Open Ended Art - Pumpkins

We just love Open Ended Art! Want to find out more about Open Ended Art or see what other kiddies did? Visit Mommies Wise Little Bookworms. This weeks theme was Pumpkins, we made two projects with this theme. The first one is a bit more structured and the second one was really Open Ended!

For our first project I drew some pumpkins on red paper and gave them to Little Mouse to decorate. She decided to draw on them with mostly her black crayon.

I then cut them out and glued them to a clothes pin. I then glued a magnet to the back and viola! we have a fridge magnet! Now we have someplace to keep all those important drawings, etc.

For the second project I cut out a large pumpkin out of paper and gave her red paint, a brush and bubblewrap. I saw this great idea on Growing Up Our Style, Rebecca gave the kiddies some bubblewrap to use as a "stamp" and I wanted to see if Mouse will use this on her own as a stamp.

She first just painted on the pumpkin with the brush and then she decided to paint the bubblewrap too. After a minute or so she started "stamping" on her pumpkin with the bubblewrap! Here is the finished artwork.

Window Art

Today just before I washed our Sliding Door I gave Little Mouse her Draw in the Bath Crayons and showed her that you can draw on windows too!

She loved it! Here's the little artist at work...

I also took part in the fun and drew a flower that she coloured in.

Toy Box Storage Solution

Little Mouse really has tons of toys and her toy box was a nightmare! Most of it is old toys she received from my cousins, plus my mom is so amazing she kept all my little sisters and my old toys as well.

My planning for Tot School was also difficult as I could not see what she has that we could use. After giving it some thought I came up with this idea, not as pretty as I would like it to be, but it will do for now! :)

I took some boxes and cut them in half - the same type that I used for my Tot Boxes. I sorted the toys in different categories, for example animals, blocks, dolls, shapes and colours. I labeled each box according to the categories of the toys, I downloaded this cute font from Kevin and Amanda called Silly Monster to use on my labels - so cute!! And then I simply put all the boxes into the Toy Box!

Easy as that!

Here's some before and after pics:

All the toys on the floor of her room (that is not a baby on the floor, it is a doll :) I got a huge fright when I looked at the pics, thinking it was a baby!)

Here Little Mouse is "helping" me sort the toys...

The boxes inside the Toy Box

The Toy Box is see through so it is easy to read the labels!

Now to start planning...

My First Award!

Wow! What a wonderful suprise this morning when I opened my emails! I received my very first award for Fun with Little Mouse! Thank you so much Jamie of Momma's Playground for giving me this award!
The rules to accept the award are simple:
1.) Post it on your blog together with the name of the person who has granted the award and his/her blog link.
2.) Pass the award to 5 other blogs that you have recently discovered and think are great!
3.) Remember to contact the bloggers to let them know they have been chosen for this award.

I follow loads of great blogs and it was very difficult for me to choose only 5, but here they are! Please visit them to see all their great ideas!

FUNdamentals
Mouse Grows, Mouse Learns
My Family, My Forever
Growing up our Style
The Journey

Tot School Week 1 | 16 Months

Little Mouse is currently 16 Months old

I am just stunned at the speed at which this week has flown past, it feels like just yesterday that I did our Tot School post...

We had so much fun this week, I truly love doing Tot School with Little Mouse. I can see that it makes a huge difference in her life. When I see other kiddos of her age they all seem restless and "busy" - where Little Mouse is always happy and calm. I am sure that Tot School and age appropriate mental and emotional stimulation has something to do with that.

Monday

We made a Sensory box, I saw this great idea on Mommies Wise Little Bookworms and on April Flowers and decided that we should give it a try!

I coloured some rice blue the previous sunday and left it to dry. On Monday I gave Mouse the rice, some seashells and an empty egg container. She then scooped the rice out witht he seashells into the egg container. She enjoyed it so much.

She then tried the rice to see what it tastes like....

She even used her tea set to help with the scooping..

She then phoned to tell grandma? how much she enjoyed this!


Wednesday

We did an Open Ended Art project on Wednesday - we used some box tape and stuck pieces of paper on this. You can read my post on that here.

We also read loads of books and played with our stacking rings and puzzle boxes!


Thursday

We read a Winnie the Pooh book and made a stART project. You can read my post on that here.
We also played with the puzzle we made during our stART project. We also did some work on our Tot Book on parts of the face.


Friday

We read some more books!! She just loves reading and she really enjoyed the book on dogs that we took out from the library. Read my post on the book here.


If you would like to find out more about Tot School or see what other kiddies did visit Carisa's Blog on 1+1+1=1
Have a blessed Tot School week!

God Bless

Muffin Tin Monday - Fall Harvest

New to Muffin Tin Monday? Visit Her Cup Overfloweth to find out more and see what other mommies did!

This weeks theme was Fall Harvest / Halloween. As we in SA don't really have Halloween and because I am not so crazy about the idea of Halloween I decided to make a tin based on Fall Colours.

This is really more like a snack tin for her when she wakes from her morning nap, all her favourite orange, brown and yellow Fall coloured foods!

From top left to right: Biltong, Cheese, Rooibos Tea
Bottom left to right: Flings, Toast in leaf shape, Chocolate Coin

Hope you enjoyed MTM as much as I did!

Book Fan Friday - Watch me grow: Puppy

Little Mouse absolutely adores animals. She L.O.V.E.D this book when we saw it in the library. Watch me grow: Puppy by Lisa Magloff is a beautiful book with full colour photos. The book teaches little ones about how a puppy grows to be a full grown doggy. It follows the cutest little labrador till it is 1 year old and it also shows other breeds of doggies.

She really loved this book and we had to read it over and over and over again! Will definately look out for the other books in this series!

