The Nature of Grace

Lesson Theme: Emergency 9-1-1

2013-04-13T23:20:00.000-07:00

This past week (and a little of the week before), we spent some time discussing what to do in an emergency and how to dial 9-1-1.

A lesson in good citizenship? You bet!!! You are training someone how to help others (or themselves) in a real emergency! If you like some of the activities we did below - you should be able to find them in the (very) mini unit I quickly came up with to go along with our theme. The unit is available for FREE in my TPT store here. :)

We started by watching a free online video for kids available at this address. We then reviewed information from the video and discussed it.

I made up some scenarios printed on paper and we went over them together. Miss A had to decide whether the situations were real emergencies or not. If it was a real emergency, she would write 9-1-1 next to it (I originally thought it would be fun to use number stamps, but we didn't have any so Miss A just wrote the numbers instead).

I was also curious to see what she might consider an emergency - how accurately she was grasping this information - so I made a 9-1-1 web chart of sorts. I wrote the "9 1 1" at the center with arrows pointing outwards and then asked her to draw pictures of emergencies which would require her to dial 9-1-1.

Curious what she thought of? Of course you are! ;) She drew a house on fire, a car accident, an unconscious adult, and a dog attacking someone.

We also discussed why we should NOT dial 9-1-1 unless there is a real emergency. I emphasized how the emergency teams might be on the way to a jokester's house when someone else REALLY needed their help and wasn't getting it. (You might emphasize how the child or children would feel if they were the ones urgently needing help).

To go along with this part of being a responsible citizen, I made up a little poem we read together and then Miss A illustrated a picture of why it is important to only dial 9-1-1 in an emergency. The man in stripes is a fireman (if I remember correctly) at a jokester's door when someone in a house far away is REALLY needing help.

Something that I thought of during this unit is how many young children might be unfamiliar with phones other than cell or cordless phones. The video we watched emphasized the many kinds of phones which could be used to dial 9-1-1 if you were in your home OR away from it.

I wanted Miss A to be prepared by knowing what different telephones look like so she could spot one in an emergency and not be shy about using it. For this reason, we did a "telephone" scavenger hunt of sorts online. We looked up photographs of different phones the video had mentioned and Miss A chose some for me to print. She then cut them out and glued them to a paper to create a phone collage.

Once we had learned about emergencies and different types of phones, it was time to practice! I drew a map on a large piece of paper, and we created an accident on the map using toy cars (we did this more than once in different areas on the map).

Miss A then flew into action! She pretended to dial 9-1-1 on a (disconnected) real phone and answered the questions from the 9-1-1 operator (me).

One of the main goals of this activity was to help Miss A learn to describe where an emergency had occurred if at an unfamiliar address. She practiced looking for street signs, landmarks, stores, etc. on the map to help the operator know just where to send the emergency vehicles. :)

If you do this at home, make sure you take some time to actually pretend at a real intersection or park. It is one thing to look at things on a fun map, but can be a completely different experience when standing out on a real street corner.

And for those emergencies at home? Well, Miss A has been learning her address, but I know how quickly one can forget things in a panic, so I decided to make some little reminders we could post by the phones in the house.

Miss A helped me fill in the "9 1 1" part, and I filled in our address. I also added our home phone number underneath so Miss A could see it and confirm the number if asked to do so by the emergency operator.

I made sure Miss A went with me to post the slips by the phones so I could make sure she knew where they were. I also wanted to make sure they were at her eye level or in an area where she could still easily read the information if she needed to.

Hopefully, as a child, Miss A will never be called upon to use what she has learned in this unit. However, I feel better knowing she is now much more prepared for an emergency situation should one ever arise! :)

First Lost Tooth!

2013-04-04T21:52:00.001-07:00

STOP THE PRESSES!!!

Miss A just lost her first tooth! :)

She was SOOO excited and wanted to have a party to celebrate. I agreed we must mark the occasion somehow! Sooo...

I made her a tooth crown from a sentence strip (I folded and folded and then cut the folds into a tooth shape, opened it up, and voila - tooth crown! Just think of a connected string of paper dolls.). Then she colored one tooth black to symbolize the missing tooth.

We also had a favorite dinner, and despite it not being our dessert night of the week, we made tooth fairy cupcakes to have for dessert (hey, you only lose your first baby tooth once, right?).

How does one make such cupcakes? Easy - just add 1 cup or less of baby teeth (white chocolate chips), 1 cup or less of adult teeth (mini marshmallows), and 1/4 cup of tooth fairy dust (sprinkles) to your cupcake batter...

and mix, mix, mix to achieve cupcakes any tooth fairy would be thrilled to eat (not to mention a little girl who has just lost her first tooth)!

I frosted the cupcakes with an easy icing and tried to make it look like little teeth. I added one chocolate chip to each cupcake to symbolize the missing tooth.

With dinner over and Miss A finally in bed and asleep, the moment of truth had come. I slipped into her room, reached under her pillow, and pulled out the envelope containing her tooth and this note...

How hilarious and adorable is that?!

I wrote her a response in very little handwriting (saw some other moms' posts/ideas who had made little fairy notes and left them behind, and I decided to do the same). In the note, I praised her lovely tooth, understanding why she did not want to part with it.

I also basically told her I owed her mother (me) a favor and would leave the tooth under her (my) pillow as a gift to repay the debt. Thus, the tooth fairy would have paid her debt, I would be happy because I had been given my daughter's first baby tooth to keep for my memory box, and Miss A would be happy knowing her tooth would still be close by AND she would still receive the money for her tooth.

Now that is what I call a win-win-win situation. ;)

Side note for those who might be concerned: Miss A knows the tooth fairy is just pretend but we LOOOVE to pretend at our house! :)

Linking up to:

www.tatertotsandjello.com

Lesson Theme: Spring!

2013-03-22T19:02:00.001-07:00

Are you ready for SPRING?
I don't know about you, but we kicked off the new season this week with some spring-ish activities. :)

Searching for the first signs of spring? Why not turn it into a game and have a scavenger hunt with an egg carton! I have seen this in a couple of places so far - here's one that uses pictures for clues and the one which inspired our own above!

I found these adorable bunnies at Hobby Lobby one year and knew they would be perfect for some math practice. For this activity, I just had Miss A pretend she owned a bunny store and each day of the week, new bunnies were born. She rolled the dice to figure out how many. Speaking of bunnies...

Our leprechaun from last week apparently had one more trick up his sleeve - he snatched the tails from some rabbits! Oh dear!

Never fear - Miss A is here! Using the clues left behind by the mischief maker, she located all of the tails and returned them to their rightful owners.

This was fun to plan (I just knew I had to do something with cotton and bunny tails!) and was inspired by the hiding bunny activity in Jolanthe's "Runaway Bunny" printables!

Spring just wouldn't be the same without some eggs hatching, right?

Some of you may remember our "Hatch a Story" activity from last year's spring related activities. I decided to do something similar this year. However, this time instead of words, I placed some spring related buttons in each one. Miss A would open one per day and then write a story about what she found inside. :)

This could easily be done with any number of other items - stickers, pictures, etc. I just happened to have some spring buttons on hand that I bought years ago but had not put to good use (until now, of course). ;)

We also used some plastic eggs to practice math facts and compound words. (There are SOOOO many great ideas out there for using these plastic balls of creative potential such as this letter matching activity here.)

We dyed eggs with Kool-Aid - ya gotta love Pinterest!

This was SO easy to do! Click this link to find the recipe.

Here is an easy customizable spring activity (use it for math facts, beginning/middle/ending sound words, parts of speech, letters, etc.) - AND it is FREE!!! :) See below for the link.

