10:30 am to 12:00 noon

Please wear your fanciest ensemble.

Répondez s'il vous plaît {RSVP}
(that’s fancy for tell Anwyn’s mom if you’re coming)

phone and email

Ooh-la-la! We can't wait to see you, darling!

The decorations
Pink balloons and pink streamers.

The fancy welcome sign on the front door

The fancy creative art project
The girls decorated pink foam sheets with flower and heart foam stickers, markers and glitter gel pens.

The story time.
The girls all piled on the couch for a reading of the book that inspired the party.
The Shopping Spree
The girls were each given a gift card that enabled them to shop at Anwyn's Boutique, conveniently located upstairs in Anwyn's bedroom.
They were able to select one (or two) of the following accessories to wear and then take home: sunglasses, rings, bead necklaces, stick-on earrings, and a hair clip. This doubled as the favor bag.
After shopping we had a little lesson in proper posture for walking. We used plastic plates from our toy food collection to practice.
The game
Back downstairs for a rousing game of "pin the jewel on the tiara". Kudos to my husband for drawing an awesome tiara!
The menu
We served peanut butter sandwiches cut in squares, crescent rolls, ham and turkey roll-ups, carrots and dip, crackers, and fresh fruit. The girls used fancy toothpicks with flags as their utensil and were encouraged to eat with their pinkies in the air. After present opening, it was time for dessert--parfaits, of course! We laid out vanilla ice cream and all the best fixings: chocolate and caramel sauce, strawberry syrup, sprinkles and M&Ms.

The whole party ended up being about two hours, with a little free time here and there for the girls to play a little. The Ant Bug loved it, and I think everyone else had a good time. I was pleased with how everything turned out. Hopefully this will help any of you who need to plan your own posh party for your fancy little girl!

I got a lot of ideas from the following sources:
How to Throw a Posh Soiree for Kids
Fancy Nancy Birthday Party
Occupation Mommy: Fancy Nancy Birthday Party
And advice from my sister-in-law Becky, who had previously hosted a Fancy Nancy party of her own!