Littles Learning Link Up: July 5, 2016 Craft Highlight- Fingerprint American Flag

 Each month you will find:

• A seasonal round-up (toward the beginning of the month)
• A guest post featuring crafts, activities, tips, snack ideas or other early childhood topics. (toward the end of the month)
• Posts where I share what I have been up to with my preschoolers and/or early elementary children (including occasional highlight posts where I share how we used ideas that have been linked up here on Littles Learning Link Up).

Each week, I will host a link up, where you can share either what you have been up to recently, or old posts that may go with the theme.  Feel free to link up more than one post.

Each week I will continue to feature a couple of posts from those that have been linked up. 

I hope you will continue to share your wonderful posts, and I hope you will find something new to try with your child(ren).

It would be great for everyone to stop by and visit the other linked-up posts as well. Check them out, leave some comments, pin those that interest you. Let's make this a real party and socialize with each other.

I first mentioned doing a Littles Learning Link Up Highlight back in December. I had thought it could become a monthly thing. Unfortunately, that didn't happen. I do want to try to do a highlight post more often. A highlight post isn't the same as a feature. With the highlighted post, we will actually be making the craft(s) or participating in the activity. You will get to see how much we enjoyed it, and I will be mentioning any tweaks that I add. Of course I will be linking back to the original post. 

Littles Learning Link Up July Highlight:

Last week, Schoolhouse Family Fun shared a great selection of Fourth of July Patriotic Crafts. I was looking for something simple to do with the children, especially because we couldn't get to the fireworks this year. So, after making a banner for our living room doorway, we made a variation of the Fingerprint American Flag. I did not have a blue marker, so we made the blue rectangle field out of construction paper. The only other things I tweaked were making sure our flag had the correct number of stripes (because I am OCD that way), and letting the children make their fingerprint stripes without me first drawing the lines. They said they didn't want them, so, I went with it. They actually did pretty good without them.

Here is what you need to make the Fingerprint American Flags:

White paper (I used printer paper but construction paper can be used.)

Small rectangle of blue construction paper

Red paint

White paint

Glue stick or white school glue.

This craft is quite simple to make. 

Just glue the blue paper into the top left-hand corner of the white paper. 

Then have the children make white fingerprints in the blue field. Younger children can just add the fingerprints, while older children can count up to 50.

Then have them make stripes of red fingerprints as shown. The first red stripe should be at the top of the page, and there should be 4 red stripes in the section with the blue rectangle, then 3 more below it, ending with a red stripe. 

Hannah did start out counting, but she lost count. Harold just put fingerprints on randomly.

The older girls were more careful about their star fingerprint placement.

Of course, one of the reasons Hannah lost count, may have been because she was "skip counting" by using two fingers at a time.

Here are their finished flags:

While we were working on these, the children remembered we had made something similar a few years ago. We used fingerprints for the stars, but used construction paper strips for the stripes.

They had remembered counting the fingerprints with big brother's help. Similar, but not quite the same.

Let's take a look at that review schedule:

I did want to quick remind you what reviews are coming up here on Tots and Me...Growing Up Together. I posted the review Veritas Press last week. This week I will be posting the review for Laurelwood Books. Amelia and I have been learning Latin using Olim Once Upon a Time...In Latin. Coming up soon will be the reviews for ArtAchieve, ABeCeDarian, and Heirloom Audio Production's newest release Beric the Briton. The reviews for Talking Fingers: Talking Shapes, CTC Math, Enlivenze FlipStir Puzzles, Foreign Languages For Kids By Kids and Jolly Literacy (2 different reviews) will post in August.

Yes, we are keeping busy this summer, even though we are not having what we call "school days" where we have Bible time, and Story Time and Calendar time.

A few somethings I would like to share with you:

It is officially summer, so I would like to invite you to check out a couple of my round ups.

If you are looking for fun ideas to keep your kids busy this summer, you might want to peruse my Summer of Fun Round Up.

Of course, summer is a time to think about the beach, so I also have a round up for ideas for having fun at the beach, or having beach fun at home. It's the Beach Fun Round Up.

And finally, don't miss last month's Guest Post: Early Elementary Lighthouse Unit Study.

I am still lining up guest posts for this year. If you would be interested writing a guest post for Littles Learning Link Up one of these months, please leave a comment or contact me via my contact info on my About Me page. I will need to have your email address so I can contact you. I am looking for posts that have to do with young children: crafts, activities, foods/snacks, tips, or other ideas. I am open to suggestions.

Now onto:

Littles Learning Link Up Features

On my last Littles Learning Link Up post, there were 30 wonderful posts linked up! 

I will be picking one randomly selected post to share, plus the top clicked-on posts.

Please don't forget to stop by other posts that are linked up. See what catches your eye, stop by, pin the post to a relevant board, and perhaps leave a comment to let the author of the blog know you have been by for a visit. I know I appreciate others commenting and letting me know they have read my posts, so I am sure others do too.

This week's Randomly Selected Post is:

Lauren from Heart of Deborah shared Kids Celebrate 4th of July.

Now for this week's top clicked-on posts:

Laura from Inspiration for Moms shared Tips on Running Errands With Kids.

My Bored Toddler shared Toddler Boredom Busters #5.

Shecki From Greatly Blessed shared LearnBop Online Math.

Join the Party!

I would love to have you join in this week! What sort of activities do you do with your young children? Do you have some favorite activities you would like to share? I invite you to link up below. I will be pinning posts on one of my relevant boards, and I would love to feature some of the activities each week from what is linked up.

Please know I may share a picture from your post and link back to it, along with sharing how we used your idea in our school time. By linking up you are giving me permission to use a picture from your post. I will ALWAYS give credit and link back. Additionally, if you choose to try out any of the ideas with your child, please make sure you give credit where credit is due.

Linky will be open through Monday night, to give me time to check out all the posts and get the Features organized. Please take the time to visit some of the other wonderful posts linked up.

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An InLinkz Link-up