The Chaos and the Clutter

Crafts and Activities

Gingerbread Playdough Station

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This week, we are concentrating on the letter “G” and I just couldn’t think of a great sensory bin to go with that, so instead, I made a Gingerbread Sensory Table. I have this awesome recipe for Gingerbread Playdough that looks and smells like real gingerbread dough. We make it most years before the holidays.

This scented gingerbread playdough smells just like gingerbread and makes such a fun Christmas sensory station.The only negative thing about this playdough is that it smells so good and the colour looks so much like true gingerbread dough that kids want to eat it. In fact, my great-niece was over last night and couldn’t resist tasting it!

I set out a rolling pin, a cookie sheet, 3 gingerbread cookie cutters, and a flipper (spatula) along with a large container of the gingerbread playdough. Our kids have so much fun pretending to bake gingerbread men. You can also set out items like yarn for them to decorate their gingerbread men. The playdough stays fresh for a long time as long as it’s kept in a tightly sealed container in between play sessions.

Gingerbread Playdough Station

Gingerbread Playdough Recipe:

5 cups flour
1 cup salt
6 Tbsp. oil
2 1/2 tsp. alum
3 pkg. unsweetened orange Koolaid
3 1/2 cups boiling water
6 Tbsp. instant coffee
1 Tbsp. each of cinnamon, ginger, and cloves

Mix Koolaid, flour, spices, alum, and salt in a bowl. Pour in oil and mix until crumbly. Combine water and instant coffee and pour over dry ingredients. Mix well. Keep dough in an airtight container.

This dough makes a great Christmas gift, especially if packaged with a few gingerbread cookie cutters and a children’s rolling pin.

We also have several other Christmas playdough themes that you may be interested in. I find that they are a great way to keep kids occupied during the holiday season while I am busy preparing food or cleaning.

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snow playdough and invitation to playSnow Playdough and Invitation to Play

Scented Gluten Free Candy Cane PlaydoughGluten Free Candy Cane Playdough

Learning Activities for the Letter “F”

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Learning the Letter F

This might be a bit long because I discovered that “F” is a great letter when it comes to learning. We studied frogs, firemen, flowers, and fish. We didn’t do an extremely in-depth study on each of them, but I think that the kids will still remember much of what we learned and they had a lot of fun!

We had a Fancy Nancy day.  You can read all about the activities, crafts and food here.

I had gotten these feet shaped cardboards in socks awhile ago and saved them for this week.  The kids made them into flip-flops by coloring them and hole punching then stringing yarn through them.  They loved this activity and it didn’t cost anything.  Also, foot and flip-flop are great “f” words!

For our fish day, the kids did a number of fish activities from Confessions of a Homeschooler.

 They read 2 Rainbow Fish books and made this activity to go along with the Rainbow Fish idea.

The kids glued sequins onto fish shaped paper frames.

Making these flower mini books was a great way to reinforce colour concepts, especially for my younger kids.  Plus, everybody loves mini books!

I love this worksheet from 2 Teaching Mommies because the kids thought it was just so funny (“a flower doesn’t need pepperoni pizza…that’s so silly!”), but I think because of that, they will really remember the talk we had about what flowers do need and why.

This cut and paste worksheet is also from 2 Teaching Mommies.

I made a flower muffin tin lunch to go with our theme:

-blueberry brown sugar flax cookie topped with an organic maple arrowroot cookie
-bread cut in flower shape and baby tomato
-sweet potato puffs
-apple strawberry puffs
-Greek yogourt with sprinkles
-babybel cheese with a heart cut-out

As a fun kick-off to our “F” week, I made these frog sandwiches. The kids thought they were awesome! They are super easy to make.

frog sandwichesI also made another muffin tin lunch for the letter F.

letter F lunch

-fettucine alfredo
-foot shaped cheese
-fish crackers
-F shaped bread
-fish fruit snacks
-fruit cocktail

The frog life cycle – I had these plastic models of the frog life cycle and the kids enjoyed playing with them.  I also printed off a puzzle from 2 Teaching Mommies detailing the life cycle.

cut and paste of the frog life cycle

In learning about frogs, we also had a frog sensory bin and read the books Frogs and Who Taught Frogs to Hop?.

