Sunrise Learning Lab

A Tale of The Little Engine That Could...

2012-01-15T18:22:00.004-05:00

Did you ever read the classic story, The Little Engine That Could by Watty Piper?

Source: amazon.com via Colleen a.k.a. Pinterest Mama on Pinterest

Assuming that most of you will say "yes" to being familiar with this tale, most of you will remember the famous line from the book, "I think I can...I think I can...I think I can..."

You can also probably visualize the little train trying its best to pull the huge load up and down the hill...

Well, we have had a bit of a true-to-life "I think I can" saga going on here.

My train ride has been up and over various medical hills and valleys.

Dear Hubby has been along for the ride, as have the boys.
They have been trying to stay positive and chug along as it has been a challenging ride, to say the least.

Back in the fall, found out that I would need to have a hysterectomy and some bladder reconstruction surgery.

Hill Number 1
But then, things got interesting, the first big hill being a ruptured ovarian cyst followed by a hospital stay, as the fluid had got up under my sternum and mimicked the feeling of a heart attack.
My lymph nodes and blood pressure weren't happy about the cyst rupture, to say the least...
Stayed positive, got through Hill 1, and then, loads of tests, blood work, and such.

Hill Number 2
Tried to get clearance for the hysterectomy surgery.
Kept a positive attitude, as I was pretty sure that I would be cleared and on my way...
Did not get clearance to have the surgery from the hematologist or the cardiologist.
My blood is in need of an overhaul and since it is not working correctly, it is straining my heart.
My blood is too thin with some factors (VWD, Factor 8, Ristocetin) and too thick in others (high hematocrit, high hemoglobin) so it is sludging through instead of flowing like it should.

Hill Number 3
The doctors did a CT scan and discovered something: that I have a complex cyst in my kidney.
Translated: Complex means good chance it is malignant...
One of my doctors who had reviewed the CT scan felt that it needed to be taken out immediately so she referred me to a well known cancer treatment center.
So, had another hill to climb this past week...

Luckily, Dear Hubby came along to the cancer center for Hill Number 4 , as it has been a bit more of a challenge to stay positive and feel that "I think I can" attitude.
We went last week and met with the doctor at the cancer center.
Hearing the word cancer, having to fill out a myriad of forms, having to decide about things like Living Wills and whether or not to participate in clinical research is a bit daunting, to say the least...
We got the impression from the kidney cancer doc who specializes in these sorts of things.
According to him, my kidney cyst is "in the bleacher seats", not in the front row.
He also added that he felt that at present, "the morbidity risk outweighs the benefit" of trying to go in and cut this out from where it is situated at the moment.
They would do an MRI and keep an eye on it to see if it grows or moves.
So he ordered an MRI with and without contrast...

Hill Number 5

Had the MRI and had a violent reaction.

Dear Hubby said it was so surreal, as first, they called him to say that I was done and would be out shortly...then, a half hour later, they said that there had been an incident and they were going to hold me for a little longer there...
Then, they called back another half hour later and said they were taking me to acute care...
Then, when he arrived at acute care, they told him that they had to take me for a CT scan of my brain, as I may have had a brain bleed.

From my end, it was equally surreal. Went from listening to 80's music with a little Bob Marley mixed in the sound track in the MRI tube to feeling like I was on a hay ride with 10,000 cats.
Then, went from feeling like it was one of the most wicked hay fever attacks ever, to having the blood vessels in my eyes popping, to having them test me for my reasoning, speaking, and strength, to them deciding to take me for a CT scan of my brain...just a crazy way to spend several hours.

So, now, not sure where things are going, but the train has not derailed and we are still trying to keep up the "I think I can" attitude...

Am taking meds, am trying to enjoy each and every day with the boys and my hubby, and am getting myself geared up for yet another uphill ride this week. Feel very blessed to have such a wonderful family, as well as some truly great friends who have been very supportive through all of this.

