Pipe Cleaner Tree

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving with friends and family. I hope you did too! Three of us are sick so we've been taking school slow this past week, but we are starting off the Christmas season with music, decorations, and a cute pipe cleaner craft.

I first saw this craft at MOPS and brought an extra one home. Olive really loved twisting the pipe cleaners around the dowel rod. She glued a red pom-pom on top of her tree to finish it off. The dowel rod is glued into a wooden base, but you could also use a strong plastic plate covered in felt.

Gobble Hat

 Cut a bunch of feathers out of construction paper, and a long hat piece. I used foam to make the turkey head, waddle, nose, and glued eyes onto pom-pom. Glue the rest of the pieces onto the hat strip.

Everything Apples

An apple mosaic with a paper plate.

Apple peeling and coring, making applesauce to eat.

Apple pie playdough with my favorite recipe here.
Perfect Playdough
1 c. flour
1/2 cup salt
1 T. cooking oil
1 T. cream of tartar
1 c. water
Food coloring of your choice
Add-ins of your choice (i.e. spices, extracts, glitter, etc.)

Stir ingredients together into a saucepan. Over medium heat cook the dough until it pulls away from the pan. Lay onto a cutting board and knead well, it will be hot to touch. Allow to cool and enjoy.

We also plan to finish our life cycle of an apple tree from My Montessori Journey.

Insects- Ants

We started our Science lesson on insects from Living Learning Books and made this fun ant craft to go along with it.

To make this craft you will need three sections of an egg carton, markers to color, eyes, glue, pipe cleaners for the legs and antennae.

All insects have six legs and three body parts- a head, thorax, and abdomen.

Party Hats and favorite book

My girls love this book by P.D. Eastman. They think it is so funny and get a kick out of the dogs going up, up, up the tree for a big dog party.

We decided to make our own party hats and here they are.....

Just take a paper plate and cut on the lines you see above. Flip the points up and glue on your favorite decorations. Finish by punching 2 small wholes on both sides for the yarn to tie around your chin. We also added crepe paper to make them look extra fancy. Enjoy your party hat!

Paint a Bag

Since our weather here as been better than GREAT we are making beach bags. You can buy some cheap light weight canvas bags from any craft store and use fabric paint to decorate. They do take all day to dry so just be aware of that before you use them.

 Enjoy your day!

What to do with an old frame...

The fridge is full of art work, we send it to family and friends, but we still need more room to display the girl's masterpieces. I had an old frame that I was about to trash when the glass broke, but I held onto it and I'm glad I did. The wire hanger is still attached, which works out great for hanging our daily drawings and paintings.  Clothes pins and clips work well to attach the art to the wire hanger. I am thinking about finding 4 more frames in various sizes to make an art display wall.