A Book A Day...

It might be the Kindergarten teacher in me, or it may be an inherited trait from my mom, maybe it's the illustrations, or perhaps I'm a sucker for rhymes - but whatever the reason, I have always loved children's books.  With a passion.

For Aidan's nursery, we went with an Around The World In 80 Days theme, his baby shower had a library theme, my favorite day of the year is my school's annual Literacy Parade, I've even listed my top picks for must-read children's books in A Life Long Love Affair With Children's Books.  Needless to say, I'm a fan.
So, when we were on vacation in Boston this summer, home of the ducklings from Make Way For Ducklings by Robert McCloskey, I could feel a new family tradition coming on.
The gist of this new family tradition (which, by the way, you are more than free to copy and make your own), is that I try to get a book from wherever we're visiting (either set there, or the author is from there), and take a picture of us in some sort of connection to the book.

For example...

1. Boston, MA - Make Way For Ducklings

This is an adorable story about a Mallard duck couple looking for a place to raise their family of ducklings, and how they end up at the Public Gardens in Boston.  Lucky for us, Bostonians have placed statues of them in the Public Gardens.  Fun, fun family day!

2. Boston, MA - Paul Revere's Ride

Did I mention, that I also love history?  Buddy boy was asleep when we got to Paul Revere's house, but I waved at it for him... :)

3. St. Augustine, FL - St. Augustine A to Z

We found this gem in a little local bookstore in Jacksonville Beach.  Aidan celebrated his first 4th of July at the St. Augustine Castillo De San Marcos fort.  St. Augustine is the oldest European city in the continental U.S.  This book is really cute, and is even by a local author!

4. Florida - Count To Sleep Florida

This is just my "Florida" book, for now.  It's really cute though, and is a perfect bedtime book for babies and toddlers.  The ultimate goal is to go manatee watching and get the book Manatee Winter.  It is such a sweet book about the oceanic and river wild life in our area.  I read it to my class, and got so emotional at one part, where the mama and baby manatee get separated (spoiler alert, they find each other), that I nearly started crying.  It may have had a little to do with the fact that the manatee baby was 6 months old, and so was Aidan at the time... not sure, but regardless, you may want to have a tissue or clean sleeve nearby.

5. Florida - Good Night Florida

Our dear friends got Aidan this book.  It's by the same company as the earlier book, and I just love it!  Good news is, that the company, goodnightourworld.com has a book for just about any place you can imagine!  So, if you're stuck, and can't come up with a book from a particular place, you can always use one of these as a back-up!

So, now that I've started this, of course I feel the need to travel, and buy books!  We spent the day in Old Town Alexandria, and drove through D.C. on our way home, so I guess I just HAVE to get him a book from there... maybe a history one?  Or I could do Woodrow, The White House Mouse.  I actually think I have a signed copy of that, that I got from my aunt somewhere...

I can't wait to show Aidan Budapest.  And I love the story of Vuk.  So, that might need to find its way into our library.  Or maybe Ludas Matyi...

My question to you is: Do you have a favorite book, that's based in a certain place?  Or by a local author?  Please leave me a comment, it just may inspire our next family vacation!

Ms. Frizzle Costume Tutorial - Literacy Parade!

It's that time of year again... Literacy Parade!!!

It's my favorite school day of the year.  It's what our school does in lieu of Halloween.  We have the kids dress up as literary characters, and we parade through the school.  Then, the elementary school grades do a book report, which is equally exciting, I think.    

Last year, I went as Amelia Bedelia.  Here's my costume in Falling In Love With Fall.  Last year I just kind of put different elements together, but this year I really went all out.  I've wanted to be Ms. Frizzle since last year's parade.  She's so cool, has an awesome sense of style, and best of all - give the girl a theme, and she'll rock it from here to kingdom come.  Just like yours truly! :)

So, here's a list of what I used:

Dress:

- Dress - I found my dress at Goodwill for $6.00.  Looking through The Magic School Bus books, she wears many different colored dresses, but her blue/purple one is the one she's most often portrayed in.  I don't know if it's dumb luck, but I tend to find what I'm looking for when I go to Goodwill.  That was the case this time too.  It was the perfect length, it fit (barely, with the belly, but still fit), had a collar-like top, and had shoulder pads (yes, in this case that was a plus!)

