Giving Up On A Clean House

Life is CRAZY!!!

2011-07-18T16:07:00.000-07:00

Those of you that have been following for awhile have surely heard about my constant quest to slow down and focus on what matters! You may have noticed that I haven't been blogging since our move this spring. I have a million excuses, but basically it comes down to focusing my energy on what's most important at the moment. I appreciate all of my readers, and hope to someday soon be able to focus on blogging again. In the meantime, here are some of our highlights from the past year.

As my son was learning to read this year we did lots of fun sight word activities! A very popular post was our Sight Word Garden. A year later we still enjoy our beautiful flowers, and use them regularly to practice new sight words.

Thanks to our Writing Center, my son was able to develop a love of writing. We have made several friends very happy by gifting them their own writing writing centers and art centers. We used the supplies in our centers to create this fun color book.

We loved owls even before they were so trendy! These owl pillows were easy for the kids to make and could be adapted to any theme.

I love to come up with new ways to play with toys that we already have. When I was trying to come up with new (non-destructible) tot school games for my daughter, I posted a bunch of fun ways to play with your chunky puzzle pieces! Her favorite was when I tossed a sheep puzzle piece in a bag. I shook
it while saying “baa, baa, what’s trying to get out of the bag?”

We have been trying to teach my daughter the letters in her name. Her favorite activity so far was this do-a-dot art project, and it looks so cute on her bedroom door!

Mom Chores~ Trying to Keep a Clean House

2011-04-14T22:07:00.001-07:00

We are so settled into our new house that I even plugged in the laminator today! I’ve quickly discovered that moving to a house twice the size means twice the chores!!

In our old home I had developed a system that was working really well for me, so today I recreated it for our new home. As you can see I made a spreadsheet of lists. The master list contains chores for each day of the week that remain the same each week.

For example, every Friday I vacuum downstairs, sweep the kitchen and clear my inbox (a girl can dream right ;) On Fridays we spend the day watching my nephew at his house, so I make that my light chore day :)

Wiping down the bathrooms twice a week makes it so that I only have to deep clean them once a month and they usually don’t smell like a public urinal… Of course this schedule was made with a perfect world in mind and there are days when I just don’t get it all done. That’s when I remind myself to focus on what really matters :)

Then each week I have a different focus zone. So one week I focus on deep cleaning the kitchen and our bedroom, the following week I do all 3 bathrooms, etc.

I printed out all of the lists, mounted them on cardstock and laminated them. I hang the master list and that weeks zone by our family calendar. As I do my chores I get great satisfaction crossing them off the list with a dry erase or overhead marker. At the end of the week I can quickly see how much I got crossed off, then erase it and remember there's always next week!!

Big News

2011-03-13T08:55:00.001-07:00

Things have been crazy over here! It’s official- we are moving in less than 3 weeks! We are really excited! Our new home will be just a mile from Super Daddy’s new office, less than a block to Kindergarten, and in a great area for me to run and bike!!

Plus, our new house is more than twice the size of our current home! My mind is spinning with all of the furniture and decorating possibilities. Of course, one of the first things I did was check out the over 200 online stores at CSNstores.com. They have furniture for every room of the house, including these Herman Miller chairs which would be perfect for our office! I won’t be blogging from my dining room anymore!!

You know I’m a huge believer in focusing on the important stuff, so I’ll be taking a break from blogging. See you in a month, I promise I’ll have lots of fun stuff and updates on our new home :) I will occasionally be updating our facebook page during this break, so if you don’t already ‘like’ me, please do. (Super easy with the buttons on the right hand tool bar).

**I received a $35 promo code to csn stores for linking to them in this post. Check back in a month and I’ll show you what I got for the new house!!

Pick & Draw Winner

2011-03-13T08:30:00.001-07:00

Thanks to all who entered our giveaway for the awesome Pick & Draw Game! Our lucky winner is comment #3, Kylie (of Our Worldwide Classroom)!

If you didn’t win you can buy your own set for only $10! Well worth it for the hours of family fun and creativity!

Pick & Draw Review and Giveaway!