It has been quite the ride on the boys too.
They have had their own peaks and valleys on this wild ride...
Little Bro asks me daily how many doctor's appointments I have for that particular day and for that particular week.
Big Bro has been trying to be a perfect helper but gets very easily frustrated and overwhelmed.
He is feeling that he has to be the responsible one, whereas Little Bro has regressed on some days, acting very babyish and even preferring to play with some of his preschool type toys and older works from back when he was 3 or 4...
We have been getting lots of time outside to play in the park, to take in some sunshine, and to let out the stress.
Have been trying to keep somewhat of a homeschool schedule but have realized that there will just be days when we do what we can...
The boys prefer to have a regular routine as much as possible, so we have tried our best to keep things consistent.
We were happy to learn that they have several programs in place at the cancer center for the whole family, so depending on how things progress, we would like to take part in these...

Dear Hubby has had to be in the "I think I can" mode quite a bit too...

He has had to juggle work and home, the boys' needs and mine, and the toll it takes to try to keep things running smoothly when Mama is not 100%.

When Dear Hubby is stressed, he likes to throw himself into projects and into working on train sets.
Working on trains for him is a stress relief as much as a fun hobby.
I have been pinning wildly on Pinterest...over 6,300 pins and counting...

Thanks, Pinterest!

Pinterest has helped me to keep positive and to be able to visualize happy things during this difficult time.
Cannot thank the creators of Pinterest enough, as it helps to be able to pass the time clicking on neat visual images and to be able to categorize them and think about doing all sorts of neat projects in the future related to the pins and boards...

Well, these two hobbies (Trains for my hubby and Pinterest for me) collided in a wonderful way, while perusing things to add to my Pinterest boards, while sitting at one of the many doctor's offices waiting for an appointment, had seen a Flickr photo of an amazing Lego table.

Sent the link to Dear Hubby and so he cranked out and has whipped up a truly amazing train table and activity center for the boys!

Thanks to rb3wreath Boyd on Flickr for inspiring us! Hope that you will like how our train table turned out, too!

Here is the awesome and amazing train table that Dear Hubby made for the boys:

It has been a wonderful addition to our playroom / classroom. They can play with their Lego trains on this table, but they also can use the table to do their school work or to play with their other toys, etc.

Well, hope that if any of you are having to go through personal struggles, that you also keep at it with trying to have that "I think I can" attitude...

With the support of your family and friends, and with strong faith in God, even when the chips are down, it is possible to get through even the wildest and most harrowing of rides!

Am not certain as to how much blogging I will be doing, but will probably keep pinning like crazy, as it is fun to visualize positive images while going through all of this.

If you would please keep us in your prayers, for us to stay strong to get through all of this, I would really appreciate it.

Am hoping that it is in God's plan for me to be around for many, many years to come, as I love being a mommy and wife and cannot picture not being here to see the day-to-day with my family.

Am placing it in God's Hands and am hoping that somehow, there will be a viable option to get that darned cyst outta there without it being such a high risk.
Hoping that they can do the hysterectomy and bladder reconstruction, as that has been put on hold and that is something that is really also medically necessary...

If you happens to read this, and you are or you know of a surgeon or researcher specializing in complex kidney cysts, and / or Von Willebrand's disease, along with other non-specific coagulation disorders, would be great if you have any suggestions as far as less invasive, higher success rate, lower morbidity risk procedures. Would like to get a second opinion and would love it if anyone knows a contact for me at Anderson, Mayo, or the Cleveland Clinic.

Have a great team of doctors trying to figure this out here, but am hoping that someone will pose an alternative way to take this little sucker of a cyst out before it gets the chance to get bigger.

Hope that you will all pop by from time to time, as I may do some blogging...just not sure yet what the next few weeks or months will be like here.

Here's wishing, hoping and praying for a healthy and happy 2012!!!

Wishing You & Yours a Happy New Year!

2011-12-31T19:46:00.000-05:00

Hope that you have been enjoying the holiday season as much as we have here in the Sunshine State!

Wishing you much health and happiness for 2012!

Peace, Love, and Joy to you and your family!

