Welcome Back!

It's time to get back into the swing of things over at Casa Sottile! We are in full Fall swing and I can't wait to share it all with you! We are making our own potpurri, candles and painting pumpkins. We are decorating the outdoors, drinking hot apple cider and raking leaves.

With the cooler weather, the foods get more comforting! Homemade Chicken Noodle soup is always a favorite, especially when those sniffles start. 

Tea in the morning always sets my day just right! My newest obsession is Teavana, a HEAVEN for tea lovers! I like to sit in the morning with my mug and just think about the entire day I have before me. I go over my e-mails, read the paper and look over our schedule.

Take a minute to work on some fun sheets with your little one, they love the time we spend with them! Our children see how busy we are day in and day out, when we take a minute to play with them, they feel SO SPECIAL!

Things I Am Loving Right Now....

With 3 young kids (ages 6,5,3) in my house, I am falling in love with things constantly! The latest are educational and so much fun! As you have read we are very into our Nature Table ! We love going on nature walks and checking out new and fun stuff from the great outdoors. With Spring coming we are ready for our leaf hunting to begin and (1) FANDEX Family Field Guides has helped us GREATLY with their deck on TREES! Check them out to see how cool it is to find a leaf and just fan through the pages to match it up!! LOVE!

(2) TARGET has their new Summer season Dollar Spot out and they have AWESOME little magnifying glasses! Perfect for tiny hands! Our larger one is from a nearby teacher store and it's by far our favorite, but the smaller ones are perfect for taking out into the field and popping in a pocket!

(3) We love informational books that are written for kids, our favorites of the moment are both from Scholastic, I love buying from them and helping out the classroom! Colorful Leaves a Science and Vocabulary Reader is great for younger kids and gives a brief intro on the topic, while Why Do Leaves Change Color? is an EXCELLENT in-depth book that really captures their attention with great photos! Can you tell we love books?

(4) Next, I am IN LOVE with 103 questions children ask about Right and Wrong with answers from the bible. A great reference when kids ask you a question that even YOU have to think of an answer for! Finally, we are at the Time and Money stage in school and Scholastic has an AWESOME pocket chart for counting money with a Piggy Bank in the background! The kids LOVE that one! We play it with a deck of money cards also from a Teacher Store.

This one needed it's own shout out, because my kids AND husband and I AND Grandpa and Nana LOVE to play with these! They are Magna Tiles and easily the coolest toy on the market now! They have had them for 2 months now and they still get played with EVERY DAY! Check them out and TRY not to get addicted!!

The Week in Photos!

Look at what the Leprechaun brought! The kids had to follow his footsteps to see all the goodies he brought them! After finding out the mischief that he caused! (He put the boys sock bin in Autumn's room and her sock bin in the Boy's dresser! He also dropped some green food coloring in the milk!). We are looking to make a small herb container garden, so he brought us those goodies and some Science books to read an also some fantastic reference fan out cards about the 50 states for our geography corner and one about trees for our nature table to help us identify the leaves we find!

BOATS! We made sponge boats while learning about floating and sinking and wind power! We made them for our craft-of-the-day and then floated them in the newly-uncovered-for-the-Season water table! (can you tell how excited we are for Spring in the Midwest??)
Our Nature Table is finally ready for Spring, now that we have cleared out the Winter finds!

Read more on yesterday's post at Corner of my Home!
This is our educational nook, it was a disaster from a busy weekend, so I got to work this week in organizing it back to how it should look! I will go into more depth on this corner of my home next week!

Another craft-of-the-day project! We made tea bags Waldorf style for our tea parties! This was an easy and fun project that even the 3 year old got involved with!

Another excellent week has gone by and I would like to think I am quite Blessed!