Marbled Paper - Activities With Kids (And Shaving Cream)

Indoor Activities with Kids - Marbled Paper

This was such a fun activity to do with the kids.  And I think it would be great for kids of all ages.  The little ones will have a blast getting messy and older kid-os will love creating something.  A great indoor activity for these cold winter months (or fall, or spring, whenever really).

Here is what you will need:
washable paint
shaving cream
a cutting board for each child
plain white paper

first spray a little shaving cream on the cutting board

let them spread it all around,

add in some color and let them swirl it a bit.

now pat a plain piece of paper on top.

spread it out, make sure it is touching the foam all over.

now peal it up.

now you can let it dry like that and it is like a science experiment or you can take a squeegee (or anything with a straight edge like a ruler) and scrape off the foam.

or let them do it.

and the color is left on the paper.  Now they can use the paper to create another picture!  Draw on top of the marbling or use the marbling as inspiration.  Like staring at the clouds.  Whatever sparks their imagination.

As you can see this can get a bit messy but the kids had a blast!

Thanks for stopping by everyone, come back and visit us again soon,

 -Sarah

 We love that you stopped by and cant wait to see you again soon! If you liked Yuen Yarn, check out some of our older posts, Like us on Facebook,  ,visit our ETSY shop, follow us on Instagram, follow us on twitter, or come see our website www.yuenyarn.com.

More Activities With Kids

More kids activities… aka what to do with them all winter long

How about making painted foot prints.  My kids love doing this.  There is something extra special about getting to paint body parts and stick them on paper.  Now with this one make sure you are using washable paints, this little project will get messy.  But that is ok, throw them outside this summer, let them paint their entire bodies, then hose them off with the sprinkler before they come in.

Here you can see I just did a couple foot prints but by the end they were covered head to toe.

Now the real trick is to see if you can get them to make a nice foot print, they usually turn out like this one.  

Plus I like to keep a couple of these a year.  If you date them, it is fun for the kids to see the difference in their foot sizes on paper.  

Thanks for stopping by everyone, come back and visit us again soon,

 -Sarah

 We love that you stopped by and cant wait to see you again soon! If you liked Yuen Yarn, check out some of our older posts, Like us on Facebook,  ,visit our ETSY shop, follow us on Instagram, follow us on twitter, or come see our website www.yuenyarn.com.

'Space Bar' Stick

Need Help Teaching When To Space in a Sentence?

I saw this on one of my favorite blogs and just had to make one for Charly. It is seriously genius! Charly loves to write but has been having some difficulty understanding when to space in a sentence. First she just wrote random letters, then wanted to only copy words, now she finally has the confidence to sound out words and really has been trying but when I tried to teach her spacing she started spacing every single letter. And I think she was getting spaces and periods confused because there was always a dot between the letters.


I don't really know, but at any rate, I wanted to help her and I was so excited about this idea. A space bar, or stick, whatever you want to call it.


All you are going to need is a popcicle stick, a stamp pad and a sharpie.

Paint your popcicle stick with the stamp pad (I chose pink because I have a seriously girly girl and I wanted her to be able to find it easily).

Then draw whatever you want on there. I decided to call mine a 'space bar' but I also drew a space ship on there to really drive home the multiple meanings.

What do you think? I am really hoping it helps, I'll let you know how it goes.

Thanks for stopping by everyone, come back and visit us again soon,

 -Sarah

 We love that you stopped by and cant wait to see you again soon! If you liked Yuen Yarn, check out some of our older posts, Like us on Facebook,  ,visit our ETSY shop or come see our website www.yuenyarn.com.

Matching Letter Game...

My DIY Letters Matching Game

So the first thing I made to help Charly with her letters was a matching game.

By this point he knows all her letters, upper and lower case, but I thought it would be good to really strengthen that base, that core knowledge. Plus it gives her a better confidence about letters and, hopefully, about reading as well.

All you will need is a package of decorative glass decorations, mod Podge, and letters, capital and lower cases.



Now mod Podge the back flat side of the glass,

Place a letter on there and mod Podge over again.















Now let it dry. Just have to wait... Lame, I know!

And let her play. Make a million games of it. You can practice sounds and make words to sound out and practice your site words (to be posted about tomorrow) and on and on and on...

I really think your little one will live this game and so will you!

Thanks for stopping by everyone, come back and visit us again soon,

 -Sarah

 We love that you stopped by and cant wait to see you again soon! If you liked Yuen Yarn, check out some of our older posts, Like us on Facebook,  ,visit our ETSY shop or come see our website www.yuenyarn.com.

Practicing Sight Words

Practice With Sight Words

So, in the English language there are several words that simply can not be sounded out. It's the little words mainly. The ones that you simply have to memorize.  Unfortunately Charly has had a hard time with this as you can see here.

So, in order to facilitate that memorization I posted a sight word board. Every week we will post 2 words here and we will work on them everyday.

Everyday before she leads for school and when she comes home and before bed we will review them again. This has seemed to work really well for her the past couple weeks.

I don't drill it into her, I don't harp on her, just a quick review when we walk by. Less than 2 minutes, heck probably less than a minute. And it has done wonders for her. She gets 2 words down pat in a week. Then I have been leaving them up and just adding 2 more word the next week, now we have 4 words everyday. Again, I am really hoping to build that confidence for her.

That's about it for today. I'll have another game tomorrow.

Thanks everyone...



Thanks for stopping by everyone, come back and visit us again soon,

 -Sarah

 We love that you stopped by and cant wait to see you again soon! If you liked Yuen Yarn, check out some of our older posts, Like us on Facebook,  ,visit our ETSY shop or come see our website www.yuenyarn.com.

Charly and Her Reading

Phonemic Help

So we got the dreaded letter home from school the other day.  The one that said that she wasn't doing well in reading.  The one that said she needs extra help.  

Don't get me wrong, I want her to have all the help she needs and I gladly signed the paper and sent it back with her.  But it is always difficult to hear that your baby is not doing as well as the others in her class.  

So I went in and spoke with her teacher, who is fabulous by the way, and got the skinny on exactly what we should be focusing on at home.  Then I started my research online.  

I found so many awesome things from kindergarden teachers and home schooling parents and just plain great people and I am soooooo excited to share some of the things I made with you!  I, you see, am in no capacity tuned into what a kindergardener needs as far as help with schooling and such.  I tried, Lord knows I tried but it was just not working for me.

So... I have decided to dedicate this week to preschool and kindergarden learning games week!  YEAH!!  I guess I had better get to work!

Thanks for stopping by everyone, come back and visit us again soon,

 -Sarah

 We love that you stopped by and cant wait to see you again soon! If you liked Yuen Yarn, check out some of our older posts, Like us on Facebook, ,visit our ETSY shop or come see our website www.yuenyarn.com.