Pine Cone Fun: Elves, Trees, and Scenery

2011-12-22T15:52:00.022-05:00

While at the park today, the boys found some nice pine cones.
Had seen some crafty ideas for the pine cones so I suggested that if they would want to do so, they could make some items for the holidays.
Had pinned some pine cone ideas onto my Pinterest boards so it was easy to pull the pins up to show the boys...
Here are some of the images I had pinned:

Source: thewoolacorn.blogspot.com via Colleen a.k.a. Pinterest Mama on Pinterest

Source: christmasgeek.com via Colleen a.k.a. Pinterest Mama on Pinterest

Source: google.com via Colleen a.k.a. Pinterest Mama on Pinterest

Source: makeitdo.wordpress.com via Colleen a.k.a. Pinterest Mama on Pinterest

Aren't these projects darling?
See how easy it is to be inspired by Pinterest???
Thanks to The Wool Acorn, The Christmas Geek, Cottage Home, and Make It Do for their pine cone craft inspiration today!!!
There was one other pin featuring pine cone ornaments was originally from Etsy, and was then featured on the 4Ya Blog, but the artist who made these creations did not have them for sale anymore.

UPDATE:
The Wool Acorn has both a free tutorial and a kit that you can buy to make the felted wool Pinecone Christmas decorations that she has created! These are so lovely!!! Her felted pinecones were featured in the Holiday Crafts Magazine. If you and your family like to needle felt, you will want to check out this kit, along with the other great needle felt kits that she sells. I just love her blog and her store!!!

Showing the boys these cute crafty images gave them an immediate visual reference for what they might possibly want to do with their pine cones.
Well, the both ended up making an elf, a tree, and some scenery.
They both constructed their elves and trees.
For the elves, they got to use a glue gun.
This is a tool that they do not use often, but that can be a great way to teach a child to work responsibly.
They both were very careful with using the glue gun.
Was there supervising, but they both did a super job without me having to interfere or to assist with using one.
The glue gun held the elves together much better than regular school type glue.
To make the elves, in addition to the glue gun and the replacement glue sticks, you will need:
small pine cones (we only have large ones near us, so for the small ones, we used some that were in a pine cone collection from Target), pipe cleaners, an elf head, some tiny craft pom poms, and some misc. decorations.
For the elf head, you can make it by using a wooden bead and markers, but we had some little elf heads from IKEA.
To make the pine cone trees, you need a rather large pine cone, some school type liquid glue, and some tiny pom poms.
For the table display decoration, you can use an old plastic plate or platter, or else a paper one, along with some cotton batting, some glue, some glitter glue, some pom poms and sequins. My boys also decided to add some pipe cleaner wrapped wooden pieces to their plates. They were super easy to do.

Here are some photos of the boys and their art project:

Have you made some holiday crafts with pine cones?

Have you made some Christmas crafts with mixed elements, both natural materials and artistic ones?

Do you let your children use real tools such as glue guns?

Would love to hear your feedback on this.

Please feel free to leave a link to your blog post if it ties in with making pine cone or other crafts for the holidays.
This post is linked up with Sunday Showcase co-hosted at Mom to 2 Posh Lil Divas and Classified Mom.
Be sure to pop by Bern's and Aimee's lovely linky party to see all of the other neat child centered projects and ideas for the holidays!

Snowman Fun in Sunny Florida (Kinda Crazy, We Know!!!)

2011-12-13T17:03:00.003-05:00

Last night, we went to a tree lighting and musical ensemble at our local outdoor shopping area.
The boys were super excited, as they had installed something new this year: two fake snow machines!
Little Bro does not remember snow at all...he was a baby the last time he saw snow.
Big Bro vaguely remembers it...he was a tiny tot when he last saw real white fluffy stuff on the ground.They ran around trying to catch snowflakes on their tongues, as they that is what you always see children in Christmas themed movies doing.
The only thing...the fake snow was a mixture of soap flakes and foam, so not exactly tasty!
Well, it got the boys thinking about snow and so for today, the boys made some snow themed projects.
Here are some photos of our "Snow Day Fun":

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...Here are the boys at the tree lighting and musical program.

Little Bro is decorating his snowman creation here....

Little Bro and his marshmallow snowman treat!

Little Bro is adding a piece of Dove Chocolate for the hat. He used M & M's for the eyes and buttons and a Jelly Belly for the nose. He completed his snowman's look with pretzels for arms.

Big Bro is creating his foam snowman here.

Big Bro was very happy with how his snowman turned out!

Here, Big Bro is using bubble wrap and paint to make it look "snowy"...


