Fairy tale week part 1

Am I the only homeschooling Mom who is 90% sure that I'm not doing enough pretty much all day every day? We do a lot of things every day, but I still am wondering if what I do is enough. Hopefully I'm not the only one who is worried about that.

This week was busy busy busy. We did fairy tales this week. We spent our mornings at the pool all week. Then we packed lunch, nap, and learning into the afternoon. I'm thinking maybe next week we'll spend a little less time at the pool in the mornings. I think I'm going to break this up into two posts, because otherwise you would basically be reading a novel posing as a blog post.

Ashley's mom (Hi Megan!) checked us out a big book from the library with fairy tales. I have a few fairy tale books here, but this was nice because it was different.

On Monday I told them we were going to be reading fairy tales all week. So to start out we made fairy wands. Basically I printed a star and had them color it. Then we went a little crazy with glue and glitter.(that's what makes the magic) I taped them to drinking straws, because that's what I had. And we tied some ribbon to it.

Nolan got glitter and glue everywhere. 

When we finished I turned my Disney station on Pandora and the girls danced around for a while. Then they started playing fairies. Ashley was a water fairy, she had rainbow sparkling wings. Kaydence was a forest fairy, and her wings were hot pink. (obviously) I intended to have them sit down and help me write a story about their fairy adventures, but honestly they were having so much fun I just let them be. I didn't see them for most of the morning. While I was preparing them lunch they climbed into their fairy home for a nap.

That afternoon we took a break for Kaydence's reading lesson (I am using Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons) and Ashley is crazy for counting so I brought out the dominos and we had a counting game with them.

We also spent some time cutting paper. They cute little pieces out and decided they were making "fairy fashions"

Nolan also wanted to cut, I let him try. He did not want me to help him or show him how to do it. I let him explore until he got bored. 

TUESDAY we did Jack and the Beanstalk. We read the story and came to the table to make our own beanstalks. We glued the magic beans to the bottom of the page. I helped them draw a beanstalk and they colored it in. Then I had them make the leaves for the beanstalk with their thumb prints! And we added glitter. (magic) I also let them watch Mickey and the Beanstalk. They got bored and went upstairs to play.

Plus we used my awesome chalkboard wall to make it a fairy tale theme. 

Rapulzles tower! We used watercolors to paint the back round. While they were doing that I cut a sponge up into rectangles. Then we used it to paint the bricks for Rapunzles tower. Neither of the girls were very happy that Flynn Ryder was not in the story. Ashley drew him in at the bottom of her page with Rapunzle. 

Check back tomorrow for Little Red Riding Hood and Snow White, which were two very fun days!

easiest ever DIY laundry detergent

Our first week with Ashley was kind of crazy! Crazy in a good way. I was sick for most of the week, but we still managed to have a pretty good time. I got REALLY behind on my chores though. So this morning I woke up with every intention of getting to work, instead I hung out with my friend (way better than cleaning) and went grocery shopping. Which I kind of count as a chore. And we relaxed and watched movies since Kaydence has my stomach ache now. I sort of fell asleep with Nolan trying to get him to nap and when I woke up Kaydence asked if I was finally ready to play yet. I felt kind of bad since she wasn't feeling well, but I also really wanted to clean my house. So I set her up with her dry erase numbers book and told her as soon as I was done I had a special project for us to do together. Laundry detergent is a special project, mostly because it's so easy. The kids can get involved and help me and I really need to get some laundry done. So here it is:

What you will need:

1-    3lb box of Baking Soda

1-    4lb box of Washing Soda

1 box of Borax (found on the laundry isle)

2 bars of Zote laundry soap (also on the laundry isle. It's always hard for me to find)

OPTIONAL:

1 box of oxiclean. I used this last time I made it, but I decided to leave it out this time to see if it made any difference. 

1 container of purex crystals, or something similar.  I like to use it because it adds a nice smell, but that's up to you. Today I bought downy unstoppables. I wanted to know if it would leave a longer lasting smell like the commercials say ;)

Now here is what you do.

