40 Fresh Fridays!

I have been inspired by reading THIS BLOG and cannot wait to start! For the next 8 weeks, I will share my updates on Fridays! I will be starting on Monday and will update my 1st haul on Friday as with every Friday following. This is originally done during the Lenten season, but I love the idea and will do it now! Care to join me? Let me know and just get started on Monday. Next Friday, I will put up a linky party and you can link up how you are coming along. 

First, pick out the type of garbage bag you will fill. I am using THESE from TARGET. There are 88 in the box and I am setting them aside JUST for this project, so I don't have an excuse that I ran out of bags! Next, plan out what you will do with your bags. I plan on donating ours to Goodwill, since I am forever finding my Thrifty Treasures there!

Now it's time to write your list! That's why we are not starting until Monday. This gives everyone plenty of time to come up with 40 places that they would like to purge. We will do it over the course of 8 weeks, so that we are not cleaning on the weekends.  Of course you can just purge 5 bags in 1 day if that's all you have time for, but I like the idea of doing 1 thing a day and having the ability to cross something to cross off my list everyday! As much as I love my nifty clipboard above, I went ahead and put my list ONLINE so that it would be easy to access and cross off.

Now we are ready to go! If you are joining, go ahead and do a quick post about it, so that everyone can be ready to start on Monday! Snag the button above and we are ready to roll! Let's get cleaning people!!

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I will most likely post small daily updates on my Facebook Page before the big reveal each Friday, so be sure to become a Friend of my page to keep tabs with the updates and let me know how you are doing too!!

Project: Postcard!

Hi everyone!! Hope you have had an excellent day. As many of you know, we have been on a virtual vacation this Summer, making stops all over the globe! This has been an absolute delight for all of us involved, not to mention the BEST learning experience. With Summer coming to a close, we are not ready to give up our travels! This is where our next project begins! We are asking if you could send us a postcard from where you live, where you are on vacation, places you love, anything at all.

Jot us a note about anything at all, mention your location if it's not stated on your postcard and send it off! We will research the location, learn some new things and maybe even a craft too! We will do a blog post, featuring the front of your postcard and all we learned. If you include a return address on the back, we will write you back too and give you some information on where we are from and who we are!

We can't wait to add your location onto our map of travels! Real and Virtual, we pin them all if we have learned something there. This is a fantastic lesson in map skills and so many other things the inspire creativity and create memories that will certainly last a lifetime!

Ready to send us a postcard? Just send me an E-mail and let me know, I will let you know my address and  you can get writing, so we can get learning and then get writing too! A lesson in every subject going on here!  Care to join us in Project Postcard? Let me know and I will add a link to your blog post about it here, so that people that want to send cards can visit your site too!!

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Grab a Button and Let's Get Some Postcards!!!

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Lollipop...Lollipop....

 Did you know that yesterday was National Lollipop Day? Wow, talk about learning something new! As soon as we found out, we got straight to work! It is much too hot in the Midwest this week, so we were excited to get crafty.  While we worked, I read the kids some facts about Lollipops that I found HERE!

I pulled together some random supplies, cut out some circles from card stock and just let them go wild! I gave no instruction, just informed them what today was and let them go in whatever direction their creativity led them! Did you celebrate this fun holiday? If so, please share your activities in the linky party below!

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Treasures...Recycled Fun

It's time for another week of trash to treasures! We went digging through our pile of saved materials (I will have to make another post on what to save from your rubbish bin!) and got straight to work this past week. Out of our milk jug, we made a basket to hold our money. We were playing store during our math lesson and we decided to use the over-sized money that does not fit in the cash register, so we needed to make up something different! This ended up being so perfect we made 3 more to hold the 'produce' in the store! A pipe cleaner makes an awesome handle doesn't it?!