Such a fun Snow Day!!! Here are the boys by our tree with their snowman creations. They used bubble wrap and white paint for the snow, foam covered with white paint for the snowmen, buttons, wiggly eyes, and felt pieces for the decorations on the snowmen, cotton batting and glue for the fluffy snow, and Q-Tips for the snowmen arms.

Do you live someplace with or without snow?
What sorts of snow themed projects have you done?
In case you want more snowman themed ideas, here is a link to my Pinterest board, Snowman Fun!
Here are some neat books and toys that would work well with a snowman theme:

We really should have made snow cones today, as it was in the high 70s here.

If you live someplace where it does not snow, how long has it been since you have seen real snow?
It has been over five years for us...last time we saw some serious snow was while visiting for the holidays in Pennsylvania five years ago!

Well, wherever you are, enjoy your day & your weather, too!

Splat the Cat! Fun for Little Ones

2011-12-06T21:09:00.005-05:00

Recently, we purchased a super fun art activity pack called Art & Literature by Deep Space Sparkle's Patty Palmer.
In this pdf packet, there are some amazing art lessons that tie in with some amazing kids' books.

Source: deepspacesparkle.com via Colleen a.k.a. Pinterest Mama on Pinterest

In an attempt to get things organized for our art lesson that tie in with this unit, we went in search of all of the books* in this unit.
*Will discuss the other excellent books in this pdf when we get to them...

One of the books is Splat, the Cat by Rob Scotton.

Source: deepspacesparkle.com via Colleen a.k.a. Pinterest Mama on Pinterest

When we got to the bookstore, Little Bro was very taken by all of the Splat the Cat books, so we ended up buying several and boy, are we glad that we did!

Not only does Little Bro love them, Big Bro enjoys reading them to Little Bro.
The illustrations are darling, the stories are great, full of humor and good fun!
Everything about Splat the Cat really appeals to a child.
Since it is nearing Christmas, we started with Merry Christmas, Splat.

For today's project, Big Bro read Merry Christmas, Splat to Little Bro.
What a great book for the holidays!
So funny!
Splat certainly tries like crazy to be a helper in hopes of garnering enough helpful deeds to put him onto Santa's Nice List.
Since Splat tries hard to be helpful in an attempt to win Santa over in the book, we discussed the concept of being helpful.
Little Bro did a letter for Splat about what he does around our home to be helpful.

Next, he designed a present for Splat and then, he wrote about what he thought was in the package...
Little Bro had a blast drawing and coloring Splat, making Splat's present, and then, writing about what Splat got as his present.

Seeing how much fun Little Bro was having with his work, Big Bro decided to wrap up his work and then, he also made Splat with his present.
What a fun time!

If you wish to do the How I am Helpful Letter to Splat, you will need the following:
Computer paper
Computer access with Microsoft Word or something similar
A pen or pencil

Optional:
Crayons, markers, colored pencils, and Splat stickers

(Splat stickers come in the Splat the Cat Treasure Box)

Directions:
Read story aloud.
Discuss how Splat tries to be helpful.

Optional:
Here are some discussion points for older or gifted child:
Discuss the concept of altruism.
Then, have the child decide if Splat's actions were altruistic or self serving.

Discuss the concept of good intentions.
Debate if Splat's helpfulness was well-intentioned or ill-intentioned.

Discuss anthropomorphism. What human qualities are exhibited in this picture book?
Encourage your child to create their own anthropomorphic character.

After discussing, have your child or children either write what they do to be helpful around their home.
Create a letter based on this shared idea of helping around the home.
Older children can write out their entire letter on their own and then, they can decorate.
Another writing option for an older or gifted child is to suggest that perhaps they may wish to write an original story or poem about altruism or intentions.
For a younger child, you can have them dictate what they do to be helpful. Then, their dictation can be turned into a checklist for you to read together and for the child to check off as part of the letter.
Then, have them sign and decorate the letter.

For the What Did Splat Get as His Present? project, you will need the following:
Merry Christmas, Splat by Rob Scotton
White paper
Green construction paper
Blue construction paper
Red construction paper
Glue stick
Green crayon or colored pencil
Pink crayon or colored pencil
Black crayon or colored pencil
Black marker
Scissors

Directions:
Have child cover a piece of white computer paper with "wrapping paper", construction paper in red, green, and blue.**
**We added blue for contrast but if you are in the classroom and happen to have students who will be celebrating Hanukkah, you will want to add blue. If you would happen to have a student who celebrates Kwanzaa, you could use black, red, and green for the colors of Kwanzaa.