Grab a large bucket or box you want to store this all in. I use a plastic 5 gallon bucket. I start with grating the soap. Use a cheese grater, it's so easy. Grate up all the soap. It will dissolve in any water temperature. I almost always wash on cold and I have never had any problems with the soap. Next add in the baking soda, washing soda, borax, purex crystals, and oxiclean. (if you used them) Now mix them all up. You can use a spoon or your hands, whatever strikes your fancy. And that's it! You only need about 2 TBS of this for each load of washing. I usually end up using more of it because I am used to using more, but it will get clean with as little as 2 TBS. I keep the bulk of mine in that bucket and keep a little bit in my laundry room. I use the a plastic Oxiclean box from the first time I made this, it has a little scoop in it so it's easy. You can also pour a bit of it into the purex bottle and use the lid to measure it. 

This cost me about $20 dollars. Here is the best part, besides being easy and cheap. It lasts for so long! I made my first batch of this recipe in November and I only just now ran out. And that's with using more than 2 TBS and occasionally having to wash laundry over again because I forgot about it and it got all smelly. It lasts for so long. 

UPDATE: The Downy unstoppables do leave a lovely smell. 

DIY counting cards

As of Monday we have officially welcomed Ashely into our daytime summer routine! I've been trying to write this since Monday evening, but Nolan has learned to climb out of his crib so it's been a bit crazy.

Anyways, to start off our week we made counting cards.

I took a stack of index cards and wrote the numbers 0-10 on each of them with white oil pastel. I made two stacks so Kaydence and Ashley would both have a set 0-10

After that I called the girls to the table and I told them something was hidden on each card. I gave them some watercolors and told them to paint all of the cards all over. They loved painting the cards and they called out each number as they found it.

Then we took a break to let the cards dry. I did the dishes while the girls and Nolan played dress up.

 And finally once they were dry I pulled out a container of glass beads. The kind used to fill a vase. I put their cards into two stacks. They both drew one card and told me what number they had, then we counted out the right number of "diamonds." After we counted each pile we combined them and added them together. It was a big hit. We've played this game multiple times every day this week. Except today, I put it away so they wouldn't get bored with it. We'll get it out again next week! Super fun, super easy counting game :)

Our beach week

We spent the past week visiting my parents, who just happen to live near South Padre Island. I had planned on a full week of fun ocean themed crafts and reading books. Instead we spent almost all day everyday in my parents pool. (ah-mazing) And we took two trips to the beach. So, we didn't do many ocean themed things. But we did talk a lot about oceans while we were swimming and playing at the beach. My mom got Kaydence the book The Cat in the Hat knows a lot about that: all about Sharks. I've never read any of the cat in the hat knows a lot about that books before, but let me tell you, they are great! It had so much information, it was easy to understand, and it has the cat in the hat. I am now looking to build a collection of the cat in the hat knows a lot about that books, I was very impressed. We read it every night for bedtime. Anyways here is what we did on our trips to the beach!

On our first trip to the beach we had a picnic. The spot we usually use was totally full. Turns out there was some kind of adult daycare thing going on. Anyways, we decided to stop here instead. The shore is rock, and there were people fishing off of it. The kids had fun looking at the water and asking questions about seagulls. 

It's pretty huh? Kaydence wanted to know why we weren't going to swim there. We talked about the rocks and how much nicer the sand would be on our feet. 

Check out how nice the water was. It was so clear and the waves were nice and gentle. 

Nolan was so tired, and very grumpy. He did not like being sandy, and he did not want to play in the waves. 

Kaydence on the other hand had a blast. The waves were gentle so she was able to play and jump around. Since the water was so clear we walked out near one of the sandbars. You can usually see small fish swimming around, but that day we saw some really big fish swimming in the waves! Nolan loved it. Other than fruit snacks, that is the only thing he liked from this days beach trip. We spent a lot of time standing out there looking at fish. Eventually Nolan fell asleep on Grandmas shoulder. It was so cool seeing those big fish. We talked about big fish eating the little fish. After we left the beach we talked about sharks eating fish too. No point in making them afraid of sharks. (like I am) 

On our second trip to the beach we FINALLY made it to the Sea Life Nature Center. We tried to get there during our year living down there, but they are closed in Mondays and seemed to be closed every other time we tried to stop by. It was so fun. It's only a $3 donation per person. They have tanks set up where you can touch some of the animals. Other tanks were full of fish. While we were there the lady walked around feeding the fish bits of shrimp. So we got to see them eating as well. We loved the octopus. And the "nemo fish" who I didn't take a picture of.

