Owly and Wormy Wordless Picture Book

Andy Runton, author of Owly graphic novels, has made his first Owly full-color picture book!!  Owly & Wormy: Friends All Aflutter will be released in March but is available for pre-order at many places, including Amazon!!  "Owly and Wormy want butterflies! But when they come home from Mrs. Raccoon's nursery with a milkweed plant that's supposed to attract some fluttering friends, what they get instead are chubby, green bugs!"--from Top Shelf

I am sooo excited about this book because my kids and I love reading Owly!  I'm even more excited that Owly & Wormy: Friends All Aflutter is a great price right now on Amazon!

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Bookworm Beginnings-- Friendship

I like reading books about friendship with my kids because it's an important topic to be talked about before a child starts school and continues to be a huge part of life.  Each of these picture books has a lesson on friendship.  I'm a little lazy to write a brief description for each book so if you want to read a synopsis click on the title and it will take you to Goodreads.  Happy Reading!

Don't Worry Bear by Greg Foley

 Toot & Puddle: You Are My Sunshine by Holly Hobbie

 Little Blue Truck by Alice Schertle

A Visitor for Bear by Bonny Becker

*Linked to Annie's Feed Me Books Friday on Little Sprouts Books!

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Preschool Activity: ABC's with Chalk and Water

My son is doing home preschool with the Utah UPSTART program.  It's all on the computer so I like to supplement with regular activities.  I use resources on my Home Preschooling Helps post to find ideas.

I discovered this fun chalk and water activity On Gayle's Preschool Rainbow (scroll down to 'Erasing with Water').  My son actually enjoys practicing letters with this method.  We have small chalkboards that we got from a friend who's a retired teacher. 
(No Biggie has a guest post on Make and Takes that shows you how easy it is to make your own chalkboards!)

Sewing: Drawstring Bag

I came across a Simple Drawstring Bag tutorial from Happy Things and luckily she spoke in simple sewing terms.  I more than lack skills in sewing so if I can sew it you certainly can too. 
I made this bag a few months ago for some homemade lacing shapes. A little drawstring bag could hold so many kid things like fun-shaped homemade crayons and story dice and would make a perfect little gift for a birthday or Christmas.
(find another simple Drawstring Bag tutorial on Make and Takes) 

Easy Turkey Finger Puppet

Skip To My Lou has a Turkey Finger Puppet tutorial that's so easy and fun!  We made one with felt and one with foam.  Instead of machine sewing the felt turkey body I had my daughter hand stitch it.  I hot glued the foam turkey for my son. Now we'll have to come up with a mini script for a Turkey Theater on Thanksgiving Day before eating pie!

My Son Likes Mazes

My 4 year old likes mazes a lot.  I'm making him a folder full of fun, mostly mazes, like the Mad Libs Travel Folder I made this summer.  I started searching for printable mazes and found mazes on Woo! Jr. but they're on the difficult side for a preschooler.  In a September post Wendy said she takes requests so I asked her if it was possible to create some little kid mazes.  She responded quickly and posted 9 awesome easy kids mazes in no time!  They are are just what I wanted and I know my son will enjoy them!  Thanks Wendy!  
*maze image from Microsoft Clip Art

A few more sites that have printable mazes:
DLTK Mazes
Busy Bee Kids Printable Mazes
Mr Printables Printable Mazes (via Pinterest)

Kaboose Animal Mazes
All Kids Network Printable Mazes for Kids
Lakeshore Learning Alphabet Mazes (under Language Arts category)

Cheap Halloween Craft: Lighted Skulls

I really like this Lighted Skulls project from Obsessively Stitching because it's creative and cheap-- you reuse a little milk bottle!  Dollar Store Crafts has the full tutorial.

Boy and Girl Paper Dolls with Halloween Costumes

Gwen from Gwenny Penny has created printable Halloween Paper Dolls that she's sharing for free!  I saw her guest post on The Idea Room and immediately contacted her.  Her printable is for personal, non-commercial use only!