The child should then take two pieces of computer paper and glue them together to form a larger space to work on for their project.
Then, the child should glue their present onto the bottom portion of their paper so that it is like a "lift the flap" page.
Then, child should create a their own Splat the Cat on a separate sheet of paper.
Generally, it is nice to have a child work from their imaginations to create their art, but since they will want their cat to resemble the storybook character, you can have the child put a picture of Splat on a light table to trace around the shape of Splat or else, they may choose to draw it free hand, but should have access to the book to draw Splat.
Since we purchased the Splat the Cat Treasure Box, the boys took the black and white poster from the kit and a piece of computer paper and taped both to our sliding glass door so that the sun could shine through the paper. They both traced around the general shape of Splat.
The Poster's illustration of Splat is the perfect size for this project.

After drawing the outline of Splat, the child should color Splat with as much detail from looking at the artwork in the book.
Some details to suggest are the green pupils, the little scraggly hairs that stick up on his fur, and the pink insides of his ears.
You may also want to discuss what type of expression Splat would have had on his face when he actually saw his present.
Splat then needs to be cut out and glued onto the top of the present so that he looks as if he is holding the present.
Next, your child should share what Splat got as his present.
Each child should come up with his or her own ideas.
For this step, Little Bro used crayon and drew his idea.
Big Bro created a construction paper collage for his work.
Then, both wrote their ideas as to what Splat got for a gift.

It is so refreshing to find a book that works on different levels, as it truly is a gem of a book!

We just love Splat!

We are also so excited to continue to do fun Splat projects over the course of the next few days.
Splat the Cat author and illustrator, Rob Scotton, has a great website.
There is a nice biography about Rob, some information about his various books and characters from his books, and what inspired him for his stories.
Since Rob did a book tour of the USA a few years ago, you can encourage a child to map out the tour route. You might want to encourage your child to consider creating a brochure about your city and you could invite Rob Scotton to come visit you in your hometown.
Big Bro is going to do this as his work tomorrow.

If you homeschool or if you teach in a multi-age environment, you can have the older children read the various Splat books to your younger ones.
We also cannot wait to do the awesome art lesson that Patty Palmer from Deep Space Sparkle has in the Art & Literature pdf we purchased!

We would have done the Splat art lesson today, but we realized that we are out of both black tempera and black chalk pastels! So we will pick both of these art supplies up soon, hopefully tomorrow.
When we do the art lesson from Deep Space Sparkle, I will add it to the Splat the Cat Pinterest Board that I am in the process of creating.
Would love it if you would check out this board I have created, as well as my other Pinterest boards.

A huge thanks to Patty Palmer of Deep Space Sparkle for creating this great pdf full of awesome art activities, as well as for exposing us to some new picture books that we have now purchased for our homeschool library!

Thanks to Rob Scotton for creating such a fun cat like Splat!
We look forward to reading more of your Splat books, as well as your other picture books.

And in case you (Mr. Rob Scotton) ever wanna come for a book tour to our local Barnes & Noble,
Big Bro will be mailing you a letter telling you all about our hometown in the Sunshine State.

Here are some great links if you wish to do more Splat the Cat activities with your children:

Amazingly Talented Author, Illustrator, and Creator of Splat the Cat and Other Fun Friends, Rob Scotton

Deep Space Sparkle Art and Literature Pack featuring Splat the Cat & Others

Harper Collins Printable Splat Activity (Free pdf download)

Harper Collins Splat the Cat Christmas Activity Pack (Free pdf download)

Neat Splat the Cat Blog Post by Sleepyhead Design Studio

Don't you just love Splat? We do!!!

Please share about your favorite Splat book, as well as any & all Splat projects you have created.

If you share a link to your blog post, I will visit and will add a link to this post about your project. Will also add a pin to your blog post on my Splat the Cat board I am making on Pinterest.

