NIKKI'S DRAWINGS

I really love looking at Nikki's drawings. I think they are so creative. Sometimes, he would draw some things happening at the moment. Then he would add speech bubbles and make dialogues. I wish my mom and dad encouraged me to do these things. Anyway, here are a couple of his drawings:

WORKSHEETS

Following grid lines. Nikki made a mistake in the last few lines but I showed it to him and he corrected it.

Math/Addition. Nikki did this with no problem at all. =D

Maze. Nikki loves doing mazes.

This one was another easy activity. =D

Math/Addition. Another easy yet fun activity.

Nikki didn't want to do this at first because he was too conscious about what his drawing would look like but when I encouraged him and showed him some of Pooh's photos, he finally drew the arms. =D

PREPARING FOR DADDY'S ARRIVAL

Ruther is arriving home today from Japan! Nikki is so excited! When I suggested that we make a banner for Ruther he was really excited about the activity. So we got a piece of cardboard paper and I used a pencil to make the words. Then, Nikki used a permanent marker to trace the pencil lines. After that, he used some colored chalk to color the letters and it came out so colorful and so wonderful. I just know his dad is going to be so proud and happy!

Here are some photos:

DRAWING

Ethan and his jellyfish. He is quite happy with his drawing. =D Isn't he cute?

CD PUMPKINS

Since it's October already, I wanted us to do more Halloween activities. We started off with making this jack o' lantern made out of constuction paper and old/damaged CDs. So, not only am I teaching the boys arts and crafts, but they are also learning to recycle. =D Nikki had so much fun making this one, I thought of making more then using them to decorate the boys' room in time for Halloween! =D

Materials. Damaged CD, construction paper (orange, black and green), scissors and glue/paste.

Mommy cut out the pieces and Nikki pastes them. Here, Nikki is putting the jack o lantern's eyes.

And now, the nose.

Ta-da! Happy pumpkin and happy boy. =D

HALLOWEEN CRAFTS

I think this will be a fun activity for Nikki this Halloween. We have some plastic spoons lying around here in the house, maybe we could use those. =D

http://crafts.kaboose.com/plastic-spoon-witch.html

Plastic Spoon Witch
By: Amanda Formaro
Difficulty: Easy
Age: 6 and up

This fun craft can be as intricate or as simple as you like. Adjust the details to make it simpler for younger children by eliminating her belt buckle, necklace, and teeth.

What you'll need:
Plastic spoon
½ sheet of lime green felt
½ sheet of purple felt
1 sheet of black felt
½ sheet tan felt
Small scrap of white felt
1 lime green chenille stick
2 small wiggle eyes
1 miniature light green pom pom
10 miniature light purple pom poms
1 gold chenille stick
Scissors
Hot glue gun

How to make it:
1. Cut a square of lime green felt large enough to fold over and completely cover the top portion of the spoon. Set aside.
2. Place spoon, round side facing down, on top of the green felt. Only the top section of the spoon will be wrapped, not the handle. Place a dot of hot glue onto the back of the spoon to tack it in place. Wrap the felt completely around the spoon top, gluing as you go, tucking and gluing ends of the felt into the back side of the spoon.
3. Cut out two identical dresses from the black felt. Lay one on the work surface and place spoon on top, positioning it so the top of the handle lines up with the neck. Place the other dress directly on top and tack in place at the shoulders and neck area. DO NOT glue.
4. Cut lime green chenille stick into four equal pieces. Fold each piece in half. Insert, open end inward so that loops are sticking out (these are the arms and legs) and glue in place. Now glue the rest of the dress together.
5. Cut a strip of purple felt for the belt, wide enough to cover the waist area. Tack seams in the back. Cut a square from the black felt for the buckle. Cut a smaller square out of the center of the larger square and set the small piece aside to use on the hat. Glue buckle to the front of the belt.
6. To make the hair, cut a four inch by three inch rectangle from purple felt. Use scissors to fringe one of the long sides. Tack to the back of the “head”, lining up the center of the felt hair with the top third of the spoon. Wrap hair around the head and trim where needed. Glue in place. Note: You’ll want to leave about a quarter-inch gap around the forehead area.
7. Cut two identical hats from the black felt. Just as you did with the dress, lay one hat on the work surface, place the head on top and then arrange the second hat on top of the head. Line up hats and glue in place.
8. Cut a skinny strip of purple felt out for the hat band and glue in place as you did with the dress belt. Glue the small black square you cut from the belt buckle to the center of the hat band.
9. Add a necklace by piping some hot glue around the neckline of the dress and place light purple miniature pom-poms in place.
10. Cut a small point nose from the lime green felt and glue just the large end of it to the center of the face so that the it sticks out a bit.
11. Cut out a tiny strip of white felt and cut it into four small squares. Glue on for the mouth.
12. Glue on a miniature green pom-pom near her chin to create a wart. Glue on two wiggle eyes.
13. Cut an eight inch by three inch rectangle from the tan felt. Use scissors to fringe one end, about two inches inward. Roll up the felt to create the broom bristles and glue together as you roll. Insert gold chenille stems into the bottom end of the bristles and glue in place. Tie a thin strip around the base of the broom and trim the ends. Insert the bottom of the broom handle through the loop hand and down to the foot. Tack with glue to the hand and the foot.

