Craft Catch-up!

The past few weeks have really flown by! I mean, how do we only have THREE days left in July?!

Here's a quick round up of some of the crafts Marshall has been making.  Two of his favorite things are paint and glue, so I try to include at least one of the two in every craft we do!

Baseball is a big topic of conversation in our house and 9 times out of 10, Marshall just wants to throw the ball up in the air and catch it with his glove.  He has gotten REALLY good at it!  So of course, I had to find a baseball craft for him.  This was really simple to do, but he absolutely loved it!

Marshall has also been on a Christmas kick lately, and NOT by any influence from me! 😂

It randomly started when he kept asking to watch Charlie Brown "Chris-Chris" every morning when he woke up, and even brought a Christmas book downstairs for me to read first thing.  Since then, we've watched several more Christmas movies, and I have no problem with that at all! 😉

We also made foam and popsicle stick Popsicles! When I kept telling him we were going to make popsicles, of course he was confused when I had to tell him we couldn't eat them. lol.

This was SUCH a fun and easy activity that Marshall loved way more than I thought.  I wrote out several of these sheets with numbers and letters for him to trace with Q-tips and paint, and he FLEW through them and kept asking me for more.  Not even joking, we probably ended up with at least 20 sheets of tracing that he did and loved so much! We will definitely be doing this again!

 

Finally, he asked me several times to do a shark craft, so I headed straight to Pinterest.  Marshall was eager to look, too, so he sat down beside me as I scrolled through "shark crafts for toddlers" and this was the one he chose! Coincidentally, we made it after reading Clark the Shark!

 

Fourth of July Crafts

This week, we did a different patriotic craft or activity every day, and even did the last one at the river yesterday!

We started off by painting some fun fireworks on Monday.  Super easy instructions here.

On Tuesday, Marshall loved making this hand print and fingerprint flag.

He calls his hand prints "high fives" and I love it 😊

On Wednesday, we did a counting worksheet and some coloring pages.

On the worksheet, I told Marshall to write his name on top of this line. He took what I said way too literally. 😂😂

At the river yesterday, Marshall made a necklace out of dried pasta noodles that I dyed red and blue.  Although, Marshall didn't hesitate at all to tell me they were more green than blue. haha

Yes, Marshall. No matter how much blue dye I kept adding, they still had a greenish tint. 😂

Hope you all had a fun Fourth of July!

Bead Sorting for Toddlers

Initially, my plan for this activity was to have Marshall thread beads onto pipe cleaners, but I'm pretty sure that lasted less than 60 seconds.  As we were picking through the beads to take out the ones that were too small for the pipe cleaner, another idea popped into my head that I knew he'd love: sorting.  I grabbed the ice cube trays I bought (same ones we used for the ice painting), showed him how to do the first few, and he picked up on the idea very quickly.

He sorted most of the beads by type, and some by color, and then I think we ended up with a couple bins of "this is the only bead we have of this type, so it belongs with the other misfits." 😂

Marshall LOVES learning to spell right now, so he was excited about all the letter beads I had.

 

I knew I saved all those miscellaneous beads for a reason 😉

Arts & Crafts Fun

I have a huge craft shelf with tons and tons of craft materials that never get used anymore. (Anyone else like me and used to scrapbook years ago, and now we just say we're going to scrapbook that later?) Most of my craft supplies are from my scrapbooking days, but there are also random things that have been mixed in over the years.  I decided to go through all of this and make a craft box for Marshall, with lots of things that he can use to do whatever he wants with. I had to pick up a few things like glue, more pompom balls and googly eyes, etc., but 95% of these materials were things I already had.  It's all in a box that he can easily go through himself now, and I love hearing him tell me daily that he wants to do crafts 😊

His favorite thing to do is simply glue things on a piece of scrapbook paper. Anything from those googly eyes and pompoms to other pieces of paper.  Because I said it so many times to him when we first started, he always says "tiny dots" every time he uses the glue 😂 

Here are some of his creations:

 

Yesterday, we started adding googly eyes and glitter to rocks, as well.

Another fun activity he enjoyed was Ice Painting. This was super simple to put together and actually lots of fun!

You mix 1 tsp of paint with 1 tsp of water and put a popsicle stick in it to create a handle.

Freeze for a couple hours and they pop out very easily.

Marshall painting "Mr. Sun" and the Christmas tree he asked me to paint.

He is definitely my child. 🎄 

Books + Snacks

We took a break from our books + coordinating crafts and switched to books + coordinating SNACKS! 

Last week, we read If You Give a Moose a Muffin and I'm sure you know what we made. 😉  Marshall chose to make blueberry muffins, and seeing as they are one of his favorite foods, he loved this! He did such a good job helping mix up the batter and then anxiously waited while they baked.

Today, we read The Cat in the Hat, and I found this super cute snack idea on Pinterest.  I think it came together well, but it is definitely harder to draw a cat face on a marshmallow than it looks. 😂

Fun at the Library

Marshall and I (Mace, too 😊) have become regulars at the library this summer. He has always loved books and reading, and now he loves going to pick out his own new books to read.  Last week, we got him a library card and I showed him how to check books out.  This week, I showed him how to return his books in the book return slot, and he helped me check books out again. He loves to help with anything, and these tasks were no exception!

On Wednesday, we went to the Bobby Cadabra Magic Show at the Sandston Library to kick off Summer Reading. We have done so much already for Marshall's reading log, and he's really enjoying it!

Y'all, when he started this next trick, I was preparing to be embarrassed. haha. 

For those that don't know, Marshall could live off of PBJ sandwiches and waffles if we let him. It's his favorite thing. Well, Bobby Cadabra said he was going to make a PBJ sandwich for lunch, and I'm sitting in the back thinking, "oh my gosh, Marshall is going to ask for a sandwich for himself." 😂 Thankfully, he didn't, but then, they played the song, "Peanut Butter Jelly Time" and I just KNEW Marshall would get up and dance. (We have dance parties to this song at home, haha). Again, thankfully, he didn't get up, but even if he had, it would've made for a good story!

Last night, we went to see Zeke the dog at the Varina library! We heard about him from mom (she works in an elementary school library).  Zeke visits libraries and hangs out listening to kids read to him.  Marshall didn't read to Zeke, but I watched from a distance as a couple kids did read to him.  The Varina library is still really new, and the entire building is beautifully designed, but the children's area is amazing! Marshall LOVED playing at this library, and didn't pick out as many books because he wanted to play with the groceries. 😂

 

This picture cracks me up!

Dad and Marshall were lining these monkeys up in the shape of a "C." Dad kept adding more to make it into a circle. Marshall looked at it and said, "Oh no! My C!" 😂

 

Checking out and heading home.