Minimal pairs hammering

Mini Me loves his tool bench set and often wanders around with his power tools in hand, asking what he can fix.  One day, I put him to work doing some hammering. 


I wrote minimal pairs (words like "leg" and "log" that have only one sound different) on the bottom of an egg carton.  Armed with his hammer and some of Daddy's golf tees, he was ready. 

First, I told him the word and he had to search for it, then hammer it.  After we did about half, I had him choose a word and read it to me.  When he got all the sounds correct and read the word, I let him hammer. 

We do this almost every time we empty an egg carton.  Yay for upcycling!
I also don't really know squat about teaching reading other than what I vaguely remember from the semester I taught bilingual kindergarten.  I don't know if jumping to reading CVC words is the right thing to do before practicing sight words, but it works for us.  

I saw this idea somewhere out there at some time in the past... I didn't Pin it, therefore I don't remember it.  If the idea was yours, let me know so that I can link back and credit you! 

Mom, I think you were right, aka: Home made towel beach bag

I was so excited about my idea.

I was inspired by many different photos and projects I saw around the Internet.
I had a bath towel that needed to be put to good use.  It's a good towel; made from bamboo, nice and plush, dries quickly.  It just doesn't get used a lot (I don't think it absorbs very well).  The "plush" part should have stopped me.

I needed a new pool bag.
According to many websites, it's easy to re-purpose an old towel as a bag!  Voila!
I commissioned my lovely mom and her super cool sewing machine to embroider some summer-themed graphics on two brightly colored washcloths.  Pockets for my bag!

She brought them to my house and they looked great.  We brainstormed my sewing plan and she mentioned, "That's a lot of layers of towel to sew through".  Pssh.  I can't do it, Mom.

Mom, I think you were right.

I sewed the embroidered washcloths on the towel to make pockets.  No problem.
I added the flip-flip ribbon for decoration.  That got tricky as I was sewing it along the washcloth seam.  Maybe measuring would have helped a little...

I turned the towel inside-out to sew the seams.
It was very, um, plush... sewing two edges of that towel together.
I started sweating.
I broke a sewing machine needle.
I envisioned myself staying up until all hours of the night, sloppily hand-sewing it together with thimbles on every finger.
Nevertheless, I still did a fancy thing on the bottom of the towel, sewing it to make a flat bag bottom.
I broke another needle. 
I was so ticked by the time I started sewing the handles that I didn't even match thread colors.  The bobbin color is different from the top color which is all different from the towel color!

I slung it over my shoulder to test it out, and that sucker is huge.  I was blinded by the frenzied excitement of creating something new and didn't realize how monstrous the bag would actually be.   It looks like I decorated a giant, pilfered spa towel.  I am going to be the talk of the kiddie pool and I know exactly which one of my mom pool friends is going to say, "Amanda, seriously?  You're weird.  Watch TV instead."

Mom, you were right.  It was too plush.  After all these years and all your sewing expertise, I should know to listen to you.  Stupid Pinterest gets me all excited.

I still think my towel bag is a good idea in theory.  Maybe I will still be the talk of the kiddie pool because it's a fun idea.  And I'll still have pockets for things.  We'll be able to carry our beach towels, pool toys, sunscreen, water bottles, a dump truck, the microwave, and a few lawn chairs.  Seriously, I think the kid-sized lawn chairs would fold up and fit inside.

If you make one of these, do it better than me.  Use an old, thin, worn-out towel that is not spa-sized.
I do like the bright colors I used.
The decorative ribbon cost me $2 and the bag strap material cost me $2 and the towel and washcloths are re-purposed, so it is a cheap bag.
I didn't even do any cutting and without all the plushness-induced sweating, it would have taken me less than an hour to make, so it's easy.

I'd love to hear if you have any better towel bag making experiences!

And here she is... make room!

Preschool math: frog jumping graphs

Mini Me's interest in graphing continues (read about our first fun times with it here and here), and I saw this idea tied in with frogs as I was browsing a preschool activities website (ahem, I again cannot remember which one so help me out if you know where). 


I printed frogs on three different colored pieces of paper, cut them out, and taped them to the floor along with a jump line. 

We jumped: Mommy, Mini Me, and Little Lady and sometimes Mommy held Little Lady as I jumped which was great for my quads.  We watched what color frog our feet landed closest to.

I printed this sheet with matching colored frogs for graphing.  Mini Me put the initial of the person who jumped next to the color of frog they made it to. 

After jumping forward for a bit, we changed our jumping and stood backward on the jump line, and jumped backward.  That was more difficult, as Mini Me saw.
When he decided we were done, he counted the initials in each column and wrote a number total and we talked about which color of frog got the most jumps.
Hop, hop!

A Year of ABCs: Letter J

Science: J is for Jello
We talked about boiling water (hot) and cold tap water (cold) as we mixed the Jello for this activity.  We stirred and watched the powder dissolve.  We put two boxes of raspberry Jello in a baking pan, and took it outside to play with when it set up. 

