Back to School Activity Wall

With just over a week left of summer vacation, we decided to create a Back to School Activity Wall. Intead of using the tree I created from paper, I found a large bulletin board tree at Joann Fabrics. It worked great, and I will be able to use it for different seasons as well. (I will use the different colored leaves and acorns for the activity pieces in the future.)  

For the back to school wall, I used apples for the activity pieces. I found these at Joann Fabrics as well. I wrote the crafts on the apples and added them to the tree. Each day the kids will pick a different apple and that will be the activity for the day. 

Our apples say: 

*Spaghetti Sensory play

*All about me rainbow

*Make a marshmallow bridge

*Make snack bags for school

*Back to school scavenger hunt

*Back to school photo booth

*Compass painting

*Make bouncy balls

*Camp-out in the living room for drive-in movie

Baseball Activity Wall

After a rough winter, everyone is feeling excited for the start of spring, but more importantly, for the start of Baseball!

For opening day tomorrow, we not only turned our refrigerator into Paws (the Detroit Tigers mascot) http://workingmomwonders.blogspot.com/2014/03/detroit-tigers-paws-refrigerator.html, but also made a baseball activity wall. 

I drew a field on a large sheet of white butcher paper. Then I painted the grass with green paint. I mixed brown and white paint for the diamond dust. I painted the bases with white paint. Finally, I drew an Old English D with blue glitter paint. 

I cut the field out and taped it to the wall. I then cut circles from white cardstock and drew red baseball lines with a red sharpie.

Each ball will become a "game ball" or the activity for the day. The baseballs have various baseball, spring, and summer crafts on the back of them. (Most of which I found on Pinterest.) 

Pot o' Gold Activity Wall for St. Patrick's Day

The Pot o'Gold Activity wall has made another appearance. It stored pretty well and still looks ok on the wall for a second year.

Every day the kids will select one of the numbered coins from the pot of gold. 

I like to make the kids think about things they are thankful for, or tie this activity to a life lesson of some sort.

Every day, in order to collect their "activity coin", they have to go around the house and find something that they normally take for granted to donate to our "Pot of Blessings". (This could be toothpaste, can food, shampoo, roll of paper towels, etc.) At the end of the season, we will donate these supplies to the local shelter or to the church collection. (This idea is courtesy of the kids' daycare provider--Thanks, Marcy!)

Here are the activities I chose for the coins last year. This year, I have started a St. Patrick's Day Pinterest board. When the kids collect their coin, I am going to let them choose an activity from the Pinterest board. 

1 Make St. Patrick’s Day Playdough

2 Make lucky cupcakes

3 Make jelly bean prayer eggs

4 Make a shamrock collage

5 Take a green bubble bath

6 Paint shamrock ornaments

7 Make bunny handprint cards

8 Make toilet paper roll bunnies

9 Make bunny tin decorations

10 Make sugar cookies for St. Patrick’s Day and Easter

11 Make a leprechaun handprint craft

12 Go to the library for holiday books

13 Make an Easter chick

14 Make a green carnation centerpiece.

15 Make rainbow cupcakes

16 Go on a shamrock hunt

17 Have a “green” dinner

Bonus Easter Coins

18 Go on an Easter egg hunt for privileges

19 Make Mr. Potato head eggs

20 Make a cross suncatcher

21 Make a popcorn lamb

22 Make shaving cream colored eggs and Easter handprint frames

23 Make other colored eggs

Note: The Pot o' Activities is made from white craft paper. The reason it is a little crooked is it is drawn freehand! We colored the pot and drew a shamrock.

The rainbow is made from the same white paper and is colored. The shamrocks are wall decorations we found at Joann Fabrics. The coins are yellow construction paper with the small wall decals placed on them.

Leprechaun Refrigerator Decoration

Last year, our St. Patrick's Day refrigerator decoration was made out of construction paper. (http://workingmomwonders.blogspot.com/2013/02/st-patricks-day-leprechaun-refrigerator.html) 

This year, to make it more reusable, I decided to make it out of felt. I think he turned out a lot better this year. 

