Child's Apron from Dress Shirt

I've started trying to wear an apron in the kitchen when I cook (though I often forget to put it on).  I think it would be nice for Ben to have an apron too - so he can feel included in meal-preparation and learn to keep his clothes clean.  Here's a cute idea on how to sew an apron from a dress shirt.

East Bay Vivarium

http://www.510families.com/content/good-free-fun-east-bay-vivarium

East Bay Vivarium

1827 5th Street

Berkeley, CA 

 

http://www.eastbayvivarium.com/

Kennedy Park

http://www.510families.com/content/kennedy-park-carousel-petting-zoo-and-train-ride

Kennedy Park

19501 Hesperian Blvd

Hayward, CA 

Heart Crayons

My friend Marnie's blog, http://carrotsareorange.com/, has a million and one great suggestions for fun projects.  I'm going to steal a few here that I want to do for Ben soon, or down the road.  This is an idea for the upcoming Valentine's Day holiday:  Heart Crayons.  While Ben is somewhat obsessed with pens (which at this point I try to keep away from him), we haven't done much in terms of helping him to "write" or understand the concept of using an instrument to make markings on paper (and hopefully not the wall).  I think this might be a fun way to introduce it all to him.

To prepare for this project, I'll need to obtain the following:

• Crayons
• Heart mold (silicone works best)

Plan for the Playhouse

Front Panel:

Front Door:
Window:
Mail Box Template:
- Mail Box: light blue (or other color) fabric
- Flag: red fabric
- Letters for "MAIL" - color in contrast to box
- Mail box stand: brown/black fabric

Back Panel: Window with mesh & birdhouse
Owl Template

Left Side Panel:  garden
Fruit and Garden Templates









Right Side Panel: Tree with Flowers
Tree Trunk Template 
Squirrel
Flower Template

Inside:

Felt Story Boards

When I was a kid, I had a small felt story board that was just a plain green.  I then had a box of felt fairy tale characters.  There were pieces to build a castle with, as well as a king, queen, princes, and princesses.  There was a fire-breathing dragon, and other small animals.  It wasn't complicated all - the felt pieces were just outlines - no embellishments or clothing or anything fancy.  But, I spent hours with the story board. I loved making up stories about quests - and it laid the foundation for my enjoyment of the Knights of the Roundtable stories when I got older.  A recent search of felt storyboards on amazon.com turned up some really fancy storyboards.  They seem overly complex - and while I know they still leave room for imagination, I still think simpler is better.  I'm going to keep searching around the internet to see if I can find that old felt box that I had (I feel like it was made by a Scandinavian company for some reason...).  In the meantime, I'm trying to design a general board for Ben - thinking that I could then have felt categories - such as nursery rhyme characters.  But, given Ben's age, I was thinking we could start out really simple - teaching him shapes and colors.  All we need, for example, is a red square, a blue circle, and a yellow triangle (and maybe a more complex purple star or green diamond).  But first, I have to figure out how big to make my felt board...

Dinosaur World

Who doesn't love dinosaurs?  In thinking of different worlds to invent for Ben, my mom immediately thought he might enjoy one populated with Dinosaurs.  I always loved playing with those plastic dinosaur figurines.

So, it seems like we would want a prehistoric time mat (like the car mat) to use as a backdrop for play with the figurines.  I think the background may could be really simple - perhaps just a swamp water feature, a volcano/mountain, and a sky for the pteradactyls.  I also liked this felt board for examples of dinosaurs we could make for story boards if we wanted to go in that direction.