This was a fantastic sensory experience as Little Lady poked, prodded, scooped, squeezed, squished, and on and on. 

After a half hour, our Jello looked like this. 

In the end, our Jello sensory play was awesome fun.  But shame on me, shame on me, for choosing raspberry Jello instead of something like peach or apricot.  What was I thinking?  Oh.... the stains.....

Literacy: practice drawing letter J
I in no way expect my under-two year old to write letters but letter J is similar to marks she likes to make on her paper, anyway, so we just talked about it and practice the J shape more.  We wrote it in marker, crayon, and on the chalk table. 

Art: J is for J things
We colored our letter J and added several J-item stickers.  Little Lady loves to color so art is always good fun.  

Movement: J is for jumping
We practiced jumping over things.  Then she noticed the Whoopee Cushion.  Then she wanted to jump on that.  So we did.  It was jumping (with sound effects)!

Music: J is for John Jacob
I won't even try to spell the last name involved in this song, but it's a fun one that involves shouting and whispering.  We practiced singing loud when our arms were up and soft when our arms were down.  We also sang Jesus Loves the Little Children. 


Spanish: J is for jugar

Sorting: sometimes foods and always foods

Sometimes I feel like a huge stick-in-the-mud dictator in what I allow and don't allow my kiddos to eat.  No pop, chips, and sweets are important but most of all, I emphasize eating from all the food groups.  As I've written about before, by building these habits of healthy eating, I hope to make it easier for my children to make good food choices as they grow.
I do concede and allow sweets and treats for special occasions; mostly birthdays and holidays.  Mini Me is pretty clear on what a "special treat" is and because of the consistent ways we have enforced healthy eating will almost never whine when we set limits on junk food.  He spent three weeks eating his Easter jelly beans in groups of threes and fours because I wouldn't let him gobble down a handful at a time!  And honestly, after the second day, he was grabbing only a few jelly beans at a time because he knew the expectation.  No whining!
Nevertheless, I realize I still need to teach him what is healthy and what is not so that he can start to make these good food choices on his own without me around.  I won't be making every meal for him, after all.
Using our play food and a few graphics I printed on the computer, we did a "sometimes foods" and "always foods" sort.
He drew a smiley face and a frowny face on two pieces of paper and began to sort. 

A strawberry is an always food!

Pop, cookies, and cake are sometimes foods.

It's all sorted!

He did this aaallll by himself (that's why there is one hamburger in the always group, and one hamburger in the sometimes group!).  He talked out loud a lot and rationalized his choices as he worked.  I only had to help him with the hot dog.  I don't buy those and I think he's only had a couple in his life so we had to review what a hot dog really is.

This is a fast and easy activity that is important to review in some capacity over and over.  It made me wonder if I also need to re-think my grocery shopping habits.  Instead of going while Mini Me is in preschool, maybe he should come with me and work with me as I load the cart.  I also need to get better at having him give more input for our weekly menu and grocery list.  He's a fabulous eater and I want to keep educating him on healthy food choices... because Heaven knows, I'm still learning how to eat better myself!

Easy, sweet, and useful teacher appreciation gift

This year Mini Me has six teachers and associates to honor for all their hard work.  He was blessed with some great teachers and I think it's important to show them our appreciation.  I couldn't afford nice gift certificates for all of them, but I still wanted to give a gift that was useful and had Mini Me's personal touch. 

Stemming from an idea here, I decided to make a hand-themed gift with personalized hand soap, hand scrub, and a handmade drawing from Mini Me.  If the teachers don't want to use the soap at home, they can leave it at school.  If hand scrub is not their thing, I'm only giving a small amount so they shouldn't feel too bad if they pitch it and just keep the cute container!  I don't want them to feel burdened by a sit-and-gather-dust kind of gift so I tried to make it as simple and useful, yet meaningful, as possible.

Supplies:

* The hand scrub jars are 6 oz plastic containers from JoAnn Fabrics and I just saw them there again this week.  At $.69 they were a bargain and just the right size!

 Steps:
First, I looked up some quotes and verses that went with our hand theme.  On the soap, we have Psalm 47:1, "Clap your hands all people!  Shout to God with loud sounds of joy!"  On the lid labels we printed, "You took my hand, opened my mind, and touched my heart".  

Making the soap labels was tricky for me at first.  I used the profile photo of Mini Me from when I made his silhouette canvas.   I put the photo in Paint and blacked out his face and hair to look like a silhouette.  I copied that into Word where I designed a sheet with the Bible verse and his silhouette head.  Finally, I printed it on a laser jet printer on clear transparency.  (Ink jet printers will not work).  

As a variation, you could have your child draw with pencil on paper, then trace their pencil lines with marker and have it copied onto transparency sheets.  You could also do a number of fancy monograms or graphics... pretty much anything as long as it can be copied or printed with a laser jet onto transparency sheets. 

I used Word again to make the circular lid labels with the other hand quote.  

