The Pitfalls of Dining Outdoors

Outdoor dining isn't all it's cracked up to be! A gigantic bumblebee took residence on the back of my husband's sleeve, my son's lunch accidentally got bumped splattering all over the patio much to his dismay, and the grand finale was this lovely splat on my iPhone!

Another save for the old otterbox! Thank goodness that bird poop didn't land on my head or our food. Hope your day was less eventful! :)

Countdown to the End of School Craft - Paper Chain

I can hardly believe my son will be graduating PreSchool very soon. So we can all easily visualize how many days are left before he's out of school for summer, we made a simple countdown to the end of school craft, a paper chain.

This project incorporates lots of skill builders, like measuring and marking with a ruler, cutting and writing practice, calendar skills, and building a paper chain.

First, we pulled out two sheets of construction paper. My son picked green and blue. They don't need to be new sheets of paper, our sheets had already been used for drawing and painting projects.

Next we used a ruler and measured two inch strips that we marked with a pencil. Each sheet of construction paper makes 6 strips. My son used his scissors to cut the strips and then arranged them on a pile in a pattern of green - blue - green - blue until all the strips were organized.

We used our school calendar to count how many days are left until the end of school. He wrote the month and day on each strip of paper for each day we are counting down. On the last day of school I added a note, "Last Day of School! HELLO SUMMER!"

We used the strips of paper to make a paper chain with tape and hung it in our kitchen for a visual reminder of how few days we have left of school this year. This was a fun craft to create, but my favorite part is watching my son excitedly remove a link from the paper chain each day, read the date, and count how many days are left of PreSchool.

Handprint Flowers Art Project for Mother's Day

For Mother's Day, we made a handprint art project using paint to create handprint flowers.

My son is a pro at making handprint art projects thanks to his PreSchool teachers who do so many fun crafts with the kids. I started our project by making his print in purple. It turned out nice and crisp, but there was a white spot in the middle so I had him use red paint to create a thumbprint heart in the center.

This was my daughters first handprint art project, she recently turned one so I wasn't sure how it would turn out. It took both my husband and I to capture her tiny pink print and she did close her hand while I was brushing on the paint.  Even though her print ended up lower on the paper than I originally planned, it looked great and we just worked with what we got adding green stems and leaves.

I love looking at those cute tiny prints and look forward to creating more handprint art projects with the kids!