For Miss A, I used the paper to help her practice her math facts while Mr. J matched his eggs to letters he is learning. See? Easy to adapt for different ages and activities. :)

No eggs? No problem! The eggs I used were cut out from scrapbook paper I bought and failed to use up. However, you could make your own small eggs by coloring/cutting some on paper, or you could use egg stickers OR - I'd love to try this sometime - fingerprint some into the nest for a color and word matching idea (match red fingerprint eggs to the nest labeled with the word red, blue fingerprints into a nest labeled blue, etc.).

Download yours from my TPT store here!

Linking up here:
http://cornerstoneconfessions.com/2013/03/t2t-linky-party-44.html

Lesson Theme: St. Patrick's Day

2013-03-18T17:36:00.002-07:00

Anyone else notice some green-natured mischief around their homes this past week? We sure did! It started with someone dipping into our hot chocolate (although we apparently scared him off before he could finish his little green mug topped with green marshmallows) and leaving a bit of a mess behind.

The trouble didn't end there though...

We also apparently interrupted a bath about to happen in Miss A's sink! And it looks like one of our green dusting cloths was going to serve as a towel.

A batch of muffins we were in the process of making turned green.

Miss A woke up one morning to find shamrock stickers in her hair and green toys collected and placed strategically around the living room. Looks like our Leprechaun friend didn't think we had done enough to decorate for the green day.

No mistaking who was responsible for this little prank! Thankfully, he was considerate enough to use washable markers so it came right off.

Near the end of the week - our orange bearded visitor seemed to have a change of heart and left the kids a sweet note of apology AND a gift: some leprechaun magic porridge! However, it didn't take long for us to see he couldn't resist playing at least one more little trick - we had to add one cup of milk to the porridge in order for us to see the magical results, BUT he only left us with a 1/3 cup measure! Thank goodness we've had some practice with measurement and fractions! ;)

The result was a delicious green concoction (pistachio pudding) which was greeted with much enthusiasm! Yup, our household can definitely say that a leprechaun's magic porridge is pretty wonderful.

We recorded each day's mischief in our Leprechaun Detective Journal (download for FREE in my TPT store)!

Based on what our leprechaun had been up to and what she had noted, Miss A devised a plan for catching him. He was tricky, but Miss A was even more clever.

She determined he must like hot chocolate, green muffins, green baths, and shamrock stickers. Armed with this knowledge, she set up a tempting little area for him - including a little house with a bath inside and shamrock stickers on the wall!

AND IT WORKED! She caught Dooligan again and he handed over his gold (chocolate coins). :)

Here are a couple of other activities from our week:

A cute leprechaun measurement FREEbie found here.

And a path of shamrocks leading to a rainbow and pot of gold! In order to get to the pot, Miss A had to answer all of the number fact questions.

(This idea and the one for the magic leprechaun pudding/porridge came from a website full of neat ideas -see them here!)

And here is a peek at our breakfast: leprechaun-sized green pancakes with rainbow whipped cream (I just swirled food coloring in the whipped cream) and a pot of edible gold (a cup wrapped in black paper and filled with yellowish fruit).

Linking up here:

Free $10 gift certificate from Educents!

2013-03-13T13:57:00.000-07:00

If you have joined up with any of the large group buying sites out there - this next bit of information should

G R A B you!

There's a new kid on the block - an educational daily deal site called Educents! They are offering $10 gift certificates prior to their April launch if you sign up before then! Here's the link:

http://educents.com/?source=udlxauzk

Lesson Theme: Hot Chocolate!

2013-03-11T16:57:00.000-07:00

The last few weeks of winter seemed to stretch out further than I wanted to plan. Cold, cheerless...well, maybe I am being a bit overdramatic. But cold, definitely cold. A vision of hot chocolate kept coming to mind - wouldn't a cup of that be nice right now... I couldn't seem to shake the unbidden thought. So I decided to meet it head on by incorporating the idea into a unit about said steaming mug of chocolatey goodness. Could something so delicious be educational as well? Yes, dear readers - it could...

Right about now you are probably thinking, are those dice marshmallows?

Y-e-p.

I used food safe markers to write the numbers on the sides and tops of two miniature marshmallows (I think larger marshmallows might have been better but we didn't have any larger ones on hand).

If you have large marshmallows, consider drawing pictures or writing words on them to use for story dice. :)

We used the dice for our "Roll the Ultimate Mug of Hot Chocolate" activity. Once Miss A acquired all the pieces, she helped to glue them down and wrote number sentences for what she rolled.

If you homeschool or have permission to bring in the ingredients for making hot chocolate in your classroom, something extra fun would be to roll a REAL mug of hot chocolate. I wanted to do this but didn't get it together in time - plus, we had more than enough hot chocolate this week on other days. :) One more cup might have been over the top...or brim...;)

We made two kinds of hot chocolate (one from scratch and one from a mix) and taste tested both. Miss A wrote comparisons and contrasts and documented which one she liked the best.

She also helped me make the hot chocolate from scratch, so using the "First, Next, Last" model, I had her write down directions for how one makes the perfect mug of hot chocolate.

We also played an activity I came up with called "The Hot Choc Spot". Just like chocolate and milk combine to make a great cup of hot chocolate, different parts of speech combine to make a great sentence, right? :) Here's what we did...

Miss A trained to become a Master Hot Chocolate Maker. The training consisted of sorting hot chocolate related words into mugs for different parts of speech (nouns, verbs, adjectives).

Once she did that successfully, I gave her a certificate documenting her ascension to the rank of Master Hot Chocolate Maker.

She then took a job at "The Hot Choc Spot" where she helped complete orders for parts of speech mixes (an order might be "1 verb, 2 nouns", and she would have to find a verb and two nouns from the hot chocolate words to fill the order).

As her "supervisor" who wanted to make sure she knew what she was doing, I had her write a sentence using the words from one of the orders. She chose to make it a silly sentence which was fine - just as long as I could see she knew how to apply the words appropriately in a sentence.

Have you ever wanted to be a marshmallow bag checker in a factory? Well Miss A had the opportunity this week to be one at The Marshmallow Factory.

Again, as her supervisor, I would write a number at the top of her work station (paper) for the day. She would then have to check the marshmallow bags (I put the "marshmallows" on beforehand) on the paper to see if they equaled that number.

If they did not, she was responsible for adding or subtracting enough marshmallows to/from each bag so that the correct number for the day was achieved. She also had to document her work by writing corresponding number sentences showing what she had done.

When she completed balancing all three bags successfully for the day, I would "pay" her wage for the day into a small bag to give her at the end of the week on PAY DAY. Her wage for the day = one pink heart marshmallow.

By the end of the week, she had enough heart marshmallows collected to top off one very yummy mug of hot chocolate for our dessert night (see bottom of post)!

Speaking of marshmallows....

Miss A graphed some of the mini-colored ones and then used the answers to finish up some math sentences.

These little guys also came in handy for spelling and sight word practice! :)

During the week, we also practiced some of our math facts by matching some "stir stick" (popsicle stick) math sentences to the answers on the mugs.

Each stick had two math sentences - one in black on one side and one written in blue on the other side. We would do the black math sentences one day and switch to the blue ones on another day.

We also had some fun measuring two different types of stir sticks (peppermint and cinnamon) and making observations about what would happen to each one once placed in some hot chocolate!

We discovered what kind of hot chocolate toppings some people in our family prefer by using this Venn Diagram. Download it for FREE here.

We used a mug picture I made to create a bar graph showing what kind of hot chocolate people in our home prefer (mix or homemade). I guess you can tell what our family's preference was - no contest there!

Not only that, but we could again see what people's favorite toppings were on this graph based on how they decked out the top of their hot chocolate (added cotton for whipped cream OR white pom poms for marshmallows OR both). :)

I LOVE how this picture turned out! I had seen a cute art idea (link is here), and wanted to do something similar. This unit seemed to fit right in so Miss A went to work painting, and I glued some mittens (found on clearance) to her painting for a multi dimensional effect.

