Vowel Party!

To get my daughter familiar with the vowels, we had a little vowel party! First we played this fun game with the Education Cube letter inserts. 5 sides of the dice were the vowels a,e,i,o and u. The sixth side was a chicken. We rolled the dice. If the dice landed on a vowel,we would say both the long and short sounds. If it landed on the chicken, we did the chicken dance. The chicken dance provided enough silliness to keep my daughter engaged in the activity for a long time.

We also added vowel stickers to our exploration journal, played with the vowel foam letters in the bathtub, and made vowel puppets.

Some things we didn't do, but would be fun, would be to make letter pretzels with the vowels, and go on a letter hunt for the vowels. There are also some cute videos and online games at star fall.com!

My favorite part of our little party was when my daughter told me some of the letters were crying because they wanted to be vowels. My Boo has such a tender heart for her ABC's!

20 Activities With Sidewalk Chalk

Sidewalk chalk is one of those basic necessities for outdoor play....right along with bubbles and jump ropes! We spent the greater part of an afternoon writing and drawing with the chalk and inspired me to write this post! Here it is... 20 activities you can do with your child using sidewalk chalk!

1. Practice writing letters and numbers. If you are teaching your child a letter or number a week, have them practice writing it outside! You can draw the "lined paper", and write the letter or number using dotted lines for your child to trace. An older chid can practice writing their name and phone number, although you might not want that advertised on your driveway!
2. Practice reading words and sentences. When teaching your little one to read, it is important to provide them with varied literacy experiences. Not only does this provide the practice needed to read, but it makes reading fun. It also shows your kiddo that reading is a skill you use all the time, not just in books.
3. Hopscotch! This classic game can be drawn with sidewalk chalk. Not only is it fun, but it teaches children to count and recognize numbers.
4. Giant number line- draw a big number line and let your kids hop to the numbers as they count, or use it to do simple addition and subtraction.... "Let's solve 3+4. Stand on the 3. Now take 4 steps on the number line. What number are you standing on? 3+4=7!"
5. 4 square- Another classic game- you can't go wrong!
6. Blue's Clues- My daughter and I had a blast using the blue sidewalk chalk to draw paw prints on various items outside.... tree trunks, next to the mailbox, next to some leaves..... we kinda made this up as we were playing, but if you were to prepare in advance you could make this a great clue-solving activity! (if you haven't seen the show Blue's Clues, I apologize that this step doesn't make sense!)
7. Shape Hunt- draw various shapes on the driveway. Dance around until you call out a shape (circle, triangle, hexagon, and if you are an artist try the 3 dimensional shapes such as cube, pyramid, etc!) then everyone has to hurry and find one to stand on.
8. Murals- Have fun letting the whole family draw a giant mural on your driveway! We have a little cement retaining wall that would also be the perfect place to showcase art!
9. Body tracing- this could be a lot of fun- just be sure you don't mind if your kiddo is covered in chalk! The child simply lays down on the cement while another child (or you) trace them! Then have fun coloring in the face, clothes, hair, etc!
10. Shadow tracing- great science adaption idea.... go outside during various times of the day and trace your shadow while standing in the same spot (or the shadow of another object such as a can). Each time you trace the shadow, use a different color of sidewalk chalk. Talk with your kiddo about how the sun moves and causes our shadows to move as well!
11. Little Love Notes- write love notes to Daddy to find when he comes home from work! Or choose another family member and while they are away (school, nap, play group, etc) cover the driveway in notes of appreciation, artwork and love!
12. Line Tag- a classic game with a twist- you can draw your lines! And draw them any way you want- squiggly lines, straight lines, dead end lines..... try and make most of them connect though or the game won't work too well!
13. Sight Word Hunt- cover the driveway in sight words. Have your kiddo run around until you call out a word, and then your child has to find the word and stand on it!
14. Maps- Tie in geography with your sidewalk chalk! Have your child draw a map of their backyard, neighborhood, city, county, state, or country. Make the map as detailed as you can! Little ones can do this too, but they might need some help from you!
15. Car mats- If you don't mind the little cars getting chalky, have your kids create their own car mat using sidewalk chalk. They can add streets, buildings, parks.... it is totally customizable! And it gets your kids playing outside!
16. Opposite Rectangles- Draw a large rectangle. Divide the rectangle in half. In the first half of the rectangle, draw a happy face. Have your child draw the opposite (sad face) in the second half of the rectangle. Repeat this activity with more opposites!
17. Analogy Rectangles- Similar to the game above, but divide the rectangle into fourths and use analogies instead. For example, ant:six legs as spider: _____. In the first section of the rectangle you would draw an ant, the second section would be six legs, the third section would be spider, and the fourth is where your child would draw the answer (which is 8 legs). Here is a link to more animal analogies.
18. Draw a Nursery Rhyme- A great literacy experience is to have your child draw their favorite nursery rhyme! If your child is older, have them draw their favorite scene in a book they are reading instead.
19. Addition Fun!- Math is a lot more fun when done on the driveway! Let your child try solving math problems outside!!
20. Easy Fractions- Draw several shapes. Have your kiddo draw a line to cut the shapes in half/thirds/fourths/etc. Make sure you talk about fair shares (how each section should be the same size) when they are drawing the lines.