- Old (boys') space sheet - I commandeered my sheet from one of our youth students, who wore it as a cape to a youth event.  It had these cool planets on it, so I asked her if I could have it, and she was sweet enough to give it to me.  If you don't have a cool situation handed to you like this, you have options.  Although you would never sleep on a sheet from a garage sale (right!?), you may find one that way.  Another option, if looking at stores like TJ Maxx or Marshall's for a random space themed sheet.

- Fabric Glue

- Scissors

Shoes:

- Crazy colored pumps - I found a pair of yellow ones at another second hand store, for a whole $1.

- Cut out planets to decorate.

Extras:

- Stuffed lizard/gecko/chameleon

- Book - (requirement for our Literacy Parade)

- "Cosmic" jewelry - I had globe earrings I made years ago.

- "Frizzy" hair - I'll show you farther down

So, I started by cutting the planets out of the sheet.  I thought about using the trim as a belt, but ended up not liking it as much as I thought I would.  I also have pictured some plastic bead necklaces, but then ended up not using them,  It didn't add to the overall look at the end.

I unbuttoned the dress, and laid it out on the table.  

I did this, to try to make sure I wasn't gluing the dress together when I was gluing on the planets.  So, the next part was just placing the planets on the dress, trying to not have two of the same ones next to each other.  Next, I applied an even coat of fabric glue to the back of the planets, and stuck them back down.

Fabric glue is very fluid, so you want to make sure you aren't dripping it on the fabric.  Especially with a material such as sateen, which isn't very forgiving.  The fabric glue takes about 2-4 hours to dry, so I hung it up on a hanger, to let it dry.

The shoes were super easy.  I simply found some super uncomfortable, cheap yellow pumps, and using fabric glue to attach a planet to each of them, like so:

I don't know who Amanda is, but I'm glad she doesn't make shoes anymore.

For earrings, I used a pair I made a while back.  All it is, is some cool beads that look like the world, and strung them on a metal hook, then an earring, and voila!

I wanted to be as "authentic" as possible.  So, when my friend and I went to the book store, and they were almost completely out of The Magic School Bus books, and didn't have the space one, I was pretty bummed.  I bought the electricity one instead, and told my husband of my troubles.  My sweet man went ahead, and scoured the bookstores of Jacksonville, and finally had one shipped to a bookstore near his work, and surprised me with it the day before the parade.  He's that awesome. :)

Now for the hair.  I didn't want to dye my hair red, because we have our maternity photo shoot next week, and I didn't want to risk having funky orange hair.  But, if you wanted to dye your hair, I think that would be really cute!

So, the night before the Literacy Parade, I washed my hair, and put some curl control products in it.  Then I french- braided it in 6 braids (3 on each side).  The thinner the braids, the tighter the waves will be.

Good morning!!!

In the morning, when you take them out, hopefully it will look like this.  :)

I left some bangs out, and then pinned the rest of it up.  The great thing about waves, is that a messy up-do is easier to create, you can "hide" bobby pins better, and there's more volume.

Ta-da!!

So, the morning of the Literacy Parade, I did my hair, put on the earrings, the dress and the shoes, got my borrowed lizard, and went to work!

Yes, people in my building parking lot stared at me, as did people later on, when I was running errands on my way home.  But... how often do you get to be Ms. Frizzle, I mean, really!?

So, here's my costume, complete with lizard:

We had so much fun!  I had kids dressed up as Pinkalicious, President Obama, Madeline, Goldilocks, Fredrick Douglas, Arthur, Cleopatra, the pig from If You Give a Pig a Party, and a couple Cat in the Hats.  They did so well on their book reports, too!

