Weather Week- clouds

I decided we would learn about the weather this week. I found this great website HERE all about weather for kids. I thought clouds would be a good place to start. It even has some lesson plans and activity ideas.

I had them start out by coloring a picture of the sky for me. They both decided that they wanted stormy skies. This is kind of silly, but I was so surprised by how awesome Ashley's clouds were! Since she is older than Kaydence you can usually have an easier time telling what Ashley has drawn. Sometimes Kaydence has to tell you what hers are ;) Ashley made fluffy storm clouds with lightning and rain.

Kaydence is getting the hang of clouds too, hers are kind of spiky, but I was really proud of her. I am pretty sure that's the first time she tried to make a cloud. 

Afterwards I pulled up the lesson plan for clouds (See the link at the beginning of this post) We talked mostly about what clouds are made of. The lesson goes into types of clouds, but they weren't interested in that. It has you put some shaving cream down and you ask them if clouds are made of shaving cream. They thought this was very funny. They played with the shaving cream for a while and then wiped up their spaces. After that I got out some spoons. They felt that the spoon was cool. I had them breath into their hands to feel it was warm. Then they breathed onto the spoons and I told them they made a tiny cloud. That was all in the lesson plan, but they thought it was awesome. 

Next we made rain clouds in cups. I've seen it all over pinterest, but the links I tried didn't work. So I just guessed. Take a cup and fill it 1/2 way with water, top with a fluffy shaving cream cloud and with a dropper have them drop in water mixed with food coloring. They watched it rain in their cups.

About this time Nolan started getting really sick. He spiked a fever so I put him on the couch to rest. Unfortunately for our cloud day he got worse through the afternoon. After nap time I sat holding him while the girls played. I told them I couldn't do their reading lessons today because Nolan cried every time I put him down. Sam was home though and Kaydence said, "DADDY CAN DO MY READING LESSON! I love to to reading with Daddy!" And he said he would love to help them both with their reading lessons. Then he helped the girls make feel better cards for Nolan. They were both being very sweet to Nolan bringing him things to cuddle and kissing his forehead.

This doesn't have anything to do with clouds, I just wanted to share how amazing dinner was last night. 

I made spaghetti sauce with zucchini noodles. I have to admit I was a bit skeptical, I loves me some spaghetti. I tried making a spaghetti squash but it was crunchy and weird (any one want to teach me?) but I love zucchini noodles in stir frys. It was AMAZING. I seriously couldn't taste a difference between this and regular spaghetti. It looks different obviously, but oh goodness it was good. I want to buy one of those things that makes spiral noodles out of veggies, it will make the whole process a lot faster. I used a veggie peeler and then sliced them with a knife to make them thinner. YUMMY. I'm going to make it again for lunch today. We had leftover sauce but no extra noodles. 

Curriculum

For a while I've been stressing myself out thinking I needed to choose a curriculum right away. I've been thinking that what I'm doing isn't enough and negative thoughts along that line. I had a curriculum picked out and I've been looking around for a while to find a good used set. (I love to save a little money!) Then the other day I was exploring a website with a kindergarten readiness check list. I realized that while Kaydence doesn't have every thing on that list, she's got the majority of it already learned. We have been working through a learn to read program. (Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons) I started getting really frustrated because she is a hard time putting the sounds together. I wasn't frustrated with her, I was frustrated because I didn't know how to explain it to her. She can easily identify the sounds and tells me each one, it's just hard for her to put them together. So after asking for some advice I decided that since she is only 4 there is no need to rush it. I decided to take a break for a while and pick it up again when she is ready. The very day I decided not to do it anymore she started asking me for reading lessons. Every day she asks all day if it's time for her reading lesson yet. This weekend I wasn't going to do them, (hey, it's the weekend!) but she was begging for it. So we sat down and worked on it, and then she asked for ANOTHER reading lesson. This time Daddy did it. I've been making an effort not to get frustrated with myself and to give her serious praise when she sounds out a word right. I mean like over the top cheering and high fives and gut squeezing hugs. I think that's what made the difference, she loves the praise. 

Anyways, I started to see that I don't need to push a full curriculum on her right now. She is learning at such a fast pace and what we do is very easy and fun for her. I wish someone had told me to take a breath and calm down. But since I didn't actually tell anyone how much I was stressing that would have been pretty hard to do. 

So I just wanted to write this in case someone else out there is stressing over all the curriculum options. It's easy to do. Being responsible for your child's education is a big deal. I for one am constantly worried that I'm messing it up. Take a breath and remember that it will be okay! Especially at this young age. 

