New Towels for the Lego-Obsessed

Is it just me, or does anyone else like cool beach towels?  I covet the pretty ones in Target and Old Navy and drool over the selection at Pottery Barn Kids, but I'm cheap.  And addicted to making stuff.  So, year after year, we use the same boring ones I got for free from work, and nobody really complains or cares.

This year, though, I wanted a change.  My kids love the hooded towels made to look like ducks or hippos or monsters.  The possibilities are endless as to the embellishment on those towels, but, since I'm lazy, I had to figure out a simple way to construct the hoods.  I came across this tutorial, and it was on. 

Sarah and Will's current obsession: Ninjago: Masters of Spinjitsu.  I kind of love it too, because you really can't go wrong with Legos.  Plus, it's so easy to turn anything solid-colored into a ninja, like the Easter eggs we made this year with Sharpies. 

 So, here we go.  Let's start with the list of materials, shall we?

• 1 regular bath towel in preferred color (or terry cloth off the bolt)
• 1 coordinating hand towel (or 20" of terry cloth)
• scrap yellow terry cloth or fleece
• scrap white terry, felt, or fleece
• scrap black terry, felt, or fleece
• notions

Step 1: Place the pattern Mask piece along the fold of the yellow terry cloth and cut.  
           Set aside.

Step 2: Cut your hand towel to about 14" in length.

Step 3: Make an arc on the top of the hand towel from about 6" deep to make the hood,   like so:

Step 4: Sew along the arc line and cut off the excess fabric to about 1/4" seam allowance:

Set hood aside.
 Step 5: Applique your eyes and eyebrows onto your yellow mask pieces.  I sewed around them in a zig-zag stitch to prevent fraying.

Here's what they look like without the pupils:

Step 6: Applique your ninja mask onto the hood, centering the mask on the fold line.  Again, I used a zig-zag stitch, but you could serge and then sew as well.

Step 7:  Sew/serge the hood onto the towel.  Simply find the middle of your towel and hood (by folding them in half), and pin from the middle outwards.  Sew along the pins.

Step 8: You're done!  Admire your creations upon your swim-exhausted progeny and contemplate numerous other ways to improve upon your handiwork.

Take a bow!

Here's the link to the template for the Ninja mask, eyes, eyebrows, and pupils that I drew up by hand:  Ninjago Mask Template.

Archery

Sunday's trip to the Renaissance Fair had an unexpected side-effect.  See, I figured Sarah would be into the fancy clothes or the fairy wands, and Will would be into the swords and armor and stuff, and they were, to a certain extent.  But the real surprise has been their mutual fascination with learning to use their bows and arrows. 

As soon as they got out of the bathtub Sunday night, they begged Mike for archery lessons.  Being the kind of dad he is, he readily obliged and soon, 

arrows were whizzing all around the den. 

Impressed with my husband's hidden (to me) talent, I asked where he learned to shoot like that.  Unimpressed with my complete lack of coordination and inability to get an arrow to go more than an inch without throwing it, he replied simply, "I'm a boy.  That's what we DO growing up." 

Geez, Daniel Boone.  Make fun of the city girl, why don't you.

Sarah is a natural, so she and Mike are all Hunger Games about their skills.  Will and I need a little more practice, but it's hard when you're 3 years old and refuse to admit you're a lefty.

Anyway, we decided we needed some target practice.  But, since humans are off-limits and the critters in our yard refuse to cooperate, it soon became clear that we needed targets. 

Sarah got to work on hers:

By the way, I have no idea how Sarah knew what a target looked like. 

 It's crazy what that girl observes and picks up on.

And here's Will's target:  It says "BLAM!" in the middle.

Next, we hung our targets on the clothesline that's STILL up, despite the hubs' grumbling. 
This thing is so darn useful, it's going to have to stay up all summer. 
Do you hear me, Miguel? 

Sarah helped me shoot a little how-to video on archery, 

so get ready to be the next Merida or Hawkeye.

Here's Will at point-blank range: 

We bought these bows, but they're just PVC pipe, twine, and duct tape. 
 I am going to figure out how to make some more of these,

 plus the crossbows that we didn't buy at the Renaissance Fair.  

That's a lot of italics right before Memorial Day. 

Happy Thursday!

All Systems Are GO!

Ever since the Mars ROVer thing last year, my peeps have been super-interested in outer space.  But, other than looking at some pictures and video of meteor showers and planets online, we really haven't done much in the way of exploring the final frontier. 