For the final day of our hot chocolate unit, I surprised Miss A with a hot chocolate bar for dessert night! I used the bar graph to determine what kind of hot chocolate to make for the family!

So, you see? Educational AND delicious!

Many of the games and items I used for this theme are available in my TPT store under the Hot Chocolate Mini Activity Pack.

Speaking of hot chocolate...guess who paid us a visit! We found a little green mug topped with green marshmallows on the counter (and a bit of a mess too). Now I wonder who that could belong too? Guess we must have surprised someone in mid slurp because it doesn't look like he finished much of his hot chocolate!

Time to put on our leprechaun-catching thinking caps before the mischief gets out of hand! To help keep track of the clues our little green-loving troublemaker leaves behind, I created a Leprechaun Detective Journal. If you have any leprechauns about that need catching, you might want to print this for your kiddos as well! Download for FREE here.

BTW - Don't forget to snap up your FREE Educents (educational materials) gift certificate before they are no longer available prior to their launch in April! Click here to go to my post with the link to the site.

Linking up here:
www.cornerstoneconfessions.com
http://adventuresofadiymom.blogspot.com
www.gingersnapcrafts.com
www.houseofhepworths.com
www.bearrabbitbear.com
www.momontimeout.com
www.sunscholars.blogspot.com
www.homeschoolcreations.net
http://www.123homeschool4me.com

Lesson Theme: Valentine's!

2013-02-28T21:29:00.000-08:00

(Pretend this is February 14th) Happy Valentine's Day everyone! ;)
Here are some snippets from our holiday theme...

We've been practicing fact families for subtraction so I made some fact families on heart doilies, cut them apart, and had Miss A figure out which ones went together.

This was a probability freebie from The First Grade Parade. LOVE her site! Very creative. :)

We practiced symmetry by painting hearts on one side, folding them, and opening them up again. As you can see, there was at least one heart where Miss A was getting a little carried away with painting and forgot about just doing one side. :)

They turned out so pretty that I decided to string them up for some Valentine's Day decoration!

A while ago, I saw (wish I had pinned it!) an activity that was done using empty chocolate boxes. Genius! :)

While I cannot remember what the activity was or where I saw it - the idea stayed with me. I loved the concept of using the empty boxes so much that I decided I would just have to come up with something on my own this year. I cut out some brown paper circles, squares and rectangles for pretend chocolates. On one side of each, I wrote things I wanted my kiddos to practice (math facts, spelling words, letters, etc.) Using a blank heart with circles that I found here (with a different fun activity), I wrote the match of each chocolate on a circle.

Miss A and Mr. J enjoyed seeing what was on the back of their "chocolates" when turned over. They would match the word or problem (the answer to the problem) to a circle on the heart paper which they then colored in.

Valentine picks to the rescue! We used these as pointers! :)

Of course, what would Valentine's Day be without a special love note or two? It's the perfect time to practice letter writing skills! :)

I set up a love letter writing center complete with heart stationary, envelopes (these had some pretend glittery heart stamps I drew in the stamp area), a bunch of different Valentine-ish pens/pencils in a fancy vase, and a mailbox. I also included a cute printable I found that shows the parts of a letter so Miss A would have something to refer to when writing her letters - and write she did!!! She LOVED it and encouraged others to use the center too. :)

When the letters had been written and sealed, we dropped them in the pretend mailbox and Miss A helped me sort and deliver them into the appropriate individual household mailboxes the night before Valentine's Day.

Here's a picture of a couple of the cutest mailboxes we found at Target in the dollar section this year. Perfect for stuffing with love letters! :)

I also decided it would be neat to make a little fold-out heart book with Miss A. I just love reading what she comes up with for activities where some of the writing is left up to her.

I had the book "Guess How Much I Love You" (see link below) in the back of my mind so this kind of goes along with that idea. The heart book cover starts out with "I Love You" and then folds out with other pages continuing the thought (Miss A's responses in italics) "as long as ___(the world), as high as ___(the sky), as deep as___(the sea), as big as ___(a bear), as far as___(heven), as ___(nice) as ___(a flowr).

Here's how I made the book: I cut out some hearts, wrote the text on one side of each (and added a border), glued them to a couple sentence strip pieces, folded it up, and tied it with a pink ribbon.

And now for my Valentine's gift to YOU! :) I finally bought a license and can now offer freebies I make! Yippeee! :) I am pretty excited about that, and I hope you are too!

I have been working on a Hot Chocolate Mini Activity Pack (should be available in my TPT store soon) and decided to make one of the activity pages into a freebie that people could incorporate into a Christmas, Valentine's Day, or Winter theme. Hope you LOVE it! :) Download it FREE here.

Linking up to:
www.sunscholars.blogspot.com
www.homeschoolcreations.blogspot.net
www.tatertotsandjello.com

Gluten-Free Creme Brulee Chocolate Gingerbread French Toast

2013-02-22T21:24:00.003-08:00

I hope you all had a wonderful Valentine's Day last week! I thought I would share a delicious part of our special day with you - breakfast!

This was an experiment with two recipes:
Gluten-free Chocolate Gingerbread and Creme Brulee French Toast.

I just substituted the leftover Chocolate Gingerbread for the bread part in the Creme Brulee recipe to make a gluten-free treat that my mother-in-law could enjoy (she cannot have gluten) and...oh...my!!!

This was soooooooooo rich and soooooooooo good! For those of you looking for an amazing gluten-free recipe to knock the socks off of your gluten loving friends - this may be just THE one!

I hope to post some of our homeschooling activities we did for Valentine's Day this weekend or early next week. After the fact? Yes! It's never too early to bookmark or pin it for next year! :)

100th Day of School - Homeschool, That Is! ;)

2013-02-13T21:27:00.001-08:00

Woo hoo! Yesterday was the 100th day of our school year! I must say I was a bit worried that we had missed it with all that has been going on at our home lately, but as I caught up on attendance/homeschool day records, I realized (JOY!) we hadn't passed that mark yet after all. I even had a few days to quickly come up with some ideas...double JOY!

So being the Pinterest lover that I am, I headed that way for some inspiration. Thank you once again Pinterest for helping to save the day (someone seriously needs to come up with a button saying "Pinterest to the rescue!" Actually, they probably already have...and pinned it. But I digress...).

Here's how the day went...

Miss A burst through a "100" sign when she got up in the morning (it was taped over the doorway).

A "100th Day" balloons and bear sign graced the table (a freebie that I colored). I also added a little pizzazz to some breakfast muffins by sticking crazy candles on top.

We decorated more freebies - these ones for wearing: 100th Day of School hats and glasses.

Crown link here. Glasses link here.

One of our first activities involved a Smarties hunt to go along with the "Congratulations - you are 100 days smarter!" note. I had the kids use spoons (although at the end they switched to hands) to dig through the mix of cereal in a pan and then place the Smarties on a hundreds number chart.

Once all the goodies had been recovered, it was time to practice some subtraction...in other words: time to indulge those watering, patient little mouths. You must admit, it is kind of amazing that all the Smarties actually made it onto the chart!

Then it was time for a weighing activity. Notice that I posted this even though I was the only thing listed as weighing more than 100 pounds. I'm not sweating it, but I DID have Daddy add his name to the list when he arrived home.

Snack time was an extra special affair - a make-your-own 100th day snack mix with some little surprise treats included (like M&M's). I gave Miss A a paper on which to record the groups of ten items each as she counted them out from the ten paper plates to reach the big 1-0-0.

Yummmm - definitely a hit! :)

And knowing what the snack was going to be, I chose to do this activity afterwards to use up that sugar. "How wise of you, Michelle" you might be tempted to think - but hold that thought...

I suddenly realized that I was going to be roped into doing most, if not all, the exercises as well - why I didn't plan for this when I was coming up with exercises is beyond me. BUT, I made it through our little workout - thinking more than once how this part or that part of my body would probably be sore later on...

