Homeschool Theme of the Week(s): Winter!

I have not been posting as much lately, but I hope to catch up and get back into a routine soon!  Here's some of what we've been up to over the past few weeks with winter being our main theme...

A fun winter themed snack!

Snowman face:  peanut butter and marshmallow creme sandwich with a carrot nose, raisin eyes, and chocolate chip smile.  The scarf was made of kiwi and mini tomato slices.

Muffin cups 1 and 3 (sides of plate):  yogurt covered raisin "snowballs".

Muffin cup 2 (top):  vanilla yogurt "snow" with a dried cranberry snowflake design.

Muffin cup 4 (bottom):  More kiwi slices and dried cranberries for decorating the snowman further as desired.

Garnish: gumdrops.

One of our activities consisted of playing roll a blizzard!  To do this with your own child, have him/her draw a snow scene (or any sort of outdoor scene).  Throw two dice and add the numbers together to see how many snowflakes you will add to the picture.  Keep going until the picture is covered in snowflakes!  For younger children learning to count or learning about numbers, you may just want to roll one die.

For our blizzard picture, we used snowflake stamps and silver ink but using foam snowflakes, snowflake stickers, etc. would be other great options as well.

We also enjoyed some hot chocolate math with real marshmallows - I saw this idea on Pinterest (here is a link)!  To play this game, simply roll a die or draw from a stack of numbers to determine how many marshmallows you may add to your cup.  Then do it again and write a number sentence to show the problem and the solution.  (Optional:  eat one of your marshmallows after you finish each problem).

You can't go wrong with a classic, right?  I think the same holds true for classic school activities like practicing one's spelling in shaving cream "snow". 

Speaking of snow, we explored real snow (saved in our deep freezer from the last big snow) and made a miniature snowman indoors.

We also attempted to make an igloo out of ice cubes and snow outdoors (attempted being a key word).

At least if one does not do so well in the igloo building department, one can always explore one's strengths in other areas such as baking and decorating cookies.  These little snowman cookie faces (more on what we did with those later on a Friendly Friday post) were "snow" fun to make!  ;)

Snowball fight anyone?  Too cold to go outdoors?  Wellllll, then why not have one inside instead!  Simply gather up all your white socks, roll into balls, aim, and fire!

Needing a little winding down activity?  Try a crayon resist painting!  My daughter drew her snow scene with a white crayon on white paper and then painted over it with blue watercolor.  It was neat seeing the white snow scene pop out suddenly on the paper when blue was added!

One of my daughter's favorite activities for this theme was to open her own hot chocolate shop!  Great for reviewing money, practicing interpersonal skills, dramatic play and more - a pretend and play store is a wonderful hands on learning experience.  Sandwich shops, beauty salons, pet stores, mechanic shops, etc. - the sky is the limit for the different kinds of stores your child can own and practice running.  :)  I know our  family members were very willing to visit my daughter's store and to participate, purchasing their hot chocolate drink of choice and enjoying each sip.

And speaking of shops, here is a sneak preview of one activity we have planned for Valentine's week - a Sweet Shop where family members can come and secretly order some sweets for someone else and/or send a message or purchase a coupon for helping someone in the family (doing dishes for one night, etc.).  My daughter will help keep track of the orders and will be in charge of delivery on Valentine's Day.  Judging from the success of her hot chocolate shop, I think she will really enjoy this new venture!

Love this idea and want to make a Sweet Shop of your own?  I have posted a very simple version for FREE on my Teachers Pay Teachers website here.  The free set includes a customizable wording sign and matching write-in price tags.  A deluxe version is available here for $1.50 which includes TWO designs (hearts and one with dots which is more general for everyday use) and items such as sale signs, frequent shopper cards, receipts, and coupons (heart design only for the coupons), etc.  I hope that one of these sets (free or deluxe) will provide hours of fun and learning for you and your child!

So what do YOU have planned for Valentine's?

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Travel Toys!

This is another one of those posts that I never actually got around to posting last month...  

This is a travel toy inspired by this post. It is SOOOO easy to make with lots of possibility.  If you are a crafter or a sewer, then you probably have tons of scrap fabric lying around.  To make this toy, you simply tie or sew long pieces of fabric together end to end and stuff them in a container or bag with a small opening just large enough to pull the length of attached fabrics out slowly.   

I used lots of bright colored fabric and textures (felt, satin, netting, etc.) to make this toy more fascinating and fun!  I love how it turned out!  :)

To make my travel toy, I sewed the ends of my fabric together really quickly and then also folded a piece of felt over and sewed along the edges to create a bag.  I left one small opening along one edge for the fabric to come out.  I also sewed the end of the long string of fabrics into the green felt bag so that when my child finished pulling the entire length out, it did not separate from the bag and would be easy to stuff back inside.

