Visit to Arecibo Lighthouse and Historical Park

One of the outdoor activities last week was to visit Arecibo Lighthouse and Historical Park. It was a really sunny, nice day out there. As their website describes "The Arecibo Lighthouse and Historical Park is a cultural theme park located in the surrounding area of the Arecibo Lighthouse. It has an innovative and unique concept that includes among other things five cultural representations of the Puerto Rico's history, which transports all of our visitors through historical and cultural events from the Spanish Conquest of 1493 to the 1898 when this lighthouse was built and the Spanish-American war occurred."

It is a cool place for little ones to see big ships. And no so little ones can get on them and feel like in an adventure of Jack and the Neverland Pirates. Also, there is a small aquarium that is nice and has a good sampling of seawater creatures such as sharks and eels. My girl was a little hesitant at first, given the dark cave like environment where the aquarium is built. But then, she wanted to "touch" all those strange friends.

A visit to the Arecibo Lighthouse and Historical Park is a great opportunity to expose little ones to some cultural and historical background where one can vary level of details depending on the needs. As for our trip, we had a super nice family day together. Our little pea saw real sharks, real size ships, she walked the over the sea deck feeling the caribbean breeze and listening to the splashy waves, and we went up to the top of the lighthouse for a worthseeing view of the beautiful north coast of our little island. We will very likely be back in a couple of years when studying some science and history courses. But for now, all in all, she was exposed to many sensorial experiences, new vocabulary, physical activity and best of all quality time with mommy and daddy.

Have you been in the Arecibo Lighthouse and Historical Park with your little ones?

What did they enjoyed the most in the park?

Floral Wreath for Mother's Day --- Isn't mother's day on July!?

Since I recently created Purple Pink Pig I'm traying to load fast enough some of the projects I have completed in the last couple of months.

Today, I am going to share a picture of a Mother's Day Floral Wreath. I believe it turned out really cute! Moreover, I just spent $5 in flowers from a dollar store. All of the other materials I already had on hand (foam for the wreath support body and ribbon).

I chose bright fuschia pink flowers and a silver tone ribbon.

It turned out really cute!

Hi everyone! Welcome to the first tutorial post here in Purple Pink Pig!

"Interactive Chalkboard Peek-a-boo Board"

I have been collecting lots (I mean lots!) of those baby wipes lids every time a package was finished... I had the hope that some one of a kind use would come to those other than tossing them in the trash.... And I did (sort of I think!). So, today I am going to share this aha! moment with you. I hope it is detailed enough, otherwise just email me or feel free to come up with your questions at the comments section.

OK.... enough blah... Set, Ready, Create!

This tutorial is for an "Interactive Chalkboard Peek-a-boo Board"

Materials needed:

•  Mod Podge
• Sponge brush
• Stretched Art Canvas (mine measured 16" x 20" as it was an old canvas that got a hole on it and I was looking to give it some extended life).
• Fabric (I used 22" x 26" of cotton fabric from my stash and it was enough to cover the canvas and provided 3" on each side to stretch it to the back of the canvas)
• Sandpaper (3 sheets no. 600 grit -- for metal as I was told by my Dear H...again I used this as it was what I got on hand. You may try with any real thin sandpaper sheet you find)
• Baby Wipes Lids (Mine are from Costco Kirkland Brand baby wipes. I used 18 for this project)
• Craft Foamy (I just collected what I got on my foam sheets stash making sure they coordinate with selected fabric and that it was enough to cover the back of each of the 18 baby wipes lids).
• Spray Glue

How To:

1. Gather your materials. 



2. Stretch the fabric (iron if needed) and place canvas back side facing up. Make sure to left a clearance on each side (in my case 3" all around).



3. Since my fabric choice has vertical lines design I taped the fabric in place and turned the canvas around to make sure the fabric lines look straight parallel to the canvas side edges.

4. Alright....Spread some Mod Podge in the canvas and place the fabric on it...then turn it around and finish the back with more Mod Podge trying to smooth the corners as much as possible.This is how mine turned out.

5. This is the front of the canvas already "Mod Podged".

 6. Now gather the sandpaper and a baby wipe package lid. I cut a piece of sandpaper big enough to cover the baby lid top. Once I make sure it covered well all the top of the lid I used it as a pattern to cut 17 more rectangles for the remaining lids. Notice I decided to cut round edges to keep with the look of the lids.

7. Then spray glue on the lids covers and cover with the previously cut sandpaper rectangles. Let these dry while we work on the next steps.

 8. Bring in the craft foamy sheets and a spare baby wipe lid. (told you... I still got plenty of these!). I placed the lid in top of the foamy and cut around the perimeter with the exacto knife to make a back cover for the lid. (White rectangles of photo below).

 9. Place the foamy at the bottom of the lid, open the lid and draw a diamond shape as figure below (my diamond lines extend about 1/2" to the center of the lid.

10. Cut the diamond shape out with the exacto knife. Repeat this 17 more times. (Note: I used random foamy colors matching the fabric, if you want a specific pattern for these make sure to count the right amount for each color to be cut).

11. Once all foamy rectangle backings are cut arrange on the canvas and locate evenly spread. Notice I left a header on top of the board. It is about 4" height to place a board header (shown in following steps).  



12. Once location has been confirmed hot glue foamy rectangles in place.

13. Next cut a rectangle of foamy for the header back of 3"x8", a rectangle of sandpaper of 3"x8", and another rectangle of foamy of 3"x8". On one of the foamy rectangle cut out an inner rectangle opening of 2"x7" (See picture below has  a green foamy frame that is the cut out rectangle allowing a clearance of 1/2" all around).

14. Sandwich all these three parts (sorry no photo of this step). Simply place the backing rectangle and spread some hot glue on it. Place the Sandpaper rectangle on top of the backing rectangle with glue. Then place the frame or top rectangle with the inner opening on top with some more hot glue ( got it?!).

15. Now hot glue all the baby wipes lids on top of the foamy rectangles placed in the canvas.

  

 16. It is good to ask you quality control representative to inspect all parts before completing the last couple of steps.

17. Glue the header on top of the canvas.... Voila!!!! We are done!

Now get some chalk and start writing on this new and unique board.

For the first use I just placed some hand draw counting figures (each row with a different symbol and arrangement) to start exposing Lil Soi to low quantities.



And then just let the kids play with it a while... This will certainly provide good amounts of entertainment and fun learning.

I just have a long list of uses for this board. To insert pictures and place the first letter of the name on top (good to practice ABC's)... To insert simple math equations and the kids to write the result on the lid... To write some sentences parts and the kids to identify if they are nouns, verbs, etc... and much more.

What do you say?!  Did you liked it?  What else can it be used for?