Laptime Songs for Mommies

It's here! It's finished! And I'm so excited to share my joy with you! My very first eBook is finished and ready for purchase. Laptime Songs for Mommies captures the essence of Musical Development, which is combining the melody of familiar songs with traditional and new variations of lyrics. Music is a great way to bond with your little one as well as a way to keep kids active and engaged. Having the right tools makes your part easier and maximizes the benefits for your little one.

Laptime Songs for Mommies includes

• Full-Color, Interactive PDF
• Intro to Laptime, including explanations of development and adaptations with little ones
• 6 Traditional Songs
• Over 50 Rhymes
• 4 Original Rhymes Written Just For This Book
• 4 Themes or Topics for a Complete Laptime Experience
• 4 Craft Ideas with 3 Printables

As a bonus, I've also included a printable version of the book that has all the color removed and the graphics minimized to help save on ink. There's also the MP3 version of each song included in the book.

I'm really excited that this project came together so nicely and is finally all the way finished. I'd love to hear what you think of it. Go check it out!

Twinkle Twinkle Little Star Crafts

I've noticed lots of people searching for crafts to do with Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and thought today would be a perfect day to share the ones that have been a huge success at our house.

Star on a Stick Craft
Cut out 2 star shapes from heavy paper.
Have little one decorate the stars: color, glitter, buttons.
Glue one star on each side of a craft stick.

Starry Night Craft
Cut out bits of yellow construction paper. These are the "stars."
Put drops of glue on a piece of dark blue construction paper.
Have little one place yellow "stars" on top of the drops of glue.

Star Mobile Craft
Cut out various sizes of stars from heavy paper.
Have little one decorate stars in different ways.
Punch a hole in the top of each star.
Use plastic department store-style hanger that spins and tie stars to the arms of the hanger.

What are your favorite crafts that accompany Twinkle Twinkle Little Star?

Physical Friday:

The GNO Party this week on Twitter was fantastic. I love living in Eastern time because the girls are sound asleep by the time the party starts. Mom It Forward knows how to throw a party! The topic was Affordable Fun 101: Kids Crafts and Ideas. This was right up my alley so I was honored to be a part of the panel.

A few ideas that received a lot of attention are things we do around here so I thought I'd share. Today's idea involves butcher paper, your child's body and crayons/markers/colored pencils. Easy peasy, right?

Now to get down to business. Have your child lie down on the butcher paper. Then trace around your child with a crayon/marker/colored pencil. After you've traced the whole body, have the child color in clothes, hair, facial features, or Sammi's favorite, finger and toe nails.

Variations/Extensions
Several party-goers offered great ideas on how they adapted this concept with their little ones.

• The original idea was brought up by Workingmomma247: "I have had my 5yr old lay down on butcher paper to outline his body and he colored the rest."
• From Momof3boys3702 comes this extension: "We are doing Biology this year and I was thinking of doing that and having him draw his organs in correctly."
• And Brunette01 came up with this variation with her daughter: "I helped my DD do cut-outs of everyone in the family to add to her bedroom wall. All her idea. It's awesome :)"
• We had Sammi trace around Elli and around Daddy. Daddy was a lot more cooperative :)
  

As you can see, Sammi is turning into a lefty! This fun idea also gives little ones time to practice fine motor skills. Sammi is learning to control her hand better and the pencil as she traces around body parts. Going in between fingers is still hard for her, but when she's done, you can tell which body part she traced! She now loves to trace her own hand. And then "paint" the fingernails.
And to continue, from yesterday, with things to remember about three year olds (and probably all children): Never attempt to do a project, even if it's fun, between bath time and bedtime. Especially if you want pictures that are halfway cute. It's not a pretty picture. I don't recommend doing it!

Thinking Thursday: Countries and Flags

"Salt Lake"
"California"
"Home"
"Colorado"
"Tennessee"
"Japan"
"Bulgaria"

Name this country

These are just words like "cup" "ball" or "car" except they have no concrete physical existence than can be held or manipulated. I am amazed that Sammi has demonstrated an understanding of these words. She seems to know what is close and what is far from us, why the places are important for one reason or another.