Important:  Do NOT leave your child alone with a toy like this as it could pose a strangulation hazard.

Would you like to know what other things we took on our trip to keep the kids occupied and happy?

Well, this for one....  See how to make these here.

Some other things we also took:

** our trusty travel DVD player with an ample supply of dvds

**aqua doodle pen and pad (see the link below if you are not sure what this is)

**play magnetic boards and pieces (make sure the pieces are large enough that your child won't swallow them)

**WASHABLE markers and drawing pad or coloring book

**Little toys (miniature dolls, animals, etc.) that are trip-only-toys so they don't just get to play with them every day like their other toys (makes the toys more attractive when they are new or rarely played with until the occasion of a family trip)

**small books with flaps to open

**snack trap (see below) - these are AWESOME for helping to contain the mess of snacks!

**thermos stainless steel sip containers

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www.toysinthedryer.com

Travel Toy: Velcro Story Blocks

We won't be starting up our homeschooling again for a few more days as we are still in the process of moving and settling into a temporary spot until we are able to find a new home to purchase.  In the meantime, this is something I wanted to post weeks ago for people who might be traveling over the holidays - but, due to illnesses in the family and Christmas craziness, it just didn't happen.  

SOOOO, for those planning a family trip soon (with toddlers in tow), here is something I came up with for one of our own car trips:  Velcro Story Blocks!  The idea for these came after seeing some velcro blocks.  I liked the concept but thought they would be much cuter if they were colored.  Then I thought they might be even more fun if some of the sides had pictures so they could be used to make up stories as well.  We had an empty laptop box that looked like the perfect fit for said blocks, and I decided to jazz it up with some color and a little scene of its own to enhance the story making capabilities of the blocks!  :)  

Voila!   A new car toy!  :)  And the beauty of it is that the velcro helps to keep the pieces together instead of having them all over the car, so your little construction worker can build towers IN THE CAR without them toppling at every little bump.

BTW: I am participating in a blog contest for the top 25 creative mom blogs and would LOVE it if you would cast a vote for me!  :)  The button is on the sidebar and you don't have to be a member or sign up or anything to vote - just click the button which takes you to the site and cast your vote.  You can vote once a day so if you feel extra generous and want to cast a vote on another day - I would LOOOOVVVVEEEE it if you would!  Thanks so much!

If you would like to make your own, these are pretty easy to make.  

IMPORTANT:  Examine your blocks each time to make sure the velcro is not detaching from frequent use.  Do not give these to your children if you suspect they will try to put them in their mouths or try to eat the velcro.

Materials:  Velcro (I used colored as well as black), large wood blocks, paint (non-toxic), glue (super glue or hot glue).

HOW TO MAKE YOUR OWN BLOCKS:

1.  Paint your blocks (solid or with pictures on two sides).  Allow blocks to dry.

2.  Measure the amount of velcro you will need to wrap around each block once.  Cut two pieces of velcro (you will want one with hooks and one without so that the velcro sides of each will be able to stick to all the other blocks.  If you only used one side of the velcro such as the hooks side, it could only attach to a block with the other side of velcro such as the loop side.  However, by using one strip of each per block, they can all stick together).

3.  Glue both pieces of velcro around each block.  

4.  Find a container in which to store your blocks, then PLAY!!!!!  :)

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More Christmas....

It has been CRAZY around here!  Not only is Christmas only a few days away, we are in the process of moving AND have kids sick, sick, sick including one with an allergic reaction to the antibiotic he was on.  SOOO, needless to say, blogging has not been a top priority for me the past couple of weeks.  However, the kids are now asleep for a few minutes, so I thought I would hop on and post some things we had done before a bunch of the chaos descended once more.  :)  Enjoy!

A fun and festive snack for the holidays!  :)

Snack Details:

Christmas tree:  slices of green pepper and pear with a pretzel trunk and a cheese star.

Muffin cups #1 and #3 (sides of tree):  apple and pear circle ornaments for the Christmas tree and green/red M&M's to be used for ornaments as well.

Muffin cups #2 and #4 (top and bottom):  mini marshmallows and string cheese circles for snow under the tree (or more ornaments for the tree).

Garnishes:  gingerbread men marshmallows and winter edible confetti.

Originally I had intended to post this fun little book as a freebie on my Teacher Pay Teacher site, but unfortunately I made it on a program that apparently does not change over well to the format supported by Teacher Pay Teacher.  I would have spent more time trying to figure out an alternate method to post it or remake this in pdf but alas, the craziness and sickness in our house has not allowed me much time for that sort of thing so perhaps it will be available in time for the holidays next year.  

I love this picture of how my daughter helped the elves find the missing presents - that is her finger pointing to them off to the side (barely visible).  Ah, if only the elves had thought to look by the Christmas tree...

