Ireland inspired

Ever since doing the Ireland study the lad's been somewhat intrigued by castles.

So one day...we built one. :)



It has now been added to his city upstairs in his bedroom.

He occasionally asks if we can build another one, and since I can't remember where I picked this up, all I can say is "I don't know buddy, we'll have to see if I can find another one."

Craft pages

AHC Arts and Crafts

all sorts of crafty things. rather a neat site indeed. :)

ARTS AND CRAFTS PROJECTS FOR KIDS: Crafts Ideas by Materials Used, Theme, and also Trash to Treasure Crafts Projects and Coloring Pages. These Will Entertain your Preschoolers, Teens, Toddlers, and Young Children.

Crafting sites

Here is a list of websites/stores that have craft projects or classes for kids

www.Michaels.com - Michael's even has a website with video crafts to do at home. Here are some fun Thanksgiving projects, and here are some free classes and demos.

www.Joann.com - craft supplies, videos and craft ideas.

Krafts for Children at Kaboose.

Amazing moms.

www.Lakeshore Learning.com - This website includes a teacher's section and crafts and activities.

Activity village.

The Home Depot does a wooden craft the second Saturday of the month (at least in the London area).

The Activity Cupboard.

They're ornaments, and they turn out beautifully. You can make them in all sizes and hang them around the house. You can add sequins, bows, or anything else pretty to them. Here are some instructions: http://www.marthastewart.com/article/snowy-ornaments

The crafty crow.

Bible based crafts.

Gifts in a Jar (I think J and I might do this for Christmas this year).

Origami (paper airplanes)

How to Make a Paper Airplane.

10 Paper AirPlanes.

Easy to Make Paper Airplanes.

Best paper Airplane.

Basic Version of paper airplane.

Easter Links

Easter Egg designs.

Draw a picture of a mouse.

Make your own Easter Bunny.

Bunny ears for Children.

there are lots more on-line just look for them. :)

Crafting Pages

Make a hand-print turkey.

Justin liked this idea as well, and we have LOTS of baby food jars yet. Stained glass votives.

Fizzy Balls

You just mix 1/4 cup of baking soda, with 4 Tbs. water, and a few drops of food coloring into a dough. Put your little treasure in it and roll into a ball so that it looks like a stone. That's all. Just let them sit in the open air to dry overnight. (hide a small treasure inside)

The next morning you can just put the fizzy stones all in the GladWare box, and put it in a gift bag along with your bottle of vinegar.

You'll want to have a clear measuring cup or bowl handy so that you can pour the vinegar in and watch the magic happen.

The vinegar does lose its potency fairly quickly though so after doing a stone or two, you need to dump out that vinegar and get more before adding another stone.

Personalized memory Game. Thought this one had potential.

Cereal box ideas

Jamin's cereal box ideas.

i want to look at the links here abit more, but thought I'd save this before I lost the link.

rather cool crafting site

homeschool freebie of the day sends out freebies to folks that they found here there and all over the place online.

Nice to have them doing the work.

anyways, they came up with this one over at Canon.

not exactly easy to do with a preschooler, but way cool none-the-less. If you have an older ... probably 8 and up ... child, then this site might be just the ticket for the crafty side of them. (if, of course, they have one).

I'm going to try this japanese bobtail one with my cat crazy lad.

Make your own Juice box car!

Go here.

make a car.

looks fun doesn't it?

How creative can you be???

You’ll need:

Two clean and dry juice or milk boxes
Some thin, flexible wire
Four matching bottle caps
Modeling clay
Scissors
A magic marker
Adhesive tape
Paint

Easter is coming

This time of year is hard in a pastor's family, especially in a church that celebrates the day's of Easter.... Good Friday service, Sonrise service and so forth. Means extra work for pastor, and less of having daddy around to help and play. :) But I was thinking about it, and as God would have it, so was This Old Schoolhouse, they sent out their Friday Freebie, and it's all about Easter. So here are some links on Easter to help with the teaching and crafting of it.

