Spring Sensory Bin

The warm weather has inspired me to change out the sensory bin for something more Spring-like!

The base of the bin is Easter grass and black beans (for the garden area). To keep the two bases seperate, I used a line of playdough across the bottom of the bin and inserted the fence pieces. It's not perfect, but has done well so far.


The grass area of the bin features a birds nest (Micheals), 2 birds (Dollar Store), feather butterflies (Dollar Store), a metal bucket (Target Dollar Spot), a shovel, a wooden birdhouse (Dollar Store), a tiny plastic paint bucket that has been used as a bug jar (Michaels), and various plastic insects (Insect Toob).


The wooden fence posts are from Michaels. The garden area has 3 terra cotta pots (Dollar Store), silk flowers (Dollar Store), and a plastic bee (Insect Toob). I added some black beans inside the pots so the flowers can be picked and planted.

The kids quickly added some pompoms to be used as both eggs and seeds to plant the flowers. They also managed to find the watering can I was looking for!

Linking up to some of these great parties!

Fun with MUD!

For the start of summer vacation I thought we needed to do something good and messy!

We started by reading a few books:

We had to start with the classic "dirt" book, Harry the Dirty Dog.


Next we read "Dirt Boy." It's the story of Fister Farnello who, to escape his bath, runs away to the woods and meets "Dirt Man."


Diary of a Worm is a hysterical story told, in the form of diary entries, from the point of view of a worm. This was a family favorite!


Finally we read Mud. The beautiful illustrations show the world turning from snowy winter to the big, muddy mess of spring.

It's the last book that leads to our craft today - MUD painting!

I simply dug up some dirt from the yard and mixed it with water to make a nice muddy mixture. I gave the kids some paintbrushes and recycled cardboard to paint on and told them to have fun.

They quickly gave up on the paintbrushes and moved to using their hands.

While the finished pictures aren't something we'll frame, the process was fun, fun, fun! And I have to say, clean up wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be. :)

Linking up to some of these great parties

Duck Feet!

This is a quick and (very) easy Easter or spring craft for kids.

You will need:

3 paper plates for each pair of duck feet you want to make, crayons (or markers or paint), scissors and a stapler.


Color the backside of one plate. Chaos and I chose orange, but Pinky chose to make rainbow feet.


Cut the plate you just colored in half.


Staple each half to one of the other plates.


Wear.

I think they sort of complete my outfit, don't you? ;-D