This post has been linked up with Sunday Showcase at Mom to 2 Posh Lil Divas
Be sure to pop over & check out all of the great child-centered Sunday Showcase ideas for the holidays!

Also, in the side bar, am adding a Splat the Cat Amazon Widget, in case any of you want to get some neat Splat books for the holidays. Barnes & Noble, Amazon, and Target carry Rob Scotton's Splat the Cat books.

For the Love of Gingerbread!

2011-12-04T11:08:00.000-05:00

Do you and your children love making gingerbread?

We do!
In the last few years, we have made all kinds of gingerbread goodies:
Gingerbread houses, gingerbread people, and even a gingerbread train.
One year, we made a whole gingerbread village!
This year, we made a gingerbread house and two gingerbread trees.
The trees slid and look more like stairs, but we know that they are supposed to be trees!

Here are some photos from our gingerbread day...

For more gingerbread fun, I have made up a gingerbread board on Pinterest called
Run, Run, as Fast As Fast As You Can...

If you are looking for some gingerbread inspiration, hopefully, you will find some on my board.
Hope that you will click on my board and will re-pin what looks like gingerbread goodness to you!

Would also love it if you would like to follow this board or any of my other boards.

Have you created some neat gingerbread themed projects?

Please share a link to your post in the comments section of this post!

Would love to see your creations!

Easy & Fun Rudolph Ornaments

2011-12-03T10:47:00.005-05:00

If your children enjoy singing the carol or watching the movie, Rudolph, the Red Nosed Reindeer, they will love these simple and fun ornaments!

What you will need:
Craft felt foam Rudolph mini purse (available at Michael's)
2 wiggly eyes
red craft felt foam
scissors
glue stick
candy (Both candy sticks or canes work well)
black permanent marker

To make:
If you are making in the classroom, have items ready on a tray and on a shelf.
If you are making in your own home, have items out on the table.
Have each child lay out their own items.
First, child should take a marker and write their name and the year on the back of their ornament.
Next, have child cut a small red oval or circle to be the nose.
Then, child should glue nose.*
Then, child should glue eyes.*
*It is easier for the child to decide placement of the eyes if the nose goes on first, but does not have to happen in that order...
Child should then select two to three pieces of candy, either candy canes or candy sticks.
Candy should be placed evenly inside the opening of the mini purse.
Then, the ornament is good to go!
Use the mini purse handles as the hanger for the ornament.
Super fun and cute!

Hope that you and your children will enjoy making these as much as Little Bro enjoyed making his today!

Do you have easy and fun ornament ideas?
If you do, please feel free to link up in the comments section of this post!

La La's Home Daycare had made some adorable Reindeer Christmas crafts. She shared them as a guest post on Cachey Mama's Classroom. Here is a link for your to see her cute idea!
My boys, especially Little Bro, will love making these too!
Have a happy weekend!

Please be sure to check out these other neat linkys for Christmas crafts:
This post is linked up with Crafty Moms Share.

This post is linked up with Sunday Showcase at Mom to 2 Posh Lil Divas!

Stamping Fun for the Holidays!

2011-11-30T16:38:00.006-05:00

The boys have been having fun making a variety of projects for Advent and Christmas.

One of the activities that they have really enjoyed is making stamp art.
In the book, Joy to the World: Advent Activities for Your Family by Kathleen Basi, the first suggested activity is to make Christmas cards for grandparents.
That suggestion inspired us to get into the mood of making Christmas themed cards and other items with rubber stamps, glitter glue, and other art supplies.

We purchased a neat Christmas stamp set from Michael's, as well as some other Christmas themed ones from Target and other places.
If your children like to do stamping, the Christmas set is on sale right now at Michael's for $4.99.
Great price for a nice stamp set, as it includes 16 little stamps, red and green ink, and two small glitter glue sticks. This set would work great in a Montessori environment if you add a tray and some paper.
The boys have made some holiday cards, bookmarks, as well as file folders for their December work.
We will also decorate some picture frames and ornaments with stamps over the next few weeks.
Putting out stamping work is great, in that it is something that is very open ended and fun but also gives children some nice fine motor practice.
Coloring in the small spaces of a stamp or adding glitter glue trim requires a child to use their fine motor skills and to really concentrate.

