The kids are getting a homemade Christmas at our house. Hubby and I have found that we don't need to buy them much because 1. We don't want it to be so much about what has been purchased for them 2. It makes the special goodies that we make or do buy for them that much more special 3. I buy them goodies all year and can't wait until a holiday to give it to them and 4. They have plenty of grandparents (and are the only grand kids) who love to shop for them. They don't want for a lot.
Here's the first two finished items for Lou: rhythm sticks
I cut 2 oak dowel rods in 12 inch sections. They were then sanded and smoothed out. We sing a little song at the library that Lou loves. It kinda goes like this: "tap your sticks, tap your stick, tap your sticks until the music stops." Then you go on to many other actions, rub your sticks, roll your sticks, tap your knees, end to end, tap the floor, shake your sticks, etc.
This one is my favorite. The natural blocks are finished. My dad was great and helped get all these bad boys sanded. We only went through three band aids. We found some extra pieces in the scrap wood box to make platforms and bridge pieces. 
After seeing some other sets online, especially the one at One Inch World, I threw in some rocks. It's now blocks and rocks. There was some debate over if they needed a finish, but we went with none. (If you haven't been to One Inch World before, haed on over and check them out- they do a lot of open ended projects with their kids and share those fun ideas.)
I whipped up a good size drawstring bag to hold everything.
I let Bee help me test them out a little. She loved them too. I made up a real simple flag with scrap wood and some felt.
There are several other homemade gifts coming soon! I can't wait until Christmas now. If you can't find me, I might be hidden away in the basement playing with the blocks!
5 comments:
Glad the blocks worked out. The rocks are cool.
Love Always,
Dad
P.S. my finger is healing very nicely.
Hurry with the other blogs that are coming up. I can't wait. Both of these projects were great.
I took the flowers to the cemetery yesterday. I think out weather is to be bad in a day or so. So that project that was done while you were here is also complete. What a busy week but so much accomplished.
I love the natural look of the blocks. Lou has such an great imagination that he will be able to make lots of different things. Not only is it teaching creativity, but also problem solving skills and hand eye coordination. You get an A+ on this project!
These are awesome and I love the storage bags you made for them! I've seen those natural building blocks before and they are uber expensive. You'll have to come by and link up to our homemade gifts post on December 15th on ABC!
That flag is cool! :-) We made flats by cutting the sticks the other way, lots of them are round on one side and flat on the other, but there are plenty of flat-flat ones too. I like your rhythm sticks too, I made some of them, but they are much shorter, and I made two sets out of different kinds of wood, softer and harder wood, so they make different pitches. I think it would be neat to make the ridged kind, but that would me a lot more work, I'd probably get husband to do it on the lathe.
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