Bingo Art

Today, we had so much fun doing our art project using Bingo Daubers! Yes, you read it right! Who knew that Bingo Daubers could be used for anything other than Bingo!

Bingo daubers are great for kids that like to have fun with paint and are still learning to hold the paint brush. They are easy to hold for even toddlers and are mess-free (with the exception of excited blot application that results in small paint splatters). You still have to supervise your kids while they are using them. The best part of all is that they are so cheap! They cost anywhere from a dollar to two dollars. You can buy them from the dollar store or any department store that carries bingo supplies.

So, anyways for art materials you need bingo daubers for colors of your choice and paper. It's very simple: you can either trace out a starting shape/point for your child to take the lead or let them make their own shape/design. I applied both the strategies with my little guy, as you can see below. We did two fun projects today! Hope you like 'em!

Annie

(P.s. Bingo Balloons was inspired by the Disney movie "UP".

© Everything Family Guide

© Everything Family Guide

The 7 Habits of Happy Kids by Sean Covey

So I recently came across this program called: "The 7 Habits Tree" by the Leader in Me.

This poster goes hand in hand with: "The 7 Habits of Happy Kids" and accompanying story books by Sean Covey. This is an interesting resource for teachers that teach health or particularly guidance counselors that addresses social and emotional needs of students. In today's ever-changing society, our kids come across many challenging scenarios and it is nice to have someone (especially a caring adult) to turn to for help. 

It's a good resource and I will keep you posted on how it turned out.

In the meantime, you can check it out...

Annie

Quiet Reading

I love doing quiet reading time with my boys!

© Everything Family Guide

What is quiet reading? It is exactly that: Quiet! 

Quiet reading has many advantages and most important one of all is that it teaches your child that print (words) and pictures go hand-in-hand and have meanings. Your child learns to relax during that time because every kid needs some downtime in the day to blow off some steam.  You have to use books with pictures (i.e. stories, fairy tales, non-fictional facts books, etc) for an emergent reader.  If properly taught using the emergent reader strategies, your child can succeed as an independent reader.  Here are some strategies to help your child read by themselves during quiet time: 

• The first time you will read the book together to guide your child as to how its done.
• To start ask your child to: "Look at the cover of the book. What do you see? Pictures? Read aloud the name of the pictures you see on the cover page, as they will tell you what this book is all about. Are there any people, animals, a picture of a location, etc? What do you feel when you look at the pictures? What is the picture tying to tell you?"
• Now tell your child to open the book and look at the picture on the first page to see what is happening. Look at the 5W's (who, what, when, where, and why) of a picture on each page. Tell you child to: "Share your feelings or thoughts out loud. Ask questions and try to find as much as you can about each page. This will give you the central idea of what the book is all about."
• By a few pages your child will be tired or bored. That's ok. Stop right there and return to the book at another time.  Encourage questions and answer them all, to show that you really care and want your child to read. It took me many months of persistent and continuous reading for my son to really appreciate and enjoy reading. You want to instill this love of reading at an early age for lifelong enjoyment and benefit. We all know that the most part of a child's brain develops before the age of five. So all positive experiences benefit your child for life!

Here is a handy reference guide for emergent reading.

© Everything Family Guide

I am hoping that all my hard work will pay off! Ahhh! The life of mom: you always want and try for the best for your kids!

Happy Reading,
Annie

Fall Random

October is here! We are having so much fun during fall this year (visiting the corn maze, walks in the park, collecting fall leaves, making fall crafts, and baking pies.) Fall is my favorite season as there is a change in the air, fall colors, crispness of the morning, moisture on leaves, cool breeze, early nights, foggy mornings, etcetera, etc.

Here is a pic of the river that flows through our city, while we took our walk:

© Everything Family Guide

Happy Fall y'all!
Annie

Our 1st Attempt at a Felt Book

I have been waiting and underestimating my son's attention span in doing long projects.  He surprised me when he sat through the whole process of planning/talking, cutting and assembling his own felt book (with a little help from moi).  We used felt material available at any craft store like Micheal's or the Dollar store. 

Some of these stores may provide pre-cut shapes for kids that are not cutting yet and in honesty its time saving.  But my son insisted on cutting his own shapes. We traced them on paper first and then used the template to cut out the shapes on the felt material (similar to cutting for your sewing projects).  He is really into ocean animals these days and we had a blast doing it! Here is a sample of his work (with the exception of the sea horse):

Copyrights by Everything Family Guide

Felt Books are fun to make and the learning opportunity is great! Kids of any age can work with felt to learn sewing or just for fun projects. They are sometimes called "quiet books", so that your child can sit quietly playing with his/her felt book.  They are easy to play with as the shapes stick (felt-on-felt) and dont require any gluing or taping. You can make a felt book on any theme that you interested in such as:

• Farm Animals
• Ocean Animals
• Safari/Jungle Animals
• Safety (i.e. road signs, etc.)
• Bugs or Insects
• Calendar theme (i.e. time, months, days of the week, weather)
• Graphing
• Counting/Numbers
• Alphabets
• Stories (fairytales/fables)
• And many more

Here are a few books that you can use to get started on your felt projects:

Hope you enjoy felting with your little one! 

Happy Felting, 

Annie