2011-02-24T16:05:00.001-08:00

We frequently play games as a family after dinner. The usual games are fun for the kids. We love seeing the kids excited to play games together, but the games themselves are usually pretty lame for us. Not anymore!!
Pick & Draw is an incredibly simple and fun game! All you need to play are the playing cards, pencil and paper. We usually add crayons and clipboards (since we play our games on the living room floor).
The high quality cards come with very clear, easy to follow instruction cards, and 5 different sets of features (face, eyes, nose, mouth, and hair)
To play you select one card for each feature. It’s fun to see how players can use the same shapes to create very different pictures by simply changing the features size, location, angle, etc.

Beyond being a fun way to spend some family time together. This game is a great way to get creative juices flowing, practice fine motor control, and build self-esteem. Ryan has been so impressed with some of his own drawings! Even two year old Ella gets super excited to play. She likes when we draw the face shape for her and then she adds in features, and lots of extras :) It was during a game of Pick & Draw that Ella first drew eyes as two circles with circles inside!
As you can see in the pictures, we like to name our characters, create silly families, and tell stories about our drawings!

To give the game a try, check out:

At $10, this is cheap family entertainment! If you would like to win your own copy of Pick & Draw become a follower of my blog or comment if you already are (1 entry) (use the follow button on the right hand side of the page :)
EXTRA ENTRIES:
* ‘Like’ Giving Up On A Clean House on Face Book (1 entry)
* Blog about this giveaway and leave a comment with a link (3 entries)
Giveaway ends March 6, 2011 at 11:59PST. Be sure to leave a valid email address otherwise I won't be able to contact you if you win. Winner will be chosen via random.org. If the winner does not contact me within 48 hours, a new winner will be chosen. Good Luck!
**I received a free copy of Pick & Draw, as well as a copy to giveaway, in exchange for this honest review ;)

Learning Your Name with Valentines Games

2011-02-11T10:41:00.000-08:00

Life has been crazier than usual around here! We thought we were moving, but now we are staying put for the time being. We are about to leave on a mini-vacation, but I wanted to share some Valentine activities with you before it's too late!

I'm starting to work with Ella on identifying the letters in her name. We have been spelling it a lot, pointing out the letters when we see them elsewhere, and trying to incorporate her name into art projects.

When I hosted preschool co-op a couple of weeks ago I made these felt hearts to play with. I used puff paint to write a letter on each heart (super easy and super cute!) Remember, that our felt board is just our $14 Ikea easel with felt stapled over the chalkboard side (because I hate chalk and needed a felt board). During circle time I had the kids guess which name was which. Another time I gave them the letters of their name and worked with them to re-assemble it. There is so much you could do with these cute hearts, and it was great for the kids to be able to hold and manipulate the pieces of their names.

Using a new heart press, I created this simple file folder game for Ella. Her job is to match the correct letter to the letters on the game board. Of course, it's most beneficial when I play it with her and say each letter. This would be fun to turn into some sort of fishing game, or even just put the heart pieces in a bowl and have her draw out one at a time.

Another simple game that we will be playing in our yurt in the snow this week involves making hearts with the kids names on them. Today I'm going to show Ryan the magical trick of making his own hearts by folding the paper and cutting on the fold. For Musical Hearts spread the hearts on the floor and turn on some good music. When the music stops the kids have to hustle to stand on a heart with their name on it. They can collect them as we go. For Valentines Beanbag Toss spread the hearts with names on the ground. Toss a beanbag and try to have it land on your name. Collect each heart you land on with your name. You could also do letters of their name. Older kids would have to collect them in the correct order, and younger kids would identify the letters they land on and lay them out to spell their name.

Happy Valentines Day!!

Tot School

2011-01-27T20:14:00.001-08:00

Ella (33 months) has been getting more and more interested in doing ‘school’ activities with me.

She loved using an eye dropper to put drops of water in the suction cups of these bath pads. We included mixing colors, sucking the water back up, and using a rag to clean up our own mess.

We finally finished our Christmas thank you cards. Ella loved painting a snow scene with a cotton swab, cutting felt, gluing pieces and decorating snowmen.

Ella and I created counting cards together using stickers and large index cards. We can practice counting by adding various counters (bears this time) to the stickers on each card.

I put large pieces of scrap muslin out on the grass and let the preschoolers paint with a variety of materials. Ella LOVED it and wants to do it every day now…too bad momma’s not up for that kind of mess everyday!