This was another activity we found time for during the day, AND it was another freebie (find it here). :) I LOVE Miss A's responses - definitely going in the memory box! Some of you may already know how to read Childrenish, but for those who have yet to discover the pleasure, here's a key for some of my favorite words/phrases:

"bracking throo a sin" = breaking through a sign

casols = castles

hawis = houses

noospaprs = newspapers

pickchurs = pictures

yun = young

I also like how her "this is what I look like today" and "this is how I think I will look in 100 years" pictures look the same except for the size. Obviously, she would be more grown up in 100 years. ;)

After that activity, we spent a very brief amount of time discussing aging and the elderly. So this was how she made herself look in this picture showing her as a 100 year old woman.

Another fun phrase completion: "When I am 100 years old, I will be too old to put up wreaths." Cracks me up. Definitely not what I would have written or thought of, but that is the beauty (and cuteness) of such open-ended possibility questions.

Well off to bed and then on to Valentine's Day activities...

Linking up here:

http://www.theeducatorsspinonit.blogspot.com/

www.homeschoolcreations.blogspot.net

www.tatertotsandjello.com

Lesson Theme: Winter and Snowmen!

2013-02-02T21:09:00.000-08:00

I had planned to post this a while ago, but we had a critical family emergency almost two weeks ago and it is still an ongoing situation. Some family members flew in and are staying with us - at this point, we just have to wait and pray.

Needless to say, my attention has been focused elsewhere a majority of the time, but today I have a few moments to spare and thought I would hop on here and post this. Keep in mind a good chunk of this was written much earlier in the month...

We've spent quite a few days on our winter activities in school. Hope you are "snow" (cheesy, but I couldn't resist) excited to see what we've been up to...

With winter things on the mind, a visit to the Snow Fairy Shop was in order. Miss A could pretend to be a snow fairy buying snowflakes to scatter across a winter scene. Great practice for money and double digit number addition!

The snowflakes she purchased, she later added to a winter coloring page we found online and printed (she could pretend to be a snow fairy causing it to snow on her picture).

Another great winter activity - building snow forts! The forts will hopefully grow as we come up with more word snow bricks to add to the appropriate forts.

I saw this here and thought it was such a cute idea that I decided to make one for Mr. J to play with after reading the story "Katy and the Big Snow". (The buildings are just empty boxes - cereal, crackers, etc. - with a piece of paper on the front. Very cheap to make, and your city can grow all week long depending on what you have finished up for breakfast, lunch, or dinner.)

And what is winter without the occasional snowball fight? For practicing our number facts, Miss A would choose a number sentence paper, figure out the answer, crumple it up and then throw it at the appropriate face (the answers below each head match the number sentence snowballs).

To make this, I slipped each of the faces into a sheet protector and put a bunch of double stick tape on the front in hopes that the snowballs would stick when they hit the faces. Sadly, they didn't, so we went to Plan B...

Plan B: If Miss A hit the appropriate face, she could then pick up the paper and press it onto the face. Doing this often worked out better for having the snowballs stick to the faces at least for a few minutes. If we do this activity again next year, I think we should try using tissue paper snowballs instead which I think would stick a lot better to the tape. Anyways, it was fun just to toss the snowballs at the correct faces.

Snowflake fact matching was another way of practicing our math facts. Just connect the number sentences to the correct answer to make a snowflake.

We also practiced a bit of symmetry using snowflakes. I would give Miss A half of a snowflake and some q-tips and she would have to finish it by creating the other half on the other side.

I gave Miss A a few seconds to hunt for words in the "snow" and gather as many as she could. She then used the words she collected to write a story in her journal. She did such a good job using them all!

Catching snowflakes on your tongue is overrated - why not catch them with your mitts instead? I wrote words on some foam snowflakes we had, and we first sorted the snowflakes by NOUNS, VERBS, and ADJECTIVES. We then gathered them together, and I threw them in the air a couple of times. The ones which Miss A caught, she used to come up with some sentences and write them into her journal.

I saw this cute snow globe activity, and just knew I wanted to try to make our own! After Miss A finished her snow globe scene, we pretended she lived in a snow globe and had to answer the questions about her life inside. It was cute to see what she came up with...

Using small plastic cups, we tried to see how high we could stack them (no glue) to make a snowman - we then used my son's new measuring tape to practice measuring the height. I believe the record to beat was 27.5 inches. :)

We are supposed to be practicing fact families on a daily or almost daily basis. Because of our winter theme, I decided to sneak a snowman into the process. I made him with scrap paper and slipped him inside a clear plastic sleeve - that way I can continue to write the facts on the snowman and erase the whole thing after Miss A is done writing her math sentences for the day. The next day, I can just write a new fact family on the snowman (I try to write the smallest number on the top and go in descending order with the biggest number on the biggest snowball at the bottom).

Side note: I can see using this to practice making three letter words as well!

We also came up with a simple dessert to go along with our chilly theme - see more about our Snow Bars here.

Linking up here:

http://www.theeducatorsspinonit.blogspot.com/

www.homeschoolcreations.blogspot.net

www.tatertotsandjello.com

Father-in-law...

2013-01-29T12:25:00.000-08:00

Hey everyone,
I know I said I would try to post soon but my wonderful father-in-law had a massive heart attack while in flight to another state so this week and last week have been very tense and full of ups and downs as one moment we are told he probably won't make it and the next that he has a chance. He had to be medi-flighted (not sure what the correct term is) to a special cardiac hospital so it has also meant a lot of travel for family members, and I've been working on this end to keep our church and family and friends updated on a daily basis so they know how to pray.

We have been SOOO blessed by the outpouring of love and prayer and offers of help from our church here, our homeschool group, and the church from where we moved. Amazing to be part of such a family of believers that surround us with love and care and we are truly grateful for them!

We've seen God answering a LOT of prayer and working in amazing ways - showering us with so much comfort and reminders of love via his children here on earth in the difficult times as well as the joyous. We are blessed to know that whatever the next few days hold, my father-in-law is a born again believer and if the Lord chooses to take him home to heaven, that we will see him again one day when we arrive there as well.

He is in critical care right now but they are preparing to place an LVAD pump in his heart tomorrow - apparently a very long surgery so I am sure it will be a long day in so many ways. A huge thank you to those who have been praying - we appreciate it SOOOO much! :) I will try to update tomorrow on this post.

UPDATE: he has had an immune response to something so the surgery has been postponed.
UPDATE: My FIL had the surgery yesterday and will be stitched up tomorrow barring any further complications - yes that means his chest has been open since yesterday - it is complicated but there were some bleeding issues that had to be resolved first. Now we are waiting for the moment they wake him up early next week to see if he has suffered any brain damage from all of this.
UPDATE: My FIL is responding well now. He is slowly improving - for which we are thankful, but is still in critical condition.

P.S. I do have a blog post about some of the winter stuff we had been doing but it is in mid writing and editing stage and probably won't have as many activities as I had planned since I have cut some of our school stuff back to mainly core items at this time. Just too much going on and we have family now here since they medi-flighted him to that special hospital closer to our home.

Le Chef Petite: Snow Bars!

2013-01-18T19:09:00.000-08:00

Our theme in school this week has been WINTER! This was a cool dessert we made to go along with that theme. Hope to post more about our thematic good times next week! :)

SNOW BARS

Ingredients:

1 package of chocolate cookies (any kind you like - we used chocolate graham crackers)

1 container of vanilla, mint or other white ice cream or frozen yogurt

1 container of Cool Whip or whipped topping

OPTIONAL (see optional steps in directions): winter sprinkles; sour patch kids, gummy bears, or gummy worms.

Directions:

Set the milk and the Cool Whip on the counter about half an hour before you start so that they are very soft and easy to scoop and spread - you may need to wait even longer than a half hour.
Place chocolate cookies in a single layer on the bottom of the pan you use (we used a 13x9) to be the ground/"dirt".
Drop softened or melted ice cream ("snow") onto the layer of cookies and gently spread out to cover the cookies.