When challenged to make something on her own, while the boys were occupied with a numbers lesson, my daughter made up this fantastic  paper clip holder out of the bottom of a water bottle! I had just gotten some new catalogues in the mail and she saw me pinning pages with clips from a plastic bag and told me that this would work much better! How creative! I love it!! Some of the best artwork will come when you give your kids the materials with no direction what so ever! Each of them have a work table in their rooms that has a small bit of art supplies set up on it, this way they can create in private if they want! Yes, it does get messy, but this is a home, not a museum :)

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Fun with Games!

Today, I want to share some fun that we came up with recently! My kids love stringing beads on anything and everything they can get their hands on, so I put them to work making bead counters with pipe cleaners. 10 beads per pipe cleaner and we had counting rods. This became perfect to pair with a set of flashcards I made up from a 1-100 pack. I pulled out just the 10s and put them together on a tray with the counters. Perfect for my younger 2 to work on!

Counting to 100! We have an awesome 100s chart that I LOVE and is well used. I had it laminated and we use it with a dry erase marker too. Sometimes you have to get creative and think of new games, to keep the learning fresh and fun. I picked up these colorful card stock circles and made a ring of 0-100 flashcards. Here, they just pull a car and say it aloud (without showing it to the other person) and the other person has to put a circle on the number called out. It can also be played alone as a matching game, which is how my youngest plays!

Alphabet house search is my favorite game and theirs too, I'm sure! I put in little pink letters into different slots of these boxes and the kids head out in search of items that are the correct size. This game is perfect as it allows them some creative learning fun and gives me time to clean house! Yay!

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Food for Thought....

When I first saw this quote, I woke right up! It was such a reality check, that I was left wondering why I don't take a minute to truly thank God for all that is good in my life!

Have a wonderful and Blessed evening friends, because today I am so thankful that I have people who really care about what I have to say!

Virtual Destinations and Beyond!

Hello everyone!! Did you know that we just travelled the Orient Express from Venice to Rome, before we set out for Greece? Wasn’t it amazing? Here is our train ticket to remember our trip in the lap of luxury! You can find a wonderful list of facts and information here:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venice-Simplon_Orient_Express

How did you enjoy your time in Italy? Wasn’t it magnificent? We painted like Michaelangelo while lying on our backs and realized that it is nowhere near as easy or as comfortable as it looks!

We created Leaning Towers of Pisa, using recycled materials and learned about construction. As the kids built, I read facts and history about this amazing structure and we listened to some fun music in the background.

We made a DIY pizza bar and all created our own pizzas! More kitchen fun was had making our own pasta and sauce for a wonderful spaghetti dinner.

We used a sheet to mimic a parachute, while studying all about Leonardo Da Vinci, this was the most
fun we had, however it was something that needed mommy's help and we didn't get to capture any photos. We will definitely have to try this again with Daddy present.

Now that we have landed in Greece after a flight time of 1hour and 32 minutes and traveling 635 miles.

We love Hummus and ate it with fresh pita to celebrate our arrival and could not wait to explore!
Gyros became a new family favorite and baklava was 50/50 with all of us.

We made our own puppets as the Greeks developed the first theater, this was so much fun for all of us that I had to go back to the store to buy more puppets so that we could make more!

We sold tickets for our puppet show using the Euro and worked on our conversion from USD to the Euro and even had more math fun selling concessions at our show.

After learning about the first Olympics, we decided to make our own obstacle course. Keeping the weather in mind, we always ended up the course running through the sprinkler! An all around fantastic vacation!

We are now off to the Largest Country in the World and landing in Moscow, Russia! A flight time of 2 hours and 50 minutes with 1367 miles logged.  Take a minute to learn about their flag and color one of your own!

We are off to Siberia on the Trans-Siberian Railway! This was built in 1916 and is the world's longest continuous rail line! What fun to explore! We will also listen to some local music. There is so much to do here, we are spending the entire week exploring all that we can take in. Learning the language, sampling the local cuisine and exploring. As part of our crafting, we will be making painted eggs which we will turn into ornaments! 

Enjoy and Please join us!

Fun with Food...

