Learn Your Name

Hello everyone! Hope your Holiday weekend was a good one! We went away for the weekend, so I am using my driving time to catch up on everything. This is a worksheet that I made up while my kids were younger and still learning their names. This sheet can be put in a page protector to be used more than once in a dry-erase format. First the student circles all the letters that appear in their name and then writes the name in the box below. In the beginning, use a sentence strip with their name written on it, so that they can search for the letters that match and eventually they will learn the spelling on their own and won't need that sentence strip anymore. Print your own HERE!

If you have been following my EPCOT PASSPORT POST HERE, you will see that I am adding pages regularly, leading up to our trip. Here is page 3! For more info on this page and the others CLICK HERE!

Enjoy every minute my friends! Share something that you did this weekend?!

   Follow Me On Facebook!
   Follow Me On Pinterest!

Nature Play!

Last week we had a wonderful time enjoying the awesome weather that we were Blessed with!!! As soon as  I picked up the last child from school, we headed to the park with a pre packed picnic snack! It was pretty windy and still semi chilly (winter coats), but it was nice enough after a Northern Illinois winter!!

We started by getting our Nature Goodies out of our bag (Collection box for treasures, specimen jar, magnifying glass, tweezers) and sat on a blanket (I always keep an old comforter in my trunk) to snack and read:

 We're Going on a Nature Hunt

After that we headed out and everyone was able to examine what they wished, collect what they thought would look great on our nature table. 

When they were through with that, I opened up our travel case of play scarves and grabbed their walking sticks and we made some kites, tents, flags, blankets, bridges...etc. I'm a huge fan of Waldorf Learning and love their play silks! I don't follow Waldorf, just enjoy many of their pieces. Whenever I go to tag sales, garage sales, thrift stores, I pick up scarves that are under .50 and keep them in this small vintage travel case. The kids ALWAYS have a blast with them and get so creative!! We have about 15 scarves and always collecting more. It's amazing to see what kids can come up with! They have been aprons, dresses, baby carriers, party decorations, curtains and so much more.

I recently found these diving rings in the 1.00 spot at TARGET and knew that they were PERFECT for the scarf box! They work when there are no sticks available and have been known to hold multiple thin scarves as a ribbon train and used alone for an impromptu ring toss game in the park when they put sticks in the ground! A child's imagination is endless!!

What is something that you never thought your kids would play with so much? Share in the comments please!!

~Michelle!~

Craft in a Minute! Lacing Food

 

Today's Craft in a Minute is so simple and so fun! I like to make special snacks for all of my kids and I always try to avoid just throwing some stuff in a bag. This week I wanted to try something different and went with our recent lacing fun we had last week. I purchased Twizzler Pull and Peels and separated them into individual strips. Then I used straws of different consistencies to make holes in fresh fruit and Voila! Perfection! For snacks at home, I use the longer Twizzler straws and the kids have so much fun, but for snack it was just the right size!!
Snack and Craft in a Minute!!!

~Michelle!~

=============================

SIDE NOTE:
Undergrad Fab is having a SHOPBOP giveaway on her BLOG, head on over!!
================

Linked up here:

For the Birds!

My youngest and I read books about birds and then we took our binoculars outside and watched for some as we lay on our backs and stared in the sky! We wondered what it would be like to fly and where we would go, Disney World (me!) and McDonald's (him!). We marveled at all the colors that could be found on birds and even visited a pet shop to look at birds that could be kept as pets! Upon coming home we started our craft of the day!

We dug around in our bucket of CAPS, CAPS, CAPS and found one that belonged to a trail mix bucket and we were ready to roll! We were going to make a bird feeder! We waited until the big kids got home from school, so that all could be involved in putting in the seed and hanging it up!  Let's hope we get some birds!

Share a link to your homemade bird feeders in the comment section please!!

I'm Blog Hopping Today!

Making Playdough!

Today we had some lesson plans on learning about time and crafting with clocks, but I decided to push that off to this afternoon, so that we could get in the kitchen and create something to take outdoors with us! My 3 year and old was an assistant today and he was eager to mix and play.  First, we gathered the ingredients needed (List at the bottom of page) and then I got out a mixing bowl. I know you can make it all over the stove, but I wanted my son to be able to help and I don't let him near the hot stuff in the kitchen. I had him toss it all in the bowl and mix it up and then I had the 2 cups of water in a large jar, where I let him squeeze the food coloring in and stir it up apart from the rest of the mixture, so he could see the color appear in the water first. We then mixed it all together into 1 bowl and got it prepped for the stove.

Once on the stove, mommy took over and for a second, I was unsure of what I was supposed to do other than stir it up (nothing). I used a recipe from a homework assignment my preschooler brought home and added some vanilla for scent. I tried looking for an internet recipe, but the first one I tried was missing the amounts of water I would need and then another one I had found didn't list some of the ingredients that I did have and added some that I didn't have in house, so I went with what I had!

After about 3 minutes, I was left with this incredibly shiny and sticky ball and I was so worried that I wasn't doing it right, but I kept on mixing for about 2 more minutes and it started to smooth out!!

Finally, we were successful!!! I used old store containers to hold the colored balls of dough and the kids have been having a blast ever since!! From start to finish it took us about 10 minutes and that's WASHING up afterwards too!!! I'm so happy to find something that my little ones love and can help with too!! I'm planning on putting small amounts into smaller containers to give to my daughters class for Easter!

What you will need:
2 cups of water
2 cups of flour
1 cup of salt
Food Coloring
1 TBSP of cooking oil
1 TBSP of Cream of Tartar

Mix everything together over medium-high heat and continue mixing and stirring for about 5-6 minutes. You will see the dough thicken and eventually begin to smooth over. Once you remove from stove, let it cool for 2 minutes and store in an airtight container!

I'm linking up here:

Color Matching

I'm sure by now, you know that I love buttons and I try to use them in as many crafts as I can! Today's simple game was made up from another border, that I cup up and put on a ring. This is the perfect on the go activity that I can keep in our Busy Bag and just toss one in my purse too! I have a small little bag on the ring that holds 1 button in each color that matches the cards and all he has to do is match them up!!

It's a simple activity that still manages to entertain all the kids when we are desperate, because my 5 year old can practice his spelling of the colors, while my 6 year old plays 'teacher' and has the boys do the spelling and matching work.

The Nuts and Bolts of it All!

 The hardware store can be a fantastic place for getting toys that the kids can play with for hours!

I went and bought Nuts and Bolts and a Wrench! That's it!! All 3 children played for 2 hours in many different ways. There were counting games, races, contests, sorting and just so much creative fun, I couldn't believe that a total of 4.67 was bringing in this much fun!

One of their contests was to see who could put the most nuts on their bolt and they figured on some of them, they could get up to 8, but on others only 4!

My daughter liked working with the wrench best, it's a great lesson in patience, trying to get everything adjusted just right in little hands.

They also sorted them into the different sized nuts as they unscrewed them. They cooperated really well together and made sure each one had a job at all times. For a little bit of money, this bought me some nice quiet time!!

**PLEASE NOTE**

My children are older and do not put toys in their mouths, please be careful and watchful at all times with children when attempting this activity!