Our sensory bin is way packed this month, but Ella plays with it several times a day. She especially likes the funnel. We sort hearts by size and material (plastic, glass, wood, felt, and foam).

Ella is into pretending to write and pretending to read :) I just got out these early tracing books and she is doing really well with them.

What better way to practice our balance than with a bunch of fallen logs and tree stumps!

Not tot school, but too cute to not include ;) Can you find Ella?

I can always use ideas for tot school!! What have you and your toddler been up to?

I’ll be getting ideas this month from Quirky Momma’s An-Activity-A-Day Calendars. Print out your February version today!

Check out what other tots are doing:

Delicious Everything (and oatmeal) Cookies

2011-01-13T10:16:00.001-08:00

Well, a mama on a January diet should not be baking. But, we were hosting playgroup and I didn’t want to empty our snack cabinet. Everyone loved the cookies even though I omitted the chocolate (to make them less tempting to me :)

I didn’t get a picture before they were gobbled up… next time :)

Ingredients:

2 sticks of softened butter (1/2 pound)
1 packed cup brown sugar
1/2 cup sugar
2 eggs
1.5 teaspoons almond extract
1.5 teaspoons vanilla
1.5 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1.5 teaspoons cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
2.5 cups uncooked oatmeal '
1 cup dried cranberries
1 cup chopped walnuts
1 cup of good chocolate (I prefer high quality chocolate chips or good ol’ m&m’s)

Preparation:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees, and lightly grease your cookie sheets. Beat the butter, brown sugar, and sugar until creamy. Add the eggs one at a time and then the almond extract and vanilla.

Add the flour, baking soda, cinnamon and salt. Mix well with the blender. By hand stir in the goodies (cranberries, walnuts and chocolate).

Try to get them on the cookie sheet without eating all of the dough (I should probably add some kind of disclosure about the potential danger of raw eggs). Bake them for 11-13 minutes, until they start to turn a golden brown. Cool and Enjoy!!!

Good Storytellers Make Good Writers

2011-01-12T09:59:00.001-08:00

When I taught in the classroom and as a homeschool adviser, I saw a lot of bad writing. We’ve all heard that reading quality books helps create good writers, but don’t forget the classic art of storytelling.

Being able to envision stories in your head without an accompanying illustration, is an important skill that can lead to a growing imagination, and increased reading comprehension.

Books on CD are a great way to introduce the idea of storytelling. We love to listen to stories in the car. Our current favorites are almost all from Barefoot Books. Our library also has a great selection of audio books. Usually we listen to the story uninterrupted the first time (as uninterrupted as a story can be with a two and four year old;) The next time we listen to the story I may occasionally pause it and ask questions, such as “Ooh, I love how they described that dragon! Do you think it looks nice or mean?” At the end of stories I usually ask questions, to see how much they were able to follow the story. I have found that they have a harder time with these comprehension questions with the audio books than they usually do with visual books.

After introducing storytelling through audio books I started to fabricate stories for the kids. I model good stories by making sure that I use vivid descriptions, and include a beginning, middle (with some sort of climax), and an end. They especially love when they are characters in the stories.

Including fun variations has had us telling stories almost all day long! The kids love choose your own adventure type stories where I ask them questions and their answers dictate the direction of the tale. For example, “Ryan and Ella soon came to a dark cave. As they stood outside peering in, they saw a faint light flickering deep inside. Should they go inside or keep trying to find the castle?”

We have also enjoyed a lot of round table story telling lately. We take turns each adding a few lines. These stories get pretty silly!

My favorite story telling activity is telling the same story from different points of view. For example, I could tell the kids a story about a group of kids hunting for a dragon and then tell the story a second time speaking as the dragon. This is a great tool for helping kids think from other peoples point of view. [This less egocentric thinking is developmentally appropriate around age four.]

Of course this is all leading up to having the kids create their own stories. If they have a hard time coming up with ideas you could brainstorm together, or even give them some props to use. Don’t be surprised if in the beginning the stories sound a lot like the ones you have been telling, or tend to ramble on forever. You can ask questions to illicit more details or more vivid descriptions. You can talk about their story at the end saying, “I like how at the beginning of your story ___ happened, then in the middle ____ happened, and then it ended with ____.” Though the best way to keep improving their stories is to keep reading to them and telling them great stories.