My dad dropped off 5 hoodies from his work and the kids made up this game where they would wrap the hoodies down over their feet and curl themselves up so that they just looked like blobs and then they would have someone guess who was who.  It was actually really hard to do!  I was able to guess them all correctly, but it took a lot of effort.  The Husband got almost all of them wrong!  They thought it was hilarious!

 

 

 

 

These are some of the many things we did in workboxes this week.  Fall number and letter practise with clothespins, letter “F” sewing, counting on numbered lily pads using frog manipulatives.

We did some fireman and firetruck do-a-dot sheets from Making Learning Fun and made this foam craft.

This week was also the beginning of November, National Adoption Month, so I wrote up a very condensed version of our five adoptions.  I am also planning some great things over on my adoption website this month.

And the week was kicked off with Halloween, when I took the five younger kids to a local indoor carnival. They had a lot of fun playing old fashioned carnival games and getting to hold animals such as a parrot and a bearded dragon.

I have a rule that the costumes can’t be scary and this year, we had planned for Snuggle Puppy to be a robot, but after homeschooling Monday and helping Einstein make his Rocketman costume, I ran out of time to make a robot costume, so I got desperate and put him in his glow-in-the-dark skeleton pyjamas!

This picture I just have to include because it so depicts Snuggle Puppy’s eating preferences.  He hates typical kids’ food like KD, but loves the fancy stuff and anything super spicy.  On Tuesday, I took the kids to WEM and we stopped to eat lunch and he ordered this:

(the other kids had spaghetti!)

 

 

 

 

 

Our memory verse this week was “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” – John 3:16

The kids finished Lesson 8 and started on Lesson 9 in Math U See, continued in A Reason for Handwriting, devotions, and started a new typing program that I am excited to review in a few weeks once they have settled into it.  The kids also watched the movie “Degas and the Dancer” and we discussed Degas’ style of art.

Art Fun

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To make this artwork, first I had the kids make squiggles or shapes or pictures with white glue on canvas.
Then, we left the canvases overnight to dry.

Next, the kids used watercolours to paint over the canvasses. The finished products turned out really well. The Husband is planning to hang them in his new office.

Supplies needed:

  • white canvas
  • white school glue
  • watercolour paint
  • paintbrushes

 

 

 

 

 

Aren’t they cool?!

The Very Hungry Caterpillar Activities

The Very Hungry Caterpillar activity, play, and snack ideas #theveryhungrycaterpillar #bookactivityideas

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The Very Hungry Caterpillar is one of the first board books I bought my oldest son. I have such fond memories of him on my lap, pointing at the pictures that it will always be a favourite book. I still have it memorized!The Very Hungry Caterpillar activity, play, and snack ideas #theveryhungrycaterpillar #bookactivityideasThere are so many activities that can be used with the book The Very Hungry Caterpillar that it was hard to pick just a few!

I found this great idea for creating a Butterfly Life Cycle here. We used dried pasta, beans, leaves, and twigs on a paper plate.

Our The Very Hungry Caterpillar themed muffin tin lunch tray included:

  • cucumber
  • rice cakes
  • cheese
  • meat
  • crackers
  • cupcake (the ones the kids decorated the day before when we read “If You Give a Cat a Cupcake“)

The kids used this circle muffin tin lunch to create their own edible caterpillars.caterpillar counting practise

The kids did caterpillar counting using pompoms (find the printables on Confessions of a Homeschooler). The kids had several other caterpillar activities in their workboxes from there as well.

caterpillar colours sheet from Making Learning Fun

butterfly craft using tissue paper

hungry caterpillar Do-a-dot pages

the very hungry caterpillar alphabet dot-to-dot from Making Learning Fun

butterfly colour-by-number from Making Learning Fun

If you are looking for butterfly ideas, we also did several others including butterfly life cycle stamps during our “Bb” theme week. We also raised our own butterflies in the Spring and did some accompanying activities for that.

