Deco Mesh Wreath Tutorial

I have been in love with deco mesh wreaths for a while now and never could make myself make one as I had a hard time understanding the tutorials, even though they are super easy. I finally sat down to try to figure it out and decided I would make an easy tutorial for beginners like me! 

To start you need

A wreath form. I got mine at Hobby Lobby. If you can't find one with the pipe cleaners attached just buy a normal wire wreath and find pipe cleaners that you can attach yourself. 

1 roll of deco mesh in any color you choose. (5 1/2 x 30 feet)

Some type of accent ribbon ( I went with tinsel wired ribbon)

Decorations of your choice for accents

(I accidentally bought more than I really needed for this wreath but you get the idea from this picture.)

 Now let's get started!

To start you take your wire wreath and deco mesh. You will need the whole roll of deco mesh for this wreath so do not cut at any time. 

Take the end and scrunch the piece and twist the pipe cleaner around it. I started with my inner ring of my wreath.

 Now you just start making bumps in the deco mesh. Try to keep them the same length and bumpiness around the whole wreath.

 Go around the inner ring once and then go again a second time. Keep making the bumps as this adds fullness to your wreath.

 Once I had gone around the inner ring twice without cutting I headed to the outer ring. Continue doing the bumps just like your inner ring on the outer ring.

Go around the outer loop twice and you should be at the end of your roll. If not keep going because the more bumps you have the fuller your wreath will look. 

 At that point my main part of my wreath is done.

Next I added my tinsel wired ribbon. I just zig-zagged  it throughout my wreath to my liking using the same pipe cleaners that were on the wreath to begin with.

Then attach your accent pieces to your liking. I attached mine to the back and had it pop up through the center. (I later replaced it with some snowflakes for my Christmas decor). 

There is my finished Christmas wreath! I had so much fun making it! 

Have you ever made one of these? If not give it a try!

Preschool (1/3-1/7)

Last week for Preschool we focused on a Winter Theme. 

I didn't get pictures of everything this week.

He worked on our Math Worksheets which can be found HERE.

 He also did some Winter Word tracing and building which I got from HERE.

 He worked on some mazes this week. This was his first time being really interested in them.

He did a Snowman Pattern activity and Snowman Size Sort from COAH

 We read "The Mitten" by Jan Brett on We Give Books

He did our Mitten activity which is linked in my Tot School post below.

Some More Winter Activities can be found:

• COAH S is for Snowamn Unit
• 1+1+1=1 Winter Sensory Bin
• 1+1+1=1 Winter Fun
• Musings of Me Winter Unit
• 2 Teaching Mommies Winter Unit

Tot School (1/3-1/7)

(Dylan is 32 months)

This week and since the new year started I decided to try something new with Dylan's school time. As I was feeling a bit overwhelmed with Austin and Dylan in the school room doing 2 totally different things. So Dylan does school right after nap time and then when he is done Austin does school. It is working really well and they are getting a lot of 1 on 1 time then. I actually feel like Dylan got a full week of school in.

He had 5 to 6 activities on his shelf each day. He was able to choose from them as he wanted during our school time.

We pulled out our new Color and Texture puzzles out and he did them all!

 He worked on gluing some pictures i printed and cut out for him to paper. He really enjoyed having free reign of the glue.

I put together a clothespin color game for him. He had a hard time with this so we only did it once this week as he got very frustrated. I will pull it out once a week for him to keep practicing with. He had the idea of the matching colors but the pushing the clothespin to clip it to the card was too difficult.

He did a snowflake matching activity from 1+1+1=1 Winter Fun

He played with our new Magneatos.

 He did our new Button Art activity that I got on Amazon. I really liked this as we worked on saying the colors and then counting how many of each color we needed to do the activity.

He did a color matching mitten activity from PreKinders. Hes really liking these type of activities and does them several times a day.

He did a snowman size sort. We started sorting from biggest to smallest. Then smallest to biggest.

He enjoyed this fun activity of dressing the snowman. I put magnets on the back of the pieces so they would stay on the cookie sheet.

He was putting the Snowman's hat from our dress up activity on his head.

 He did some sticker practice.

We read "The Mitten" by Jan Brett on We Give Books (you read books and everyone you read they donate books to  different book campaigns that they have)

We did a mitten activity that went with the book above. He colored the animals and then we stapled the mittens together and placed the animals inside the mitten. You can get the activity HERE

Check out what others did for Tot School this week at 1+1+1=1

Winter Themed Week Planning

I know I said I'd be gone but do you really think I could stay away? 

Im working on plans for the next several weeks and one of the weeks we are doing a Winter Theme. Carisa at 1+1+1=1 posted yesterday with a bunch of Winter Units she had found and they are the same as the ones I had found so Ill direct you there if you plan to do a Winter theme also. http://1plus1plus1equals1.blogspot.com/2010/12/winter-fun-plans.html

One thing I had trouble finding were Math Worksheets that were Winter Themed. So I decided to make my own! My boys loved the color and tracing sheets we did for Christmas so I knew I needed some for Winter. So I'm sharing them with y'all as well!

(image is linked to download)

Enjoy!