We are just starting to turn our stories into fun puppet shows :)

Remember, great story tellers grow into great writers!

How Our Sight Word Garden Has Grown!!

2011-01-10T10:14:00.001-08:00

Happy New Year!! My winter break is officially over, and I have lots of fun posts lined up for you. I’m working on learning how to make printables, and hope to provide some fun materials from our current unit on mammals soon :)

I’m so proud to say that Ryan’s reading is really taking off (especially in the last couple of weeks)! We had been pretty stagnant lately since he hasn’t wanted to work on his Explode the Code. In fact, I’ve had to be pretty sneaky about getting any ‘school work’ in. I tried to stay patient, not force him (remembering he’s only 4), and remember that his interest and growth comes in waves. Remember when he went from hating writing to ~~loving it~~ being completely obsessed with it in a matter of weeks?

Anyways, we are still working on our sight words. On We Teach, a few bloggers were discussing our favorite posts from 2010. Our Sight Word Garden was my favorite because it was 100% my own idea and we still use it on a near daily basis.

When our garden started to grow so quickly, (and the sister and pets started picking flowers from our garden) we had to adapt it. I thought about putting floral foam in planter boxes on Ryan’s huge dresser. But, again we would outgrow it quickly. If you want to focus on a handful of words at a time the planter may be a good idea.

So we transferred our flowers to three flower pots that rest on the shelf in our play kitchen (where we see them constantly). The pot on the left is for words that Ryan knows instantly. The middle pot is for words that he knows but needs to get a little quicker with. The pot on the right is for words that we are still working on. It’s been working great for us! Have you planted a sight word garden? If so, be sure to let us know. You could do vocabulary words or math fact gardens too! It’s fun to brighten up bleak winter days with beautiful flowers!

You can check out our other sight words activities from 2010, and you can bet 2011 will be full of more :)

I added this post to the ABC and 123 Show & Tell Blog Hop- check it out!

Getting Outside

2010-12-31T14:58:00.001-08:00

Remember one of my goals for 2010 was to get outside tons. We did pretty well! Here are some pictures of enjoying nature in 2010. I’m excited that Living and Learning is going to be hosting a new meme in 2011 to encourage families to get outside more! We’ll be participating at the end of each month.

January~ trips to the snow, Grandma & Grandpa’s Meadow, and hibernating ladybugs by the handful!

February~ enjoying our beautiful backyard, the zoo and parks

March~ hiking, exploring, and digging a swimming pool!

April~ This month it warmed up, and Ella’s distaste for clothing began, so I have tons of cute naked pics that I can’t share :(

May~ A great vacation, eating carrots right out of our garden, and picking strawberries

June~ Tide pooling, lots of fun at the beach, pool, and parks!

July~Apparently we spent the entire month in the water, and once again Ella was naked in 99% of the pictures…

August~ Tractor driving, camping, and lots of time riding bikes

September~ mud, birds nests, and of course safety goggles & hammers!

October~ Hiking, rainy days at the river, hacking at stumps, pony rides and pumpkin patches

November ~ I only took a handful of pictures in November. But, there were the usual hikes and park days :)

December~ More fun at the beach, hiking, and enjoying our new climbing dome (Thanks Grandma & Grandpa :)

Wow!! This post has made me really appreciate our beautiful CA weather, many fun trips/vacations, and two adorable kids that love to be outside!

Merry Christmas From Two Chubby Little Snowmen

2010-12-24T12:24:00.001-08:00

A chubby little snowman had a carrot nose
along came a bunny, and what do you suppose?
That hungry little bunny, looking for some lunch
ate that snowman's carrot nose,
Nibble, Nibble, Crunch!

Happy Holidays from our family to yours!
I'll be back online next week :)

Gingerbread Week

2010-12-23T13:43:00.001-08:00

My kids enjoyed preschool co-op’s Gingerbread Week so much that it turned into gingerbread month!

The kids loved the gingerbread books we read:

Our focus letter was G. For our capital G the kids used stencils (part of a bulletin board border that I cut up) and painted with cotton balls. We decorated our lowercase g with gold glitter glue. Here’s a G is for Gingerbread Handwriting Worksheet.