Real fruit snacks

Our Paleo diet is still going strong. Sam has been left to his own devices. He has absolutely no desire to stick to it, and I don't want to force it. I pack him breakfast and lunch. He eats dinner at home, but otherwise he is on his own. The kids have been doing really well. I let them have hot dogs with buns on the 4th of July and they had a couple of cookies. I'm not making them do it 100% like I am. My main goal is to cut out as much junk as possible, with the occasional treat. We've been running through fruit and veg at a huge rate! I'm going to have to re-think my grocery system. I used to buy groceries for a two week span, but I think I'll have to start going once a week. Anyways one of the things my kids are crazy for is fruit snacks. I decided that I don't want them to have fruit snacks, even as a special treat. The other day I came home with some dried mango and kiwis and they were gone in a matter of hours.

I've tried several versions of home made fruit snacks, and they were good, but the kids didn't really like them. So then I decided just to get a bunch of dried fruit and cut it up into little pieces. That way it would last longer. I filled 6 little baggies with a mix of kiwi, mango, pineapple, and papaya. All of which are delicious. I got some of it from the bulk bins for a much better price. The mango I got today was on sale, but H-E-B brand is way way better. Lesson learned there.  Since they are in the little snack baggies I've been calling them fruit snacks. They are plenty sweet and the kids absolutely gobble them up.

Yay real food!! I only put a few bags down within their reach. Otherwise they would be gone in the blink of an eye. I also didn't pre-chop up all of the fruit. I decided it would be better to do it as needed. 

I'm pretty happy with how our healthy changes are going. It does surprise me how many people are trying to pressure me into eating breads though. I'm amused, not upset by it. I really didn't think people would have a such an issue with it, but hey, that's what happens when you go against the norm. 

Chore Box

I don't know about you, but I am almost always behind on my chores. I spend my days cleaning, cooking, and playing with the kids. Most days when it's bed time I look around and think, "what exactly did I do today?" I like the house to be clean, I get stressed out faster when the house is dirty. Which lately is pretty much every day. So I've decided to get my chore box out. My mom told me about how she used this system way back when. I've used it before and it works so well. I just got out of the habit of using it. Now that I've got 3 kiddos making a mess during the week it's been near impossible to keep up. It's simple, and I promise that your house will stay cleaner doing just a little bit every day. No need to try to clean the house from top to bottom every day (which is what I have been doing lately). For one thing that's a lot of work, especially with kids around. With this system everything will get cleaned. You won't need to stress about it because you know it's in the box. Here is how it works:

I got his box at office depot, it's for index cards. Then I bought some calendar tabs, I couldn't find any index card sized ones, so I bought ones for a binder and cut them to the size I need. Next you need a stack of multi colored index cards. You're going to use 3 colors. Pick one color for the things you do every day. Here is my every day list:

-dishes
- wipe down counters
- wipe down appliances
- wipe off table
- sweep floor

Next make a list of the things you generally do in a week. Bathroom mirrors, toilets, sweeping bathrooms, laundry days, and so on. I like to spread my bathroom cleaning over two days. One day I'll do the counters and the mirrors, and the next I do the toilets and the floors. I don't know why, but for me it's way less over whelming when I spread it over two days. I also have a different load of laundry to do every day. One day for whites, darks, towels, Kaydences clothes, Nolans clothes, and sheets. I am always always behind on laundry. I hate laundry with a passion. Actually washing it doesn't bother me, just folding them and putting them away. And we all know laundry is NEVER done. Ever. It's hard to remember, but back when I was using my box I actually managed to stay on top of it. No more late nights folding piles and piles of laundry!

Okay, so for the third color pick things that only need to be done once or twice a month. For this one I have things like

-blinds
- light fixtures
-cleaning out the fridge
-cleaning the oven

You get the point. Some of these I do twice a month. Now let's put it together. Arrange your box by month and date. I keep the current month in front of the box, all of the others go at the back. Put your every day chores behind the tab for the first day you want to start, and then spread out your chores for the rest of the week. This way instead of a never ending list of things you have to do you have maybe 5 things to do. I don't do my chores all at once either. Usually I do all of my daily chores at one time, and the rest of the tings I need to do I pick a card when I have a few minutes. The kids are busy painting a picture? Wipe down the back door. They're playing with toys, I clean the mirrors. Now for your once or twice a month chores. Space them out through the entire month. Give yourself one or two a week. The best part about the once a month chores is that if you're having a bad day. Kids screaming, throwing up, grumpy, or whatever pick up the once a month card and move it to the next day. Don't move it more than once or you'll never do it. The point of this box is to make things easier so if moving your once a month chore is better for you than do it!

I've got my box organized again and I'm ready to roll come Monday. One of the biggest things for me is having the toys picked up, which I did NOT put in my box. I've been getting the kids to be more responsible with their toys, I usually have them pick up before rest time and before Ashley goes home. I didn't do a great job enforcing that this week and as a result my house is a serious mess. It's my fault for being lazy though.

