Collages…

are the new cool thing at our house.  Ever since we made stockings for Christmas, Clara has been in love with glue. So, I’ve been letting her do her own thing with it.  I get out a piece of paper, some glue, and the collage box.  The collage box is just a pencil box with different odds and ends in it.  Here’s what’s currently in ours:

• cut out magazine pictures from various projects (like this)
• colored pom poms
• google eyes
• material scraps
• cut up pipe cleaners
• foam shapes and letters
• feathers
• buttons
• ripped up wrapping paper

But, really, you could put any small items you want in there. Then I set her loose with the glue and box of stuff. She tends to get her hands very sticky and then gets upset when the feathers stick to them, but otherwise, she doesn’t need my help much at all. Of course, I do have to remind her to put the glue down and stick some stuff to the paper already! But I can drink a cup of tea and relax some while she works. And that’s good enough for me.

Cars

This may, to some, look like a big blob of messy painting, and well, I admit it, it was.  But, it was also really fun!  Our preschool theme this month is transportation, so our lesson today at my house focused on cars.

We read numerous books about cars, the favorite being My Car by Byron Barton.  It’s the “story” of Sam, who loves his car and works as a bus driver, too.

We then did some car painting, which is just about the easiest painting project ever.  You put out a plate of paint, some paper, and some little cars.  Then, your cars drive in the paint and leave tracks when they drive on the paper!  It’s pretty fun for everyone.

Then our cars were VERY dirty, so we had to have a car wash.  This was actually a very successful activity.  You would think that the splashing would be awful and the kids would be soaking wet, but it was actually quite controlled.  They had a very specific purpose and took the cleaning of the cars very seriously.

Finally, when we went down to the basement for play time, we put some masking tape on the floor to make “roads” for our cars to drive on. We also started to make some buildings out of duplo blocks for the cars to drive around, but that wasn’t nearly as much fun as driving was. Maybe if I ever have a ton of extra time and creativity on my hands, I’ll make some of these to go with the roads.