Imprints From Tricia

The 4th of July is fast approaching and we have been having fun with red, white, and blue crafts.

Today I'm sharing our super easy, limited mess, kid made 4th of July banner.

We used white card stock paper, 4th of July ribbon from the $1 section, 4th of July puffy stickers also from the $1 section, and red and blue dot paint.

I cut the card stock into banner shapes ahead of time. I didn't have a pattern so I had to wing it.

I had the girls decorate half the pieces with the puffy stickers from the $1 aisle at Jo Ann Fabrics.

They loved using the stickers and peeling off the back and they didn't even know it but by doing this they are practicing those fine motor skills!

Once they completed the stickers we brought out the dot paint to decorate the other half of the banner pieces.

When they completed the decorating I used a hole puncher to punch holes in the top corners of the banner pieces and then strung the ribbon through.

We displayed the completed banner on our mantel! Nothing fancy but fun and easy that the kids enjoyed helping to create.

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Like many families we love singing with the kids but often I get stuck in a rut of singing the same songs over and over. As cute as Twinkle Twinkle Little Star is it definitely can get old after the 20th time belting it out to my 9 month old.

Some of our favorite times to sing are in the car and when changing my baby's diaper. It serves as a happy distraction for him when he is less than excited to be changed. I often thought of writing all our favorite songs on a list so when I need to quickly come up with one for the kids we can have them all in one place, look on the list, and choose which ones we want to sing. A list seemed so "stuffy" for young kids so I came up with a more hands-on solution to our song dilemmas and it turns out to be a fun way to recycle those Gerber Puff containers!

The materials needed are index cards (cut into 4's) or small pieces of paper, marker, ribbon, empty Puff container, and alphabet stickers.

The girls helped me pick out the letters needed (also served as a fun letter recognition activity for my 3 year old) We spelled out SING A SONG for the outside of the container.

We then wrote down all the songs we like to sing on the cut up index cards and placed them in the container.

I tied a ribbon around the top and we were done!

There you have it, our very own Song Caddy! So easy to make and a great way to recycle containers. The kids enjoy pulling out a song from the bin and my 4 year old is even sounding out some of the words. A simple way to bring print into their everyday lives and encourage those emergent readers!

You can bring it along for a car ride, place by the diaper changing table, use for a preschool classroom circle time, the ideas are endless!