I had Dan take a couple pictures of me too, because... well... it was a really cute costume! :)

There you have it!  My Ms. Frizzle costume!

I had so much fun putting it together.  Let me know if you're planning anything for Halloween, or if you and your family do anything as an alternative to Halloween.  Hit me with your best costume ideas!  I'm always looking for new ones! 

Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss!

Yummmmmm

I love Dr. Seuss.  

I know that's not a huge confession, as most anyone who's ever read any of his books feels the same way, however I REALLY love Dr. Seuss.

And like I've said before, give me theme, and watch me go wild.

Firstly, I wanted to do my nails in Dr. Seuss fashion.  I checked online, and found many cute ideas, and then realized, I didn't have any of the colors.  However, I do have the most thoughtful husband around. While at Target running some errands, he bought me 3 Dr. Seuss books, as well as matching nail polish.  So, that problem was solved.  

My Dr. Seuss "I love you" care package

I'm not very good at doing my nails yet, it's mostly just something I do while I'm watching TV or something.  So, I don't have a tutorial for the nails here.

All I do, is paint my nails a solid color, and then with a toothpick, I paint on any extra details.

This is how they turned out:

The Lorax, Cat in the Hat stripes, Truffula trees and a Thing 1!

After that, I had to think of some things I could do to decorate my classroom.  

I saw an idea on decorating a class door in Truffula trees on happymrsc.blogspot.com.  It didn't say how she made the trees themselves, so that's where my creativity had to come into play. 

For these Truffula trees you'll need:

Colorful tissue paper

Black construction paper

White paint (I actually used white out tape, for convenience sake)

Tape

Scissors

 I found some great, colorful tissue paper in our resource room, and got to work.  I folded the paper on top of itself, then cut the paper into about 2 inch strips, cut it like you would cut grass for a craft.  Then I would open it up, and fold it back onto itself, like this:

Then, I just started taping away, until the trees were the size I wanted.  Then, I added some black construction paper trunks, added some white stripes to them, and they were done.

The teacher in the room next to me, who is wonderful, and we do lots of things together, made a Lorax on her door, who is pointing to the Truffula forest on my door. 

THEN, our director asked me to make Truffula trees on the bulletin board in our drop-off room, which is a total "no-man's-land".  I was happy to do it, and perfect my Truffula tree technique.  Again, my wonderful husband came to the rescue, and came to help me out.  More cutting, taping and stapling, and:

Next, I needed to come up with something for my students to do.  That bulletin board looked like a perfect backdrop to me.  Also, I've been intrigued by the hipster mustache and bow tie craze, and I finally had a way to incorporate it into my lesson plans:

Dr. Seuss hipster photo props!

I found the original idea on blog.kidzui.com and then decided to make it my own.

Here's what you'll need:

Poster board (the number of kids you have, or size of your props will determine how much you'll need)

Pencil

Black Sharpie

Paint (orange, yellow, red)

Large Popsicle sticks

Tape

I drew out with pencil the outline for mustaches and bows.  Then I traced it with black sharpie.  I had the boys cut out the mustaches, and the girls cut out the bows.  Then, the boys painted their mustaches orange or yellow (even though, the Lorax's is yellow, I wanted to add just a little more color), and the girls painted their bows red or red and white striped.  After that, I taped the popsicle stick to the back, and voila!  Hipster Dr. Seuss photo props!  You could use this idea for a class party, like I did, or even a birthday party photo booth!  How cute would that be!?

My adorable kiddos!!!

Now that all that is done, let's party!

But wait!  What to wear, what to wear...?

If you know anything about, you are well aware of the fact, that I will pounce on any chance I get to dress up.  I'm not sure what it's rooted in - cough, cough - mom!!!

