Bird Feeders

Thursday was a no good, horrible, rotten day. Well, it wasn't that bad, but it was painful. I think I have a little case of mastitis or a clogged milk duct and I was achy and feverish all day. Pair that with a cranky toddler and my patience was wearing a little thin. Usually I have more patience than the average person, but being sick and having a child jump all over you and forget that listening is a skill that she does not need to have and you have one exhausted Mama. About 15 minutes after John got home I went to bed. Thankfully Harrison went to sleep right before that and John was a saint to take over Heidi duty.

While I was trying to sleep I started thinking about how the day could have gone better. Besides the obvious, wishing I had felt better, I knew that Heidi needed more structure at home instead of just running rampant throughout the house. My plan was that I would have activities for independent play and also activities we can do together throughout the day. During her independent activities it could be during times I needed to tend to Harrison or when I could be cleaning the house. I figured I needed to look at staying at home with a toddler kind of like being a school teacher because I will need to plan and prepare the activities. This will be especially handy when pre-school is out for the summer.

Today I printed out some dot art for Heidi's independent play and we made bird feeders for our group activity. Heidi really enjoyed both! I know at her school the teachers have mentioned that the kids really love the dotting. I found a pin on Pinterest, of course, and it had some links to a few blogs that had free printables for dot art.

You can order the dot pens from:

Childcareland.com has alphabet letters/counting and shapes

Making Learning Fun has cute animals

The bird feeders were a project I remember doing back in my days as a Girl Scout. I asked on Facebook where I could find some pine cones and I felt super silly because everyone was like "in my yard". To be fair I only asked because I was not sure if pine cones had a season of when they fell and things like that. So, after the answers on Facebook I looked on the side of the road by pine trees and found a few on the ground. I bought bird seed and we had peanut butter at home. We also had yarn at home and I have no idea where the yarn came from, I don't usually have a need for yarn so I really do not know why I had yarn. You will also need a spatula and a bucket.

To start we poured the bird seed in a bucket. Next we held the tip of the pine cone and spread the peanut butter on the pine cone by using the spatula. After the pine cone was covered in a layer of peanut butter we put the pine cone in the bucket and rolled it around to get the bird seed all over the peanut butter. Once the pine cone was coated in bird seed I sat the cone upright and tied the top with yarn. Finally Heidi picked a spot and we hung the bird feeder. Heidi's favorite part was covering the pine cone with bird seed, or it could have been rubbing herself with the spatula covered in peanut butter.

I really have to admit that having the planned activities really helped me to have a little order in my life - at least one this particular day :) stay tuned for more fun days ahead!