Creative Family Fun

Your one-stop shop for kids activities and family fun

Terri Thompson

Books = Fun: The Little Engine That Could

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We have a train lover in our house.

AJ (age 3) has loved trains for some time now, so we’ve accumulated quite a collection of train toys and books.

Disclosure: There are Amazon Affiliate and other affiliate links in this article which means, at no additional cost to you, we could receive compensation for our recommendations. You can read our full disclosure policy on our Disclosure Page for more details.

One of our favorite books is The Little Engine That Couldby Watty Piper. We decided to expand on the story by making our own Little Engines.

Supplies Needed:

Construction paper (several colors)
Glue sticks
Scissors
Old magazines
Markers

The girls started by assembling some pre-cut shapes to form the train.

We used several sizes of squares and rectangles for our trains.

Once they had glued their pieces down, they started looking for toys to fill it up. They searched through a few old magazines and catalogs to find toys for their train.

They then cut and glued their pictures into the train car.

After our trains were full, we used markers to add the details.

Lizzie (age 5) added wheels, a window, smoke, and even a smiley face.

AJ (age 3) filled her train so full of toys that it could barely move! We had fun exploring one of our favorite books and hope to explore many more of our favorites this way.

We’re always on the lookout for more books about trains. Do you have any recommendations?

10 Ways to Play This Weekend: Week 7

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Kid’s Co-op: Back to School

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It’s Friday and that means it’s Kid’s Co-op time. Link up your favorite kid-related posts and then check out all the fun that has been linked up from other bloggers.

There were so many fun ideas shared last week and it seems a lot of us are busy getting ready to go back to school. Today, I’d like to share three posts that celebrate back-to-school time.

Kitchen Fun With My 3 Sons is helping you pack fun lunches with this roundup of 30 Back to School Fun Food & Gift Ideas.
And Inspired By Family Magazine shared these fun printable Dr. Seuss lunch notes.
Now it’s time for you to share all the fun you’ve been having! Please join up and share your favorite post. (And, we’d love you forever if you’d link back to us!) Your link will show up on all of the hosts’ blogs. It’s time to link up, visit some new blogs, and have a lot of fun!

A Love of Books

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How do you promote a love of books with your kids?

Give me your best advice in the comments. I’ll compile them and share your advice in an upcoming post about encouraging a love of books. (If you have your own blog, leave me the link so I can include it as well.)

A New Rhythm to Our Week

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Our days and weeks are about to get different.

Lizzie starts Kindergarten soon, so five days a week every afternoon, she’ll be enjoying the big, wonderful world of school.

No longer will the three of us be spending all day, every day together.

While Lizzie is at school, AJ will be doing preschool at home with me. I’m planning a fun Letter of the Week program with her that should be fun for both of us. And don’t worry, I plan on sharing our fun with all of you!

I’m also planning a loose weekly schedule for Lizzie when she’s not in school. She’ll be learning a lot in Kindergarten, but I would like to continue on with some of the subjects we’ve been learning.

I’ve picked subjects that Lizzie loves as well as some that are often neglected in public schools due to funding and standardized testing. If they can’t get it at school, I’ll make sure that they get it at home!

Disclosure: There are Amazon Affiliate and other affiliate links in this article which means, at no additional cost to you, we could receive compensation for our recommendations. You can read our full disclosure policy on our Disclosure Page for more details.

Monday will be all about art. We’ll do a lot of process art, we’ll learn new techniques, and we’ll even learn about some of the great artists. But, most of all we’ll use this time to be creative. Lizzie loves art and I want to make sure we make time for it every week.

Tuesday is for music. Sadly, music education is often one of the first things cut in schools. There is so much to learn about music. When you learn about music, you learn about math, literature, history, and physical movement. I plan on having a lot of fun with music. We’ll sing and dance. We’ll learn about different genres of music and dance. We’ll learn about music from around the world. And, we’ll also learn about different musical instruments.

Wednesdays, we’ll explore world culture. World culture is sorely neglected in our public schools. Yet, I think an understanding of world culture is one of the best ways to teach tolerance and to show my girls that there is much more to the world than their own small town. Plus, it’s fun! We’ll be learning about world culture through cooking, crafts, games, and stories.

Thursdays are for science. Lizzie loves science and as long as she loves it, I will nurture this love. I know she’ll be receiving an ample science education at school, but I still want to have fun with science at home. We’ll continue learning about nature and animals. We’ll do fun science experiments. We’ll also work on creating nature journals.

Fridays are all about literature. We love doing projects based on books. We’ll have fun reading and exploring fun books. We’ll make crafts, play games, and explore dramatic play. We’ll be learning that books are fun!

Even though school doesn’t start for another couple of weeks, we’re going to try out our new weekly schedule this week.

It will give us time to start getting in a routine before school starts and it will give me time to tweak the schedule if it’s not working.

I’m sure you’ve noticed that it’s been quiet around here. That’s because I’ve been planning and planning. I can’t wait to share with you all of our new fun and experiences!