Sunday 17 February 2013

It's a Jungle in There!

Ok, this is not something I found in Pinterest but it is somewhat crafty (and more crafty than some things I've seen on Pinterest) so that makes it Pinterest worthy and allowable for this blog. :)

So, Annalise has a jungle themed room. We decided on this theme because this kids loves lions, tigers, elephants, giraffes, etc. We put animal decals on her walls and a "leaf tent" over her bed (courtesy of Ikea). Today I added something new to a wall. This is something that I used in my classroom when I was teaching Kindergarten and Grade 1. I don't know if I'll ever teach those grades again and I was getting sad/nostalgic seeing my bulletin board things in a box rather than a wall so I decided to put some to use. The addition to Annalise's wall is from a unit I taught on trees and seasons. :)  Here's the photos:


It's a tree! :) (and yes, I'm aware that one branch is lighter than all the others ... I made do with the supplies I had available while teaching). :)


A closer picture. Annalise looked at it and said, "Oh a tree! It looks like pretty!" and then, upon a closer inspection, said, "Mommy, where's the nest for the bird?" So apparently I'm now going to make a nest and some birds to add to this tree. :)

Potty Party Chart

Potty training is happening in full force in our house. Some days Annalise can make it all day without an accident; some days there are just way too many accidents. Because of this, we are still using a potty chart to reinforce good potty skills. There's something about the potty charts to print off online that I just don't like. They're too limited sometimes and not specific enough other times. The ones that had specific categories mostly had categories we were beyond teaching our girl so they were still useless. I decided I had to make my own and there was one I saw on Pinterest that I really liked and Annalise likes it too (which is, of course, a bonus). :)  Credit where credit is due (of course) so this is the link where I got the idea http://prudentbaby.com/2010/01/baby-kid/diy-potty-training-chart-2/ and the creator of this lovely chart wonderfully created pdfs to print so people could make their own similar charts. :) So, here is my version of the chart. I can't show you all the steps because I didn't take photos of all the steps (Mommy brain at fault). I used materials I had on hand. There was a piece of wood in our basement which seemed like it would be a good size so I grabbed that, found a roll of wrapping paper that didn't look too Christmasy (we only have Christmas wrap for some reason) and ribbons to match. Glue, tape and scissors were also necessary and, of course, the print-outs of the images to attach to the chart :)

This is the complete chart (and you can see there are already "stickers" attached - so proud of my little girl! :)


This is detail of the top. As you can see, my board could have been wider so that I could have fit the title on better but this still works. :)


And here's detail of the bottom. :) Annalise is proud of all the panty "stickers" on her chart! :)