I finally got around to doing a bunch of loosely-related space stuff with my wee scientists this week.  Most of the ideas came from other blogs, but I came up with a couple on my own.  

The first thing we did was to read Berenstein Bears on the Moon.  Even though this isn't an informational text, it sparked discussion about gravity and how we get to space, 

and we practiced counting backwards.  

Next up was a space-themed busy-box.  

A pack of black and neon aquarium gravel and one of those astronaut-themed Toob sets were all that was needed to get my little guys talking and asking questions about satellites, moon-mobiles, rockets, and chimps in space.  

 Yes, you read that right.  A chimp in a space suit is included in this play set. 

In keeping with the kinesthetic theme of things,

 I also made them some space play doh (recipe found here).  

I really was going for a deep rich blue, but after emptying two bottles of blue food-coloring, I had to settle for more of a dark sky-blue.  Nobody really noticed or cared since I also dumped to containers of glitter in as well.  Sarah immediately pointed out that the glitter was like stars and started rolling her dough into "planets". 

We also have constellation lacing cards (fine motor), constellation connect-the-dots (numeric sequencing), and planet matching that we've been working on. 

Check out some other space-themed tangram activities we did. 
 I made my own tangrams by cutting out a pattern from several sheets of foam 
I got at Joann's, and they worked fine, but, man, do I miss the diecut machines at school! 

Here's more math-y goodness using star stickers and black construction paper.  This is not my original idea, but the point of it is for kids to recognize the number written on the paper and to stick that number of stars on the sheet.  Easy setup, big impact.  

I picked the one sheet where the stars don't match the number.  Doh!

For some fine-motor work, we strung some star-shaped beads.

My favorite part? Painting some watercolor planets!

We still have several other activities on tap, like going to the planetarium, making our own meteor shower (in the sand box), creating a meteor with dry ice, 

and stargazing during a backyard camp out. 

They got so into the space-stuff that they put on pool floats and pretended to "orbit". 

Her expression really reads "After picture of an alien abduction",

 but I promise, they really did have fun.

Laundry Day

Sarah goes to kindergarten next year.  I know she'll rise to the challenge like she always does, but it still doesn't seem possible.  I mean, we just brought her home from the hospital, like, YESTERDAY. 

Since she'll be among the youngest in her class, I want to try to prepare her as much as possible.  But it's kind of hard.  If she gets the slightest whiff of teach-iness from me, she goes into Evil Twin mode and all bets are off.  

There are some ways around her resistance to be taught by me.  The first involves an elaborate Cold War-esque ruse to wrap a lesson in a mystery inside an enigma, but I don't really have the patience for that.  The alternative is to sneak a little learning into playtime.  That's so easy with this age group, since the lines are still blurred between learning and fun.  

One thing I've noticed we need to work on with Sarah is fine motor skills.  Girlfriend is a triple-threat in dancing, baseball, and pool-noodle sword-fighting, but not so much on buttoning, snapping, or Legos.  If a tiny Barbie shoe gets stuck in a toy truck, she'll pass it off to Will "Meat Hooks" Brown, because, for whatever reason, he's got the hand strength
 and fine motor skills to fix stuff.  

Mostly because he breaks stuff in the first place. 

I've been giving her a lot of sewing, beading, and Play-Doh playing to do, and I've been looking into some other ways to sneak fine motor in. One of the activities
I've been meaning to do for awhile now is to have her hang clothes on a clothesline.  Simple, right?  But all of that pinscer-gripping is perfect for building strength in those little digits and getting them nice and strong for writing.

The other day, I finally got around to setting up a clothesline in the back yard. I gave her some clothespins and clothes, and away she went!

I'd seen Busy Bags with felt clothing for kids to string up, but I figured we'd use the real thing.  So, I hauled out some old baby clothes that I can't bear to part with, put them in a laundry basket, and brought them outside.

Both kids thought it was HILARIOUS that they could have been small enough to fit in some of those newborn onesies.  
Sarah thinks Dreft is the second-best smell in the world.  

Right behind cookies.

Will wasn't amused to the point of being motivated to abandon his mud pie.  

However, Sarah had a blast "hanging the wash" and practicing whistling while she worked.  

Believe it or not, it was a fun little activity for her, and it required minimal setup and zero cost for me.  I count that as a win-win all the way around.

Next up on my to-do list is to start a Mommy and Me journal, where we write/draw notes back and forth.  She's going to smell the lesson in that one a mile away.