Both Big Bro and Little Bro chose to do their stamping work at the same time today, but am sure that as the days go on throughout the month, this will be a work that they will revisit, either together or by themselves.
As far as storage, one way to re-purpose candy boxes is to use them for stamping work.
We have the various stamps stored in a tiered candy box that has removable compartments from last year. It is very sturdy cardboard and works great for storage.

Do you like to re-purpose containers for art projects or storage?

Here are some photos of the boys and the materials they used for their stamping:

Do your children enjoy stamping?

What sorts of things have you made?

If you have done any projects using rubber stamps and / or glitter glue, would love it if you would please leave your link to your post in the comments section.

Here is a link to other Montessori inspired work that we had on our shelves for December in previous years.
Here is a second link to previous Christmas themed works we have done here.

This post is linked up with Montessori Monday at

Living Montessori Now

and

One Hook Wonder

As well as Sunday Showcase at Mom to 2 Posh Lil Divas

Be sure to pop by tomorrow as we are working on making M.C. Escher inspired Christmas tessellations. Here is a link to my Pinterest Board about Tessellations.

Within the next few days, we will share how to make Christmas Tessellations! Super Fun!!!

What a Great Little Book for Advent!

2011-11-27T20:41:00.005-05:00

Recently, we were mailed a really neat little book to review,

Joy to the World: Advent Activities for Your Family, by Kathleen M. Basi

Source: liguori.org via Colleen a.k.a. Pinterest Mama on Pinterest

Written from a Roman Catholic perspective, it is perfect for all Christian families who want to prepare their homes for the coming of Christ and the Christmas Season. This lovely book helps families, especially those with young children, to redirect their energies on celebrating Advent.

The approach of the book highlights three key concepts for Advent, namely:

The Advent Calendar, the Evening Ritual, and the Good Deeds Manager.

Advent calendar:

The Advent Calendar organizes activities into four categories:

Service, Spiritual Growth, "Homebody," and Pure Fun!

Included in the book is a great sample Advent Calendar.

Each day, it lists an activity as well as the category for the activity.

For example:

Day 1 Activity:

Make Christmas cards for grandparents.

(Homebody)

Day 2 Activity:

Make Jesus’ Manger.

(Homebody & Spiritual Growth)

Day 3 Activity:

Make candy.

(Pure Fun!)

Under the Pure fun section, Kathleen explains how a family can include some of the secular fun for little ones, including Santa. If you have ever grappled with how to include the secular fun parts of the holiday with the Christian religious aspects of the holiday, you will love this book, as it keeps things in perspective, that it is fine to have pure family fun, whether you are making Rudolph ornaments, decorating gingerbread houses, or singing songs about Santa, Frosty, and the others but then, to make sure that as a family, the emphasis comes back to the religious meaning and aims towards developing spiritual growth in all family members…that is key.

Evening Ritual:

This includes both the Advent wreath and the Jesse tree

Features easy-to-understand versions of Scriptures.

Children will love these and will find them easy to understand.

We are really excited about making a Jesse Tree! We have not made one before, so it will be nice to integrate that into our family’s nightly Advent routine.

Good Deeds Manger:

This involves having all family members, young and old alike, prepare for the coming of Jesus Christ.

Since Advent is here, plan to update you as we do different activities from this book.
Have set up an entire Advent Calendar Board on Pinterest so if you want to see our Advent activities in progress, please be sure to check out my Pinterest Advent Calendar Ideas Board.

The timing of receiving this book is amazing, as our family really wants to focus our attention on Advent and spending time explaining to the boys that Jesus is the reason for this season. If you are interested in purchasing this book, you can order it through Liguori Publications.

Joy to the World: Advent Activities for Your Family is also available through Amazon.com

Thanks to Kathleen for putting her heart into writing this insightful and inspiring book!

Also, please keep Kathleen in your prayers. She is expecting a baby due in mid-December and is hoping to make it to term with this active little one!

What joy…to have a new little one who will arrive in time for Christmas! Wow!!! Awesome!!!

Kathleen has a very inspiring blog called So Much to Say, So Little Time.

Kathleen describes her blog as Life at the intersection of Faith, parenting, and the written word.

