Shape Soft Book

My kids didn't let me sleep and I was super frustrated so I needed a little craft break this weekend.
I didn't really have the energy (or patience) to stand at the sewing machine and work on the Mario quilt and I was looking to try out my new hot glue gun anyway (nothing fancy, just not the old one).
So I settled on a quick and easy, no sew soft book about shapes.

I had a plan drawn out a while ago (when I first got into the idea of soft books) and so the first step was already done. As for the rest, I pulled out my felt, ribbons, and stickers and just kind of threw it all together as I went.

Here's the pictures:
(My plan was to be quick, so I didn't spend a whole lot of time on the cover, I contemplated using more stickers, or hot gluing ribbon or twine on to make the cover, but settled on just writing it.. because quick and easy, and the twins were waking up as I was working on the cover.)

 (The little circle on the triangle is a candy corn sticker.)

Quick run-down:
*I planned on the diamond being last, but I wasn't thinking and since it was blank on back I made it the first so the blank side could be the cover page.
*I finished it off with a simple tie binding, since there weren't a lot of pages (and again, trying for quick craft therapy).
*I spent a total of maybe 3 hours over the course of 2 days on this. (Seriously, just nap time plus a little finish up/clean up past nap time).
*I thought about having rectangle too, but the examples are really similar to square, so I went with just square.
*I got KK involved by making her look through the stickers to see if she could find anything to fit the shapes. I saw it as taking advantage of her, but she had fun getting to help out.
*Looking at these picture reminded me that I was going to use the star sticker (the silver to the left) as a shooting star and will add silver streaks with a Sharpie after I finish typing this up.


That's all for now,
Jo!

Fall Break Busy-ness

School is on Fall Break this week.

KM and KN are supposed to work on colors and shapes this week, per the request of their teacher.
So here's something I came up with to help with that:

It's nothing fancy or intricate, but can be used to sort by both color or shape.
Obviously, since they are still learning these things, it's best when done with mom, dad, or big sisters' help to let them know the name of the shape or remind them of the color name, or generally reaffirming the lesson.

Here's what I did: I used different colored markers to draw (and label) shapes and then used 4 buttons to match each of the shapes. Boom! Done! Like I said, nothing fancy but it works, and when I first gave it to them (not intending to teach at the time, just seeing if it would keep their attention), they instantly started matching colors, because that's what they are better at of the two, and did so for about 15 minutes straight. So they enjoyed it.

That's all for now,
Jo!

Flower Week, Day 5

Today for our make up we made shape flowers.

We discussed shape names, along with sides and angles for each.  And then let their imagination take control.

This really was very simple, I looked through my scrap paper and cut it into squares, circles, rectangles, and triangles and kept them sorted for easy use.

 You could definitely added other shapes if desired, but I stuck with ones I could easily cut out (I used a circle hole punch to make them easier).

That's all for now,
Jo!