Notes:
Simplify this craft by eliminating the small details.
To make this a puppet, leave the bottom of the dress open so that your child can reach inside and hold the handle.
If you like, switch out the purple hair and use a dark green instead.

Note: Hot glue adheres faster but can burn little fingers. While the burns aren’t severe, they will produce tears. A parent should handle the hot glue gun or you can use white craft glue as an alternative. White craft glue will take longer to adhere and will require longer drying times.

MAKING SNOWFLAKES

After watching an episode of Blue's Clues, we decided to copy a scene there where kids made some snowflakes using white paper. Since we had some scratch paper we thought of using those. Nikki cut the paper carefully but he needed my help in cutting the folded areas because they were a bit thick. Even if the activity lasted for only a few minutes, Nikki still had fun and I was glad. =D





Snip, snip.

Opening the snowflake.

Wonderful creation.

A unique snowflake!

One more...

Wow! This one is pretty!

Nikki and his snowflakes. He wants to show them to his dad. =D

TIE-DYE

Nikki had a lot of fun with this tie-dye activity. Nikki is not really into arts and crafts so I let him try things that would be easy yet interesting for him. Since I did some tie-dye before, I thought of introducing the activity to him. I decided to use the color red because it's really bright. We also made use of 2 of their house sandos so we really did not spend for this lesson. =D

Here are some photos:

The materials: Shirts, colored dye, rubber bands, vat of hot water over the stove.

Nikki thinks of a design and Mommy attaches the rubber bands to the shirts.

Nikki wets the shirts thoroughly.

Nikki puts some colored dye in the hot water.

The shirts are added to the bye bath and Nikki stirs the shirts.

After several minutes, the shirts are removed and allowed to cool slightly.

After rinsing thoroughly, the rubbers bands are removed and voila!! tie-dye shirts!! This one is Nikki's.

This one is Ethan's.

Mommy put them in hangers to let them dry.

"New" shirts for the boys!! =D

DRAWINGS

Here are some of Ethan's drawings. I always find them so cute!

I think the lamp is very cartoon-ish! =D

Spider.

Ethan says this one is a millipede. And I thought it was a Christmas tree! =D

STAMPING

Here are the boys having fun with their stamps. Ethan really loves this and all other art activities. =D

MORE SAND ART

This is actually the 4th time the boys have done this. Since it is relatively easy to do and mess-free, I really don't mind. Besides, they get to admire their work and see how different the previous ones were to the current one. =D






Materials.






Kuya pours the sand carefully.




Ethan watches closely.

NOSES

The other day, Nikki and I had some fun with disposable cups. We got the idea from an episode of Out of the Box on Playhouse Disney and I told Nikki it would be nice to do the crafts idea there. They made some animal noses out of the cups and it looked like a lot of fun and was easy to do (which appealed to me). In the episode, they made an elephant's nose, a pig's nose and a duck's nose. But after we made all those, Nikki wanted a cat's nose as well so I had to improvise. I must say it turned out pretty well. =D

Some photos:

Here's Nikki with an elephant's nose. He was giggling when I took this picture. He thought he looked silly. There's Ethan behind Nikki, playing some online games (at the sesame street site) on the computer.

Pig's nose! Oink! Oink! Snort!

Not a bad cat's nose, aye? I was not able to take a photo of the duck's nose but that one was cute as well. =D

DRAWINGS

Here are some of Nikki's and Ethan's drawings. They learned these mostly from Blue's Clues (except for the solar system and the one with the boat. Those ones, Nikki did on his own. =D)

This one is Ethan's work. It's supposed to be a cow but it looks like a spider. =D Those additional lines underneath the belly are supposed to be udders is why. =D