Find more free paper dolls with Halloween costumes on babalisme (boy and girl), wee life, and BillyBear4Kids.

Paper Dolls Around the World on Education.com

There are 27 free printable Paper Dolls from Around the World on Education.com!  A flag and little facts about each country are included on the worksheets.  Each doll has only one traditional dress outfit but the children are all sized the same so you could put all the dolls together to make a set!  You could write the specific country on the back of each doll and outfit for a reminder.  If you plan ahead and check out library books about the countries it would be a very educational activity!

Fishing for Floating Foam Fish

This is an easy to make fishing set that can be played with outside in water or indoors on the floor!  The fish are fun plain but even better with numbers, letters, or holes for a fantastic learning activity.  Make two poles to play a fun game to see who can get the most!

My kids have had a good time fishing for floating foam fish in the kiddie pool. 

Supplies:

fun foam (Dollar Tree find)

brads (mine are small craft brads)

dowels ($1 at Walmart)

ribbon

strong magnets 

hot glue gun and/or waterproof glue

Use waterproof glue for ribbon and magnet if you'll be playing in the water.  I made a slit in the foam before attaching the brad eye.

Make a Boat and Watch it Float!

In July we made craft stick boats after I saw a cool bamboo boat on Childhood Magic (blog is no longer public).  I used hot glue and they fell apart shortly after getting wet.  I think I should tie the sticks together with twine.  This is a fun craft for anytime of year since you can float them in the tub or sink just for fun!

Easy boats that float:

Made by Joel Walnut Boats

Wabi-Sabi Wanderings Driftwood Sailboats

Ziggity Zoom Milk Carton Boats

Made by Joel (a cool and creative dad)

Did you miss the first fantastic find I posted about from Made by Joel-- Printable Paper City??  This guy's creativity and simplistic approach to playing amazes me!  His kids are lucky to have such a cool and fun dad!  I basically browsed every post on Made by Joel and found many great things to add to my kid list.  It's so nice of him to take the time to share these creative ideas with us!!  You need to check out the site for yourself but here's some posts I really like:

► Match Game (you could make it a toddler memory game)

► Zip Line Toy (soooo creative)

► Toddler Stilts (definitely a safer option over Classic Can Stilts)

► Cereal Box Marble Run (my kind of fun-- reuse and then recycle)

► Wall Hanging Box Aquarium (seriously, we're making one or two so the kids will stop asking for a real pet)

► Tin Can Telephones (hooray for old fashioned communication)

Ed Emberly's Fingerprint Drawing Book

I checked out Ed Emberly's Fingerprint Drawing Book from the library and my 7 year old daughter has had so much fun with it!  I equipped her with a smock, stamp pads, wet rag, scratch paper, and construction paper.  She wasn't satisfied with her beginning practice but I told her to keep trying and look closely at the drawings and after a while she proudly showed me her page full of fingerprints!  She also made two birthday cards and was inspired to create a fingerprint drawing of her own (big dipper)!

The pictured directions for each fingerprint drawing are easy to follow.  The fun includes holidays, seasons, garden, and feelings.  Ed Emberly's Fingerprint Drawing Book would make a fun kid gift!

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Printable Paper City

When I saw this free printable Paper City from Made by Joel (found via Together We Save and Money Saving Mom) I knew my son would enjoy it!  I'm saving the fun for a rainy day!  The Paper City Vehicles and Helicopter make this pretend city awesome for boys!!

*Check out all of Joel's Paper City Printouts.

Play Tic-Tac-Toe Outside

Are you creating summer memories with Education.com's Summer Challenge?  A great and simple activity for many ages is Rock Out with Tic-Tac-Toe.  My kids had just as much fun painting the rocks as they did playing the game outside over and over!  Keep the rocks with a piece of chalk in a reuse container and take the game anywhere!