She is particularly fond of California as she and my mom have planned several trips to the beach for when Sammi is bigger. She also talks about Tennessee a lot since we'll be moving there at the end of June. She's not so fond of home! She usually tries to talk me into a trip to the park or one more errand when we're on our way home.

In conjunction with our World Music Premier Playdate, we had a fun craft to introduce the kids to the different countries. We made flags out of consruction paper and cardstock. It was super easy and turned out fabulously! There are so many flags that are made of just strips of colors. I chose a few and cut out strips of red, blue, green and orange. I did some to make horizontal stripes and some to make vertical stripes. From those four colors we were able to make flags for Austria, Russia, India, Ireland, France, and Italy. We glued the strips onto white cardstock since white was a color in each of the flags.

The kids loved this craft because they could use the glue stick and put the stipes on all by themselves. The blue circle for the flag of India was used in almost every flag regardless of the actual country!

Physical Friday: Earth Day Craft

My most faithful commenter, Painting Pink Pajamas, hosted an Earth Day challenge this week. She challenged her readers to celebrate earth day and then blog about their experiences. When I first read her post, I hadn't made any plans in particular to celebrate earth day, but by the end of the week, I found an adorable craft for us to do.

This Egg Carton Ladybug comes from Enchanted Learning. After gathering the supplies to make the ladybug, I realized I also had the colors to make a bumble bee. Then we truly claimed the craft as our own by completing our set of egg carton creatures by making a caterpillar!

To make the bumble bee, we painted the carton yellow then added a black head and two black stripes. Then we poked two holes in the top, one for each wing. The wings are half a length of pipe cleaner looped and threaded through the hole. Then we bent the end over to hold it in place.

It's hard to tell in the picture, but each section of the caterpillar is a different shade of blue-green. We twisted a blue and a green pipe cleaner together to make the antennae and then curled them around a pencil. My favorite is the pink tongue. I'm pretty sure caterpillars don't have tongues, but I added the tongue in memory of the Cooties game where they have a little curly something for the mouth.

In true Earth Day style we did this craft outside on my mom's deck. It was a beautiful day with a slight breeze. While we were crafting away, we discovered a birds nest with 5 eggs in on of her hanging planters. We had an interesting discussion with Sammi about birds hatching from eggs. She loves to crack eggs when we cook so it was hard for her to grasp that these eggs were growing little baby birds.

Physical Friday: Making Letters

We've been having so much fun finding the S in Sammi's name everywhere! I decided she was ready to make one herself. One thing led to another and after a few days, we had her whole name! I wrote the letter with glue and she placed the objects on herself.

We practiced all the letters' names as we made them. Then just as we were finishing up, m mom stopped by. Sammi loved showing off her letters to my mom along with naming them for her! It was fun to see her remember them all after such a short time. I was also very impressed that she "got" the double M in her name. Usually she ignores the repetition because she doesn't see it as necessary. She already said it once and correctly at that! Why should she have to repeat it? I think making two Ms helped her "get" it.

For materials we used whatever I had around the kitchen. The S is dry black beans. The A is green yarn. The pink M is harvest rice medley. The blue M is penne pasta. The I is Acini di pepe pasta that I tossed with red and yellow food coloring drops for a fancy variegated look. For the rice and Acini di pepe she scooped it up with a spoon and then shook it out over the glue (like you do with glitter) and then I helped shake the paper around so all the glue was covered up. She liked these ones the best. I think she felt so grown-up using the spoon.

What else would be good materials for making letters?

Saint Patrick's Day Streamers

Along with the shamrock, the rainbow is a symbol of Saint Patrick's Day. The leprechauns are hiding at the end of the rainbow with their pots of gold. Instead of chasing rainbows or, worse, waiting for a rainbow to appear, we made our own rainbows at a recent playgroup. These rainbow streamers are a fun project for even the littlest ones. All you need is a small paper plate and the colors of the rainbow. You can use crepe paper, ribbon or even construction paper cut into strips.

Cut the center out of the paper plate. Cut the crepe paper, ribbon or construction paper strips into lengths ranging from 12-24 inches, whatever suits your supplies. Staple each color to the paper plate. We folded the ribbon over the inside edge of the plate and stapled through both layers of ribbon. Arrange the colors to match the rainbow. Remember Roy G. Biv? Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, and Violet. We omitted blue and only used one purple color. Anything goes!