And because of said culprit, I am always partial to home made.  

So, when I decided I was going to be "Thing 1", I got cracking.  

What you'll need to be a "Thing":

Red T-shirt

White felt

Black Sharpie

Scissors

Plastic hairband

Blue yarn

Blue tissue paper (optional)

Hot glue gun

Felt circle

I found a red shirt for under $4 at Walmart, which I was very happy about, and even went back and bought it in a couple other colors, because it was comfortable, and nice and long.  Then, I found some great, heavy-duty white felt, for only $2.77 a yard.  Once home, I traced a circle onto the felt (I used a dinner plate as a guide), traced over it with black sharpie, and wrote "Thing 1" on it (I would suggest writing it in pencil first).  I had roped the same teacher from earlier into being "Thing 2" with me, and she had the genius and adorable idea of adding "Thing 3" to her growing baby bump.  So cute!  So, I also traced hers.

Then I cut it out, and because I wanted to be able to reuse the T-shirt, I only pinned it to my shirt. 

 

Next for the hair.

I found a great yarn wig tutorial on www.u-createcrafts.com, but decided it was a little more involved than I wanted.  However, I will be keeping this in my arsenal, I'm sure I will need it one day.

I decided to go for something a little more wearable, and cuter.  I have this clear, plastic hairband that I've had laying around for ages.  Also, I had some blue yarn (that was the perfect color) and some more of that tissue paper on hand.  

First, I covered the hairband in the blue yarn, using a hot glue gun, which wasn't really necessary, I just wanted it to look "finished".  Next, I did the exact same thing to the tissue as I did for the Truffula trees, and glued it to the felt circle I'd already cut out.  

After that, I wrapped the yarn around my fingers:

Then, tied it off with a small piece of yarn:

Finished product!

Then cut the yarn on the other side.  Then, I glued that to the felt circle too.  I kept doing that until it was the size that I wanted, and then:

Done!  (I feel like I should be on my way to a -
crafty, and laid back, but still - English wedding)

Next, a girl's gotta eat!

I found a super-cute idea on purplecarrotsinc.blogspot.com, and even a couple other places, for

 "Thing 1" cupcakes.  It's very simple.  It's just a red velvet cupcake, with a little cream cheese frosting and some blue cotton candy sticking out of it for the "hair".  Now, I'm going to tell you something that the other blogs didn't.

YOUR COTTON CANDY WILL MELT!!!

I made my cupcakes the night before, and everything was going great, I put the frosting on, and then the cotton candy, and they were adorable!  I turned to do some other things, and... when I turned back around the cotton candy had completely melted.  Now, I wasn't sure if it was because my cupcakes were maybe still a little warm (which they weren't, because that would be an amateur mistake, but I was looking into all the possibilities), or if it was the moisture in the frosting.

So, I wiped off the frosting and sad cotton candy.

I decided that I would frost the cupcakes, and then the next day, I would put the cotton candy on RIGHT before I served them.

So, the next day, I took them to school, and hoped for the best.  I did prepare, though for it not to work.  So, I made cupcake toppers.  I took some toothpicks with me to work.  Then I traced circles, went over it with sharpie, and decorated them.  Then, I taped them to toothpicks.  Really simple, really easy, but a tried-and-true way to spruce up some cupcakes.

Then, right before the party, I added the cotton candy.  (For the kids, I didn't add the toppers, I figured toothpicks weren't something they needed to have access to)

Here's what I had for the party 

(but there are so many more things you could add to a Dr. Seuss party menu):

Strawberry and marshmallow skewers (to look like the Cat in the Hat's hat)

Thing 1 and 2 cupcakes

Rainbow Gold Fish (One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish Blue Fish)

Swedish Fish (same)

Then, for the teachers (I figured they could handle the toothpicks), I added the toppers.

Please pardon the ugly pan and backdrop.  There weren't many places I could take a picture of them.

Thing 1 and Thing 2