 Starfish! That was one of the areas where you could touch and feel. They let you hold the starfish (or sea stars, depending on who you ask) . They ask that you only hold them out of the water for 10 seconds. Kaydence was very gentle and loved holding them. Nolan was a bit freaked out and didn't want to touch anything.

She spent a while holding them under the water as well. That way she could hold it a little longer. 

We spend a really long time with the hermit crabs too. Kaydence picked up the different shells and watched the crabs hide in them. If you hold them for a while they start to come out again. We talked about how when they get bigger they find a new bigger shell. We talked about how they live inside their shells so they carry their houses with them.

Sea horses! 

They had this tortoise wandering around. Nolan thought it was awesome until it started crawling toward him. Then he screamed. It was hilarious, probably not for him though. He said, "turtle eat me" and we explained that"turtles" do not eat little boys. We walked about what tortoises eat. Kaydence asked if she could touch it. She spent a little while feeling it's shell and watching it move around. Eventually Nolan felt brave and went up to touch it. Even though we got to the beach around the same time as our first trip the tide was much higher and the waves were really strong. We played in the water for a long time, but we couldn't go out as far. And we couldn't see any big fish swimming. It still was beautiful though. Beautiful sunny skies and not too hot. I think we will re-visit learning about oceans at some point this summer.

Next week we start watching Ashley, and Kaydence decided she would rather learn about bodies than fairy tales. 

oops

So, I think it's safe to say that I'm kind of a terrible blogger. Here I was making blog posts and adding pictures (a big thing, if you happen to have read my incredibly boring family blog) and then radio silence for almost a month! Truth be told, I actually have started writing several posts during "rest time."

Rest time is the largely fictional time of day where Nolan naps (that part is true) and Kaydence lays quietly on the couch to watch a show, or even better plays quietly in her room. Thus giving me a little bit of a break for my sanity. Because seriously I just can't play pretend games all day long. If you have met my daughter you'll know this is the case. When we meet new people she introduces herself as the character she is playing. Sometimes it is so random that the person looks at me with this "What the..." expression on their face and I then have to explain who she is and why she said that. It gets weird sometimes. I digress.


Here is what rest time really looks like at my house:

Kaydence: Hold on Mommy! I have to poop!

(5 minutes later) I have to potty again!

Kaydence: My eyes are burning!
Me: It's because you're tired, close them and they won't burn
Kaydence: I don't want to sleep!

Here is my personal favorite from todays adventures. I was just sitting here eating a banana and Kaydence says, "That banana looks delicious can I have a bite?" I thought to myself, if I let her eat this banana I'm going to ruin all the effort I put into getting her to sit still finally bbbuuuuttt she does want to eat something besides a bagel with cream cheese. So I gave her the banana. She took out a teeny tiny bite and said, "This is disgusting. I'm going to throw it away." At which point I re-claimed my banana and she asked for another bagel.

Sometimes she is quiet and I think to myself, "she's totally sleeping right now" and then I look over. Turns out, she's usually only quiet because she is trying to sneak my diet coke. Mostly she just flops around, moaning, and asking if she can get up yet. and I end up saying, "Seriously, just lay down for 5 minutes!" or "get up one more time and you're going to your room to rest!" Because being in her room playing with toys is apparently the worst punishment ever. I hear other mothers telling me how their kids just go sleep by themselves or other wonderful restful stories and I'm just over here like, "Well, I watched an episode of Dr. Who so I'm calling it a win" (actually today I watched the x-files)

Point being, sometimes I'm trying to actually do stuff during rest time, but I end up trying to convince Kaydence to "rest" for so long that I give up and decide to do it at bedtime. When I then decide that I'd rather just watch Merlin. The real moral of the story is that I've just been really lazy. This seems like a really long story to get that across.