I hope this helps some of you! I promise it works if you stick to it. Do a little every day and you will be surprised by the chance in your house after just a week.

*****I've just realized as I was using my chore box that I forgot to add how to keep the system going. Every day when you've done your daily chores take those cards and move them to the next days slot. As you finish your weekly chores move those to the correct slot for the next week. I take Sundays off chores, so if you give yourself a day off as well make sure you leave that spot empty!

Dinosaur Eggs

An update on how our Paleo transformation is going so far this week:

It's been seriously incredible. Kaydence and Nolan are both eating WAY more than they ever have before (like bottom-less pits) but also the requests for junk food have all but stopped. Even better they're finally drinking plain old water. I have always watered down their juice so it was mostly water and a little juice, but the other day Nolan had a (TMI) really nasty poop that consisted mostly of the juice he was guzzling all day. So I said Ok, no juice tomorrow. He asked for juice a few times and then that was it. That was yesterday, today he asked for water. For dinner tonight we had sausages and chicken cut up and cooked in my skillet. I added some bell peppers and an onion and we ate them wrapped up in lettuce sort of like a fajita. We had cantaloupe to go with it. At first the kiddos mostly ate the meat, but then towards the end of dinner Nolan started taking huge bites out of his plain old lettuce. No dressing or anything. I showed Sam and Kaydence looked too and decided that she wanted a few bites of lettuce as well. I feel great, better than I have in a while and it's only been a few days. Sam isn't loving it so much haha. He is not convinced about the whole "paleo thing" in his words. But he's trying!

We also made banana ice cream, which I've made (And loved) before. Today seemed like a good day to re-introduce the kids to it. They are currently on a banana kick. If you haven't made banana ice cream before you should try it! Slice and freeze a few bananas. We used 3 1/2. One for each kiddo to slice by themselves and the 1/2 because it was left over from lunch. Freeze them and then pop them into the blender. It's easier if you have a food processor, but I don't have one. I had to fiddle around with the settings for a while. Turns out that stir is the best option. It was creamy and oh so yummy. You can add strawberry, mangos, nut butter, or chocolate chips to it. I like mine plain though.

The girlies cutting their bananas. Nolan was cutting too, but he managed to be blurry in every picture I took during the ice cream party today. They were both focusing on cutting.

Doesn't that look amazing? Creamy and delicious! And you don't have to feel guilty about eating it hah!

We also made dinosaur eggs today. I made a batch before that were kind of hard, but I found a new recipe here. Basically it's just baking soda, water, and food coloring. In our case glitter too. I don't know if you're aware, but glitter makes pretty much anything more awesome. Unfortunately I didn't measure out how much I used of either. Add the water very gradually, you don't want it to be liquid. Just mushy and damp. Like so

The recipe also calls for black food coloring, which I don't have. I thought about adding all of the colors I do have, but I decided just to let the girls pick one each. They chose green and blue. 

Make a little pancake in your hand, and pop the dinosaurs inside. I used little ones I got from walgreens, I think you can find them at the dollar store too. Then put some more on top and mold it into an egg-ish shape. Ours looked mostly like blobs. I popped them in the oven for a while on the lowest temperature setting just until they dried out a bit. While they were in the oven we read our cool new National Geographic Kids First Big Book of Dinosaurs. It was really fun, there is a question on each page like, "Would you rather be a meat eater or a plant eater?" Ashley said she wanted to be a meat eater because she likes meat. Kaydence gave me a "I would be a princess." So I said, "Well, what if you were a dinosaur?" and she said, "I would be a dinosaur princess. T-Rex, and I would eat the other princesses."

When they got bored with the book I filled up three spray bottles with vinegar and took them outside with the eggs. They were warm still so I picked them up and gave them each one. Playing with baking soda and vinegar is one of our favorite things to do. We also love spray bottles. It was a huge hit.

Our puppy Lady was very curious to see what was happening. She tried to eat the bubbles a few times, but she figured out they were nasty pretty quickly.

Nolan also tried several times to eat his. Apparently he doesn't mind the horrible taste of baking soda and vinegar. 