My apologies for the glare on the photos, because it is a library book it is covered in thick plastic and I just could not take a pic without the glare.

stART - Winnie the Pooh

We just love stART! If you would like to find out more about stART or see what other kiddies did visit A Mommy's Adventures

We read an Afrikaans Winnie the Pooh book today, I am not sure what the English title is, but if I translate it from Afrikaans it should be something in the lines of Winnie the Pooh: The Talent Concert - if someone knows the proper title please let me know!

We both love Winnie the Pooh and we both enjoyed the book, a really cute story with all the fun Pooh characters.

I printed a Winnie the Pooh picture from Disney Clips and gave it to Little Mouse to colour in.

I then covered it in clear box tape [I really should get some contact :) ] and then I cut it in half to make a home made Winnie the Pooh Puzzle!

She immediately wanted to play with it!

Open Ended Art - Black and White

We had so much fun with Open Ended Art this week! Want to find out more about Open Ended Art? Visit Mommies Wise Little Bookworms.

We did two projects.

I got this great tip from Michelle over at A Mommies Adventures to use contact paper for Little Mouse's art projects. We did not have any in the house, but I do have loads of clear box tape. I cut squares of black and white paper and I gave that to Little Mouse with a piece of clear box tape and this is what she did!



I then sealed it with another strip of clear box tape.

The first one was a bit of a mess, she crumpled it into a little ball! I held the second one down for her.

We then also took a small white board and I gave her a black marker - she really loved this!

As you can see she decided it was a great idea to colour in her dress as well...

Blog name change

I have wanted to change the name of the blog for some time now and finally got round to it. Much shorter and the description fits the blog better, because that is what we are doing - having FUN!!

Muffin Tin Monday - No theme

Monday means Muffin Tin Meal time!  Yeah!!  This week there was no theme.  It is such a hot day in Cape Town I only gave Little mouse some goodies to snack on.

Top left to right:  Spagetti with corn and peas, Apple, Strawberry Milk

Bottom left to right: Chocolate coin, Marshmellow, Oreos

She fed most of it to the dogs, she does not want to eat if it is so hot.

If you want to see what other mommies did visit Her Cup Overfloweth.

Tot School

Little Mouse is 15 months old

I cannot believe another weeks has flown past already! We had so much fun this week.

I made special Tot Boxes for Little Mouse - read my post about it here.

These boxes make my life so much easier! Little Mouse is now able to help herself with her Tot School items without it slipping of trays, etc.

She also enjoys the fact that I change the content every few days. "New " toys to play with!

I got her a felt board and some felt ocean animals. She loved it, I can honestly say that I also fell in love with felt - I have so many projects that I want to make with felt, will keep you updated!

We did some Open Ended Art and stART projects.
We went to the library and took out 7 books, one for each day of the week!

Open Ended Art

stART

Little Mouse also worked on her Tot Book that I handmade (as you can see!) of parts of the face. We are busy learning about all the parts of the face as well as eye colours and what each part is for, for example you see with your eyes.

Parts of the face

(she decided to colour the picture!)

Different eye colours

What your eyes, ears, nose and mouth do

We had so much fun! She is such a blessing.

Have a wonderful Tot School Week!

If you would like to learn more about Tot School or see what other kiddies did visit 1+1+1=1

God Bless

Family Sunday - The Beach!

We had another beautiful day in Cape Town and we decided to go to the beach!  We walked along the beach and took in the beautiful view from Blaauberg's side - you could see Table Mountain.

Here's Daddy and Little Mouse

The view of Table Mountain

A hungry Sea Gull

Little Mouse and I collected some sea shells that we want to use for a sensory box for her.  Will post about that a little later!

The water was far to cold to go for a swim, so we went home and had a swim at home.  I got Mouse a Baby Banz Swimsuit with  UV Protection factor of 50 material.  She looked so cute!

 

 

What I like about the suit is that it coveres her whole body, she cannot possibly burn in the sun!  Hope you enjoyed your sunday!

Book Fan Friday - Spots First Words

If you would like to find out more about Book Fan Friday or if you would like to join this weekly Blog Carnival visit Three A's and a C.

When we walked into the library on Friday Little Mouse grabbed this Spot book of the shelve and she did not let go of it!  She held it in her tiny little hand all the way home and she "read" it untill she fell asleep in her car seat.  So cute!!

She just love the Spot books and this one is so cute for her age.  I loved the thick carton pages - she could easily handle the book.  The illustrations are beautiful and fun for a little one to look at and it kept her busy for some time!

stART - Dr. Brom verstaan dit nie ( Dr Brom does not understand)

Me and Little Mouse went to our local public library on Friday and took out 7 books, one for each day of the week!  We decided to first read the Afrikaans version of Dr. Brom. This cute book by Daniel Napp was originally published in German as Dr. Brumm versteht das nicht.  Not sure if there is an english version available as we could only find the Afrikaans and German versions.

The story is about a grumpy bear called Dr. Brom (Brom in Afrikaans means grumpy or moody!)  Every Saturday Dr. Brom watches his favourite sport on TV, on this particular Saturday the power suddenly went out and he could not understand what happend to the images on the screen.  He sets of on a journey to discover what went wrong and quickly fixes the problem!  He then returns home to happily watch his TV again.

I had a old bear stamp and an ink pad that I gave to Mouse to stamp the TV set and Bear that I drew for her.  I have to be honest in that she did not enjoy the book as much, but she loved the stamping. 
She stamped with the bear stamp.

She stamped with the inkpad!

She even stamped with her tea set....

We had to take a bath afterwards....

Cannot wait for our next book!

If you would like to learn more about stART or see what other kiddies did visit A Mommy's Adventures.