Simple Saturday: Meat Tray Sewing Cards

Okay, I said simple and I mean it. And, as it goes with kids, the simpler the better. Wee ones love this activity. I promise you. You've got the supplies, right? The Styrofoam meat tray sans the meat, yarn, tapestry needle, and scissors? Well, let's get going then.

Cut the tray into strips. I made mine about 2 inches wide to accomodate my fat fingers. You can make it thinner, if you'd like. Size up your child's fingers and then go for it.

If you look closely you can see that I poked a row of holes into the Styrofoam strip. You might want to make your pokes a bit bigger. Once again consider the child and their developing dexterity. Make larger ones if they are wobbly sewers. Make them smaller if you'd like to challenge them a little bit.

Tie one end of the yarn to the sewing card and tie the other to the tapestry needle. Securing the yarn to the needle assures that the concentration focus will be on the act of sewing and not on keeping the dad-burned yarn on the needle. Voice of experience here. Heed it.

And then sew! In and out. In and out. Over. Under. Over. Under. Fill that card with yarn. Pull it out and sew it all over again.

I know what you're thinking. That's it? Yes. That's it. In our harried, plastic, expensive, scattered adult world we forget that what kids need most is simplicity. Pare things down. Relax. Enjoy a simple moment with your lovely child and sew.

Have simply sensational Saturday and I'll see you next week.

Simple Saturday Prep: Something Beneficial for Little Goblins

Nothing in this milk-chocolatey-wonderful world is more endearing than to observe tiny hands at work. Those busy little dimpled knuckles, chubby mini fingers...delicate, yet so purposeful in their discovery. Scenes like this stop me in my tracks. I deeply admire a wee one's deliberate focus as they hone their dexterity. Plus, they're so darned cute!

Saturday we will be developing the strength of those tenacious fingers, lengthening that concentration span, and spark a little bit of independence. The simple activity is designed for children from say...three years old and up. You're going to need a couple of styrofoam meat trays, yarn, scissors, and a tapestry needle.

Now I scavengered my needle out my knitting bag (I'm the worst knitter that ever walked this planet. Yet I keep at it. A glutton for punishment, I guess). You can pick up some plastic ones at a craft store, if you'd like. Just remember to keep it simple, cheap, and FUN!

See you tomorrow.

Simple Saturday-Color Mixing

As you can tell the procedures below have been done in my kitchen, as most of the Simple Saturday posts will be. Color mixing is easy, simple, and fun to do...just wait and see.

Here are the three glasses half filled with colored water. I used 5 drops of each shade of food coloring in each glass. You might want to experiment with the concentration of color you'd like to use. It has been my experience that if you make the color solution too dark it doesn't work as well and your child's fingertips might get a bit stained (But who cares...right?). 

I filled the eyedropper with a nice blob of blue and then dropped it into the first space in the color mixing tray.

Next I filled the dropper with a tube full of yellow color and mixed with with the blue already in the color tray. Whoa! Wait. What just happened? Did I make green? Wow. (Little ones love this...I'm telling ya'.)

Let's get crazy now. How do you think I was able to make purple, huh? Or how about that orange right there? What colors must combine to make this happen? I wonder how pink is made. Or brown. Or black.

I encourage you to ask the questions and let your young child figure out the color combinations on their own. So what if the shade isn't right. Simply wipe it out and begin again!

Get Ready. Tomorrow is Simple Saturday.

I have made a career out of having a great time with kids utililizing very simple things. In fact, most of the items needed to create a fun little activity can be found right there in your kitchen. Cheap fun. Simple quality time with your kids, hence the theme of my blog, Simple Saturdays. 

Here's the plan: On Friday I will give you a list of items that you might like to gather. On Saturday I'll show you what to do. There will be activities for all aged kids, wee ones to those that tower over us. Games, crafts, pastimes, things that help to develop motor skills and lengthen the concentration span. Laying-on-your-back-gazing-at-the-clouds type of things. Sounds like fun to you? It does to me.

Very young ones will enjoy tomorrow's activity, children from the age of oh...say...2 1/2 to 4 years of age. They will need to have the ability to squeeze the rubber top of an eyedropper. (Oh, how I love to watch those chubby, dimpled hands as they work.)

The supplies needed for Simple Saturday are an eyedropper, a color mixing tray (I bought this one at Jo Ann's for about $1.25), red, yellow, and blue food coloring, water, and 3 small glasses (baby food jars work great!). It might be good to have a sponge nearby.

That's it! I'll see you tomorrow!