Making Faces

This is what E might do when asked to make a silly face:

Recently she was learning the names of body parts and when we got to the face, I made her this face puzzle to play with:

E has also been drawing faces lately, including portraits of myself and her dad, as well as this self-portrait on her chalkboard:

-Polly

Leg Warmers

Happy Earth Day. :)

In honour of the day, I thought I'd share this super-quick re-purposing project that I sewed up this morning. I love to turn old clothes into new ones.
So here's what I made today:

They're leg-warmers made from an old baby t-shirt. There was a stain and a tear near the neckline of the shirt, meaning it wasn't wearable, and I had already used the sleeves to make a pyjama top. I've saved the buttons for another project.

The leg-warmers are really easy to make. Here's how:
1. Measure length of legs from below the knee to the ankle and around the leg, just below the knee.
2. Cut two pieces to match the length and width, adding seam allowance at the top. I kept the original hem from the bottom of the t-shirt, so didn't need any allowance there.
3. Sew two lengths of elastic, slightly shorter than the around the leg measurement, to the tops of the leg-warmers. Fold over and hem.
4. With right sides together, sew the long edges. Turn the right way around and they're ready to wear.

Leg (or arm) warmers are so versatile. They're easy to take on and off which is useful in ever-changing weather, yet they don't need to be removed for toileting or nappy changes. E also has some that I made from a pair of socks and I have some that I wear, too.

Are you doing any recycling/re-purposing projects for Earth day?

-Polly

Playground

We finally got some nice Autumn weather!
Yesterday, E and I hopped on the bus for a day out. We had lunch in the markets. We had a quick look in an op-shop where E bought a book and a basket. Unfortunately, we didn't get to the playground which is E's favourite thing to do.
So today, even though we were all a little tired after E's soccer class, we went for a drive and had a picnic lunch and a long play on the playground.

There were plenty of things to climb on and explore:

This cool cubby:

And a slide:

It was overcast all day and we thought it might rain. It didn't, which was fine by us.

-Polly

E's New Apron

I spent the last couple of days making this apron for E:

She loves it, especially the extra-large pocket in the front. We were in the garden today and the pocket was soon filled with garden gloves, sample leaves and herbs, and other random treasures. I usually just wing it when I'm making aprons, but this time I used a pattern from "Carefree Clothes for Girls". I've made lots of lovely things from that book. :)

Here's a picture of the back:

There's one big button to close behind the neck, a transparent one found in my stash. I added a big patch, in the same material as the pocket, to cover up a tear in the base fabric (which used to be a pair of men's pants).

I'm really happy with how this turned out and it was made completely with scraps that I already had at home.

-Polly

Home-made Books

E loves books. Lately, she has really enjoyed making her own books. She can't write yet, but she'll give it a go and we get around it by doing lots of drawing and cutting and pasting. I've already shared the book we made inspired by "There's a Wocket in my Pocket," here. Here's some more that we've done:

One morning we were in the garden finding lots of different bugs. Afterwards, we made a book with pictures and names of some of the bugs that we found. I drew the pictures and E coloured them in and pasted the words (also written by me) onto the correct pages. I then re-wrote all of the words onto a separate piece of paper for E to trace.

Based on an idea from "I Love Letters!" by Dr Jean Feldman, we made some little books using pictures and words from food packages.

Over a couple of weeks, we saved some food packaging and catalogues and used these to make our books. E pasted the pictures onto each page and I helped her to match up the correct words to go with them. We had a few words left over, so I made these little cards for her to match the first letters:

E loves to read all of these books that she's made herself, just as much as her 'real' books.

-Polly

Feelings

A while ago I discovered the tot packs at 1+1+1=1, so E had some fun with some of the "feelings" pack. We used the "How are we feeling?" game and the little book.

E collects this type of activity in her scrapbook, so we didn't use a file folder, but put the pieces in her book instead.

E also had fun posing with different expressions. I love her "thoughtful" look:

She then drew how she was feeling (happy, can you tell?) on a paper plate, which we also added to her scrapbook. She was a little disappointed that her "smile mouth" didn't look smiley enough.

So that was our little look at "feelings".

How are you feeling?

-Polly

From My Back Door

From my back door I can see...

E inspecting the garden in a tutu:

Galahs (and often other birds, too) sitting on the back fence:

And after dark, some fun with sparklers:

I also see our little fruit trees, a garden full of bright orange marigolds and nasturtiums, E's self-made sand-play area and each evening's sunset.

What do you see when you look out your back door?

-Polly

More Apples

Here are some more apple activities that we did recently.

A fun art activity was printing using cut apples and poster paint:

Having seen many "do-a-dot" pages online, and not having any daubers, we decided to try using one with a circular sponge dabber and paint. I found this page [here].

E seemed to like it. She likes any excuse to use paint. I imagine this method is a little messier than using bingo daubers.

I made up a game for E to play which was simply a picture of an apple tree and each apple had a number written on it. I supplied a pack of number flashcards (spectrum brand) and a pack of colour flashcards (home-made). She would randomly pick one of each and use crayons to colour the apples the corresponding colour. She loved this game, so I ended up drawing more worksheets with more numbers and one with lower-case vowels which we played the same way.

A couple of weeks later we headed to Donnybrook for the Apple Festival and a play at the Apple Fun-Park.

Apples are fun!

-Polly