This was what my daughter drew under the gift flap on the last page of the book - notice there was not sufficient room for the head of the mermaid doll at the top so she improvised.

We call this "Sweet Spelling" - I gave my daughter a jar full of different types of festive candy or sweets and allowed her to use them to form her spelling words.  If she did it correctly, she would get to pick one of the pieces from the word to eat.  I must say, it was not hard to get her to practice her spelling when this jar was part of the process!  :)

I'd love to post more, but I must be off to work on some more moving stuff before the kids are up and about.  

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!!!  :)

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Homeschool Theme of the Week: Christmas Anticipation!

The month of December is stacking up to be a busy one for us!  We have family flying in for the holidays - yippeee (parents just arrived stateside today)!  AND we just found out we are going to be moving almost immediately after Christmas (a good kind of move that we are happy about)!  :)  

So things are going to be a little crazy around here for a while - but we still plan to find time for some schooling and fun!  Take this past week for instance - full of Christmas anticipation....

Our pink Advent calendar forest - idea courtesy of www.familyfun.com.  Their forest wasn't pink - but if you know my daughter...well, let's just say pink is a very important part of her life.  :)

This was a miniature snowman ornament I found that somehow seemed like he belonged in our forest.  He doesn't have a name...yet.

In addition to some normal schoolwork - we made another pattern block book - this one for Christmas.  For those of you who have scrapbook paper you need to use up, this might be a good idea for you.  Just trace your pattern blocks and make up some Christmas designs with your kiddos!  

(P.S.  For anyone interested, I have made my pattern block book available here for $1.50.)  

This was great practice for not only pattern block designs, but positional words as well.  Most of the pages use positional words to describe where something is or where it was being placed.

This was the final (bonus) page where my daughter was challenged to draw a complete picture showing where all the objects should be (by the way - the cookies are on top of the stool).  I love her picture - she did such a great job!  :)

This had to have been one of the yummier parts of our week!  Chocolate chip candy cane pancakes!  Just add some chocolate chips and crushed candy cane pieces to your pancake batter, stir, and make just like you would normally.  Serve with whip cream, candy cane pieces and chocolate chips for garnish!  

We ate these for breakfast today and then burned some of the calories (not enough, I'm sure) by decorating our Christmas tree and hanging some Christmas decorations outside.   All in all, I would say a great start to the Christmas festivities!  :)  I hope your season's beginnings are rich with memorable times together as well!  :)

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A First "Bear"thday Celebration!

Several weeks ago I mentioned I would be posting some pictures from the first "bear"thday we celebrated a while ago, but it never seemed like I had the time to get said post together.  However, because this is Thanksgiving vacation for us and thus a break from school, I decided it was the right time to pull up the pictures and share them!  Enjoy!

These were the invitations made by the talented Andrea from "The Green Grass Grows" - an Etsy shop!  Ginger"bear" cookies were also given out with invitations.  :)

This was the hat I made for the birthday boy and one of his favorite bears holding it.  The mini banner in the background is another item I purchased from Andrea and it says "I'm GRRRowing Up!"

Upon entering the house, the guests were greeted by some stuffed bears on a table.  One was draped over this quote I love from Winnie the Pooh which I wanted to incorporate with the bear theme.

This was the "guestbook".  I had seen thumbprint guestbook ideas on Pinterest and loved how unique they were.  Thus I came up with a version for this little party - guests used brown ink to place their thumbprints on a mat around a copy of the birthday invitation (all to be framed later).  They then each drew a bear with their own thumbprints being the bear bodies and signed their names near their bears.  I love how it came out!

This was a moss covered number one on one of the tables with some balloons attached.  Just a bit of fun earthy decor!  

We had "bear"gers and other yummy bear themed food at the party!  These were some food signs.  :)

This is a picture of one of the "bear"gers!  :)

This is a photograph of the dessert table laden with cake and cupcakes of different flavors and colors set up on burlap cloth.  The frame behind them contains a collage of pictures showing the birthday boy when he was born (in between the letters spelling "THEN") and the birthday boy as he is now.

Here is another view of the table.  I swirled two flavors of cake together to make the wooded look you see for the stump.  The outside of the stump (dark part) was pure molded chocolate.   We also included some cupcakes made to look like toadstools and some made to look like two ponds with some fish jumping in and out (red swedish candy fish).

For favors, I made Hibernation Preparation bags for each family because visiting bears should never return home hungry, right?   The fun mix inside included honeycomb cereal (for honey), swedish candy fish (for fish),  and spiced gumdrops (for berries).

I'll leave you with one of my favorite parts of the birthday planning and decoration - the birthday boy's very own first "cub"cake (that was one of Andrea's brilliant ideas)!  :)  The cupcake container is one of the Wilton bear ones (I posted a link below if you are interested).  :)

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