OPTIONAL STEP: Hide/insert Sour Patch Kids (playing in snow), gummy bears (hibernating), and/or gummy worms (waiting for the spring season to arrive) in the "snow" layer. REMEMBER to warn your kids that these will be hard once frozen so be careful when biting down - if you have very small children, it would be wise to skip the candy for now as it could pose a choking hazard.
Spread the Cool Whip on top of the ice cream layer making sure to cover any candy so all the kids and/or animals are completely hidden by the snow (part of the fun is finding what is hidden in the snow you are eating later on - see the tiny Sour Patch Kid nestled in the middle of the cut bar above?).

OPTIONAL STEP : Add decorative sprinkles to the top of your snow!
Cover the entire dessert with a freezer safe lid or plastic wrap and foil and place it back in the freezer for at least two hours or more until firm.
Cut and enjoy!

I don't have a link to the exact sprinkles I used (Betty Crocker Snowflake Mix and Cupcake Gems Perfect Pearls), but I was able to find some snowflake sprinkles on Amazon in case you cannot find the ones I used:

Lesson Theme: Christmas!

2013-01-07T12:29:00.002-08:00

Merry (belated) Christmas! :) Hope your holidays were filled with fun and loved ones! :) Here are a few things we did during school before taking a Christmas break...

In our home, we tell our children about the St. Nicholas of old and have chosen to let them know that Santa Claus is pretend like fairies, elves, etc. Kids love to pretend so we have lots of fun with this!

This year I found a pattern online for making a pair of paper clogs - I adjusted my pattern so it would be more the size of my kids' feet (click here for an article on how to make these and the pattern at the bottom of the article). The kids decorated their shoes and laid them out on the eve of St. Nicholas Day along with a letter (what a great time to teach letter writing skills!) Miss A had written to jolly old St. Nick and a platter of festive cookies.

(Speaking of baking, Miss A had lots and lots of time to practice measurement because of all the cookies she helped make this year! Christmas and Valentine's are great times for measurement practice in the kitchen.)

The next morning the children were rewarded with little presents and sweets inside their clogs (or behind) and a letter from "St. Nick". ;)

I found a cute little Santa Claus activity here, and I added in some math addition practice using a few dice. Miss A would roll the dice, add the numbers together and put that many cotton balls on Santa's beard or hat.

Where would Santa be without his reindeer, right? We had fun making these silly symmetrical characters by placing globs of brown paint on one side of a folded paper, closing it, rubbing the paint around, and opening it once more to reveal the finished product!

After the reindeer faces had dried we did the same thing with antlers for each one. Finally, we added google eyes, noses and Miss A decided what to name each according to "Twas the Night Before Christmas". (As many of us know, Rudolph was not a part of that story but a pretty important reindeer all on his own, so he deserved a place among our pictures as well).

Have you ever wondered what the reindeer do the rest of the year to stay in shape? One might imagine they have races across the world! If you are learning about the seven continents - this easy game might just be for you!

I printed out a map of the seven continents (found online or just use a world map of your own) and used some snowflakes (blue and white) for markers. I also purchased two wooden reindeer pieces (I think they were only like $0.30 a piece (?) at Michael's or another craft store) - which my kiddos happily colored.

I placed a blue and a white snowflake marker on each continent (each player was one color). Each player would roll the dice and add the numbers together for a total (yep, more addition in our play). The player would then check our list to see what continent corresponded to that number and remove their snowflake from it signaling that their reindeer had successfully made it to that continent. The first reindeer to collect all their snowflakes (having touched down on each continent) was the winner!

(Side note: if a player rolls a total they have already collected - it is tough cookies - and the reindeer has to wait it out until the next turn before having another chance to leap to a new continent.)

We also spent some time practicing spelling words related to the season. This was one activity where I glued some sentence strips together in the shape of a Christmas tree. Miss A would write out her spelling words (we divided them up over more than one day as it could become tedious for young children otherwise) and add "lights" with her markers so the spelling words became strands of lights on the tree.

And what is a Christmas tree without a star on top, right? So we saved that special spelling word for the tip top of the tree, complete with lots of gold glitter! :)

And on that note - here's to a beautiful new year full of the sparkle of learning....

2013 - here we come!!! :)

(As always - if you blog about one of my ideas or activities, please be kind and include a link back here! Thanks so much!)

Nutcracker Pancake Breakfast!

2012-12-11T15:09:00.002-08:00

I have been MIA lately (you noticed, didn't you). The short story (because most of you are probably really wanting to only know about the pancakes) is:

We closed on our new house beginning of November. :)

We got sick around the same time with a horrible (and I mean horrible in that it was the worst virus to hit our family in a long time - maybe ever. Suffice to say that one family member went to the ER for dehydration concerns and it looked like a couple more might end up there as well, but we pulled through it finally). It kind of made the rounds so when one person was better, another came down with it, and so forth. Thus we played musical virus for a couple of weeks.

We (well, actually my husband) were FINALLY healthy enough to move some stuff after Thanksgiving so we did.

Then we ended up traveling unexpectedly after only being in the house two or three nights.

We returned several days later AND that brings us to the pancakes (finally, you say).

The evening of our return, we attended the ballet - more specifically The Nutcracker. It was beautiful, it was festive, and it was a great start to the Christmas season!

Perhaps it was because of the ballet. Perhaps there was a need to stretch my creative wings. Perhaps I just wanted to see the delighted smile on my kids' faces. Or maybe it was a combination of all of the above. Whatever it was, the next morning, I went from just making pancakes to making a nutcracker themed breakfast! :)

I used a pancake mix and swirled in some red and green food color (although the red color looked more pink which was fine because it still fit a nutcracker theme). I let the pancakes cook extra long on one side, and then I flipped them quickly and let them sit there lightly toasting on the other side briefly (think seconds) so as not to obscure the festive color swirls. I added whipped cream and sprinkles and candy cane bits for a stack of pancakes that would make the gingerbread man himself stop in his tracks if he happened by. :)

And what's a nutcracker themed breakfast without nuts and mice, right? Soooo, I added a few almond mice, toasted nuts, and Nutella wording! :)

Voila! The Nutcracker Breakfast!

Le Chef Petite: THREE Ingredient Pumpkin Caramel Cake!

2012-11-06T18:26:00.000-08:00

This was supposed to be published in November, and somehow I accidentally removed it after I published it (?) so I am re-publishing it now...

Just in time for Thanksgiving - a scrumptious autumn dessert your littlest tots can help prepare...

Blog readers, meet the amazing

Three Ingredient Pumpkin Caramel Cake

Ingredients:

1 box yellow cake mix

1 15 oz. can of pumpkin (NOT pumpkin pie filling)

jar of caramel ice cream topping

Grease 7 x 11 pan.

Mix cake mix and entire can of pumpkin together until well blended.

Bake at 350 degrees for 25-28 minutes.

(Make sure you check by inserting a toothpick or knife - if it comes out clean, the cake is done!)

Drizzle cake with caramel ice cream topping and serve!

The original recipe for this dessert came from Big Red Kitchen, hop on over to see the version with apple cider glaze here!

Friendly Fridays: Firefighter Appreciation!

2012-11-03T21:13:00.000-07:00

We spent part of this week visiting a fire station AND delivering donuts and handmade cards (LOVE how cute these turned out) to some firefighters! :)

We are so appreciate of their willingness to serve! :) A huge thank you to the families of firefighters as well for sacrificing your time with them so that they might be able to help someone in need at a moment's notice.

Lesson Theme: Pumpkins!

2012-10-25T16:32:00.002-07:00

We've spent almost two weeks on a pumpkin theme!

