My brother, Bryan, introduced me to the art of Mashoonga and we are loving these fun fighting flinging foam toys. Here’s a video Bryan put together of his son’s birthday (Bryan is the mean ugly Ogre at the end :)
Try playing some Mashoonga at your next birthday party! MASHOONGA!!! (it’s just so fun to say!)
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If you’re a Mom who “makes it”, this is the conference for you. The Mom’s Who Make It conference, organized by Created By Mom, is in just 2 short weeks, on July 16th in Salt Lake City, Utah. I just signed up for the Mini Class session, ready to learn some great tools for business, as my blog has now become my business.
There are some fantastic women on the docket to speak, I can’t wait to learn from them. There will be classes to help manage your business and your home. You can sign up here for either a Full conference pass, Mini Class only pass, or Main conference & party only pass. I hope to see you there, come say hi!
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I’m contributing over at Alpha Mom’s – Once Upon a Holiday again today. Come see how we Tie Dyed patriotic shirts for the whole family, right in time for the fireworks this Saturday!
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These festive 4th of July skewers are the perfect treat for your upcoming holiday party. They’re a great snack for little hands to help with, and they make a colorful treat for the table.
Supplies for 4th of July Kabobs:
Wash and dry your fruit, cut your strawberries in fourths, now you’re ready to go. You can make them in fun patterns or just random. A helpful tip: add your fruit first, as it will help the sticky marshmallows slide right on down. If you try to add a marshmallow to a dry stick, it will get all gummy and sticky.
The funnest part is seeing what the kids choose to place on the skewers. My son loves blueberries, so after a few of the skewers made with patterns, he made one for him with all blueberries. Yum.
These would be a perfect treat for any summertime party. Have fun making these, beating the heat with something sweet to eat.
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There’s been lots of red, white, and blue floating around the web. I’ve collected a few fun links to some super star-bangled crafts for the 4th of July. Below is one of my hand-stitched cards, The American Flag.
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Thanks to all of you who entered! So many of you enthusiastically wanting to learn another language, I love it. Probably the majority was Spanish, but there was Greek, Chinese, German. But Congrats to #193 Amy who said she’d love to learn French to help honor the memory of her Grandma! Have fun learning a new language!
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Get ready to cheer on the fabulous floats at this weekend’s parade with these fun Firework Pom Poms. They’re the perfect sparkle for your child to hold as the clowns and marching bands go by.
Supplies for Firework Pom Poms:
First, measure out 4 yards of each color of yarn, red, white, and blue.
Then group them together and fold them over in half, again and again and again. Now depending on how long you want your pom poms, you can stop folding when ever you’d like. I folded mine in half, until the very end, I folded it in thirds, as I wanted it a little longer than folding it in half again. You’ll see when you make these yourself.
Wrap the pipe cleaner around all the yarn in the center of the folds. Then take your second pipe cleaner and split the yarn and pull it through and around again, this secures it. (For the pipe cleaners, you can leave it all in once piece or for short pom poms, cut one long one in half to make your two pieces.)
Then twist up the pipe cleaners together. I even cut off the ends of the pipe cleaners to make an even look, and it makes the ends not so pokey.
Now cut all your loops of yarn to make them into strings, and it’s ready to firework away! My kids are way too excited for Saturday’s big parade, practicing their cheers “go USA”!
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I have always liked the look of chunky paint applied to canvas in swirls (a la Vincent Van Gogh), but most kiddie paints aren’t capable of making that kind of texture. Enter a secret household ingredient that you mix into your paint that takes it from runny to chunky in ten seconds! What is this secret ingredient? Flour! Adding flour to paint adds dimension to kid art, and is fun to apply.
Project Materials:
To Mix Paint:
Adding flour to your washable paint is simple. Just use a small container like a paper cup, add a bit of flour (start with a teaspoon and add more as desired) and some paint. Add more paint if mixture is too thick. Mix with a popsicle stick. The popsicle stick will also double as your “palette knife” for applying the thick paint to your surface.
