DIY Magnets- My first attempt

Kay has a really huge fascination with magnets. I have no idea what it is about them, but she's obsessed. Luckily, the front door in the living room is actually magnetic, so we have extra magnet play space for her. Going forward, should we move anytime in the near future, if door space isn't metal I honestly think I'll invest in some magnetic paint to utilize the space.

 SO it's not exactly the most attractive part of our living room. But who are we really impressing anyway? Yeah, that's right.... our 3 year old.

I decided to try and make some magnets... nothing fantastic or perfect yet, I didn't want to waste much money or effort if they didn't wind up working. Seeing as Valentine's Day is coming up quickly, I figured that hearts were a simple enough choice to start off with.

As you can see, they're functional and already being used to hold up some of her prized coloring on the fridge. I made a bunch and figured we could use them for counters when we do some math things. Now that I know that it works, I'm definitely going to be investing in some more supplies to make them. Luckily- they're super cheap to make!

You Need:

*Dollar store clear accent Gems. I don't know how many you actually get, but it's a ton for a buck- see? And I already used about 20. 

*cardstock- I just used white and drew some hearts with marker. You could use pretty much any design or color you wanted, I'm sure. I'm going to try stickers next.

*Small round magnets. Got mine at the craft section of Walmart this time. 

*Glue- I've seen these made using Modge Podge as well, but I happened to have some E-6000 clear glue on hand and decided to go for the stronger stuff. Worked like a charm. 

*Scissors- or- if they even make this, it would be SUPER convenient to find a hole punch that punches 1/2 inch circles. I've checked all the craft stores in the area and none of them sell one that small. But if they exist- that size would be about perfect for this. And save a lot of time and hand-cramping from cutting out all the small circles of card stock. 

What I did was use a pencil to outline the circumference of the stones on the card stock. These stones aren't all perfectly round, but they're about the same size and shape. I made one circle, cut it out a tiny bit smaller than I drew it, and then copied that one circle a bunch of times. Even though they're not all exactly the same shape the same circle worked for them all. 

Then, once the hearts were drawn, just glued the paper to the marbles, and then the marbles to the magnets. I don't care for the magnets I picked up this time because they have some white stuff along the edges, where they attached adhesive. I would buy plain circular magnets next time to make the finished product look a little nicer. But for my trial, I'm happy with them, and Kayla's played with them quite a bit already. 

I'm thinking I'll make a few sets of these for letters and numbers, and then some themed ones for counters. Any small stickers would also work. (As a side note, I went to TRU's website to find a link to the rolls of Dora stickers we got for Kayla that will be perfect size for this project. I typed in "stickers" and got 6000+ results. What, exactly, does every single baby product that BRU sells have to do with stickers? ARGH). 

Yay for successful, simple projects! 

Letter J Week- Completed!

Letter J week was a pretty successful week. We kept ourselves busy and got to everything I was hoping we would, except for getting to Jumping Jungle. Their website stinks! And they always change their open bounce times. We learned the very hard way after showing up one day only to find their schedule had changed. That doesn't make for a happy 3 year old.

Anyway...

And here are some of our J papers for the week-

(Don't mind the corner being a work-in-progress as far as the organization goes- when it's done I think it's going to be cute!)



We went to the library where Kayla had more fun playing on the computer than reading, and we signed up for weekly storytime starting this week. Should be interesting. We got some J books to read-

We made some Jellyfish out of cups and tissue paper-

And we also made some out of small plastic bags and an empty plastic container. Although there actually was Windex in there, that is actually only water with a little blue food coloring in it. This was pretty cute, except in hindsight, I think I'd add a small stone to the head of the jellyfish. I   stuffed it with wet cotton balls assuming the weight of the balls would keep our little guy from floating at the top, but it needed just a little more.

Conveniently, J week happened to fall during January, so I made a big calender to hang for her to begin learning days of the week. I'll eventually get pictures of all the family for their birthdays and add holidays as well. If I could find a place to laminate around here I'd just make one generic calender forever, but until then I just will make a new one each month.

She's been very excited to move the snowflake each day (attached with some of that blue sticky tack stuff) and we talk about the new day of the week.

J is for Jump!

And just some misc. Pictures-

And to celebrate the snow yesterday, we made a snow globe-

That's just a Nutella container cleaned out, a pink duck hot glued to the cap, and filled with glitter and water. I also used hot glue around the seal of the container to help prevent leaking, but it seemed ok after a few good shakes.

We also used Jelly Beans to count, made some Jello, and since the original curriculum didn't have a character trait (only bible lessons, which we don't use) we discussed being joyful and drew lots of smiley faces!

We also tried jumping rope- but we've got a long way to go for that, I think! She is, however, proficient at jumping jacks. =)