During circle time we looked at the illustrations in our gingerbread books to compare and contrast gingerbread characters. We noticed that lots of gingerbread men have buttons, so we made a graph of how many buttons we were wearing at the time. Even the two year olds were into the graphing activity- each kid stood up for us to count their buttons and then I handed them a gingerbread man with that number written on it. We assembled the graph all together and then talked about who had the most/least buttons, etc.

Under the graph you can see our scented gingerbread men. The kids liked trying to match the different spices. We found that several of them do not like the smell of nutmeg!

We laced and stuffed gingerbread characters. This was super affordable since we used paper bags, yarn, a hole punch and markers.

Ryan loved making a gingerbread family garland (again just out of a paperbag). I love how the second one has “Grandma’s fluffy gray hair”.

Both kids loved making life-size gingerbread friends!

All of the preschoolers enjoyed our gingerbread poem and making gingerbread puppets to re-enact the story. Since my kids like to climb in the oven of their play kitchen they’ve loved acting out all of the different versions of the story.

I found an adorable new blog, Musings of Me, that has tons of cute Gingerbread printables! Here’s Ella sorting buttons onto her gingerbread color cards.

My kids loved creating Gingerbread Applesauce Ornaments to give a few special people for Christmas. The dough was 1 cup of applesauce, 1 cup of cinnamon, and 2T of glue. I was surprised that it actually made a great dough (not crumbly, and super yummy smelling). It took several days for our ornaments to dry. The kids put a lot of time and effort into decorating them!

Of course on the first morning of preschool, Homeschool Creations just had to post a Gingerbread Lapbook and send me into a printing, cutting and laminating tizzy before school started! (Thanks ;)

Since somehow they aren’t totally sick of the gingerbread theme yet we worked on this mini-book, My Gingerbread Man. And, we played the Gingerbread Man game on Starfall!

It’s been a fun & yummy smelling month :)

Blogiversary!

2010-12-21T09:45:00.001-08:00

Giving Up On a Clean House is officially 1 year old!! I began blogging to chronicle my adventures with my two preschoolers. I love finding and sharing ideas in the big ol’ blogosphere. But, most importantly , blogging has been a constant reminder to me to slow down and focus on what matters!

I love looking back through the blog and seeing everything we’ve done this year! It’s hard to pick a favorite, but my kids’ favorites were our sight word garden, our rocketship, Ryan’s Writing Center, and coming up with creative ways to play with our puzzles. Looking at old posts reminded us to make reindeer toast this week.

Even though I’ve become really good at not letting myself feel guilty when I don’t post enough, one of my goals for 2011 is to post more consistently. I would love to see this little blog grow!

With Ryan officially starting Kindergarten and Ella really getting into the swing of preschool it’s going to be a wonderfully full year!

THANKS for reading!!! I love all of your comments and links :)

[I dream about this blog growing as big as some of my favorites! Right now 3 of my favorite blogs are partnering with Target to giveaway an iPad and children’s books!! Go to Frugal Family Fun Blog to enter to win an iPad and an assortment of children’s books courtesy of Target! I also saw the giveaway at No Time for Flashcards and The Activity Mom]

Time for Tots Activity Kit Review

2010-12-02T09:31:00.001-08:00

We have had so much fun the last couple of days with our Mix n’ Match Christmas Kit from Time for Tots.

Our kit arrived with 12 wonderful activities (which I selected, that’s the mix n’ match part of the kit :) The activities were appropriate for both my two and four year old. Some of the activities were consumable (the make an ornament activities), so only one child got to do them. But, there were enough so that they could choose what they wanted to make.

Ella’s favorite activities were, sorting big and small objects onto big and small stockings, and matching the candy canes. Ryan enjoyed the grid games and making a reindeer headband. They worked nicely together on the prewriting strips and puzzles.

I love that these activities took no preparation from me, yet have provided hours of entertainment (and will continue to do so all month)! I also appreciated that each activity was individually organized in separate bags, that the entire kit came securely packed in a single large plastic folder, and that the instructions were clear.

The shipping was super fast, so it’s not too late to order your kit and still have time to do these fun holiday activities with your kids!

Don’t forget while you’re on the Time for Tots site to check out other kits that can be used all year long. I’ve been eyeing their Fine Motor Skills Kit, the Everything Preschool Kit, the Color Travel Size Kit, and the Working With Words Kit. They even have Sensory Bins.