Paleo and Dinosaurs

We've decided to go Paleo for a while. If you're new to the term (I finally decided to figure out what all the fuss was about a few weeks ago) it means we're going grain/processed food free. We're going to do it for 30 days and see how we feel. After that we'll add some grains back in slowly. Sam has stated firmly that he can't do this for the rest of his life because he would miss cereal too much. I told him I would make him some Paleo approved granola. That didn't make him feel much better haha! Around the time that I had decided I wanted Sam and I to do it I started thinking about all the tummy aches Kaydence gets. And lately it seemed like they wouldn't eat anything but goldfish, animal crackers, and fruit snacks. I don't want my kids to grow up like that, I know I did and there isn't anything wrong with that. I want them to learn how to eat healthy at a young age with things like fruit snacks being a treat, not a snack. I guess I just want them to have a taste for healthy foods, and not chips. Like my awesome brother in law Jason. At first I thought it was crazy (in a good way) that he didn't eat a lot of the things I love to eat. I guess I am crazy now too.

Honestly I thought making this change was going to be really hard on the kids. You wouldn't believe how easy it was. I got a book on my iPad called Eat like a Dinosaur: Recipe & Guidebook for Gluten-free Kids written by The Paleo Parents.  It includes over 100 kid-approved recipes & projects free of grains, dairy & legumes. It includes cookies and things like that for occasional treats. Healthy cookies. There is a chapter for the parents, and then there is one for the kids. We read it for bedtime. Before we started I told them how excited I was about this cool book. If I am excited they usually are too. Happiness is infectious :) We read the book together and I asked Kaydence if she would help us to be better eaters. I told her that it was her job to make sure Mommy and Daddy didn't drink sodas anymore. (I'm still in mourning over the loss of my Diet Coke) Surprisingly the only thing she was sad about not having anymore are her soft crackers. Ritz crackers to the rest of the world. So I told her that we could still have things like that, but only as a very special treat. After that it was smooth sailing.

I also suggested that we learn about dinosaurs (again) this week since we are now going to eat like dinosaurs. Kaydence and Nolan both LOVED the times we have learned about dinosaurs in the past. When Ashley came over Monday morning we talked to her about the changes we have made too. She's having a little harder of a time about the lack of fruit snacks and animal crackers that I used to have. But  she has been happy to have apples and strawberries as snacks, so it's all good. Yesterday when we went to the pool instead of bringing bags of goldfish I packed strawberries, oranges, and cucumbers. We didn't last very long at the pool (the water was freezing and it was windy) but all of the snacks were gone before we left.


We went to grandma and grandpas new house this weekend. There is a spot with access to this little river right by them so we hiked down and played in the water. We found lots of frogs, a crawfish, and best of all these shell fossils! Kaydence helped me collect some of the ones we saw. (there was a ton)
I got them out on Monday and we looked at them and talked about where fossils come from. We read some dinosaur books and I gave them a magnifying glass to look at the fossils with.

Then we colored pictures from Nolan's dinosaur coloring book. I found a picture of a carnivore and herbivore and we talked about what they eat. They colored them and we talked about what a paleontologist is. I told them we are going to be paleontologists this week. I asked if that sounded fun and they all said yes! Ashley wasn't too sure about it though, she said dinosaurs are for boys. Once she saw that Kaydence was excited she decided it was okay to think dinosaurs are cool too. 

Doesn't that look delicious? I wish I had more, but I destroyed it. For lunch yesterday I told them I was making special noodles and meat for them. Ashley was very curious and came into the kitchen to watch me. I browned the steak bits and used a vegetable peeler to cut thin strips from carrots and zucchini. That was the "noodle"in my stir fry. I sliced an onion too. I tossed in some garlic, pepper, red pepper flakes, and ginger. I drizzled a little bit of soy sauce. (I realize that is not "paleo" but I still have a lot left and I hate to waste it.) It was SO good. Ashley ate two helping plus the fruit I gave them as a side. Kaydence and Nolan didn't eat as much, but they still ate their fair share. I ate all of the left overs for a snack in the afternoon.

Sleeping beauties. Completely worn out. This was a rare day when Kaydence actually took a nap. It was magical.

I hid some "dinosaur bones" on this page for them. I drew dinosaur bones with a white crayon and they painted over it to discover them. Not the best dinosaur bones you will ever see drawn, but they don't care. We gave them their own dinosaur names. Ashley wanted hers to be called the Ashley-o-saurus. Nolan was the Bubba-saurus-rex and Kaydence just wanted hers to be a T-Rex. 

I also got this awesome game for the iPad, the dinosaur zoo. It's cool just because of all the dinosaurs. Each one is different and when you touch it they do different things. The T-Rex growls and eventually roars at you. But there is one dinosaur that takes the cake, I won't spoil the surprise in case you get it, but one of the dinosaurs farts and poops when you touch it. You might be reading this and think, "Well, that's stupid." In fact its the greatest farting dinosaur ever! My kids think it's hilarious. Okay, so do I. Right about the time they were ready to stop playing the pooping dinosaur came along. Nolan walks around the house asking for dinosaur poop now. 

"I see saursaur poop?"

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!