After we attached the rainbow to the plate, we turned on some music and danced around. You could also have a parade across the yard or down the street. Happy Saint Patrick's Day. We hope it's a lucky one for you.


I'm posting this today instead of Friday because we are having our first guest post on Fitness Friday! We'll be hearing from 3boyzmom from Save Your Money Mama. I'm excited to hear what advice she gives on fitness and health. This is part of the Blog Swing for the Wii Mommies Twitter Party this Saturday. Check it out and register to win a Wii Fit from AceBeach.com

Musical Monday: Rhythm Ribbons

Rhythm ribbons: doesn't that just sound fun? They are! My daughter loves to jump/run/dance around the room with her ribbon in hand to just about any kind of music. The concept is quite simple: move the ribbon to the music. This is great because it doesn't take any kind of musical genius or even rhythm to have success with rhythm ribbons. It's a chance to connect body movement with the music.


Watch for the crawler at the end who makes a dash for an abandoned ribbon. So cute! Music in the video is At the Bottom of the Sea on For the Kids Too!

I know you're just jumping at the chance to put rhythm ribbons to work in your playtime so here are some resources to get you going. First, you need the ribbons. This project was so incredibly easy to make. In fact, I was able to make them while my toddler crawled all over me trying to get a better look and help any way she could. Second, you need to choose some magical music to get the party started!

Making Rhythm Ribbons
Materials: craft sticks, ribbon, Tacky glue

Directions: Cut ribbon into 3 1/2 foot (42 inches) lengths; Apply glue to one craft stick; Smear glue from first stick onto another craft stick; Place one end of the ribbon on the stick about 1 - 1 1/2 inches. Place the other craft stick (glue side down) on top of the craft stick with the ribbon; Press sticks firmly together; Place on wax paper, cover with wax paper and place a heavy book on top while glue dries.

Once the glue dries, your rhythm ribbons are ready to use! Sammi danced around the table asking if they were dry yet for about 10 minutes. (I was very impressed with her attention span for waiting for the ribbons!) Finally I gave in and checked and they were dry! We turned on some music and started spinning, zigzagging and waving our ribbons around the room.

Choosing Music for Rhythm Ribbons
Since using rhythm ribbons is about moving the ribbons, it's a great way to introduce children to classical music. What would otherwise be boring to just sit and listen to now provides a dynamic, engaging background for exploring rhythm ribbon movements. Once caution on classical music: The songs can get pretty long. If the song is too long children may lose interest in the rhythm ribbons and you may run out of ideas for different ways for them to move the ribbons around. Look for songs that are two to three minutes long to start with and then increase the length of song from there. Here are some ideas to get you started:

Baby Einstein: Traveling Melodies Available on
The Bumble-Bee (from 'The Legend of Tsar Saltan') Available on iTunes
William Tell Overture (Finale) Available on iTunes

Physical Friday: A Cut Above

Consider your child holding a pair of scissors. What's your first thought: a necessary evil or the ultimate challenge?

Sammi loves scissors. She loves to cut. Just before she turned two she really became aware of scissors and wanted to hold them, cut with them, even walk with them (if I would have let her!) I didn't think she was old enough to have anything to do with scissors, but it seemed every time I turned around she was pulling scissors out of my "secret" hiding spots.

I decided to embrace this advancement and take control of the situation. Education was in order. We talked about when we could use scissors, why we use scissors, what to cut, what NOT to cut, that we only sit when we cut (no walking or running) and so on. I was still apprehensive about her using regular-sized scissors so I found some craft scissors around the house for her to use. They were blunt tipped and the edges weren't as sharp. Then I tore out pages of a magazine and let her have at it.

She cut, seriously, for an hour! I had to vacuum to get up the tiny bits of paper she'd managed to cut. She went through probably only 3 pages of the magazine in that hour. She was so focused on developing that skill. I've since learned that I did a few things "wrong" in helping her use scissors. So you don't make the same mistakes I made, here are some tips I found in teaching children to use scissors:

• have your little one cut through play dough first, roll it out into a thin log (about 2 years old)
  
• move from play dough to card stock or manila folders
• THEN move to construction and lined paper
• move to tissue paper (about 2.5 years old)
  
• once your little one can cut through all of these, practice cutting along a thick line (about 3-3.5 years old)
• next practice cutting out a thick-lined circle (about 3.5-4 years old)
• finally practice cutting out a square with sharp corners (about 4.5-5 years old)

Check out these great resources for finding scissors and teaching your child to use scissors here and here.

