Sponges!

What do you do on the second day of rain? Pull out the sponges and have some fun!

Sponge sheets I got at the schools "garage sale" recently.

I cut them into shapes for my class and...

gave my little guy the scraps!

I should note that these are the sponges that are flat, but once you add water they grow. He giggled and giggled. He spent about 20 minutes playing in the sink with them. He put them in the cup, dumped them out, and watched them twirl around in the sink. He did this all while singing and laughing. It was contagious.

Have you played with sponges? If so what did you do?


UPDATE: Big brother has joined in the fun after school. It has been at least 30 minutes of fun!

Animals in the Winter

This week I am discussing animals in winter with my friends. I have a great set of books I purchased from Costco, First Library Animal Picture books. We are focusing on the Polar book.

There are several other books you can use:

• The Happy Day by Krauss
• Time to Sleep by Flemming
• Polar Bear,  Polar Bear, What do you Hear? by Martin

Our craft is focused on polar animals as well.

• Animal Painting. I have several different animals you would find out and about during winter. I enlarge the animals and will have the children paint the pictures with a mixture of white paint and  corn syrup. The corn syrup makes the paint shiny, which to me looks more like snow. 

I also pulled out the infamous purple sand, and yet again it was a huge hit!

Getting Crafty On A Rainy Day

When we woke up today it was raining, and guess what 7 hours later it still is! I declare today a craft day.

We started by putting up our Christmas tree. I have a "treasure chest" of ornaments  that my boys can play with, which I hang on the bottom of the tree. They are either soft plush toys or ornaments my oldest has made in the past.

Next we moved on to making snow people for my class this week. I have a cute poem about Five Little Snowmen, and I needed puppets. I was going to make snow people out of construction paper, but my oldest reminded me we have foam snowmen. He went to town decorating them. I love that he did not use just foam; he used markers for faces (and made them all have different expressions), wiggly eyes, and of course tape. Tape is way over used in our house, but I will let that be another post.

Finally I had him put up the magnet advent calendar my mom gave the boys. It is a great tool to practice counting. They love that it goes on the fridge; it allows for fun time while mommy is making food.

Sorry for quality, it just would not turn out well with my phone. 

By the way, the puppets are a huge success; my oldest is putting on a play right now for me. I cannot wait for little brother to wake up from nap to see the stories they will create. 

I have so many rainy day winter crafts spinning in my brain. What is your favorite winter time craft?