We have five caterpillars right now that we are watching turn into butterflies.  They are currently in the chrysalis stage and it is so fascinating to watch.  So, we have been doing a bunch of caterpillar activities and will be starting to do some butterfly projects too.  For the next few days I’ll be sharing some of the caterpillar fun we’ve been having.

Here’s what you’ll need: half of an egg carton, paper bowls, paint, paint brushes and pipe cleaner.

Paint the egg carton.  And if you’re a toddler have a little taste of the paint.  Apparently the blue is good.

Cover the entire egg carton with paint and then let it dry.

After it dries- poke two holes in the top to thread your pipe cleaner through- then curl the ends to look like antenna.  Add eyes, nose and mouth.

I showed you our spider we made out of playdough and pipe cleaners yesterday to go along with “The Itsy Bitsy Spider” song that Hailey loves.

So, I had a fabulous idea that we could do some “ball painting” to create a spiderweb look. It didn’t exactly work.

Here’s what you’ll need- paper, ball, paint, bowl, something to stir if you want to mix your paint together, and a box with sides.

Put some paint in the bowl.

Stir it up to create a fun new color. Or make your toddler upset because she has just decided that she doesn’t like mixing the colors together.

Next you should be able to put the paper inside the box with sides, add some small drops of paint to the paper, and then tilt the box to make the ball roll which will create lines all over the paper (our spiderweb in this situation). The problem was that I used one of Hailey’s golf balls- so it is hollow and didn’t really weigh enough to roll through the paint. It kept getting stuck in the little paint blobs.

So, we tried a deeper box so that Hailey could shake the box harder without the ball flying across the room.

This is the reason we didn’t use marbles (which will give you the best results- but only if your children no longer put everything in their mouths). The golf ball is covered in paint and is being inserted into Hailey’s mouth.

Here is our finished spiderweb. Which looks nothing like a spiderweb. BUT, Hailey had fun making it and that is what matters.

Hailey loves “The Itsy Bitsy Spider” song so I thought I would do an easy project with her to make our own fun spider.

Here’s what you’ll need: Playdough and pipe cleaners.  We used pink because that is Haileys favorite color.  And also to keep our spider looking fun instead of scary.

Cut up the pipe cleaner into eight pieces to be used as legs.

We made our spider and then sang “The Itsy Bitsy Spider.”  This is Hailey doing the hand motions for the “down came the rain” line.

And then Hailey decided she didn’t like the spider anymore, so she pulled all of the legs off.

Just in case you need the lyrics here they are:

The itsy bitsy spider
Climbed up the water spout
Down came the rain
And washed the spider out
Out came the sun
And dried up all the rain
And the itsy bitsy spider
Climbed up the spout again.

And if you need the tune- check that out here.

I haven’t posted in a few days because we took a nice weekend getaway to visit with family.  I’ll be posting about it on my Livin’ With Me blog soon, so check there if you’d like to see what we were up to.

Last week was my nephews birthday so I decided to have Hailey make some wrapping paper to use to wrap up his present.

Here’s what you’ll need: bubbles, bubble wands, clothespins, bowls, food coloring and a large piece of paper (not in this picture).

We did this project outside and used the clothespins to pin the paper up to our fence.  If you do this inside, be sure to protect the floor where you stand to do it as it will stain your floor.

Pour four dishes of bubbles and then add food coloring to the dishes.   This will stain your skin and clothes, so be sure to dress in old clothes.

Stir the food coloring into the bubbles.

Blow the bubbles onto your paper.  As they pop they will leave color on the paper.  It was a little bit windy out when we did this and so the bubbles kept missing the paper.  But we had a blast anyways.

The finished paper.