I had Mini Me draw a little picture on each lid label.  This was a feat because he doesn't like to sit and draw.  It took a few sessions to finish, but they are cute and meaningful since he did them!  

Mini Me and I also traced his hand on six small lunch sacks, and inside the traced hand he signed his name.  Another feat... accomplished!  His teachers know his disdain of sitting to color so they will surely appreciate this.

I used Goo Gone to remove all the labels from my hand soap and it worked great!  I cut up the transparency labels and stuck them inside the soap bottle.  I rolled it to get it in the top, then used the soap pump to poke it into place.  

I cut out all the labels I'd printed on card stock for the hand scrub jars, and Mod Podged them into place.  I let them dry overnight.  

 Next, Mini Me helped me make the sugar scrub.  There are sugar scrub recipes aplenty on the Internet.  Here is the one I used.

I should have used sunflower oil instead of olive oil because the smell of olive oil is very strong so it took over the brown sugar smell a little but the final product is fabulous for any dry skin and smells like cookies baking (to me, anyway!)
Mini Me helped me mix - we did the sugars first, then the liquids.  

 Finally, we put everything together.  

 I think it's a cute way to tell his teachers that their hard work is appreciated.  I anticipate doing variations of this theme for future teachers!

 This gift cost less than $3 total... not that I was trying to cheap out on the teachers, but it was great to be cost efficient!

Preschool math: more graphs

For several days after Mini Me and I did our first graphing activities (read about them here), he would say things like "I love graphs!" or "Let's graph!".  I did some thinking and came up with a new graphing game.

We got out our family cube (used for Little Lady's F activities - read here).

I drew a chart on scratch paper again.  Each person's name was at the bottom of a column.  We rolled the cube, and marked an "x" in the correct column.

This was awesome for several reasons.

First, the cube rolling was wild and running was involved, so it was good for some exercise and energy-burning.  Then Boring Old Mommy put a stop to that when things got wild near the TV.  We still had fun rolling in silly ways at the table.

Little Lady also got involved in the rolling process.

Mini Me concentrated so hard as he made his marks.

We rolled and marked and rolled and marked for almost a half hour. 

When he decided he was done, he counted the marks in each column and wrote the number at the top of the column.  The proud mama in me needs to add that he did this 100% by himself.  Then, we answered the "most" and "least" questions I had written down on the side of the paper.  Using the names already written at the bottom of the columns, he was able to write the names of which person got the most and least rolls.

This was so fun for all of us!

I cut her hair

I have now cut the hair of everyone in our family at least once.  Thankfully, Little Lady's turned out the best.
At the beginning of April, the fang-like thing she had going on in the back of her hair was getting a little odd-looking.  She's had hair since she was born and when she would only lay flat on her back as an infant, she rubbed a thin spot in the back of her head.  That section didn't grow to the same length as the sides so she had hair that was long on the sides and short in the middle.  With her sweet baby waves, it looked okay until it kept growing and growing....
So I had to trim it.
I was nervous.
It turned out okay.

I don't have a back view of her hair, but here is a side-ish view.  

I was surprised at how a nice, even trim made her look even more grown up.  Then she started potty training herself and putting two words together.   Delilah cut Samson's hair to sap his strength and it seems that I did the opposite or something!
And most importantly, I'm happy to say that I'm still the one and only person who has cut her hair, even when a bad backward fall which resulted in a large, nasty gash on the back of her head earned her five staples in the ER.  They didn't have to cut or shave her beautiful locks.  Praise the Lord!

Ball pit love

When Mini Me turned two, my parents got him a "DIY" ball pit: a small, inflatable pool and a big bag of plastic balls.

I laugh when I see this picture.  He's so little.  He's giddy with joy.  And there are barely any balls in the pit!  My parents got a bag of 250 balls and we thought it was a lot.  I ended up buying more and we have nearly 700 balls in it now.  
We have the ball pit set up about 8 months out of the year.  Every once in a while we take it down so as to retain the novelty of it.  When it's set up and ready to play, it's on par with our home made train table as far as how much it gets used: constantly.
We get in it (yes, all of us and I just squished my first ball this week) and swish and wiggle around.  
We throw balls around.  
We pick up the balls from the floor and shoot them back into the ball pit.  
We hide things and search for them.  

Still searching.

Still searching.

Found it!

Anything goes for what we can hide and search for.  This year, the tinier, the better.

Mini Me loves to take flying leaps into the pit.

Our favorite game is for me to toss a ball (see the football here?) and he runs and tries to catch it in the air.  This time I gave a terrible toss.  Sorry, Mini Me!

Little Lady practices her acrobatics.

I swear, she loves the ball pit.  
This year we added a new twist to the ball pit.

It's like a fun house on our porch!  
With the addition of the slide, which often turns into a cave/tent with blankets, towels, and rugs, the ball pit is like a brand new toy.
It was inexpensive and it's highly entertaining.  
It's the gift that keeps on giving. 
We don't need more blocks or trains or tea sets.  
I think we need a bigger pit and more balls!