A Week of Photos

MONDAY

Are you always stuck with clean up after playing a game? I try to make it fun for the little ones, so that they learn to clean up after themselves. I put the box in the middle of our play space and we have  a contest as to who can get the most pieces to land in the box when tossed! This makes it a game after the game. For games with smaller pieces, we use a timer and time each other as we each put away certain parts of that game.

 TUESDAY

Last week  I got my first bread maker! I quickly got to work and made up my first loaf. It was so much fun to do and I'm already hooked! My husband and kids? Couldn't get enough!!

WEDNESDAY

By the time Wednesday rolled around, I felt so stressed out from various factors, that I just had to STOP and think. This quote was so very true and I need to learn to embrace that more.

THURSDAY

Do you menu plan? I MUST MUST MUST, or we end up eating thrown together meals that just don't satisfy anyone. I sit down and plan for 2 weeks on every other Sunday. I do it all in pencil, so that I can adjust or switch days if needed. I also put my list on the same page and I take it all to the grocery store with me. I buy most of my groceries every 2 weeks and supplement the fruits and veggies at farmstands, farmers markets and the like.

FRIDAY

Math and Counting can be much more fun when surrounded by a puppet show! He sold tickets to his show and snacks, this allowed him to work with money and count out pieces of candy, food, popcorn and also add and subtract. It was so much fun and he didn't even know he was learning!!

 SATURDAY

Parts of the Body can often be boring for little ones to learn, so I look for as many things that make it more fun! This is a LARGE and Double Sided puzzle by Melissa & Doug. As we put together the pieces we say aloud what part of the body they go to. This helps them retain so much and in a fun environment.

 SUNDAY

We love to use games in so many ways, not just the way they were intended for. This allows us so much more creativity. Scrabble is more difficult for my younger two still, so we make it easier. Add in sight word cards and it allows everyone to join in. The older people play as normal and then the younger guys pull a car, find the tiles they need from a tile bowl and put them on the card to match them up. NEXT, they find a spot to put their word. The scoring remains the same and it becomes a game that everyone can play. For our version, we use  the Scrabble Tiles from 3 games, this way the little ones can always find what they need out of 2 games worth of tiles and the older people use 1 set and pull 5 blindly as required.

Enjoy your weekend my friends!!

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Rainy Day Counting Activity!

As the rain pelted down last week, we were stuck inside most of the afternoon (well, after we played outdoors for a bit!). My children always love the art box and one of their favorite activities is cutting. Since it was just my little guy and I at home, I quickly came up with a fun and super easy game to play. 

I printed out the umbrella page and then gave my son some scissors, a glue stick and a variety of dice to pick from. I made up this fun worksheet along with instructions, easy for you to print HERE! The general idea of the game is for the child to roll the dice and then cut out however many rain drops they rolled and paste them anywhere on the umbrella page. This is a great game for number recognition when they count the dots, identify the number and then they learn counting as the count each rain drop they create. Repetition is so very important at this age!

Of course it would not be a proper activity if it was not served with homemade cookies and milk! This gavbe us fuel to keep on going and going and going!

It's Marathon Monday....this means the countdown has officially begun as the marathon is on Sunday...THIS WEEK! OMG! I'm taking it as easy as I can and now just praying and knowing that all the training I had done this far is going to be enough to get me through!!

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