I'm a firm believer that with kids, presentation is everything! I like to make food fun and get them to smile when they eat! All of the lunches I send to school, I think of as a kiss from mom when they open them, so I like to keep the same train of thought going at home too! Use your cookie cutters to get creative! I honestly use mine for everything!

I also try to relate food to things they are learning in school or what we are reading at home! Do you know who this is??(hint: He's very hungry!) Sams Club has the BEST tiny English cucumbers for this! 

Then of course he turns into a beautiful butterfly! A snack butterfly of course! We painted clothespins and now our afternoon snack was perfect for the road and oh-so-pretty!

Colors always grab at kids, so why hide them in a boring bowl! Bring out the glass so that they can see everything they eat! Blueberries, Raspberries and Strawberries all share space with yogurt in this delightful dish! Make it pretty and the kids will eat it! 

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Adventures in the great Midwest! Part 5

It's that time again! Time for another part of SHOW US YOUR TOWN! This past week we had the awesome chance to become members at our local Children's Museum! It was absolutely amazing! We have already been 3 times since the start of our membership on the 5th. We have been here before and always have a great time, so we knew it was time to just add another membership under our belts. This place is top notch from the outdoors all the way in. 2 floors of fun with a giant outdoor maze-type play area with a large water table.

Actually our favorite place is the water table! We all get soaked and have a blast pulling apart the PVC parts to create new flows with the water. We easily spend over an hour of our day here every single time.

This is definitely a place for awesome imagination play as well as getting some real life experience! You can be a construction worker, train conductor, grocery checker, mail person, you name it!

 We played house in the greatest play house ever! This is all part of the new addition that was really done well. All the kids had fun making dinner and doing the laundry as well as tidying up the fun little cottage. Even the flowers in the planters came out!

They had a working ATM (play money!!) and even those awesome bank chutes where you can send the tube over to someone else and chat with them by speakerphone! My youngest loved this even more than the water table!

Next up was the garage. Here the kids could change the tires, muffler, license plates and so much more! The car made sounds and the air drill worked too! Do you spot all 3 of them???

My favorite part of the day was seeing the kids on TV! They have a news center where the kids could see themselves as the reported the days happenings. There was even a weather map, perfect for any little meteorologist in the making.

A great lesson in team work was having the kids build a castle out of these Imagination Playground blocks. They had so much fun that in the end they didn't want to leave! Good thing these were by the exit, so we just stayed until closing time!

Through much trial and error, they were able to build a ball chute that would give the balls enough momentum to round the track and feed itself right back into the castle, so they never had to come out! Do you see all 3 of them?

There is a temporary exhibit all about the force of SPINNING! So many hands on things that made this area fun for everyone, even Daddy had a blast spinning the little ones around. Have you ever been on a segway?? They have one of those to try too! I hopped on and thank goodness Daddy didn't take a picture, because I was not that good at my first round, but it was fun and there is no time limit, since we were the only ones in there!

The giant bubble pool has inspired us to make our own! (Coming next week!) Can you see all 2 of them about to be covered by a bubble?

 Another lesson in teamwork, brings us to this fantastic grain elevator! This is so much fun for sensory play too! I will warn you, it becomes an addiction to try and lift all that grain and keep it going. At one point all 5 of us were going strong!

Here is the view from the giant tractor in the agriculture exhibit! Boy, we never knew how many buttons were in a tractor! My son wanted to push each and every one of them!! haha!

All in all an excellent day was had by all!!

Now, please take a minute to visit everyone in this hop!

Your hosts are Michelle from Heartfelt Balance Handmade Life 

Jenn from Coolest Family on the Block

Bernadette from Mom to 2 Posh Lil Divas

Michelle from MichellesCharmWorld (YAY ME!)






Come on and join us! Snag our button and link up! Don't forget to put the button in your post and to also visit your hostesses! Enjoy the Summer!

Missed my other posts?
WEEK 1 The Waterpark!
WEEK 2 The Zoo!
WEEK 3 Berry Picking
Week 4 Splash Park
Still to Come: The Aquarium, The Dinosaur Museum, and so much more!