Wordelss Wednesday - Graduation

Season for graduations!

Monday Meanderings - Road Trip

Summer brings out the scariest of words for parents: Road Trip! Before we were parents, road trips were lots of fun. Now that we are parents, road trips can be torture! Have you ever been in a car on a 2 hour trip with a 5 year old that asks you every 5 minutes, "Are we there yet?" Or even worse, one that says "I need to potty" every 10 miles. It is stressful!

Here are some great ideas to keep the kids attention on your next family drive.

Prepared Not Scared has an amazing assortment of printables for road trips, from I spy to Slug Bug.

Next we have Finley and Oliver with a very cool LEGO travel box. I love this and think there are many different sized boxes you could use to change up the size.

My Kind of Makeover shows you how to make a cheap cookie tray into a travel magnetic board. The best part of this (other than being cheap)? She also has lots of magnetic activities.
Such as: magnetic crayons; magnetic stickers; and magnetic puzzles.

These should be a good start. Have a safe trip!

Fabulous Friday - Bubble

As I was searching YouTube, I came across this great bubble video from Steve Spangler Science. I love giant bubbles and love when they do bubbles around a person.
Get out side and make some bubbles with your kids.

Band Aids Anonymous

I have a confession to make. This is not easy for me. It torments me on a daily basis, but I hear that confession is good for the soul. Here goes: My 5 year old is addicted to Band Aids.

Shew, I feel better confessing that! We have tried everything to try and get him to stop using all of the band aids in the house. It was bad enough when he just wanted to stick band aids on his own body, but recently all of his toys have become "accident proned". Do you know how hard it is to get a sticky band aid off of a stuffed animal?

I thought about this and was trying to come up with a solution, short of having to remove the limbs from all of his toys. I have seen several instances online where people have made "toy band aids". I thought I would give that a try.

I pulled out some felt in a variety of colors, including white. I then cut a few rectangles in a variety of sizes from all the felt colors, except for the white. Next, I wounded off the corners because band aids are rounded. Once that was done, I cut some small pieces from the white felt to be the actual bandages. I glued mine on (it does not take much glue).

I then turned my son lose on his toys with his felt band aids. He loves it! Though he has requested more band aids. I told you that his toys are all "accident proned".

This was a very inexpensive project since I just used felt scraps.I made them in about 5-10 minutes.

Tuesday Teachings - Learning the Letters

When a child is learning the alphabet, it is not enough to merely show them the alphabet and expect them to learn it. A child has to be shown something in several different contexts in order to retain it. Before you can even teach them the alphabet, you should teach them the sounds of lettes. This lets the child understand that letters make sounds, sounds make words, words make sentences and sentences make stories. It is a natural transition. When you move onto naming letters, be sure to restate the sound each letter makes.

They need to see it, feel it, taste it, explore it. That can be intimidating for parents but there is no reason to worry. Just be sure to teach your child in a variety of ways. Don't panic, there are several ways to teach letters that are inexpensive and not overly time consuming.

First, you can show them a printed letter. Do not just show a flashcard, show them the printed letter in a variety of ways. Some examples, the aforementioned flashcard, a magazine, a street sign, etc.

Next, let them write the letter using hand over hand. If you have an easel, this is a great way to work on the letter. Put the chalk into your child's hand and then put your hand over their hand, now write your letter. If you have the easel chalkboard, this is great to work on wrist strength and an important skill for your child. After writing on the easel, you can also practice writing on a pad of paper on a table. This works the child's muscles differently and is also important to their development.

Now, pull out the play dough. Teach him how to roll out a "snake" and then work on forming the letter with your play dough snake. At my house, we have the "Roll-A-Dough Letters" from Handwriting Without Tears. This is a great product and we love it, but it is not necessary. This can easily be done at home. Our kit involves a tray, letter cards and dough. My favorite thing about the kit is that it shows you with an arrow, where to start making your letter. My least favorite thing about the kit is that the dough crumbles when you try to make it into a snake. We usually just use regular play dough.

