Alpharocks!

       I've seen variations of this project allover Etsy and Pinterest and it's something I've been meaning to make for over a year (yes, it took me over a year...).  All the stones were hand-selected from the beach, but, to save time, you could always just buy a bag of polished stones at the craft shop.

       After a couple of failed attempts with a paintbrush, I used paint markers (genius invention!) for the letters and then outlined them in permanent marker.  They are lowercase on one side and uppercase on the reverse.  I then finished them off with a thin coat of Mod Podge for a bit of extra gloss.  There is something very appealing about the size and weight and smoothness of them.  They are the perfect, multi-sensory alphabet for little hands.   

My initial picture said "word up b*tches" and although I found that humorous, I didn't know how appropriate it was for a kids blog ;)

I also made these little math babies, which will be for my next rock project- math rocks!  I just need to collect a bunch of baby-shaped rocks for "counting babies" and some more round(ish) ones for the numbers.  I think another visit to the beach is in order.

The "Me Tree"

We had so much fun home (really un-) schooling last year, that we decided to do it again!  A common theme in many schools at the start of the school year is "All About Me."  Mini egotists that they are, young children love doing projects about themselves!  It's also a fun way to record what they are like at a particular age, and for comparison at the end of the year, as well as future years.  One of our projects for September was a "Me Tree."  I was inspired by a lovely drawing that Ocean did, which was a tracing of her hand with tiny leaves decorating the fingers.  We traced her hands and arms to make the trunk and branches of the tree, which I hot-glued (alas, you can tell I'm no Martha Stewart with the glue gun!) to a piece of (slightly warped) cardboard from the recycle box.  I then cut out leaves, on which Ocean wrote out things that she loves right now, at five-and-a-half (unicorns, dogs, books, etc.).  We glued them on along with some pictures of favorite things from magazines.  She completed the project with a self-portrait.  Maybe we'll put this aside and make another for comparison at the end of the school year, to see how she's grown and changed.

I feel like this craft has so many possibilities.  With a classroom, you could make a huge tree with branches and leaves for each child.  Another thing that came to mind was expanding on this idea to include "roots" for a genealogy lesson. You could add photos of relatives and ancestors with *their* favorite things.  Maybe we'll do that someday.