Thinking Thursday: Nesting Hearts Valentine Special

Nesting hearts are a great way to talk about size with your little one. You can use different size cookie cutters or cut out the different sized hearts and talk about which ones are big which ones are small. You can even compare and ask you child to find the bigger heart or the smaller heart.

Toddlers are just beginning to classify objects, meaning they can separate one type object from another but only based on one difference between the two categories (dinosaur toys versus car toys). Their understanding of size and color, though, are still quite limited. It's fun to talk about color and size with little ones, but they may not be ready to permanently know that information. Toddler minds are bursting with so much new information everyday that it takes a very long time to sort out all that information and make sense of it. That's the job of toddlerhood! For that reason, it's good to plant the seeds of what they need to know (everything!) and wait for those seeds to take root and grow. While we're waiting, we keep playing the same games again and again.

Back to the hearts! These fun hearts can also be turned into Valentine's Day decorations. Layer the hearts from biggest to smallest and glue them together. You can further decorate them with ribbon, glitter, cardboard cutouts, anything you have on hand. To give some depth I used foam squares. Then I attached string and/or ribbon to hang them up with. You could also use yarn. I hung them between the kitchen and living room where the ceiling drops down.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Physical Friday: Binoculars

Today we continue this week's short series on pretend play.
This project is fun and addresses physical development on two different levels! First, the fine motor skills needed to decorate the binoculars and second the ability to look through the binoculars to the world beyond. These binoculars are perfect for toddlers because the size just perfectly matches the distance between their eyes.

Making Binoculars
Materials Needed:

• toilet paper rolls or paper towel rolls cut down
• decorative paper
• decorative details (pom poms, glitter, feathers, foam shapes, buttons, brads, stickers, anything you already have on hand)
• glue
• fat paintbrush
• glue dots

Directions:

1. Cut the decorative paper into rectangles measuring about 4.5" by 6" (some rolls were shorter)
2. Pour glue onto a plate and add a small amount of water; mix together using a fat paintbrush
3. Paint glue onto backside of decorative paper; affix to roll
4. Attach two rolls together using glue dots or another type of instant adhesive
5. Cut strip of decorative paper about 2" by 11" (measure around both rolls to make sure strip is long enough)
6. Wrap strip around both rolls and secure ends with glue or tape
7. Decorate binoculars with pom poms, glitter, feathers, foam shapes, buttons, brads, stickers, or anything you already have on hand

Once binoculars are dry (or at least mostly dry) go out and explore the world! Look through your binoculars and describe what you see. Ask your child to do the same. You can pretend you are in the jungle and describe the trees and animals you might see there. Or you can be at the zoo or in the ocean. Let the binoculars transport you to a different place or even a new world!

With very young children (less than 18 months) it's difficult for them to see through the binoculars. They get hung up on looking at the binoculars. Practice by putting your eye at one end and holding it up to their eye and talk about seeing the other eye. Gradually move away from the end and help your child to see your face. Once they "get" it, the binoculars are a new way to look at the world!

Physical Friday: Let's Make Drums

Hopefully you've found a copy of Hand, Hand, Fingers, Thumb by Al Perkins. Today we'll make some drums to use while reading it.
The drums I made are from a large oatmeal container. I cut the container into three sections to make three drums. Then I cut pages an old small phone book into strips. I made some paper mache glue. I dipped the strips in the glue and covered the top of the oatmeal container. I let it dry overnight and then added a second layer. I let that layer dry overnight again. Then I used some sandpaper and gently sanded the rough glue globs off so the top and edges were smooth. Then I painted the top and upper part of the sides with white acrylic paint. It needed two coats to cover the print on the paper. While it was drying I cut decorative paper into strips wide enough to cover the body of the oatmeal container. I painted the wrong side of the paper with craft glue and then attached to the base of the drum. I let it dry for an hour or so and then handed it over to Sammi for the test.

