levi's new crayons

I'd been thinking lately about making Levi some crayons that he could color with. He's tried using Camille's but he has a hard time holding them. But I didn't want to buy a new box of crayons just for this project. Then lo and behold I found a big box of Crayola crayons in the closet downstairs this morning! Perfect!

But wait? Won't Camille use those crayons? Actually, Camille much prefers to color with markers or colored pencils. And when she does use crayons she likes to use the Crayola twistable crayons.

So here I was with this box of 64 brand new crayons. I set myself up at the table next to Camille (who was playing with pompoms) with a knife and a bowl and the box of crayons. I used the knife to slice down the length of the crayons paper and peeled it away, and put the crayons in the bowl. I used all but 10 crayons.

Then while the oven was heating (200 degrees) Camille and I broke the crayons and sorted them into muffin cups by color. 

I popped them into the oven and looked at the clock so that I would know when to check them. The directions I had found said they would melt in roughly 10 to 20 minutes.

And then I promptly forgot about them.

I can't really say how long they were in the oven because I don't recall when I put them in and I don't recall when I took them out. Maybe 40 minutes? More? But one thing was for sure: the were melted.

I set the muffin tray in the fridge so the new crayons would harden. After a little while (again, I have no idea how long, perhaps half an hour?) I checked on them and they looked ready. So I pulled them out, peeled the muffin cups off of them and beheld the glorious sight of Levi-safe crayons.

After trimming up the edges a bit (the photos are of the crayons before I trimmed them) I set the boys on the kitchen floor with the crayons and a piece of paper. Camille kindly showed them what to do and then was quickly off doing big kid things elsewhere.

Josiah thought they were a new percussion instrument and enjoyed clapping them together. Levi...well, you can guess what he did with the crayons. But still, they turned out well, and I'm looking forward to when all the kids can sit at the table and color together. We like to do lots of projects here and getting these babies used to crayons will be a big step in the right direction for them!

flour tray letters

Last week Camille had fun writing letters in a cookie sheet filled with flour.

It was a messy activity.

But messy is Camille's specialty.

She enjoyed writing names and drawing designs.

She chooses to use mostly upper-case letters except for the letter i.

Josiah and Levi munched on Cheerios and watched in admiration and wished they could dig into the floury mess with her.

I told them they have to wait until they're old enough to know not to eat it.

See? Messy.

But Camille wasn't the only one who got to enjoy this activity. Auntie Megan played with her and was even on the receiving end of a luxurious flour massage.

Camille learns best when she's actively engaged in what she's learning. She likes hands-on activities that she can do without help and she loves to get messy. 

So this activity was perfect for her.

The Letter of the Week ~ L

This week we are learning about the letter L.

Memory Verse: Let your light shine. Matthew 5:16

Song: This Little Light of Mine

Words: lion, Levi, light, love

Books: Mrs. Lather's Laundry, The Little Engine that Could, The Little Lost Angel

Field Trip: library

This morning after breakfast Camille did a lacing activity at the table while I washed dishes. Then she drew a picture of a lion with some help from Auntie Megan. Megan told her what to draw (circle for a head, a mane all around the head, eyes, nose, mouth, whiskers, four legs, and a tail).

Then while the boys were napping Megan helped Camille cut l words and pictures out of magazines and I helped her tape them onto our poster paper and wrote the words under them.

After lunch this afternoon Camille helped do laundry and just before naptime Megan read our l books to her.

We're only one day into this and I can already tell that Camille is enjoying herself and looking forward to the special little projects we have planned. Here's what we have planned for the rest of the week:

Tuesday: We will work on our "L" picture and will decorate it with leaves.
Wednesday: Camille will have some computer time where we will learn about lighthouses and llamas.
Thursday: Camille has school, so we might not do anything letter-related. But who knows!
Friday: Field trip to the library. Hopefully by then I will have decide what next week's letter will be and can find some books for us to read.

I'll let you know later how our first Letter of the Week week is going, and will for sure be back on Sunday so you can hear what we're going to be doing next week!

ice cube sun catchers

Kristy is right! Camille's fingers were covered with food coloring yesterday! 

We got the idea for ice cube sun catchers when we saw them on this blog the last week. I knew instantly that we would be trying this at least once this winter.

First we filled ice cube trays with colored water and put it outside on the front step to freeze.

Camille checked on our trays about every 15 minutes and kept asking if they were almost ready to eat.

When they were finally frozen we popped them out, put them into a tray used for making four small bundt cakes, and put them into the freezer overnight.

Then this morning we cut yarn and hung our new wintery sun catchers on the deck railing. The sun was already overhead when we hung them today, so we're looking forward to seeing it shine through them when we get up in the morning.

I'm sure we'll be doing this project again very soon. Camille is very into doing projects these days so I'm always scrambling to come up with something fun and inexpensive to do with her. This one definitely fits the bill! However, next time we will make our ice cubes deeper colors. At first I was afraid they'd be too dark, but now that we see how much they lighten up I want to see how it turns out when they're darker.

I can't wait to find out!