ARTSY FARSTY: the coolest parents ever

Ok, well maybe not the coolest ever, but I think we are in the running for an honorary mention at least. We bought a new patio set (which gets me closer to my dream of a complete outdoor living space - I am beyond thrilled) and it came in a very large, very sturdy cardboard box. Now, we had just gotten all the cardboard boxes out of our family room a few days earlier, and were relieved to have some floor space back. But this new box really had far too much potential to ignore, so we decided to make something awesome with it. Captain said he wanted a pirate ship, and since he has two indulgent parents, he got one. A few hours and one roll of duct tape later, Captain and Chunk were sailing the seas looking for precious jewels and gold doubloons.

Of course, the actual creation part of this is more for a crafty grown-up than a kid, because it involves utility knives. But the result is all for the kids. Well, mostly for the kids.

I'm going to skip the detailed instructions on this one since it would depend on the types of boxes you have available. We used the patio set box plus some sturdy tubes that I received paper shipments in. My husband did all the assembly and construction - I just made the nifty pirate hats. He did a great job too! Check out the windows and peep-holes!

ARTSY FARTSY: published authors

This morning at breakfast, Captain and his friend A finished eating before Chunk. Our house rules dictate that everyone stays at the table until all are finished with their meals. But

when three year olds eat faster than everyone else you have to find creative ways to entertain them. I was out of briliant ideas, so I suggested Captain tell us all a story. Imagine my surprise when he actually launched into one! "Once upon a time..." When I was still teaching we called times like these teachable moments - an opportunity that you had to quickly embrace before it slipped away. So, you better believe I embraced Captain's improptu storytelling!

Materials:

paper

cardstock or decorative paper (or just more regular paper if you are in a pinch)

stapler

scissors

pen

coloring stuff

Stack all the paper and cardstock together and fold in half.

Cut the paper and cardstock down to a small enough size that your stapler will be able to reach the center. Our books were about 3" x 5".

Let your storyteller talk up a storm and transcribe his/her thoughts onto the pages of the book. Don't forget to give it a title!

Give the kiddo crayons so that he/she can illustrate the book!

BeatBob

by Captain

Once upon a time there was a little man in the forest.

He saw a dog named BeatBob in the woods.

The dog knocked down their house with his tail.

He fixed the house with a shovel and put snow on top.

Santa came to their house. Supercalifragilistic!

Happy ever after.

ARTSY FARTSY: pretzel time

I'll admit, this is more of a cooking project than an art project, but I like when things like that overlap a bit, don't you? Captain, Chunk and their friend made really delicious soft pretzels the other day. It was very easy and they boys were able to alot of it themselves. I got the recipe at allrecipes.com. We halved the recipe because eating 12 soft pretzels would most definitely cause belly aches. I let the kids make their pretzels any shape they wanted - notice the letter shapes above! We ate ours with cheese dip (Ragu jarred cheese sauce) like in the mall. This was fun, messy and yummy!

ARTSY FARSTY: hey, that's me!

I feel so bad about slacking off on the artsy-fartsyness around here. We've been doing alot of coloring, but nothing interesting enough to share with you guys. Until today anyway. After breakfast we hung giant pieces of paper on the walls and fridge and I traced their bodies with crayon. Then they got to color all over themselves. If they hadn't gotten distracted by the Lightning McQueen mega blocks we probably would have pulled out all our collage stuff and started glueing random objects to their bodies too. Maybe next time. To be honest, their biggest excitement was probably that the paper was giant and hung on the wall. But they had fun, as you can see from the smile on Chunk's face!

BIG ME

materials:

large paper (I used big rolls of paper, but you could use the backside of wrapping paper if you have that)

crayons, markers and coloring stuff.

Anything else you want to decorate your bodies with - yarn, tape, paint, buttons...

Directions:

hang the paper on the wall or lay it on the floor.

have your kiddo stand against the paper or lie on top of it.

trace their outline.

let them go wild decorating it.