Perhaps first I'll give you an email that was sent to me though on the facts of Easter for this year.

Easter this year is: Sunday March 23, 2008
As you may know, Easter is always the 1st Sunday after the 1st full moon after the Spring Equinox (which this year is March 20). This dating of Easter is based on the lunar calendar that Hebrew people used to identify Passover, which is why it moves around on our Roman calendar.
A couple more things you might be interested in! Based on the above Easter can actually be one day earlier (march 22) but that is pretty rare.
This year is the earliest easter any of us will ever see the rest of our lives. And only most elderly of our population (aged 95 or more) have ever seen it this early. And none of us have or will ever see it a day a day earlier.
Here are the facts:
The next time Easter will be this early (March 23) will be the year 2228 (220 years from now). The last time it was this early was 1913 (so if you're 95 or older, you are the only ones that were around for that!) The next time it will be a day earlier (March 22), will be in the year 2285 (277 years from now). The last time it was on March 22 was 1818. So, no one alive today has or will ever see it any earlier than this year!
ENJOY THE UNIQUENESS OF THIS SPECIAL DAY AND THIS LITTLE PIECE OF HISTORY!

Now for other Easter stuff :)

• Bible in Living Sound is offering The Passion of Jesus Christ as a free MP3 download. This is a enthralling re-enactment with music and "live" sound effects putting your kids in the middle of the action. You will find the free downloads HERE.
• Activities
• bookmarks
• resurrection eggs
• seeing the art work of easter. The Passion of Christ in Art.
  
• 
  
• For generic stuff on Easter check out
• Easter Bunny.net - this site has a variety of songs, recipes, traditions, etc.
  
• Easter Christian Resources by King's Kids - stories, activities, etc.
• A Glorious Easter - teacher resources
• 
  
• Cooking for Easter
• Easter Cookie Recipe
• Easter Bunny Cookies
• Easter Egg nests
• 
  
• stories on Easter
• Easter bunny, are you real?
• Evan
• Suddenly One Morning
• The Easter Story
• Religious Easter Stories
• 
  

Making a 3-D snowflake

Got this idea from Holy Experience, who referred me here.

Think it's something I can do sometime with Justin (not yet though, he's not quite old enough to handle it). :)

Written directions
Take 6 squares of any kind of paper.
Fold in half on the diagonal.
Cut 4 slits on both sides, don't let the slits connect.
Lay it flat, and then using tape, take two sides and loop them together. Alternate sides.

Do this for each of the four slits.
This makes one side of the snowflake.

Then make the other 5.

Take three of the sides and staple the ends together.
then do the same for the other three.

Put the stapled ends together and staple them as well.
Then staple some of the edges together to make cohesive unit.

Then hang up! :)

The video does a better job of explaining it. :)

Ah here..found one on Youtube. :)

Autumn

The Old Schoolhouse has once again, sent out a treasure of freebies. :)

This focus of this one is Autumn stuff, goes to figure since well....summer is technically over. :)

First up... I really like this, It comes from treasure house press. A PDF file of the science of autumn.

It's called "The Science of Autumn" (and trees!) and looks like loads of fun! There are activity pages, informational write-ups, notebooking pages, web resources and more!

Next up is a page loaded with Fall craft ideas for children. Bookmarks, place mats, ponytail holders. Fun for children. More can be found here and here.

Random stuff

Okay, this is just a bunch of random stuff pulled from the Friday Freebies that This Old Schoolhouse sends out.

Kid Genius. It has games, worksheets and a variety of other things. I have not checked it all out yet.

Shiller Math. Has diagnostic sheets to help see where you are missing in your math program.

How to make a Patriotic AirPlane. Not being stateside, the only real use I see for this is sharing it with my American friends, or using it as a template to make a Canadian one! :) It's a PDF file.

Colouring Pages of all sorts, flags, alphabet, basically whatever

Scratch your own Fireworks. A way to make firework picture, an art thing. I'm thinking the Kinder art page might be good over all for crafts.