Another tool that we use frequently is our Sandpaper Letters. You can purchase these online for around $30-$40 or you can check out Momtessori for directions on making your own sandpaper letters. She uses foam board for her background and then uses a die cut machine to cut the letters out of sandpaper. I have also seen them made with sand sprinkled over glue and with glitter glue or puffy paint. The thing I love about our Sandpaper letters is that there is a hole punched in the sandpaper to show you where to start tracing your letter. This can be done when you make them at home, or you could draw arrows with numbers, showing the direction to trace/write.

We also use our alphabet cookie cutters a lot. I do not bake a lot of cookies, but I use the cutters for anything. If my son wants cheese and sandwich meat (think homemade Lunchables), then I use cookie cutters to cut out the food. I also use them for cutting fruit or anything else. Cookies cutters are not just for cookies!

Another fun thing that we did is go around the house and take pictures of people and/or toys for each letter of the alphabet. I then assembled the pictures in an album and put the first letter of each word in the sleeve with each picture. This helps with the phonological awareness, as he already knows how to pronounce all of the items that I have taken pictures of.

Monday Meanderings - Frugal Summer Fun Pt. 2

Time for some more activities for your family to do this Summer, without breaking the bank.

The Art Girl Jackie has a great tutorial on Sharpie Tie Dye. I love how she finished it off with an iron on.

Here is another great spin on the Melted Crayon Art that I see all over the Internet. This one is by Come Together Kids and I love the heart in the middle of the canvas.

Alphamom has a great tutorial on Sandpaper Printed Shirts. I love this idea and I am thinking of doing Super Hero logos for my son this summer.

Lastly,Create With Your Hands made a great sidewalk chalk neighborhood. My son would be so excited yo get all of his cars out there and go to town!

Let your creative side flourish this week with some frugal ideas!

Fabulous Friday

Some days, parents and teachers get stressed. Today is Friday, let go of that stress and have some fun! Here is a great video of students being interviewed, while teachers are in the background breaking out their best dance moves.

It is light hearted and fun! Find a reason to dance every day. Let your kids see you enjoying life. In addition to reading, writing and arithmetic; be sure you are teaching them how to have fun!

Have a fabulous Friday!

Wordless Wednesday - Style

Some days require lots of Style!

Monday Meanderings - Frugal Summer Fun

Well, it is early May and the kids are already excited about Summer Vacations! I thought this would be a great time to start scouring the Internet to find some frugal family fun for Summer.

If you have not see this yet, you should get started now! Have you seen the Summer Bucket Lists? I love them! The entire family sits down together and thinks of things they want to do over the Summer. The list can be a wide list of items like: Find a new park; Sleep in a tent in the backyard; Summer reading; a Camp of your choice; Swimming; Wiener Roasts; Water balloons and on and on. Here is a link to Little Wonders' Days. She is having a linky party for Summer Bucket Lists and there are tons of ideas for activities to do, how to decorate your lists and your buckets. Check it out!

Parents Magazine has a fun summer games that only requires kids, pool noodles, balloons and laundry baskets. It looks like fun and I am pretty sure we will give it a whirl this Summer.

Next we have Filth Wizardry with a Tin Foil River. I love this idea and can not wait to do this. I need to start looking for some cool boats and fish to use in this.

While your are home and the kids are complaining that they are bored, why not challenge them to a bubble contest? Who can make the biggest bubble? Check out Design Dazzle for the top secret tips on making your bubble solution and your bubble wands.

We will be back soon with more great links! Get out there and enjoy the weather with your kids!

Summer Safety - Water

Let's Talk Swimming By: Amanda Miller

With Summer comes hot weather. With hot weather comes swimming pools, lakes and other bodies of water. Have your kids had swim lessons yet? These days you can start with infants, getting them used to water. I went to the CDC's website and found these startling statistics:

In 2007, there were 3443 fatal unintentional (non-boating) drownings in the United States. This averages 10 deaths per day!

