Activity: Yarn Outlined Letters

This is a fun, slightly messy way for your child to help you make some cute decor for their room (and get some more exposure to letters). We just used my daughter's first initial, but you could do this for all the letters in their name if you wanted to.

Write letter on craft foam.

Trace letter with white glue and help your child "trace" over the glue with yarn.

The finished product! (It will look better when the glue dries)

Activity: Window Painting

This is another great activity to do with your kids! You can help them practice letters and numbers, or just let them express their artistic side! The best part is, you can keep your child entertained for quite a while, with minimal effort on your part :)

Paint this washable project paint all over a glass door (or a big mirror would be really fun too).

Dip Q-tips in water and use them to "reverse paint" (the paint washes off wherever the Q-tip touches). Lots of fun, and easy clean up (thank goodness!)

Activity: Letter Sculptures

This is a fun, hands-on activity for kids to work with letters. If you want to preserve your child's work (I'm thinking about using it to decorate her room), this air-dry clay is great. Otherwise, any sort of play dough is good.

Give your child a ball of clay.

Help them roll it out so it's long and thin.

Help them create the letter (we did her initial, which is why I think it would be a fun decoration).

And you can make a handprint in some of the extra clay, because that's always fun to do!

Recipe: 4-ingredient GF PB Cookies

You just need four ingredients to make these delicious, gluten-free peanut butter cookies!

INGREDIENTS
1 C creamy peanut butter
1 C sugar
1 egg
1 t vanilla

DIRECTIONS
Preheat oven to 325F. Combine all ingredients; let sit for 10 minutes. Drop spoonfuls on to ungreased baking sheet and press down with fork. Cook for 10 minutes, or until edges are golden brown. Makes about 18 cookies.

Etsy: Hello Kitty for Grownups

Sometimes you just want to embrace your inner child. That's why I've made a new listing in my Etsy shop to offer this cute Hello Kitty hat in teen and adult sizes. Hurry on over and order yours today!

See Hello Kitty Hat listing here

Activity: Number Cookie Monster

This is an incredibly fun way to work on numbers (or letters) with your child! It's quick and easy to make, and they will love feeding their cookie monster the number cookies. Here are the directions (along with a couple ways to use the number cookie monster to teach your child). There's also a bonus activity at the bottom!

Start with an empty Pringles can (or similar container). Measure and cut a piece of plain paper so that it will wrap around and cover the container. Have your child color the paper while you cut out a "mouth" in the container.

Using regular ol' white glue, adhere the paper to the container. I stuck on one edge first, put some glue around the mouth, then wrapped the paper around, finishing by gluing the other end.

I just made a hole in the paper where the mouth was, then folded the paper back and into the container. I didn't bother gluing it, but you can if you want to. Attach googly eyes to complete the face. I made two holes in the lid, and weaved some yarn (about 8 inches) through the holes so that the ends were coming out the top. Take a long piece of yarn and fold in half multiple times, until you end up with a little bundle that is about 6 inches long. Center the bundle on top of the lid and use the long strands weaved through the lid to securely tie the bundle to the top. Then cut the loops so that all the strands are equal length, and trim the ends of the long strands too.

Make circles that will fit into the mouth and container. Label them 0-10 (or whatever numbers you want to work on, or letters if you want to do that instead).

While I was making the number cookies, my daughter decorated her monster with foam number stickers.

Now we're ready to work on numbers! Method 1: Ask your child to pick up a specific number. Help them find it if they are having trouble. Have them repeat the number to you, then let them feed it to the monster. Method 2: Have your child pick up a number. Ask them what number it is; help them if they are having trouble. Have them repeat the number, then feed it to the monster. If you think of other methods, let me know!

Bonus activity: Let your child be a number cookie monster too! Cut out sugar cookies in the shapes of numbers (or decorate them with the numbers on top), and use the same methods as above before allowing your little cookie monster to eat his/her own cookie!

Activity: Mess-Free Painting

Can mess-free painting really exist? Yes! And my little girl had so much fun doing this for a Valentine's Day activity.

You'll need a closeable disposable box, paper shapes, craft paint, an applicator item (either disposable or something you don't mind washing paint off of), newspaper, and tape. Here's what you do:

Cut out shapes to be painted (we did hearts for Valentine's Day) and tape to the inside of a shoe box or similar container with enough space for an item to move around inside.

Add craft paint to the box -- it should not actually touch any of the paper.

Add applicator item(s). I loved the foil ball because it made cool patterns and I just threw it away when we were done. The little candle made some cool marks too, but I think I would have been fine with just the foil.

Tape the box closed and shake. Shake, shake, shake.

Shake more.

Open up the box and see your pretty painted shapes!

Lay them out on newspaper (or scrap paper) to dry. They all turned out different and beautiful. And my daughter was so excited to show everyone her Valentines (especially her daddy!)

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