Hope this helps as we get our summer fun learning in gear! Happy Teaching!

Bean Jar Kids

I wanted to make a behavior jar for my daughter where we could reward her for obeying family rules (and take jelly beans away if needed). You can imagine my delight when I came across the Bean Jar Kids app for the iPod and iPad. Bean Jar Kids lets you create up to 4 different jars and lets you decide on the number of beans needed to fill the jar. Once the jar is full, then we decide on the reward. The first jar we created only needed 6 beans to fill up, and we had a family ice cream party. This time around we need 10 beans before we get a picnic at the park (and just our luck we have one bean to go and snow everywhere!). I love the portability of our new jar! Definitely worth the $1.99!

Mini Science Explorations

Recently my daughter and I have dedicated a little time each day to a science or math exploration activity. We spend about fifteen minutes doing the exploration, then another ten to fifteen minutes recording our experience in her exploration journal. Here are some of the fun activities we have done so far!

Sink or Float, or as my Boo calls it "Drowned or Float"- gather a pencil, paper clip, wood chip, cotton ball, coin, feather, etc. Make predictions on whether they will sink or float then test your hypothesis!Drop or Float- gather tissue, paper, crumbled paper, paper clip, pencil, wood chip, feather, etc. Make predictions on whether they will quickly fall when dropped or float down....then test your hypothesis!
We have also spent time exploring our math scales and made some predictions on what items would weigh more or less, and what happens to the scale when an item weighs more. Tomorrow we are going to make predictions on items that are magnetic... It should be a blast!
Learning and teaching can be so much fun! Happy exploring!!!

Happy Birthday Little Neigh Neigh!

Yesterday we celebrated the birthday of my daughter's favorite stuffed animal. It was the perfect activity for a rainy day! We made a cake and played horse games. It was a great celebration for our horse unit- we were able to incorporate learning with fun! I will be posting the games we played in a blog post all about horses!

Happy Teaching!

Scripture Stories Book: 2 Nephi

Just wanted to post that the newest pages for my daughter's favorite stories from the Book of Mormon are available to download! Click here to download! Enjoy!

St. Patrick's Day Fun

We had a lot of fun on St. Patricks day, despite the fact that poor mommy was sick!

The stinky little leprechaun came during the night and turned picture frames upside down, threw blankets on the floor, and stacked all the pillows in the living room....every mess found that day was blamed on the leprechaun! He did leave some fun clover clues that led to a special treasure inside a pot of gold....a stuffed animal dog we named Lucky Maxi (what a name, right?)!