We do have some changes coming up in our household. I'm going to be watching my neighbors daughter over the summer, so I am going to use this as an opportunity to have a slightly more structured day. I would safely define us as "un-schoolers" at this point. I've been calling it interest led learning, but then I was reading about unschooling and I thought, "Oh, that sounds exactly like me." However, I have picked out a curriculum for next year so I'd like to start us getting used to a little bit of structure. Flexible structure. I'll be working out a loose schedule for us next week as well as a weekly theme. We've been doing themes for a while, but I usually let Kaydence pick. I am going to be picking over the summer though. I've also made a book list that we are going to read through this summer. The first week we are doing will be fairy tales. You can expect fairy tale themed posts in a week or so.

Jell-o Letter practice

Sorry I haven't posted in a while. I got a bit sick, and as usual I decided I would ignore it until it went away. Turns out, that's really not the best thing to do sometimes. I felt awful for a few days, and then I decided it was time to get on with life. (Plus I had a birthday party to set up for Kaydence) Then the day after the party it really hit me and I ended up in the ER! It wasn't that bad though, I was only there for a few hours. I got some medicine and got back on my feet. We did have a few days that we didn't do much besides watch movies and Netflix though. To make myself feel better about letting them watch so much TV I made sure that they at least spent a lot of that time watching Leap Frog DVDs. I love those, Kaydence loves them. She learned her letter sounds from those DVDs.

Today I wanted to work on learning how to write letters. Kaydence loves tracing lines on paper, but that get's boring after a while. So I decided to make a salt tray with alphabet cards. For the tray I used the wooden box that came with our Melissa and Doug sewing cards. I cut up some craft paper and wrote a letter on each one. (FYI, heavier paper would be better than what I used. ) I chose to use Jell-o instead of salt. Mainly because I had a lot of jell-o. I always buy Jell-o and then remember that we never eat it. My kids LOVE tasting anything they are playing with, and I thought Jell-o would feel like a treat. Plus, I can remember doing something similar to this with my Mom. The Jell-o always made it more fun. So here is what it looked like when I was finished. It was really easy to put together. The cards are nothing fancy, and I am going to buy heavier paper or possibly index cards. You can see through this paper. I had to prop it up with the Jell-o box in the back to get them to stay up.

Nolan also got a tray with Jell-o. He got mixed colors. He had a blast playing with it and licking his fingers. 

This was really fun. Before each letter I asked her if she would like for me to show her how to write it, if she said yes I showed her. Then she would erase it and do it by herself. A few times she wanted to try by herself, and if she got confused we did it together. 

I made an effort to be extra enthusiastic every time she finished a letter. I her to know she is doing great, it's a great motivator for her to want to keep learning. 

Around this time she asked for a straw. She held it like a pencil and wrote with it. It worked great! 

We made it to the letter G and she said she was finished. She asked for a spoon and a bowl. She 

spent quite a bit of time transferring the Jell-o back and forth with her spoon.

"Hang on Mommy, I need to get my princess."

Play doh

I'm fairly sure that in every post I've written so far I've promised something about birds. OOPS. Turns out, we're just not that into birds. We've done a few things and read some books, but we're kind of over it. (we were never that into it) We're moving on to something new. I'm thinking a Brown Bear, Brown Bear What Do You See unit. 

What we have done is make our own play doh though! I found some instructions here. 

We don't have cream of tartar. (don't judge me, but I don't even know what that is) And I didn't use peppermint oil or glitter. Although I did promise to make a pink glitter batch soon. 

I did try to line up all of the ingredients to take a picture to start with, but then a couple of little busy bodies jumped in and started dumping it all in.

Miss Kaydence measuring salt 

Adding it to the bowl

Let's stop to admire Kaydence. That's her super model pose. 

Okay, we mixed it al up and then I decided we wanted three colors. We dropped a bit of food coloring onto each mound of "doh"

It took a while to work in, and doesn't look as good as the pictures, but it's done!

We had a blast playing with this play doh. We've tried some other versions of this that dried out really quickly or was hard to play with. This was just right. I keep them in plastic baggies, the only negative is that they get slimy after a while. The pink one had some weird brown goo oozing from it. I threw that one away. I'm not sure if it was because something else got added to the baggie (most likely) or if it was just some weird fluke. The blue and green are a little gooey, but have not yet developed any sort of brown ooze. This was the perfect rainy day rescue! 

I am working on building a tire playground in our back yard. I'll post pictures soon, but don't have high expectations because I literally have no idea what I'm doing!