I admit, this is more of a grown-up craft. I didn't include Sammi in the creation of these drums. The project would be great for older kids, but toddlers aren't ready for paper mache! At least not mine :) So I found several sites with more kid-friendly drum making crafts. Find the one that matches what you already have at home and get busy! I'd love to know which tutorial you use and how it went.

Drum-making Tutorials
Easy Homemade Musical Instrument Projects for Kids: Drum, Didgeridoo, Trumpet
Coffee Can Drum
Native American Drum
African Drum
Little Drummer Boy Drum

Have a great weekend practicing your drum. We'll see you on Monday as we bring Hand, Hand, Fingers, Thumb by Al Perkins and your new drums together and explore more ways to encourage rhythmic development using drums.

Operation Playtime Day 5 Painting

Today's Operation Playtime activity comes from Amy at Let's Explore. She suggested a painting activity using kitchen gadgets and utensils as paintbrushes. Sammi is ALWAYS ready to paint so I thought this would be fantastic. And it was!

I put butcher paper over the table so we could be messy and then I put the kitchen gadgets in the middle of the table. Sammi climbed right up, grabbed the whisk and announced she'd use "this" to paint with. I didn't really remember telling her yet that we were going to paint! But I guess all the signs were there.
I put out three colors: red, blue and yellow. I added a little water to thin them out so they'd last longer and it'd be easier to coat the utensils with. But I think I added to much water because we mostly got blobs of paint at the beginning. But once we got going we developed some technique and enjoyed the project very much.

Physical Friday: Fruity Necklace

"I want a snack!"

I hear it all day long; I'm sure you do too. Sammi is a bottomless pit. Most children come equipped with the ability to recognize when they are full and to stop eating. With Sammi, I haven't figured out if she lacks that ability or if we've just never gotten her full. But, in an attempt to help her not overeat, I'm always looking for fun snack ideas that take awhile to consume.
For Christmas Sammi got a box of Fruit Loops. I found some string and an egg carton and we had an instant activity. Stringing the Fruit Loops on the string is a great exercise in fine motor skills. Not only is each hand doing something different, they are required to work together to produce the desired result. Sammi's neckalce wasn't very long, which is a reflection of her two year old attention span. However, the fact that she was able to make a necklace at all, shows that she's developing control of individual muscles in her fingers and hands. She had so much fun making the necklace. She ate a bunch while she was stringing her necklace, so we saved the actual necklace for another day. It was perfect! I had a whole afternoon without a single plea for a snack.

Making a Cereal Necklace

• All you need is a piece of string, a donut shaped cereal and an egg carton.
• Dump some of the cereal into the egg carton so it's easy to see and grab.
• Begin the necklace by looping the string around one Fruit Loop and tying it off. This will keep the rest from falling off while your child is stringing the necklace.
• String cereal onto the necklace. Continue until the necklace is full or your child is done with stringing.
• Loop the end of the string around the same Fruit Loop that the beginning is looped around.
• Now you have a necklace. Wear, snack and enjoy!

Musical Monday: Twinkle Twinkle Little Star

**UPDATED With Actions Below**
Check out more Twinkle Twinkle Little Star Crafts in this post!



Songs with actions are great! But what do you do with a great song that doesn't really have any actions? For Twinkle Twinkle Little Star it's fun to open and close your hands like a blinking star, but it's almost too repetitive, even for the most pattern-loving children. Sammi went through a period of time where she didn't want to sing this song, even though it was her very most favorite, because she didn't get to do anything during the song.

One day we cut out stars, colored them and glued them to a craft stick. Instant success. She loves to hold her star and move it around while we sing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. We've since discovered several objects in our home that have a star. Sammi bursts into song pretty much any time she finds one such object. It's good to have her back!

To make it easy, here's a star you can print, color and glue to your craft stick and start singing today:


Elaine shares these actions to use with Twinkle Twinkle Little Star:
Twinkle Twinkle little star (fingers twinkling)
How I wonder what you are (hands out with palms up)
Up above the world so high (pointing / stretching up)
Like a diamond in the sky (making a diamond shape with thumbs to forefingers on opposite hands)
Twinkle Twinkle little star (fingers twinkling)
How I wonder what you are (hands out with palms up)