Nicole from Time for Tots generously provided this free kit for us to review. The opinions in this review are mine and were not influenced by Time for Tots or its affiliates.

Keeping My Purse Organized

2010-12-01T09:59:00.001-08:00

Yup you read that title right, and yup I’m a self-declared dork! But, at least I’m an organized dork ;)

I have a massive amount of membership cards, reward cards, punch cards, business cards, gift cards, coupons, and other little pieces of important paper that would otherwise make my wallet bust at the seams and clutter my purse. I organize them all in a little coupon wallet that I got in a dollar bin last Christmas.

I even keep my check book and a small pack of crayons in there. It’s gotten pretty massive in size, but it keeps my even more massive purse tidy, and I always know where my cards and coupons are! It’s worked so well for me that I just had to share :)

Split Pea Soup & Challah

2010-11-30T14:50:00.001-08:00

I wish Thanksgiving produced more ham hocks! There are so many great possibilities! This year’s hock was destined to become split pea soup.

Soup Ingredients:

4T Butter
2 Onions, chopped
6-8 celery stalks
6-8 carrots
1 pound split peas
4 cups chicken or turkey broth (Don’t forget it’s super easy to make yourself)
4 cups water
1T marjoram
ham hock and any leftover ham you may have

Soup Preparation:

Melt the butter in a dutch oven (or a large heavy pot). Add the vegetables and sauté until they begin to soften ( about 8 minutes). Stir in the hock and ham (in large chunks that you will be able to remove easily later) and marjoram. Add the peas, broth and water. Bring the soup to a boil. Reduce heat to a simmer and cover partially. Stir frequently until the peas are falling apart (about an hour).

Transfer the hock and large ham chunks to a bowl. Use an immersion blender to bring the soup to a consistency that you like (it will thicken slightly as it cools). If it’s too thick blend in more broth. Dice the pork and return it to the soup. Yields about 3.5 quarts.

This soup is delicious (yet terribly not kosher) with Challah.

Bread Ingredients:

1 cup of warm water
5 egg yolks (save the whites to brush the dough)
6T softened butter
4C flour
4T gluten
1.5t salt
1/2c packed brown sugar
1.5T yeast

** The freshness of the flour and gluten GREATLY affects the taste and texture of the bread!

Bread Preparation:

I put the ingredients in my breadmaker in the order listed (but I understand different machines have different order preferences??) My machine is a bit on the wimpy side for this wet and heavy dough, so I stand by during mixing with a spatula. After the machine finishes the dough cycle, I give the bread one more gentle kneading on a well floured surface. Then I split the dough into six pieces and braid two loaves of three strands each. Brush the loaves with egg whites and sprinkle with sesame seeds. Allow the loaves to rise for half an hour, and then bake at 350 degrees for 18-25 minutes (depending on how doughy you like it).

Every time I make Challah I intend to take one of the loaves to a friend, it just never makes it that far…

Enjoy!!

Guided Drawing- Thanksgiving Pilgrims

2010-11-23T15:32:00.001-08:00

I’m frequently torn when I think of what ‘art lessons’ should look like for young children. Part of me wants to make it a fully creative process, and part of me wants to include some instruction (in the hopes that my children will be able to draw more than stick people, unlike their mama:) So like may other subjects, I try to balance the kids’ experiences. We do a lot of free art (where they usually end up consuming an entire glue stick each!)

Guided drawing not only allows us to work on some drawing skills, but it is also great for practicing following directions! Most of our guided drawing lessons have been in Ryan’s Drawing Notebook, but I wanted our Thanksgiving lesson to be larger. We followed a lesson from HeidiSongs. Ryan is so proud of his pilgrims and turkeys. I printed out the instructions so that we can repeat them each year and see how his drawing changes.

We’ve also been doing some activities from Draw with Rich. I’ve been eyeing his Pick & Draw Game for awhile, maybe I’ll have to add it to Ryan’s stocking.

Preschool Co-op

2010-11-19T07:44:00.001-08:00

I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that my friends and I have organized a preschool co-op. We are all so excited at how well it is going. I was a little worried that rotating houses each week would confuse the kids, but it definitely has not. The kids are excited to take turns to have preschool at their house. All the moms have done an awesome job so far! I wanted to show you some of the great activities that Ms. May Tou planned for us this week.