More than 1 in 5 of these fatal drownings were of children 14 years of age and younger. For every child who died from drowning, another 4 children received emergency room care for non fatal submersion injuries.

 Children ages 1 to 4 have the highest drowning rates. In 2007, among children 1 to 4 years old who died from an unintentional injury, almost 30% died from drowning. Fatal drowning remains the second-leading cause of unintentional injury-related death for children ages 1 to 14 years.

Nearly 80% of people who die from drowning are male.

Participation in formal swimming lessons can reduce the risk of drowning by 88% among children aged 1 to 4 years.

Seconds count. CPR performed by bystanders has been shown to improve outcomes in drowning victims. The more quickly intervention occurs, the better change of improved outcomes.

I know that these statistics are frightening and it is not my intention to scare you into keeping your children away from water. Be sure your kids can swim. Sign them up for a quality swim class; if the skills are not mastered yet, be sure they wear a life jacket in and around water; be sure there is always a responsible adult watching kids around water and be sure the adult knows CPR.

Enjoy your summer this year and every year to come!

Family Fitness

Every time you turn on the TV or pick up a newspaper, you are bombarded with stories about the obesity epidemic in the United States. You are also bombarded by advertising from people trying to sell you "convenience foods". Whether they are fast food restaurants or just pre-packaged prepare at home meals, we all know that these are not our healthiest options.

How do you battle the bulge with your family, without spending $100s on a gym membership for the whole family? There are several inexpensive options available. We are going to explore a few here.


1) Jump rope: You can buy a jump rope for each family member. Start out just getting your skills down and then you can work on getting faster and faster. The video above is former U.S. Olympian Buddy Lee showing you his prowess with a jump rope. Jumping rope is no longer just a little girl's game as she sings a cute rhyming song. A jump rope is a versatile and useful training too.

2) Geocaching: Have you ever gone Geocaching? It is a great activity for a family. I downloaded an app onto my IPhone but you can also just use your computer at home if you do not have a smart phone. You put in your location and it will tell you of all the caches near you. You then set out on a hike to the area it tells you to go to. The caches will be hidden so it will take some searching to find. Once you find the cache, there is usually a small gift inside with a notebook and pencil to sign in. Always remember when you are caching, if you take something, leave something. If you take the small gift, be sure to leave one in its place for the next person. Once you find the cache, you also put it back exactly where you found it. Now, be sure and log back onto the website to claim the find. Once you get started, it can be addictive! There are caches hidden all around the world, so wherever you are, there is a cache near you.

3) Pool Noodles: They are no longer just a fun pool toy! You can use them for a variety of activities. The picture above is from Parents Magazine and shows an obstacle course that was set up with pool noodles that had the ends taped together to form rings. There are tons of games you can play with pool noodles. In addition to the obstacle course, set up hopscotch with the rings; just toss a ring back and forth; toss bean bags into rings, the list goes on and on. The best news? You can purchase the pool noodles at the Dollar Stores!

Get outside and get active with your family! Good health is an amazing gift for your kids.

Wordless Wednesday - Rockstar

Raising a new generation of Rockstars!!

Tuesday Teachings - Plant Parts

My son has been learning about plant parts, so we decided to work on that at home also. This was a quick and easy project. I cut out all of the supplies and stacked them to the side for him to glue down. He had to name the parts as he glued them down.

Supplies:
Construction paper (background color, flower color and green for leaves)
Green craft foam for stem
Black or brown pipe cleaners for stems
Glue
Scissors

I went with the green craft foam for the stem to show the difference in the feel, but you could use construction paper for that also. We have also used brown yarn for the roots, I just had pipe cleaners available this time.

Cut out any flower shape you want, along with a few leaves, stem and roots. This is a fun project. In addition to working on the words: roots, stem, leaves & flower, we also talked about what flowers need to survive: Water, soil, light.