Penguins

We have been talking about winter animals for our craft time, so I thought it would be fun to make a penguin.

Here’s what you’ll need- construction paper- black, orange, white and blue, glue, wiggle eyes, scissors and some items to decorate your penguin.

Cut out a black body for your penguin, then white for his stomach. Cut two arms out of the black paper, two legs and a beak out of the orange paper.  I cut up some blue and purple paper for decorating.

 Hailey decorated the tummy of the penguin using stickers and the blue and purple pieces of paper.

Then Hailey put her penguin together on a piece of blue construction paper, for sturdiness.  She also added pom poms to the penguins tummy.

Here is the finished penguin.

The Mitten

One of my favorite books for winter time is “The Mitten” by Jan Brett.  So, we did this activity to go along with the book.

Here’s what you’ll need: 2 pieces of construction paper, some paint and something to paint with, contact paper and not pictured- scissors and a stapler.

You’ll also need the animals from the story.  I printed these animals back when I used to get the Mailbox Etc magazine.  But you can find some very similar printable animals here.

Paint the construction paper.

Cut out two mitten shapes.  You’ll need the contact paper in a minute… so it shouldn’t really been in this picture.

Staple the two pieces of mitten together.  Be sure to leave the bottom of the mitten open.  Then cover with contact paper to make it last longer.

Get “The Mitten” by Jan Brett, the mitten and your animals.

Read the story together and put the animals into the mitten as you come to that part of the story.

Snowman Cookies

With all the snowman fun we’ve been having we just had to make some snowman sugar cookies!

Get all of your ingredients together.

Mix everything together.

We made the cookies in the evening but Hailey was very hyper so we waited until the next day to decorate them.  She didn’t need anymore sugar!

 Add some frosting.

Decorate your snowman.

This is the snowman cookie that we decorated together.

And here is the snowman cookie Hailey decorated all by herself.

In case you want the recipe we used, here it is:

Sugar Cookies

6 cups of flour
2 cups of sugar
3 tablespoons of baking powder
1 pound soft butter

Take these four items and blend together using a pasty knife.

In a separate bowl combine:

3 large eggs
3 tsp vanilla

Beat them together and then add to the above ingredients. Roll out on a flour surface and cut into shapes. (I have used powdered sugar instead of flour to add some extra flavor and it makes them extra yummy.)
Bake at 375 for 6 minutes or until golden brown.

Bring the Fun Inside

We have been having some really cold temperatures lately and Hailey has really been wanting to play in the snow.  But it’s just been too cold to even be outside.  So, I brought the snow inside.

I put some towels down and gave Hailey one bin full of snow and an empty bin.  I also gave her some cups and spoons for digging.

We later added some cars and people to the snow.  And Hailey wanted to see what the snow felt like with her bare hands.  We were going to make a snowman but it was not snowman building snow, so we’ll have to try that another time.

When we finished playing with the snow we put some snow in one of the cups and kept an eye on it for the rest of the day.

A little while later there was still a little bit of snow left but most of it had melted.

The next time we checked our cup the snow was gone and it was all water.  Hailey said, “Ooooo.  The snow melted and turned to water!”