The book easily lends itself to a variety of activities. Even a trip for an ice cream cone can be tied back to the book!

On the flip side of that, it can also be a book that you use to promote healthy eating. Talk to your kids about their food habits and eating how they were meant to eat. Discuss how eating a green leaf is healthy for a caterpillar and therefore, it’s what made him feel better. 

This book is also excellent for teaching or reinforcing the days of the week. After you read it through once, you can read it again but have the kids shout out the days of the week as they come up.

More Very Hungry Caterpillar Activities:

The Very Hungry Caterpillar DIY Lacing Cards on Parenting Chaos

Feed the Caterpillar Activity (this one is so cute!) from Teaching Mama

Caterpillar Necklace Craft over on Buggy and Buddy

Hungry Caterpillar Coding Activity from JDaniel’s Mom

Very Hungry Caterpillar Toilet Paper Craft at Playdough to Plato

You might also be interested in these book activities:

Fancy Nancy Activities 

A Bad Case of Stripes Activities A Bad Case of Stripes Activities

Click, Clack, Moo; Cows That Type Activities 

Bugs Sensory Bin

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With this week’s theme being “Bb”, I thought that a bugs sensory bin would be fun and interesting and would fit in well.

–ladybug magnifying bug view container
-fly’s eyes toy (when you look through it, you see the way a fly sees)
-various bugs
–small plastic magnifying glass
-rice dyed green to look like grass

To dye the rice, put dry rice in a ziploc bag, add about a teaspoon of rubbing alcohol and lots of green food colouring, and shake until well mixed.  Then lay it out on a cookie sheet to dry, which does not take long.

Check out my book on sensory activities!

Condensed Milk Edible Paint

ice cube tray with paint while a hand paints a rainbow with a yellow brush

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We had so much fun with this condensed milk painting. The edible paint produces beautiful glossy art. Your kids will love the end results and the process to get there!yellow paintbrush dipped in red paint in ice cube tray as a rainbow is painted below. Text reads "Condensed Milk Edible Paint"Condensed milk paint was something I stumbled upon. A week or so ago, I opened up a can of condensed milk for a recipe only to discover that the recipe actually called for evaporated milk!

This left me with an opened can of condensed milk sitting in my fridge. I was going to just throw it out until I came across an idea to do condensed milk painting!

Making this edible paint is so easy.

Condensed Milk Edible Paint Recipe:

  1. Fill an ice cube tray with condensed milk.
  2. Add one or two drops of food colouring in each cube.
  3. Use toothpicks to stir them.
  4. The paint is now ready to use.
  5. Use paintbrushes (or fingers) to paint on paper. You can use regular paper, card stock, or finger paint paper.

a blue ice cube tray is filled with paint colours and a rainbow is being painted on a white paper

This edible paint recipe is included in the Sensory Play Recipes eBook. You’ll find so many easy sensory ideas inside. You can get a free sample using the form below.

My kids really enjoyed using this paint to create pictures. The pictures turned out so well. The paint gave a shiny, glossy finish. The kids were really pleased with the cool effect of that.

Even after the paint dries, it maintains its shiny look.ice cube tray with paint while a hand paints a rainbow with a yellow brush

Each of the kids wanted to try tasting the paint. Snuggle Puppy ate almost as much as he painted with! Condensed milk painting is a simple sensory activity. It engages the visual, tactile and gustatory (taste) sensory systems.

I love suggesting this activity to other moms because most people already have the ingredients needed in their kitchens. This makes it an easy last minute or rainy day activity.

Because it is taste-safe, condensed milk paint is also great for toddlers and even babies to play with. It can also be used as finger paint.

Other easy homemade sensory recipes you might want to check out:

Shaving Cream Painting Lavender Scented Bubbles 

Soap Foama black child's hand is reaching up from a bin of soap foam holding blue and pink soap foam. The bin contains areas of pink, blue, purple, and yellow soap foam.

Textured Butter Slime