Look how excited the kids were to answer questions during circle time.

Our focus letter for the week was N. On Tuesday we made nest N’s for our alphabet binders, and on Thursday we talked about N words and made necklaces.

These are just a couple of the cute projects we did this week! I love the thankful trees that the kids made. We asked the kids what they were thankful for and put five responses on the leaves of their trees. I love that we asked them individually so they didn’t all just repeat each others answers. Ryan is thankful for peanut butter and jelly, trees, candy, presents, and rain. Ella is thankful for Daddy, Mommy, ‘My Ryan’, flowers, and turkey. The pilgrims in their pots are on plastic spoons!

Thanks to Ms. May Tou for a great week!

CSN Giveaway Winner!

2010-11-19T07:37:00.001-08:00

Congratulations to Kate (comment #26)! I hope you enjoy your $35 to CSN Stores :)

A huge thank you to CSN Stores for the giveaway!

Did you know that next month I’ve been blogging for an entire year? Did you know that I rarely stick to something for an entire year ;) I think we should celebrate!! Stay tuned for more giveaways :)

Countdown to Christmas

2010-11-17T09:25:00.001-08:00

Last year we used a paper chain to countdown to Christmas (and practice our patterning, and end the non-stop question of ‘How many more days?)

We have an adorable advent calendar that our cousins gave us, each of the little pockets has an ornament to hang on the tree (with Velcro). I love that I don’t have to buy little junkie things for this calendar each year!

This year I was hoping to get my act together earlier and do something a little more elaborate. I was so excited when I saw one of my favorite bloggers, The Activity Mom, post an Activity Advent Calendar. I LOVE the idea of counting down to Christmas by doing something fun and holiday themed each day!

I love that she included the printable cards, Plan B activities, and a super organized materials list for the entire month!

Print out your Activity Advent Calendar today and enjoy an activity a day as you count down to Christmas!

Tumblr

2010-11-15T20:51:00.001-08:00

I love to use Tumblr as virtual bookmarks for the blogosphere! My Tumblr page is an easy and cute way to keep track of all the great things I find online.

Check out the cookies a friend and I made today, the money game I’m currently making for Ryan, or the erasable activity books that I want to make for Christmas gifts.

Enjoy!

Win $35 to any CSN.com store!

2010-11-12T07:38:00.001-08:00

I was excited when CSN Stores contacted me about doing a review or giveaway.

Since the handles on my work bag are literally falling apart, I thought about getting this adorable briefcase.

Then I looked at all the great things I could get for the kids.

Then I realized, where is my giving spirit;of course I should pass this on as a giveaway to my readers!

So enter below to win a one-time-use $35 gift certificate to use as you wish at any of CSN’s 200+ websites!

MANDATORY ENTRY:

Tell me how you would spend your $35 at CSN Stores

EXTRA ENTRIES:

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Giveaway ends November 18, 2010 at 11:59PST. Be sure to leave a valid email address otherwise I won't be able to contact you if you win. Winner will be chosen via random.org. If the winner does not contact me within 48 hours, a new winner will be chosen. Good Luck!

Leaf Week

2010-11-10T11:22:00.001-08:00

A few friends and I have started a preschool co-op. We take turns teaching & hosting preschool at our house two afternoons a week. It’s tough with 2 two year olds, 3 three year olds, and 2 four year olds. But, the kids love it and it’s nearly free! We made a schedule of themes, and a common circle time and behavior system that stays consistent each week.

I taught for our first week last week. Leaf Week was a huge hit!

During Circle Time I introduced some fun songs from preschool rainbow.

The kids’ favorites were:

Gray Squirrel, Gray Squirrel
Shake your bushy tail (pretend to shake tail)
Gray Squirrel, Gray Squirrel
Shake your bushy tail (pretend to shake tail)
Wrinkle up your funny nose (act out line)
Put a nut between your toes (pretend to eat a nut)
Gray Squirrel Shake your bushy tail (Pretend to shake a tail)

Red and yellow, green and brown. (count off colors on fingers)
Leaves are falling to the ground. (simulate falling leaves with hands)
We pile them up OH SO HIGH: ('pile' leaves with hands)
Then we JUMP in! (pretend to jump in)
My friends and I!