My husband made green waffles, green eggs, and green milk for breakfast. Despite the fact I wasn't feeling too well, we ventured out to circle time where the kiddos made rainbows with fruit loops and listened to bag pipes. I have cute 4 leaf clover dice that we were going to use to play some math games... Maybe next year!

Mr. Sprinkles

We received our new humidifier from CSN stores right in time for a virus attack on our little family. I am really impressed with how quiet it is and how easy it is to use! We have gone through 2 humidifiers that are big, loud, and clunky so it is defiantly an upgrade. I would recommend this to anyone! And yes, we named our penguin humidifier Mr. Sprinkles. He is already a family friend!

Horses on Parade- learning the days of the week

My daughter is really into horses right now, and I thought it would be fun to use blank horses to teach her the days of the week! I found these for a buck at Michaels- but if you have a die cutting machine, you can make your own!!

As you can see, we named each of the horses one of the days of the week. They also have their own unique color. My daughter started coloring the black horse but as I have said earlier- she is not into coloring (but lucky for her Momma loves it!).

We have the horses line up like a parade, then we say their names together. Afterwards we will talk about the special things we do on each day, like Sunday is the day we go to church, etc. My goal is to have my daughter know not only the day names but the order as well.

My daughter loves to have the horses gallop and be "wild and free", so I make sure that they have conversations like "Monday, have you seen Tuesday galloping anywhere?", "Sunday you are SO lucky you get to be the leader of the horse parade", and "Which horse is after Thursday in the parade?" They are a HUGE hit with my little girl!

We have used these horses to review colors in Spanish as well. Have fun creating lessons for your child centered around those things they love most. It really helps them get excited for learning!!!

Blog Review

The time has come for me to do another review for CSN stores. It works out perfectly because we need a new humidifier and I have been dying to try out those cute animal ones! While i haven't read the greatest reviews on this product, it will be tons better than what we have now! For those who don't know, CSN stores carry everything from wooden swing sets to the kitchen sink!

Montessori App for Android

This is just a cute android app that I found that I had to share! It is called Mobile Montessori and is available for free if you don't mind ads. It is an electronic collection of some montessori materials- the pink tower, brown stairs, and more! I would say this game is geared towards a 2 or 3 year old. For a free game, it's not bad!

Cut, Color, and Play! Fun with Scissors

My cute daughter and I had fun practicing her scissor skills. She loves to cut and gets better every time we work on it! Most of the time we practice cutting straight lines. But a few nights ago we had a fabulous time free cutting. I let my daughter cut out random shapes. Then we would decide what that shape looked like....a horse, a cat, a cave, etc. We did teamwork and colored the horse, cat, etc. (or in other words, I colored most of it since my kiddo is not into coloring ...although she did help by coloring silky wings on everything!) the greatest part was playing with our handmade creations!
I would insert a picture of our masterpiece here, but my sweetie was so enthusiastic about cutting that she snipped our creations into tiny pieces. Hey, it's more scissor practice! I can't complain!

Sick Day Ideas

For the next few months my daughter and I have the privilege of spending a lot of time at home. (This is a nice way of saying that due to medical reasons I won't be able to drive!) I have been preparing lists of ideas of things we can do, and I thought I would share it with others who may be in a similar situation or just need some fun activities to do with your little ones!