I also decided to hot glue on magnet circles so it will stay on the refrigerator better. 

I just cut everything free-hand. Everything is made from felt except the eyes (they are google eyes) and the buttons are yellow stickers. 

Snowman Refrigerator

Our winter refrigerator decoration is a snowman. Instead of using construction paper, like I have for my past refrigerator decorations, I have found that using felt pieces is more practical if I want to reuse these. 

So, I cut eyes, a mouth, buttons, and a hat from black felt pieces. I cut a carrot nose from orange felt, and David picked out a decorative felt piece for the scarf. He picked a blue piece with sock monkeys on it. 

(It took two pieces of the decorative felt to make the whole scarf. Those were 50 cents each at Hobby Lobby. It took two pieces of black felt and one piece of orange felt for the rest of the snowman. The solid-colored felt was 25 cents each.)  Total cost: $1.75

January Activity Wall-Garden of Healthy Choices

The holiday baking season was a lot of fun for the kids (and me). However, I decided January needed to be a time to add more healthy choices to our menu. To make this adventure a little more exciting, I turned these healthy choices into our next activity wall.

Our typical activity walls are dedicated to different crafts the kids uncover each day. For this month's wall, I turned each day into a different fruit or vegetable. The fruit or vegetable the kids uncover each day will be the star of our meal that night. To add a little learning for my younger children, I dedicated each of January's five weeks to a different color. 

I started by making "garden row markers". I broke a flat crafting popsicle stick into thirds. I hot-glued a mini clothespin to five crafting stick pieces. Then I cut paint swatches for the five colors I am using. (red, orange/yellow, blue/purple, green, and white/tan)

I wrote the dates and the colors on the swatches and attached them to the row marker with the clothespin. 

Next, I bought a large brown piece of foam from Hobby Lobby (construction paper would also work fine). I drew five rows on the foam and hot-glued a row marker to each row. 

 

For the blue/purple week, I cut four random shapes from blue and purple felt. Then I cut seven shapes from green felt for week two. I repeated this step for each week. Then I wrote a fruit or vegetable on a small post-it and attached it to the back of each felt shape. 

 January 1-4 is the color blue/purple. Our fruits and veggies are blueberries, blackberries, purple cabbage, and purple carrots. 

January 5-11 is the color green. The fruits and veggies are green beans, cucumbers, green peppers, kiwi, asparagus, green grapes, and leafy greens. 

January 12-18 is dedicated to yellow/orange. Our fruits and veggies are oranges, carrots, yellow peppers, yellow tomatoes, mangos, lemons, and starfruit.

January 19-25 is the color red. The fruits and veggies are cherries, apples, red grapes, raspberries, red onions and red peppers, tomatoes, and red potatoes.

January 26-31 is white/tan. Our fruits and veggies are brown pears, bananas, onions, parsnips, garlic, and white peaches.

The final step was to turn the shapes over and attach the "garden" to the wall. On a piece of grass scrapbook paper, I used a black paint marker to write "Garden of Healthy Choices". Now, each day, the kids can uncover a different fruit or vegetable. We will make that fruit/veggie the star of our dinner that day. 

Because my kids will still want to do activities after we cook dinner, I am going to try to center our activities around the week's color or the day's shape. At the end of each week, we will write/draw about our experiences with that week's fruits and veggies. 

Santa Refrigerator Decoration

Here is the start to our Santa fridge. I ran out of red felt, so I will have to finish the pants and arms later, but at least it is started. The entire thing is made from different colors of crafting felt. 

My youngest son has been begging for a Si Robertson Santa fridge, so to keep the peace around here, I printed a picture of Si (http://static1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20130601153322/duckdynasty/images/0/08/Si.jpg) and placed it in the face spot. 

Here is Santa finished! The entire thing is done with felt.