Here's a picture of a pumpkin patch we made from an egg carton. We painted the outside orange, colored the bottom brown (for dirt), drew lines on each pumpkin with brown marker, and added a stick stem and pipe cleaner vine for each.

We then wrote descriptive words about the outside of pumpkins on the outside of the pumpkin patch and descriptive words about the inside of pumpkins on the inside of the carton.

I also wrote some story prompts (each pumpkin related) and placed them inside the carton. On certain days, Miss A would choose one and complete a story to go along with it.

Here's a picture of our silly symmetrical pumpkin/jack-o-lantern patch.

To make these, we placed blobs of paint on ONE side of a folded paper near the fold, closed it, rubbed it, and opened it to find a symmetrical pumpkin design inside!

After the orange part dried, we added black paint to one side (for an eye, part of a mouth and nose), closed it again, and opened it to find a CrAzY looking jack-o-lantern face each time! :)

We visited a really fun pumpkin patch the first week of our theme, and the kids were allowed to each pick out a pumpkin. They were quite pleased with said pumpkins which eventually led me to the idea of having a day of pumpkin contests (I picked up a pumpkin for my wonderful husband and I so we could participate as well).

The contests were great for educational purposes - measurement, weighing, etc. The results were recorded and the winning pumpkins were each awarded a gold medal/blue ribbon (found a package of winner medals at Walmart in the party section for about $1, and I just switched out the ribbons for blue ones) for each category won!

If you do this - some other good categories would be number of seeds, cutest, most creatively decorated, best carving, most unique carving, etc.

Speaking of carving... here is what one pumpkin ended up looking like this year! I saw this first on this site and loved the idea of trying something a little different than a face (last year we made a little house which looked a lot like this without the wheels). So my daughter and I decided this would be a cute idea and love the way it turned out (by the way, it is balancing on toothpicks stuck underneath).

This was a cute lacing idea I found here. I decided to trace some pattern blocks onto black paper and let my kiddos practice making different funny faces on their jack-o-lantern plate. Then they made a final choice and glued it down!

Jack-o-lantern math! I decided these orange cups needed a face AND a stem! I wrote number sentences on popsicle sticks (and colored the ends of the sticks a light brown). The number sentences equal the number on the jack-o-lantern nose. Then it was up to Miss A to match the number sentence "stem" to the correct jack-o-lantern (popsicle stick "stems" are inserted through a slit I cut in the bottom of the cups)!

(BTW - the noses can be removed and changed so this activity can be completed more than once with a different set of number sentences.)

More pumpkin math! Miss A came up with number sentences to equal the number of real pumpkin seeds found in each pumpkin.

This was a Venn diagram we made. It would have been neat to use real pumpkins but that could have become expensive so we used pictures instead. We compared colors - orange, white(ish), and a mix. :)

This was one of my favorite activities. We melted orange crayon and poured it on a paper. Miss A added seeds to make it look like a pumpkin that had SPLAT on the ground. I added the bottom phrase "and the pumpkin went SPLAT!" and then Miss A came up with several short stories which could end with that phrase.

I typed out the stories as she dictated them. I then printed the stories, cut them into strips and stapled them together. Finally, I glued the whole thing to the top of the orange splat page so a person looking at it could flip through the stories and see how each one ended the same but the first part was always different. I guess you could call it a Choose-Your-Own-Beginning story. ;)

Linking up to:

www.sunscholars.com

www.kitchenfunwithmy3sons.blogspot.com

www.livinglifeintentionally.blogspot.com

www.christyscuties.blogspot.com

http://lookwhatwedid-homeschool.blogspot.com

www.cheeriosandlattes.com

Lesson Theme: Fall!

2012-10-15T18:14:00.000-07:00

Taking my cue from kids and piles of leaves during the fall, I am just going to jump right in with we've been working on...

A quick lesson in pointillism. Miss A worked on this over several days so as not to grow bored with it - pointillism can require a good deal of care and patience. It was worth the wait - I LOVE how this turned out!

I'd also seen the cutest craft where the person used puzzle pieces for autumn leaves on a tree! I decided to make our own version using a watercolor background and a branch heavy with leaves waiting for the first strong wind to send them tumbling to the ground.

We made three of these - examining how the changes in light during the day make the leaf colors appear slightly different depending on the time of day...

Here's a tree branch with autumn leaves in the full bright sun of the day...

Here's the same branch at sunset (notice the more muted yellow tone)...

And here is the branch at night - the yellow much darker...

Among the many different fall books available for reading is a treasure we read titled "Autumn: An Alphabet Acrostic". I LOVE this book and highly recommend buying it (link below) or getting it from the library. It is a book rich with the language and images of the season.

It was a challenge for us to make an acrostic of our own but we did! Actually, Miss A did much of it, and I helped with harder letters like "U" where we looked up words that started with "U" and then chose one we could work with.

After coming up with our own acrostic for the season, Miss A illustrated it (notice it is a fall NIGHT picture).

We also practiced our new spelling words! Miss A would write a spelling word, count up the letters in that word, make up a math sentence to equal that number, show the math sentence using fall leaf cut-outs, and then write it out using numbers.

This was a sorting math sentences activity. I wrote incomplete number sentences on leaves and placed them in a pile on the paper between the two baskets. Miss A had to complete the sentences and sort the leaves into the appropriate baskets.

This was a whimsical bit of fall leaf yarn art. I printed a picture of a leaf, taped wax paper over it and we worked together to dip yarn in a glue solution (mostly glue and a little bit of water to thin it out) and apply it to the outline of the leaf (sometimes having to add straight glue to make it stick better).

We also used yarn to add her initial to the center of the leaf. Once dry, I pulled it off the wax paper (it was VERY stiff), and hung it up! :)

Does this little wooden doll family look familiar? They should since I posted about a photography and makeover session with them recently! ;)

The Autumn family (as I named them), joined us for the week in a little bin full of colorful bits of fall! Miss A and Mr. J have been enjoying them quite a bit!

BTW - this was incredibly INexpensive to make. The apple trees are made from cut apart and painted paper towel rolls and construction paper. The apples are red pom poms with velcro attached so they can be "picked" from the tree. The baskets are cut up painted egg carton pieces. The leaves are made from construction paper using a leaf punch I have. The rakes are pieces of a thin cardboard box that I cut up and painted. And the ground pieces are felt. The dolls are available here and are very inexpensive as well!

So what fun fall activities have you been up to lately?

Linking up:
www.cornerstoneconfessions.com
www.momontimeout.com
www.handsonaswegrow.com
www.tatertotsandjello.com
www.sunscholars.com

Meet the Autumn Family & a GIVEAWAY!

2012-10-07T21:11:00.000-07:00

Every once in a while, I have the pleasure of photographing a family and preserving a memory!

Meet my newest "clients" - Mr. and Mrs. Autumn and their five adorable children. ;)

They were "referred" to me by Gemmie from gemmielou , and I am so glad they came my way! They were so much fun to work with!

Here's mom and dad sneaking a kiss while the kids giggle in the background...

And here are the kids - with proud mom and dad looking on from a distance.

After our initial photo shoot - the Autumn family had a makeover...

And I was fortunate enough to be their photographer a second time, helping them showcase their new-found style and color!

Note:

The clothes are NOT painted on (with the exception of the boys' pants) but made from material I had left from another craft. I thought it might be more fun to have the option of a change of clothes later on should Miss A wish to make some of her own outfits for them to wear.

These clothes were sooooo simple to make. I just measured and cut rectangles and then hot glued some very small pieces of velcro to both sides of the material so the clothes could be put on and taken off easily.

I also cut little strips of felt for scarves and tied one around each doll to keep them toasty warm while we completed our photo shoot outdoors...

Here are those cute kids again!

And mom and dad sneaking another little moment together - look how in love they are!

Just the girls...

Just the boys...

A good portion of our photo shoot took place here in the Autumn family's backyard. Lucky family - they even have their own apple tree!!!