• Puppet show night- gather all your puppets or have fun making some new ones using socks, paper bags, popsicle sticks, etc! Set up a mini theater using blankets and a table. Use the puppets to perform favorite stories, nursery rhymes, scriptures, or make up your own stories! We have done this a few times and it has been so much fun! This is a great literacy activity!
• Mommy made books- being stuck at home is a great time to finish all those well intended book projects with my daughter... Including books about her favorite baby stories, horses, sports, ballet steps, and maybe even a book created solely by my sweetie!
• Flashlight fun- most kids love flashlights! And there is so much you can do with them... From playing an easy game of I spy where you give clues and point to objects with the light, to shadow making, and our latest craze- snuggling up in a blanket while holding the light and making up ghost stories. It has been fun so far!
• Super work- we have neglected our dedicated learning activities and this is a perfect time to get through these... Some ideas include writing her name, more scissor practice, continuing to work with my daughter on her amazing reading skills, those blasted piano lessons I never started, and a whole bunch of mini-lessons on horses, weather, sports, and nature.
• Play- it is so easy to get caught up in a checklist of things to do, and while i want to teach my daughter everything I possibly can, i do recognize the importance of just playing. That means i will be sitting in the playroom with my daughter for hours and letting our imaginations soar. There will be a time for more structured learning...and to me, that time is a few years down the road. I waited so long to be a mommy that I have to cherish every second I can!
• Game night- round up all your games for a night of fun! You can have little game stations where you play games and rotate after 5 or 10 minutes. Or if you don't mind the clean up mix and match game pieces to play new games! (For example, use the numbered uno cards to play Candy Land....and the Candy Land guys to be the markers on a another board game.)
• Stuffed Animal Spa- Instead of throwing the stuffed animals in your washer, let your child help you bathe them! We did this recently and had a great time. Just pull out a basin or your child's old baby bathtub, pour in a small amount of laundry detergent, and fill the tub up with water! Now you are ready to go! After bathing them with a white washcloth (to avoid a washcloth's color to end up on the poor stuffed animal), rinse, and blow dry on the cool setting with a hair dryer.
• Felt board- Pull out the unused felt board (well, at least in my case!) and let your kiddo have free play with felt pieces. Or sit down together and create new pieces to add to your felt collection!
• Family read-a-thon- grab your sleeping bags, blankets, pillows, even indoor tents and snuggle up to read! You can all share your favorite stories or just enjoy being close while catching up on some independent reading.
• Celebrations- Have fun celebrating the smaller holidays that are so often neglected. There is one special day coming up next week: Barbie's Birthday! And this past week was National Pig Day and Dr. Seuss Day!
• I hate to admit this last idea, but thank heavens for Netflix. We have loved having movie nights streamed right to our TV without going out to find something to watch. I have heard people complain about the movie selection they have, but I absolutely love the selection they have for our little family.

What are some things you do when you are stuck at home? I would love to hear your ideas!!!

Dr. Seuss Day Fun

I had great plans for planning things for Dr. Sues day. And then wham! The day was upon us and I was unprepared. We did manage to squeeze in a few things:

Read a stack of Dr. Seuss books....cant go wrong there!
Went to a fun pajama party with my activity day girls where we read even more books
Downloaded a free cat in the hat app and played with that for a bit
Watched a cat in the hat movie thanks to my new friend Netflix!
Next year i will be more prepared. We can hope, right? :)

Coping With Infertility

This is not the typical post today. Its not a topic that I like to dwell on and most days I handle it well. But lately, for some reason, it has been a powerful force of emptiness and grief. (cue the violins....)
Many of you are aware that my husband and I adopted our beautiful daughter. I can not put into words the love and appreciation we have for her birthmother. I am grateful that our daughter came to us through adoption... It really was such a miraculous experience. As she gets older the desire to expand our family grows. I long to be able to provide my Boo with a brother or sister, but I physically can't. It seems as if pregnancy and babies are all around me. In a 12 month time period I will be an aunt four times. Each of these babies are a miracle and my sisters and sister in laws are (or will be) the best moms. It seems like neighbors, friends, and extended family are being blessed with pregnancies. Most of the time I am OK with the cards we have been dealt. I have an illness that requires me to be on medication that could potentially harm a fetus, so being infertile is a good thing, right? (sense the sarcasm tinted with humor?) It is so easy to want to throw myself pity parties. I hate being asked by others when we are going to have another child or told we will only be the parents of one. I hate being the last one to know when a friend or family member is pregnant because they don't know what to say. And I especially hate seeing children born and later are abused and neglected.
Life is full of inequality, isn't it?