its a bird, a plane, it's HOT GLUperman

I couldn't stand to put the store bought costume on D. for Halloween.  This was a super easy & cheap last min. costume that takes ZERO sewing skill.  All you need is hot glue, felt and a blue shirt and pants.  I purchased the Garanimals Wal-Mart shirt for and sweatpants for $7.00 total.  I purchased red and yellow felt.  

To make the "logo" I simply folded the red in half and free handed the shape.  Then I used the red as a pattern for the yellow and then went back and trimmed it a little around the edges to make it smaller than the red one.  Then I decided to put a D for my little man, to make him feel special!  He is pretty super, after all!

The "bloomers" were the hardest part, and all I did was double the red felt, laid the pants on top with the crotch of the pants at the fold.  Then I cut up the next to the sides of the pants and cut across the top at the waist, and went back down the left side of the pants.  So, when unfolded, I ended up with a large rectangle.  Then I just angled the corners, up towards the pockets and glued in place. It doesn't quite match up on the sides, but I'm not worried about that.  It know that its not perfect, nor does it need to be.  

 For the belt, I just cut a strip of yellow and glued it around the bottom of the shirt.
And to do the cape, I folded the fabric in two and cut lengthwise with a taper.  Then I hot glued it to the back top of the shirt.

Hopefully it will stay together though the evening :)

Happy Halloween, and have a BLAST trick-or-treating!

Jenny

SPooky SPiders, SKulls, SKeletons and Centipedes

Today We talked about letter blends and like sounds (b/c D. is starting to sound out words).  I had some SPooky Halloween "decorations" around and thought they would be perfect for sorting out our sounds.  We talked about how S and C can make the same sound and that we can build letters to make more sounds.  (It is so hard to teach how to read, isn't it!)

here are the supplies we used for the fun:

glue, foam pumpkin cut outs (orange construction paper would work)

sticky poster letters (you can draw them on), halloween SPiders, SKulls, SKeletons and Centipedes.

Then we began sorting, based on the sounds we heard.  

"Spider starts with what sound?" "S, Ssssss"

"Great, what's the second sound?  S PPP"  "P!"

"Fantastic!"

We did this with all the sounds.  Centipedes was difficult, so I told him it sounds like an S, but is actually a C. 

We counted the Spiders to work on those math SKills, too!

 After our lesson, we went outside, hid the spookies in the sand and went on a spooky treasure hunt!

It was a fun morning!  Enjoy!

Happy Friday...

Jenny @ Pajama Projects

*I'd really appreciate a link back if you use, adapt ideas, or just want to be nice :)*

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Leafy Letters Falling Down, Falling Down, Falling Down...

Amy, over at the TeachMama blog, (I'm sure all of you already follow her blog...right!?!) shared this fantastic idea last year of writing letters on fake fall leaves.  The fall leaves I bought at the craft store this year for our fall mobile (previous post) must have reminded me of her idea.  Anyway, I did as Amy suggested and wrote the letters (upper and lower) on each left over leaf with a sharpie.  I couldn't find Amy's post, or remember the fun games she played with hers, so I tried to come up with a way to use them on my own.  

I wanted to re-create the look of leaves falling and have D. catch them and call out the letter.  So, I climbed up on his swing set (quite a challenge) and had him stand below.  Luckily it was a windy day, so it made the game more fun.  I tossed the first leaf below and he squealed as he tried to jump to catch it.  I sent the whole alphabet flying, and he loved catching them!  Then he wanted a turn tossing them down to me.  We switched the rules, where he would call out the letter on the leaf before he tossed it.  It was a fun way to experience our "faux fall" and practice our letters!

Check out TeachMamas afore mentioned post to find other games you can play with the letter leaves by clicking on the link.

Happy Fall Y'all!

Jenny

where the leaves don't change

In our neck of the woods, there isn't much of a "fall" to speak of.  It pretty much goes from blazing hot to  cold.  While we do have a few great, crisp weeks, we do not have the lovely changing of the leaves that I loved to see growing up.  I hate that Dodson is missing out on that.  We have discussed taking a trip to "the mountains",  but that would involve about 10hrs in a car to get to "the mountains" from where we are.  So.... I decided to give my son a taste of what fall looks like, right here in our house.  

This is all that is needed... a branch, some twine, scissors and a bundle of fake fall leaves.

First, we hung the branch from our kitchen light fixture...this can be done anywhere.

Then D. picked the leaves he wanted on it.  We talked about the different colors of fall.

 Mommy cut lengths of ribbon and tied the leaf to the branch.  I wanted to create the illusion of the leaves falling...

As they say down south... "happy fall, y'all"

Think Fun's 36 cube

 This is our own way to use Think Fun's 36 cube.  You can find this puzzle and the real way to use it by clicking ... here.  For those of you that like those golf tea puzzles at Cracker Barrel - this one is for you, but it's a bit more challenging.

 We play with this almost daily.   We play with it in our own way.  We sometimes sort by color- get all the greens together, all the oranges, and so on.  Then we sort them from shortest to tallest or tallest to shortest.  Sometimes we put all the tall ones together, and then group them by size rather than color.  There are so many ways to play with them.  They also have grooves in them, where they are sectioned, so we can group by the number of sections each has as well.  This helps improve counting skills.  Overall, we have not used this game as intended at all, but have found it to be one we go to often and are always finding new fun and educational things to do with "it".  Check it out...it really is a good one for all the family (for different reasons)
P.S.- we got ours at Fantasy Island Toys in Fairhope.