I just love candids, so I snapped a few while they worked and played together...

A little good-natured wrestling in the leaves going on here...

I love this one of father and son working together...

The girls were busy as well, collecting some of their delicious red apples for cooking purposes later on. Mrs. Autumn confided in me that she is a champion apple pie maker!

It was fun spending part of a day with this amazing family, and I can't wait for them to meet my kids as well during our fall themed week! (Actually, Miss A has already met them. She discovered them before their makeovers were complete - and joyously began playing with them just as they were.)

I hope you've enjoyed these pictures from our fall photo shoot - every photographer should be so lucky to have such a great family to work with! ;)

And now....the moment you've been waiting for....it's GIVEAWAY TIME!

Gemmie from gemmielou has generously offered to GIVE AWAY one more paintable wooden doll family to one very fortunate reader! There are several ways to earn entries - just take a look below!

Can't wait that long to see if you've won? You want your own wooden doll family RIGHT NOW?

I understand - they are just that cute! :) Click on over to Gemmie's etsy shop now to view her amazing selection of wooden dolls!

They are so affordable you might just want to weep for joy as you realize the possibilities and pick up several more for friends, family, Christmas gifts (these would make the cutest stocking stuffers), birthday gifts, party favors, etc.

And don't even get me started on the homeschooling ideas...tot school, multicultural units (decorate one doll to represent each country you study), a family theme, an All About Me unit, community helpers, etc. See, I told you not to get me started. ;)

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Linking up:
www.cleanandscentsible.blogspot.com

Lesson Theme: Apples!

2012-10-03T17:59:00.001-07:00

Yay for APPLE theme week! I love apples - there were so many fun things to do and taste this past week!

Here's the traditional taste-and-graph your favorites activity which we did with our family! :)

We made apple prints and applesauce (NOT using the same apples). We just combined our cut up apples with water and cinnamon and cooked them in a pan on the stove until they were ready to be mushed!

Once the apple prints dried, we used them to make an "applesauce" wreath - a simple reminder of our fun time cooking together! Plus, what better way to be welcomed home than with the autumn scent of cinnamon as you walk through the door!

To make our wreath, I cut out the center of a round pizza cardboard (what a frozen pizza comes on). We then glued our prints and cinnamon sticks to the cardboard. A burlap and gold ribbon bow gave it the finishing touch!

We made pretend apple muffins as well. I put a number in the bottom of each muffin tin and wrote number sentences on paper apples (then cut the apples up).

Miss A had to match the cut up apple math sentences with the number on the bottom of the tin (ex. 7+8= 15). Then she wrote the number word that corresponded with the number on the bottom of the tin (ex. four for #4) on a muffin top and placed it on top of the cut up pieces inside the tin to complete each "muffin".

Spelling pies were another part of our week. I deviated from our normal spelling words to come up with a list of words related to apples. I then wrote the letters of each word on paper apples.

After reviewing our new words, I cut the apples apart, mixed them up, and let Miss A piece each word back together using the spelling list and/or her memory. Once she could do that, we would glue it to the chart paper. She then colored a pie picture and glued it partially on top so each pie could be lifted to peek at the apples inside.

During the course of the week, I would check to see if she could spell one of her words without looking. If she could do so correctly, we would add some real cinnamon to the top of that particular pie to complete it! :)

Speaking of pie, we just HAD to make apple pie to go along with some books we read. :)
AND...

We made an apple pie bracelet! We used some letter beads and wood beads painted red (for apples) to spell out the main ingredients we used to make our miniature apple pies (we made them in a muffin tin). Not only is the bracelet cute and a reminder of our time together, it can be used as a great re-telling tool as well!

We practiced fractions using apples and the book "Apple Fractions". I LOVE this book! Not only is it informative, easy to read, and helpful - the illustrations themselves are adorable (little elves measure and slice apples to go along with the text).

If you are unable to find this book in your local library, Amazon has it (see the link below).

We also planned an apple bar to go along with dinner since I knew we would have so many apple slices left after dividing them up for our fraction lesson. The bar was a hit with dipping choices of caramel, hot fudge, and peanut butter - yummm!

I also had a surprise up my sleeve for Miss A. While she was busy working on something else one day, I set up "Snow White's Apple Farm" outside. Miss A loves stories and fairytales so I thought it might be fun to incorporate one in our week - Snow White seemed the logical choice.

I blew up some red balloons to about the size of a large apple and stuck papers to the bottoms of each with a math sentence written on the paper. I placed a sign in the yard welcoming her to Snow White's Apple Farm and let her know she needed to help Snow White pick some apples. However, the wicked stepmother had hidden a bad apple in the bunch so she had to be extra careful not to place that in her basket by mistake.

I told her a number and let her loose upon the field of apples on the ground. Her goal was to find the math sentences that matched/equaled the number - anything else was a poisonous apple.

She did a fantastic job of choosing all the right apples and placing the "poisoned" apple back on the ground! I would have liked to play the game again another day, but unfortunately I found many of the apples deflated later on. Perhaps it had something to do with a certain little someone finding the place where I had hidden them and emptying them out to play with. Oh well - no doubt Snow White would have been understanding so I tried to be as well. ;)

Meet the "Autumn" family and enter the GIVEAWAY here to win a cute wooden doll family of your very own!!! Make sure you scroll through the giveaway post to see the before and after pictures of these fun dolls! :)

Amazon.com Widgets

Linking up to:
www.happyhourprojects.com
www.momontimeout.com
www.handsonaswegrow.com
www.cheeriosandlattes.com
www.tatertotsandjello.com
www.cleanandscentsible.blogspot.com
www.gingersnapcrafts.com
www.tipjunkie.com

Birthday Invitations!

2012-09-27T13:12:00.000-07:00

Hear ye! Hear ye! It's birthday time!

My daughter decided this year she would like to have a royal masquerade party, but because we are in transition mode (not in our new home yet) - we decided to have a royal masquerade picnic at a park. It was so much fun to meet the challenge of an unusual birthday theme request and turn it into a special day for Miss A and her little friends.

I think these invitations set the tone quite nicely...

Andrea from Where the Green Grass Grows is wonderful to work with! She came up with our Nutcracker Sweet invitations last year and our First "Bear"thday ones as well. So when this year rolled around, I knew it was time to check in with her again.

She created the cutest custom design for us (the poor woman had to endure who knows how many of my little e-mails requesting date changes, wording changes, etc. and met each request with such amazing cheerfulness)! I loved the little gasp of delight from my daughter when she saw them. :)

We added some sparkle of our own to help fit in with the gold and pink theme - plus extra sparkle seems to come with the territory when a little princess is party of your family.

Then we made glittering masks for each young princess invited to attend and tucked them under the ribbon with the invitation. The girls were sooo excited to receive these! It was cute to listen to their comments.

Andrea also came up with the adorable invitations below for my son's party. I decided to turn the invitations into a banner being flown by little wooden planes, so I attached some blue and white twine to both the plane and the invitation for a little different way of delivering our message. :)

Now on to the parties....

Linking up to:

www.happyhourprojects.com

www.cleanandscentsible.blogspot.com

www.gingersnapcrafts.com

www.tatertotsandjello.com

Happy First Day of Autumn!

2012-09-22T20:49:00.000-07:00

I love the fall season!

I look forward to the first day of it...

A delicious breakfast...

(Recipe here)

Slipping into some cozy socks...

(My mom made these - isn't she AMAZING? She likes to make me a different pair each Christmas, and I literally love them to pieces -wear holes in the heels. )

Throwing dinner in a slow cooker and smelling it simmer all afternoon...

And indulging in a little treat of the season!

Welcome AUTUMN! I'm so glad you're here! :)

Lesson Theme: Fire Station and Firefighters!

