Building in Creative Arts Time for Preschool at Home

Disclosure: I am a Mother Goose Time blog ambassador. I receive the Mother Goose Time curriculum free of charge in exchange for sharing my experiences with you. All of the thoughts and opinions expressed in this post are my own. You can see more about Mother Goose Time here: https://www.mothergoosetime.com/

To say my little Mudpie loves the creative arts is an understatement. Crayons, paint, chalk, glue (oh, yes, ESPECIALLY glue)… she loves being able to create something new. It’s one of the only activities that will hold her preschooler attention for more than a few minutes at a time. She also loves creating her own dances and shows to perform for us.  

I also can see how much she’s learning during her creative arts times as well. Her fine motor skills are developing and growing. She’s growing her creativity and problem solving skills. I love seeing how fun this type of learning is for her (and me too)! 

Despite our daily creative arts habit, I must admit that it didn’t occur to me to regularly  incorporate the creative arts into our planned learning time until we started going through the Mother Goose Time curriculum. I love how so many of the learning activities are built around the creative arts. The ideas and concepts that we are learning are lasting with her so much longer since they are built around these arts activities. 

If you aren’t already incorporating the creative arts into your preschool at home time, it’s definitely a great addition to learning time for preschoolers. It’s a way of learning that is especially fun for kiddos and parents! 

Pinspired: Ikea Bookshelves

I’ve always been a huge reader (thanks Dad and Mom for reading to me so much as kid and supplying my book habit!) and I feel like my love of reading helped me in so many ways throughout my life. It’s important to me that books an essential part of Little One’s upbringing and I want to make sure she always has books at her fingertips (or at Mommy and Daddy’s fingertips until she’s old enough to enjoy them on her own).  Our small rooms don’t accommodate large bookshelves easily, so when I saw this pin, I thought it was a brilliant idea!
 
Project Time: 1 hour or so
Project Cost: approx $5/shelf
Pin it or forget it? Pin it!
 
One of Little One’s aunties (who also purchased the spice racks for us on an Ikea trip) redid my former dresser and chest as her baby shower gift, so we didn’t want to mount the bookshelves directly to the beautiful piece. We decided to make a corner of her room for her books, near the glider where we will likely sit and read to her.
 
We found some great little paint samples at Lowe’s and picked one up in a bright green to compliment her room colors. I can’t take an credit for the implementation of this project, Hubby did it all from painting, putting them together, and mounting them to the wall. We did have issues mounting them to the wall due to the type of hanging areas on the back of the spice rack, but otherwise I’m really happy with how they turned out! The hold her books well and add a nice little pop of color to the corner area. There’s no way we would have had room for a bookcase right now, so this was a wonderful solution.

Pinspired: Baby Blanket Ladder


 

 

 

Little One was blessed to receive many blankets in preparation for her arrival, including some beautiful handmade pieces. My mom mentioned an idea like this and I said that I knew I had seen it somewhere before. Funny enough, a few weeks later I was perusing my boards (what, you don’t browse your boards for fun?) and found that I had pinned it at least a year earlier! I explained my idea to the Hubby and thankfully he agreed to make it for Little One’s room.
 
Project Time: 2-3 hours
Project Cost: approx $20
Pin it or forget it? Pin it*
 
*I will say the Hubby handled this project completely from start to finish and at the end, he wasn’t thrilled how it came out (although I was). So please consider that when deciding to take on the project.
 
The Hubby made this with two pieces of wood (I’m not sure on the specifics of sizes) and dowel rods. We decided on a nice cream color to paint the sides, since we thought that a color might draw attention away from the beautiful blankets. The rods didn’t need painted since they would be covered. 
 
I love how her blanket ladder turned out! It is one of my favorite pieces in our house. It’s a great display for some of her blankets, adds decoration to her room, and doesn’t take a lot of space. If we had more room, I’d ask the Hubby for another for our blankets… but even 6+ months later I’m not sure he has recovered from making it.