What to Paint:
My son is not quite three, but he is able to paint inside the lines (mostly) of pre-printed coloring pages, and that’s what he wanted to do with this paint. Depending on your child’s age, they can use their fingers or the popsicle stick to apply the paint. Of course, painting on blank paper is also a great idea, and one that most kids will enjoy. Older kids might like to choose an “inspiration” picture–it can be anything from a fine art painting of Van Gogh’s to a photo of an elephant at the zoo) and recreate it using the chunky paint. I painted the picture in the top photo because my son enjoys art time a lot more when I am participating too!
We painted on plain paper and construction paper, but you might want to use a piece of recycled cardboard (the inside of a cereal box would work well!) because this paint is heavier than regular paint.
If you are homeschooling, this is a great activity for an art unit on Impressionism.
Heather Mann is a regular contributor at Make and Takes. She’s is the mother of two boys under age 3, and another boy on the way. She publishes Dollar Store Crafts, a daily blog devoted to hip crafting at dollar store prices, CROQ Zine, a print magazine devoted to hip crafting, and also CraftFail, a community blog that encourages crafters to share their not-so-successful craft attempts.
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Since I’ve now posted about the Importance of Learning a Second Language, I thought it only fitting to give away a language learning program today. Rosetta Stone has been kind enough to send my family their beginner Spanish Language program and they’d like to give away a language program of your choice to a Make and Takes reader!
Rosetta Stone has 3 levels of learning and can be used by any age. They offer 25 different language programs: Spanish, French, Russian, Hindi, Polish, Hebrew, etc. Their program recreates the learning of language through proven methods, helping you learn in a natural environment.
We’ve already started and are on our way to speaking, listening, reading and writing in Spanish. This program is great for kids, fun photos, they get to speak into a microphone, and lots of fun matching games that my son loves. We’re trying to use the program for 1/2 hour each day. We all say and repeat the words together. It’s very interactive with pictures and phrases. My 3 year old is saying it right along with us too, trying her best to repeat the words! I can say that my kids are already picking it up!
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I’m so excited to for one lucky Make and Takes reader to win a Rosetta Stone Language program. They’ve offered to giveaway a beginning program of any language of your choice. Just tell me what language you’d like to learn and why!
Giveaway Entries: For your chance to win a Rosetta Stone Language Learning Program, leave a comment on this post by Monday June 29th @ midnight, telling which learning language program you’d like to learn. I’ll announce the winner chosen from random on Tuesday morning June 30th. Good Luck!
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Ever since my children were very young, I’ve had the desire to expose them to a second language. I’ve noticed over the last few years that they’ve been picking up phrases in Spanish, thanks to Dora and Diego! They can count in Spanish, know a few colors and some directions, it’s great! So I’ve been wanting to continue their learning of a second language, specifically Spanish. And since I’ve all but forgotten what I learned in 8th grade, I’ve been researching programs that can help teach me and my kids to speak Spanish.
I recently reached out to Rosetta Stone, a company known for their language immersion programs to talk with one of their learning experts, Duane Sider. He’s been with the company since 1997, helping develop the program to what it’s become today. We talked a lot about the benefits of why and how children learn a second language. Here are the main points I learned from my research and discussion with Duane:
Why learning a second language is important:
Being biligual/multilingual can help an individual with many areas of life. Specifically education, career, and developing relationships.
How to learn a second language:
When learning a second language, it’s helpful to remember these three important principles: starting early, being immersed, and consistency.
As I embark on this adventure to learn a new language with my kids, I feel empowered with this knowledge to succeed. I look forward to this new experience and what benefits it will bring to my family. I’m sure there’s many of you who could offer some useful insights from your own experience. If you have anything more to add, please share what you’ve learned.
*Stay tuned for tomorrow’s post, it’s gonna be a good one! It might just have a little something to do with learning a second language in your home.*
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