M projects - Monkey and Muffin

Today we are featuring some letter M projects.  Here are a few of Elise's (2) finished products:

 

Let's start with the "M is for Monkey" project.  Here are the supplies you need (minus the monkey stuffed animal of course):

construction paper, scissors, glue

You need two colors of construction paper.  We used brown and orange.  Cut out a circle from the brown paper.  Then cut out an orange heart, one small oval (cut it in two for the ears) and a larger oval.  See the picture below.

Color eyes and a mouth on the heart and large oval piece as shown.  Younger children will need assistance.

Then simply glue the heart onto the brown circle.  Then glue the ears and oval mouth piece to make your monkey face.  Decorate the "M is for Monkey" and add it to the Alphabet book (see more about that here.)

 

Our next project was one that helps your kiddo not only make alphabet connections, but also practice their counting.  All you need is some construction paper, scissors, and glue (just like the last project)!  Draw a muffin outline on your paper.  Bigger means you can count higher.  My 2 year old practiced counting to 10 and the 4 year old did 15.  We had to keep ours small enough to fit it on our "M is for Muffin" page to go into our ABC book.

     

Elise wanted a blueberry muffin so we blue paper into tiny pieces.  Kayla chose to make a raspberry/strawberry muffin, so we used red construction paper for hers.  Elise and I worked together on the next step.  I would put a small glue dot by one of the numbers and say the number out loud.  She would get a piece of construction paper (fine motor skills!) and stick it by the number.  At the end we practiced counting to 10 together pointing at the 'blueberries' on her muffin.  Kayla was told to glue one construction paper piece under each different number 1-15 and was able to do it independently.

 And the end product is a yummy muffin that can be added to an alphabet book or displayed on the fridge!

ta-da!

M projects - Mommy and Mountains

We added two new projects to our Alphabet craft book. See my past post here for more details.

Simple and easy projects to help the girls make connections between real things and the letters in the alphabet.

We completed our M is for Mommy page

The M is for Mountains page was fun because we added the element of shapes and colors.  Kayla is really into gluing things together right now, so she enjoyed this project because she could practice her new found skills.

Alphabet Saint Letter M - Maximilian Kolbe

Saint Maximilian Kolbe

Some basic facts for young children.

St. Maximilian was born in Poland and became a Franciscan priest.  He loved Our Lady very much and wanted everyone to love her as much as Jesus did.  He wrote a newspaper called "The Knight of the Immaculata".  He kept people safe when the Nazis were persecuting them, so he was sent to prison (German concentration camp, Auschwitz).   He offered to die in another man's place (the man had a family and was begging that his life be spared).  In the prison cell, he sang songs to Jesus and Mary and celebrated Mass. His feast day is August 14.  

For additional information on St. Max check out a site like this one!

Note: The Saint Alphabet done with toddlers is really more for their learning and enjoyment and not so much about their art skills.  You, as the adult, will be doing most of the work, but the finished product is one they will love because the little paper Saints are fun to look at and offer opportunity for you to share stories, quotes, and facts about the Saints.  We are currently displaying ours as shown in a past post , but you could also let your child(ren) play with the little paper Saints if you chose.  Perhaps when we finish our Alphabet and as the kids get a tad older we'll move in that direction.

While Kayla colored the background page for St. Maximilian carefully, I worked on the little paper Saint Max.  I made a template way back when we started with St. Anne for letter A, so I cut out my little Saint and traced out a simple black Franciscan habit for him.

Next step was to add his face, and some glasses (they were quite difficult, so I might suggest simply drawing them on), a few black construction paper pieces to look like the collar/hood part of a Franciscan habit, and a white belt.

To represent St. Maximilian's time spent in the Nazi concentration camp at Auschwitz, he is often depicted with the prison garb over one shoulder.  I crafted a shirt and drew stripes.  Then I let Kayla color every other one a dark gray.  She did great.  She is really doing a great job staying in the lines more and more.

 

Kayla's background for St. Maximilian Kolbe was perfect and her finished masterpiece (with mom's help) was both beautiful and educational.

 

The hubby and I traveled to Auschwitz when we studied abroad.  Just before we visited the camp, we stopped at a European flea market of sorts and I had purchased a new pair of shoes.  I loved these shoes.  They were comfy, they were cute.  And on our tour of Auschwitz there was a pile of the shoes worn by the prisoners.  I remember crying at the sight of a little red child sized shoe in the pile.  I thought about how excited I was to have just bought new shoes and how excited that little child probably was about their shoes. 

 Kayla received a pair of "sparkly princess shoes" as she calls them from her aunt and uncle as an early birthday present.  She wanted her sparkly shoes to show in all the pictures I took of her with her St. Maximilian Kolbe picture, so it brought that Auschwitz memory to mind.  

Auschwitz

"No one in the world can change Truth. What we can do and and should do is to seek truth and to serve it when we have found it. The real conflict is the inner conflict. Beyond armies of occupation and the hetacombs of extermination camps, there are two irreconcilable enemies in the depth of every soul: good and evil, sin and love. And what use are the victories on the battlefield if we are ourselves are defeated in our innermost personal selves?"

- St. Maximilian Kolbe