Every Day Joys Link Up

Hey all I am Mama G.  I also blog over at My Life as Mama, and Flawless Event Planning.  I hope you check out my other blogs as well.  I am so excited about the chance to find some new friends through this super simple, super cute link up.

Click on over to Link Up as Well (The button will not work on my post for some reason).  

1. What blogs do you visit daily? Please list 1-3 of your favorites.

1. The Smelly Life- Love!! Sarcastic, Hilarious, Real mama of one who takes wonderful pictures that make every other mom envious!! 

2. Tammy Fantasy Land- A mom that lives in my area, and could be a IRL (in real life) blog friend.  She has 2 under 2. I have been there so I relate, and I thank God every day that we are past that stage ;).  

3. The Francis Family-An Arkansas blogger (I feel like every blogger is from Arkansas), who has super cute kiddos, and great style!! 

****I read every blog on my side blog roll on My Life as Mama every day (or whenever the bloggers update). ****

2. Are you on Instagram? If so, what is your user name?

Yes! smgardella

3. Can we find you on Pinterest? What's your Pinterest address, and what can we expect to see you pinning most? (recipes, DIY projects, home decor, etc.)

Yes! Obviously this blog is devoted to my Pinterst addiction.  Kids activities, clothes that I wish I had, event ideas, food....basically everything Pinterest has to offer.  

Find me on Pinterest here 

4. What are your favorite blog link-ups to participate in? (weekly link-ups other bloggers have...any number will do...please link us to them!)

I have kind of taken a back seat to the whole link up thing lately, but I am wanting to get back into it.  One I am for sure linking up to this Friday is over at http://pinteresttoldmeto.blogspot.com/. New obsession! 

5. Why do you blog?

I started blogging as a way to record my pregnancy, and keep my family up to date on what new things the kids are doing. It is now their baby book, my outlet, and a way for me to remember my life with them.  

6. Tell us one random fact about yourself.

I once had super glue explode in my face and glue my eyes together.  A trip to the ER and a few days of basically being blind, and I was better.

Early Literacy

So, it has been FOREVER!! Happy New Year all.  I don't know about you, but I have been in a mommy funk since the new year.  The organizing of Christmas toys, early year to do list, and sickness has kept me from planning and executing fun activities for the kiddos to enjoy.  However, today during nap I planned for the week.  I literally copy and pasted pinterest activities that I wanted to try in Microsoft Word, and printed them.  Maybe this will make me remember...?? We shall see.

The activity I am going to talk about today was specifically geared toward my 3 year old.  Any younger and it would have been a fail. To keep little bit busy I gave her a glue stick and some magazine cut outs to place on paper.  It worked.

Here is the original pin

Materials Needed:
1. Scissors
2. Glue
3. Paint
4. Plate
5. Q tip
6. Crayons

Step 1
To begin I let my son attempt to cut out the words. He was not quite advanced enough for this so I gave him a blank piece of paper to cut while I cut out the words.

Step 2
Once I had the words cut out I would place three words out in front of him.  I would point to the word that we were working on and ask him to find that word.  He found the correct one every single time!! So proud.  I then gave him the glue to place a dot and glue the word on.  He loved this part.

Step 3
For the next step I knew that writing the entire word would be too difficult for him.  The space was just too tiny.  Instead I wrote the first letter of each word in the square, and then copied this pins idea for Caleb.

He actually did okay with this.  I think the space was a little too tiny for a three year old to really work, but he seemed to enjoy it.  He especially liked the W for White.  He said "Down, Up, Down, Up".

Step 4
This is where we lost him.  He had zero interest in coloring the boxes with crayons after we had just used paint and glue.

All in all this was a great activity.  He was able to practice a ton of different skills, and I think it is definitely an activity that we will repeat.