Free kids clothes? Yep! FREE!!!!

May 14, 2011 9-noon!!!
309 East Cty Rd 42     
Burnsville, MN 55306     
952-432-7168

Each Spring and Fall Berean Baptist church in Burnsville MN holds what they call Kid's Closet. Kid's Closet is like a garage sale, but everything is FREE: Boys and Girls clothes - ALL sizes, shoes, toys, books, media, diapers, and groceries. Why? To minister the love of Jesus Christ in a way that meets the practical needs of our community.

 

Bring a paper bag or 5 and come get what you need for your children for the season. They also have diapers and formula, some (not a lot) of furniture and toys and books as well. Also, throughout the year they accept donations from anyone in the community to add to the items they offer at this event.

 

You can find out more information on their facebook page, just do a search for Kids' Closet of Berean Baptist Church.

 

Here is the information straight from their website:

Kids Closet

Saturday, May 14, 2011 9am-noon, Gym 

  People from the community and from Berean are invited to shop an assortment of gently-used kids clothes, toys, videos, books and baby equipment. This year we are adding maternity clothes to the assortment. Everything is given free of charge, and shoppers are encouraged to take as much as they can use.
  DONATIONS are welcome. Especially needed: Children’s clothing size 5 and up. To donate larger items such as furniture, please call to make arrangements. Car seats will not be accepted.
  Volunteers are needed to help with the May event:
 

• People with trucks or trailers to help move donated items from the storage unit to the church.
 
• People to help set up for the event and to provide care for children of other volunteers.
 
• People to help shoppers during the event and clean up afterwards.  

Contact:Mendie Skarp – 651.460.4288

Baby Sensory Activity

We have lots of families with little ones so here is an activity you can do with things you already have at home:

To make a sensory water bag, simply fill up a ziploc with little items and water. You can use a lid, beads, pieces of straws, a toy lizard, foam letter stickers, and pom poms or anything else you can think of. Then, tape off all sides to make sure it doesn't leak. Here we used packaging tape duct tape is good too. If you have a food sealer, use that.  

I spy bottle for toddlers and preschoolers. 

Travel/Toddler/Preschooler Activity Bags

I'm going to be posting some activity bags from time to time as I come up with or find some good ones (and have tested them out on my daughter). Here is an idea I found while browsing for ideas. :)  This lady put as many of her activities as she could in pencil pouches. Not only are they more durable than Ziploc bags, you can see what's in them, they can be washed if needed, and they can be stored in a 3ring binder, you can clip them with binder rings, etc.

These might be handy for siblings who have to wait in hospitals for family members, or kids who have to go to the docotor or dentist or on a longer shopping trip......

Marble Maze Travel Fun

Spring break is over, Memorial weekend is coming up, summer vacation is fast approaching and I've been wracking my brain for small activities that are little to no mess, easy to transport and don't take up much space to keep my daughter occupied in the car and on planes. So from time to time I'll share what I've found with you. Some will be easy and take no effort, some may take a little work, I've seen some rather complicated ones out there.

The first one I whipped up last night with some scraps of fleece and my sewing machine are some marble mazes. My daughter is really into mazes right now so I thought this might be right up our alley. They are small and fit in my purse and glove box. What great fine motor practice!!

Honestly this took me about 5 minutes, it would be possible to do with some fusible webbing and an iron and then a needle and thread if you don't have a machine.

1. I started with two 4 1/2 x6 1/2 inch pieces of fabric.
2. With right sides together I sewed a small quarter inch seam around the edge, leaving a small opening.
3. Clip corners, then turn right side out.
4. Sew the maze pattern on your fabric ( make sure you leave enough room for the marble to go through the maze), put the marble inside and then sew up your opening.

Fun and Original Flower Pot

It's spring (no really, it is, even with the snow) and you are starting to see flowers poke their heads above the ground. Many of you may have planted gardens and are starting to remember that you need to get out there and get started again. Some of you may not live where you can plant a garden but have you considered container gardening? I've done it in the past when we didn't have a house and will probably do it again this year as we've only been our house a year and I haven't gotten myself organized enough to get a garden started yet. Here is a fun and quick planter you can make in a couple of hours on a Saturday or Sunday and can plant some already blooming flowers in. Last year we did this in one of my daughter's too small cowboy boots. Since she was 2 when she wore them we didn't have a very big "pot" so this year we are going to be re-using some of my husband's old and worn out work boots. Don't have anything that will work or you are still using your boots? Check out the thrift stores in the area: Goodwill, Savers, Unique....I'm sure there are more but these are the ones I LOVE and do the bulk of my shopping at.

Turn an old boot into a stylish planter.

Materials

·         Old boot

·         Pebbles or aquarium gravel

·         Potting soil or loam

·         Small bunch of annual flowers

Instructions

·         Remove the lace from the boot or loosen it enough to allow the tongue to be pulled forward.

·         Fill the bottom of the boot with a layer of pebbles or aquarium gravel to provide drainage.

·         Pack in a 2-inch layer of potting soil or loam.

·         Fit in the root base of annual flowers (pansies, marigolds, or impatiens work well).

·         Gently pack more soil around and on top of the roots.

Tips:

Remember to water the flowers regularly because, unlike those that are planted in the ground, these blooms cannot draw moisture from the surrounding soil.

Fun and Easy to Make Paint!

Today in my class we painted with sweetened condensed milk. There are many fabulous reasons why: it's edible, it's smooth, it's sticky, it smells good, it takes food coloring very well, it dries very shiny. I should warn you that this is a VERY sticky project but also lots and lots of fun. The best part is that you can just drop your child in the tub afterwards. It washes easily out of hair and clothes and off of tables and floors. It's very simple:

1. open a can of sweetened condensed milk and pour it into bowls
2. add 2-4 drops of food coloring to each bowl and mix well
3. paint with fingers or brushes or anything else that looks interesting
4. let it dry (for a couple of days)

We did some smoosh painting with this as well. What is smoosh painting? that's when you put paint on one half of your paper and then fold the paper in half and smooth your hands over the paper. Next open up the page and see what interesting shapes you have created. We discovered that if you get a lot of paint on your brush you can hold it up high and drizzle it over the paper for fun patterns. If you put something on the floor first or hang them outside you can hang them to dry and watch them drip and the colors mix.

Bathtub Paint (and this washes off easily!!)

How to make it:

1. squirt some foaming shaving cream in each of the 6 compartments of your muffin tin (you can use men's or women's)
2. add food colouring to each one to make whatever colours you want - I did rainbow colours. Mix them up well.
3. give to your kiddo in the tub and let them have a blast!

Nature Matching

Now that it's nice outside (well except for this weekend) here is a fun activity to do with your children. ~ Erica

Newsletter

The April newsletter will be out later this week, it's all about literacy, hope you enjoy it! I'll see if I can link it here too.