Circle Time also included a calendar board similar to the one we usually do. The kids favorite part was when I introduced our sensory bin.

I’ve considered doing sensory bins before, there are some amazing ones in the blogosphere. My final inspiration came from Delightful Learning; her recent sensory bin showed me that it’s more than just squishing little hands around to feel things!

Our fall bin included dried beans & green and yellow split peas as the filler. There were fabric leaves, real peanuts and walnuts in their shells, leaf buttons, real acorns, plastic acorns, and plastic spiders.
I showed the kids how to use small tongs to take items out of the bin and sort them in ice cube trays, or pile them on a large leaf platter. The kids had hours of fun and creative play with the bin, and even added some new words to their vocabulary. I’ll be doing one for each new theme!

During other group activity times we enjoyed our rhythm sticks, and took turns practicing writing our focus letter-L, with a paint bag.

Of course we read lots of leaf & fall themed books:
Fall Leaves Fall!
The Apple Pie Tree
Fletcher and the Falling Leaves
Red Leaf, Yellow Leaf
The Little Yellow Leaf
Leaf Man
The Autumn Leaf
Investigating Why Leaves Change Their Color

For our art project the first day we used marbles to paint leaves (inspired by 1+1+1=1). It was a fun mess-free craft (since I put the paint on the marbles, and put them into their boxes).

Our art project the second day was inspired by Deep Space Sparkle. After reading Red Leaf, Yellow Leaf and Leaf Man. We examined the illustrations, and talked about all the different shapes of leaves. The older kids used oil pastels, and the younger ones used crayons to draw leaves. We finished by using liquid watercolors to go over our pictures. You can see Ryan’s picture of leaf man.

Since our focus letter was L, we made leaf L’s, and used bingo markers for a find the L activity. The four year olds practiced writing L’s.

We used leaf stickers to make leaf counting books. I differentiated for the different ages. I did all the writing for the two year olds, the three year olds had a place to trace their numbers, and the four year olds traced a couple numbers and then practiced writing their own.

At snack time we tried to crack peanut and walnut shells with our hands. When they couldn’t open the walnuts we brainstormed as a group how we could do it. The kids spent the rest of our outdoor time cracking walnuts with rocks. (Thanks to a good friend of mine for that idea :)

The oldest kids did some extra activities. they enjoyed all of the fall games from File Folder Fun. I even used their blank acorn template to create an uppercase and lowercase matching activity that we did as a group.
Acorn Addition was a huge hit. The four year olds used the acorns from the sensory bin. They each rolled two dice, and then used the acorns to figure out who had the larger sum. They used the leaf buttons from the bin as a way to keep track of their points. I was excited to see that they frequently knew the sums without the help of the acorns.

We did so many fun things, but still not everything I had planned! I look forward to my turn to teach next month, but even more so I look forward to my free afternoons when it’s someone else’s turn to teach!

Good Behavior For Gems & Jewels

2010-11-04T09:32:00.001-07:00

Every house has its rough patches, right? When one (or both) of the kids is behaving ~~like a little monster~~ poorly, I can usually figure out what’s causing it. It’s usually a change in sleep, a change in diet, or that we are too busy! Monday we started an intentionally calm week, and it has worked wonders.

Besides slowing down, the other trick to pleasant days in our house is rewarding positive behavior. A few moths ago we implemented a great system that I saw on Teach Mama.

The kids earn Gems and Jewels for good behavior. We call the little beads gems, and the larger ones jewels. They can earn them in tons of ways, like helping someone, putting away toys without being asked, remembering to clear their plate from the table, etc. It’s been a really simple way for us to consistently recognize good behavior.

The goal is to reach the line in their bowl. When it starts getting close we talk about what they would like to earn as a reward. After filling his bowl a couple weeks ago, Ryan had a movie night with Dad . We have a rule that they can’t ask for gems or jewels (that could get really annoying in our house). Sometimes Ryan will point out that he did something the first time that I asked, or was helpful. They both can also lose beads for poor behavior, but we don’t do that very often since we rely on 1,2,3 Magic techniques . I picked up the containers and the glass beads at the dollar store.

This system has been working great for a few months in our house! Ella’s bowl is almost full so we will soon be enjoying a family trip for frozen yogurt :)