2012-09-12T22:24:00.000-07:00

We've been taking some time over the past couple of weeks to begin discussing different community helpers. Of course, firefighters were on that list! :)

There were just SOOO many fun ideas for firefighters, fire stations, and fire safety that I decided to spend more than one week on the subject and just wait until we were done to share. Thus, the ideas would be grouped in one large post so you wouldn't have to go hopping around my blog searching for all the little posts. You can thank me later...or now...;)

I titled this game: Ready...Set...Dress. It could be played together as a timed contest or individually.

The goal is to keep rolling a couple of dice until the two numbers add up to the number on the dressing list. The item beside the number is the piece of clothing the firefighter can put on next. The game is done when the firefighter is dressed and ready to go!

The pieces of clothing were items I drew on colored paper and cut out. The reflective stripes were made from aluminum foil.

Uh oh! Time to fight some fires of our own!

I believe this flame was discovered in a workbox of all places! Of course we needed to put it out...

Miss A would roll two dice, write a number sentence about the numbers she had rolled, and answer the number problem. The answer was how many dots of water we were allowed to "spray" on the fire to put it out. It took quite a few dots but eventually our fire was extinguished!

Hooray for my little firefighter! :)

Ah yes, duty calls again! In this case, the fire was in the form of spelling words and flames written in red washable marker on a white vinyl tablecloth (check the party section of Walmart or Dollar Tree for these dollar tablecloths). This was a much bigger fire so a hose and real water were called for of course. ;)

What a hit! You can do so many things with this concept - have your kids practice writing their spelling words on the tablecloth, math facts, etc. using red and orange markers to create the "fires". Then at the end of the lesson, they get to "put out" the fires with real water (just make sure you use a WASHABLE red marker or your fires might resist the water).

For this activity, I printed some fire engines and hydrants which Miss A and I colored. I cut them out and also snipped out some small words, number sentences, etc. On the hydrant, I would place the "answer" to some of the math sentences, words, etc. and each fire engine would have a "problem/question".

If the answer on the hydrant matched the problem/question on the fire engine, the engine could hook up to the fire hydrant via a hose (blue bendy straw). If the engine could not match up with the hydrant's answer, they could not hook up to get water. For example: if the hydrant had the word "rage" on it and you were practicing rhyming words, an engine would have to have a word on it that rhymed with "rage" in order to hook up its hose to the hydrant.

A pretend play bin fit for little firefighters (I found the hats at the 99 cent store or Dollar Tree - I cannot remember which).

I saw this idea on Pinterest (here is a link) and thought it was soooo cute! I loved the idea of making my kids' footprints into fire engines! They helped of course.

And when one has a fire engine, one should certainly have a fire station in which to put said engine. Thus, we built a fire station by rolling some dice, adding the numbers together and then using the answer to figure out what we would get in order to build our station (example: roll two numbers which added together equal seven = building).

Sometimes we would just have to hold onto an item until we had another one on which to put it (example: holding onto windows until you have rolled a building). We then glued the items on a paper bag (one end is open so you can slip your fire engine in and out as you please - see picture above).

This is a fire collage that the kids worked on together - torn paper, red and shiny gift basket shreds, etc.

The point of this game was to practice the concept of Stop, Drop, and Roll. I cut out pieces of red and yellow flannel and we took turns being "it". The "it" person would chase someone else and put the flannel pieces on their clothes. That person would then need to stop, drop, and roll until the felt flames came off. Then THEY would be "it" and chase someone else, attempting to get those flames onto another person. :)

These activities were all good, but I don't think any could hold a candle to the actual day we visited a fire station (it was a surprise for the kids). It was definitely a highlight of our week to be shown around by a real firefighter. Lots of fun! If you have a fire station near you, you might want to check to see whether they could give you a tour. :)

Do you have any fire safety, firefighter, fire station ideas or crafts you would like to share with others? Feel free to post about it in the comment section below! :)

Linking up to:

www.houseofhepworths.com

www.bearrabbitbear.com

www.whipperberry.com

www.homeschoolcreations.net

www.oneshetwoshe.com

www.tatertotsandjello.com

Le Chef Petite: Smores Crumble!

2012-09-06T12:00:00.002-07:00

Looking for a sweet way to kiss the summer good-bye? Have your kids help you make Smores Crumble! This is so easy to make and you only need THREE ingredients!

Ingredients:

Graham crackers

Marshmallow Creme or mini marshmallows

chocolate chips

Directions:

1. Break up or crush graham crackers and spread in the bottom of a pan.

2. Scoop out some marshmallow Creme and spread on top of the graham crackers OR sprinkle mini marshmallows on top of the graham crackers. (This part can be a bit messy.)

3. Sprinkle chocolate chips on top of the marshmallow creme.

4. Place in the oven (low heat - maybe 300 - 325 degrees) and check every three to five minutes until the marshmallow creme or marshmallows have become gooey and the chocolate is soft.

5. EAT AND ENJOY!

Bye summer days....

Linking up:

www.happyhourprojects.com

Lesson Theme: Family!

2012-08-26T21:57:00.001-07:00

Even though we did this theme last year, I decided to do it again only with some new activities!

"We are a family. We fit together!" was what I wrote on the back of this wooden puzzle we made together. I saw the idea of making puzzle piece people (check it out here) and thought it would work perfectly with our theme for the week! :)

Each piece of our puzzle is a member of our family. We used fabric and marker for the clothes and details. You should be able to find blank wooden puzzles in the unfinished wood section of craft stores like Michaels or Hobby Lobby.

This is our family helper handprint chart. We traced a hand for each member of the family and then brainstormed ways in which each person helps our family, writing those items inside the person's handprint.

Here's our "pretend play" bin. I filled it with items for the kids to use when playing "mom and dad". It contained items such as baby dolls, books, baby doll clothes, a real changing pad, empty honey jar I filled with cornstarch (for baby powder - figured that was more easily vacuumed than creme), real diaper, cooking utensils, etc.

We also decided to surprise Daddy at work one day with a visit and some goodies inside this bag. He was surprised and pleased and it was a great opportunity to shower him with love and encouragement on a busy day!

If you have other members of your family close by, consider surprising them with something wonderful and unexpected if you decide to have a family theme week - or do it "just because"! And it doesn't have to be a big present either - even just thinking of something you love about someone in your family and letting your kids call them up with words of appreciation is something pretty special! :)

If your family lives far away, you can still surprise them with a snail mail card or letter! Miss A and I made her some of her very own stationary using a rubber stamp and some glitter. :)

The heading of her stationary reads "From the plume of A---". We discussed what that meant, looked up pictures of plumes, and made our own pretend plume by rubber banding pink feathers to a pink pencil. Fancy Nancy would have been proud indeed.

Then Miss A chose someone (actually several cousins) in our family who live far away and wrote a letter to them. This was a great opportunity to discuss the parts of a letter and how to write one. I found a neat visual online for that purpose and printed it out.

This was a family tree we made. I wanted to try making the trunk using the technique where you blow into paint using a straw to make the branches. Weeeellll, I don't think I made the paint the right consistency but Miss A seemed to enjoythe project and attempt anyway. :)

I wrote the names of family on labels and Miss A helped to attach them to the tree. I think she especially enjoyed the part where she placed her name and her sibling's name on the tree. :)

One of the high points of our theme was sharing a special "Family Night" which Miss A and I spent time planning together earlier in the week. The kiddos helped with the chocolate pudding, and it was a hit (but isn't that true with most things in the chocolate world)! :)

I like to drop by these wonderful parties during the week! :)
www.delicateconstruction.com
www.mamato2blessings.blogspot.com
www.creatingreallyawesomefreethings.com
www.cornerstoneconfessions.com
www.cleanandscentsible.blogspot.com
www.gingersnapcrafts.com
www.houseofhepworths.com
www.handsonaswegrow.com
www.enchantedhomeschoolingmom.blogspot.com
www.momontimeout.com
www.happyhourprojects.com