Scrubbits

Meet a Scrubbit!

This week in our co-op preschool we have been learning about personal hygiene. If you read my post on our Egg Teeth yesterday, you know that Tuesday we learned about brushing our teeth and washing our bodies (we even pantomimed taking a shower – it was fabulous – kids are awesome actors!)

Well, that left washing hands, taking care of our fingernails, and keeping our minds clean for today. For a craft, we made little Scrubbit creatures for the kids to put on their bathroom counters to remind them to “scrub it!”

Our co-op preschool is basically the 3 and 4 year old Sunday School class from our congregation, so since we are all Latter-Day Saints (LDS, or more commonly, Mormon), we do a lot of talking about gospel principles. Since the kids sang “The Lord Gave Me a Temple” in the Primary program last week, I thought it would be the perfect song for our theme this week. I was surprised at how well the kids remembered all the words! They never cease to amaze me, this little kids.

Want to make your own Scrubbit? First, go download Janeen Brady’s “Cleanliness” CD and book  - you won’t regret it. In fact, get all of her music (especially the “Standin’ Tall” series) it is the best, and I plan to get my kids very familiar with her music. Just kidding, you don’t have to do that first.

How to make a “Scrubbit”

Materials: You will need to grab some cheap sponges (I got six for about $2.50 at the big box store), some pipe cleaners, some pom poms, and of course, googly eyes. Also, you’ll need some glue – I used hot glue because it’s fast and easy (although I had to make sure none of the little munchkins got too close – they were pretty good about it).

Now turn on the music and have fun making these Scrubbits as the Scrubbits from the music teach your kids about hygiene!

Direction: Use something to poke holes in the sides and the bottom of the sponge – I used sharp, narrow scissors, but a chopstick, a pencil, really anything with a point would work fine. Cut the pipe cleaners into four pieces, even, or make the arms a little shorter, it doesn’t really matter. I let the kids shove the pipe cleaners in the sponge, but later I ended up hot gluing almost all of the arms and legs on, so you can decide which you want to do. Then glue on the eyes (some of the kids wanted pom poms under their googly eyes – I did what they wanted, it’s their Scrubbit, after all). After that I just let them loose with the markers. They had a blast drawing mustaches, ears, armpit hair (that one was my kid), and other fun accessories (including “boo boos”). I also glued pom poms on for feet, but you could use something else, or just leave the pipe cleaners.

What hygiene crafts have you done with your kids? Do they have a fun little friend that helps them “scrub it” when they are washing their hands, or brushing their teeth? Are you going make this craft? If you do, please share you photos!

Disclaimer: I was not compensated in any way (and will not be compensated in any way) for mentioning Janeen Brady’s products in this post – I was raised on them and I believe in their effect on kids, and I use them with my own kids. I mentioned her products because I love them, and I think you will, too!

I Like to Look for Rainbows

Well, we finally updated the window. We took the hearts down at the beginning of March, but it has taken us a while to make the rainbows. We painted some rainbows a while ago, but we didn’t put them on the window (because they were more like papers full of different colors than rainbows). We also took a detour for a little and cut out some letters from cardstock.

I got the idea for these rainbows from No Time for Flash Cards (basically my favorite pre-pre-school blog). I didn’t have a lot of crafty bits and pieces, so I made some with construction paper, tissue paper, and old pipe cleaners and some sticky sponge letters.

I threw the “concoction” in a rubber maid drawer, put out some containers for sorting, and had them go for it. E was pretty good at sorting, but Baby just liked to put them in any of the containers, regardless of color (and she liked to move colors from one bin to another – I think we need to work more on colors and sorting with Baby). E was pretty good at fixing Baby’s attempts at sorting.

When they were done sorting, we had a nice rainbow of crafty pieces. Then I took pieces of butcher paper and drew a rainbow on them. I wish I had remember to get some Elmer’s glue, but all I had was hot glue – so we learned about being very careful around hot glue. I helped Baby with hers, and E did his mostly by himself. His turned out really good, and mine and Baby’s was pretty great, too. Mostly I just put the stuff on and she sat in my lap and watched and played with the pieces of paper and pom poms.

The one plus to the hot glue was that we didn’t have to wait for it to dry. We just cut out our rainbows and stuck them on the window. Speaking of sticking things, I went to The Big Box Store the other day to track down some sticky tack – you know, that stuff that is like silly putty that you use and reuse to hang stuff up? Well, they didn’t have any, but I did find some reusable tape strips by Scotch that seem to work the same way, but are a little neater (i.e., they don’t leave blue marks behind). I’ll let you know how they fare when it’s time to take the rainbows down next month – we’ll do flowers for the end of April – April showers bring May flowers!)

(although right now it is snowing… again…)

Find this post (and more great kids' crafts!) over at the


linky party over at delicateCONSTRUCTION

Graças ao Pai Celestial

For our singing time this month, we are working on the first Article of Faith (in Portuguese), and for this week, we’re learning this song – Graças ao Pai Celestial (Thanks to Our Father). It talks about all the things we’re thankful for, and all the things that Heavenly Father gives us. To help the kids learn the words, I made little signs with pictures to go with each phrase.



The kids caught on pretty well. Baby E of course just sings random sounds, but Little E got at least 10-15 words of the song down after the fifth or sixth time through. To spice things up I let Little E be the “leader” at one point. That helped him get into singing. But you can only sing one song so many times before the kids get restless. To keep them sitting still for the first bit, I took their “snuggles” (their ‘special’ blankets) and folded them up to the size of those carpet samples that Kindergarten teachers use. I had them sit on those – and that worked for a few minutes.

We’ll practice this song again after lunch, and then twice a day for the rest of the week. Maybe I’ll snap some audio of the kids singing once they learn the song.

What songs do you sing with your children to help them learn about gratitude? What tricks do you use to keep their attention on the music instead of running around like monkeys?