When you know that that is her mantra for her blog, it is not a surprise that her book, Joy to the World: Advent Activities for Your Family also touches upon Faith, family, and the day-to-day, in this case, the day-to-day during Advent.

Please be sure to pop by and tell Kathleen that you read this review of her nice book and to wish her and her family well on her new baby-to-be!

(Almost) Wordless Wednesday!

2011-11-23T09:01:00.003-05:00

This week, the boys have had a great time working on their projects!

Big Bro has been very interested in reading and learning about knights.
He drew his project's inspiration from a picture book about knights, namely Knights in Shining Armor by Gail Gibbons, as well as two Usborne Activities - Sticker Dressing books: Soldiers and Knights.

Here are the boys in their knight costumes made by Big Bro:

Little Bro has been working on learning about Native Americans. We happened to come across a craft done by the Cherokee Nation where they pound leaves into fabric and then, quilt the fabric.

Little Bro loved the idea of pounding leaves, more because he wanted to use a hammer. He was not so into the idea of quilting, but was very taken by the idea of hammering various items from nature into paper! Little Bro was more into the process of pounding versus the end product...he had a super time, so am sure that the boys will revisit this technique again soon.

We also found a pdf that you can download for free if you decide that you would like to do leaf pounding too.
Here is a link to my Native American Studies Board on Pinterest, in case you want additional ideas for Native American Studies.

What inspired you and your children this week?

We will be off for a few days to spend time with family for Thanksgiving, so hope that everyone has a wonderful rest of their week...

For those of you who will also be enjoying Thanksgiving, wishing you and yours safe travels & happy times with your loved ones too!

How Pinterest is an Effective Tool for Parents of Special Needs Children

2011-11-20T11:53:00.005-05:00

Pinterest Mama wants to share this with you:

Pinterest can be an amazingly effective tool for parents of children with special needs.

Whether your child has developmental, emotional, medical, physical, or other challenges, you can seek, find, and pin resources specific to your child.

You can also share your board or boards with anyone who works with your child as part of your child’s team, such as teachers, assistants, doctors, therapists, tutors, coaches, and sitters.

If you literally want everyone who forms a support network for your child to be on board, why not have them get on your Pinterest board?

Have them add various things that they are finding to be helpful with working with your child.

Granted, since anyone else can view your boards, you will have to make sure that everyone refers to your child as something other than their name.

If you are a parent of a special needs child, you can use Pinterest to help you to do the following:

Enhance your ability to network within your respective community with other parents of specific special needs
Foster your ability to interact with your child’s special needs team (therapists, teachers, doctors, assistants, etc.)
Be up-to-date with new and existing need-specific product, services, and treatments.
Help to get the word out about fundraisers related to your child's special need.
Be informed about traditional, holistic, and alternative therapies.
View buttons of favorite blogs of special needs parents, therapists, and teachers so that it is easier to identify by the pin and to navigate from one favorite blog to another.
View and pin various research and clinical trials specific to a child’s special needs.
Share questions, concerns, frustrations, and successes to see if anyone else pins or @mentions about that same issue related to a particular special need and then, pin helpful ideas to your board.
Easily contact various members of the House and Senate who are actively either supporting or opposing legislation related to your child’s special need by pinning their pages to your board.
You can keep track of upcoming podcasts, talk radio programs, and television shows that relate to your child's special needs.
Can view or create opportunities for summer camps related to your child’s special need

You can do a key word search to see what others have pinned related to your child's special need.

As you start to build your own boards, keep in mind that it will be hugely helpful if you include key words in your pins, as then, others who are looking for the same sort of content related to their child's special need will be able to benefit from what you have put together.

To get you started, here is a link to the Pinterest Boards of PediaStaff.
Their boards include information for OT, PT, SLP, Autism, ADD, ADHA, Apraxia, Sensory Integration, Speech, Selective Mutism, Social Anxiety, Preemies, Down Syndrome, and Dyslexia to name a few...such an excellent compilation of resources...

Here is a link to a schedule of Talk Radio Programs for families of special needs children. If you are on Twitter, you will want to follow @TheCoffeeKlatch.
Then, as topics are discussed, you can add them to your boards on Pinterest.

For anything related to Autism that you may want to pin, a great place to start is a diary of a mom!
Here is a link to one of her recent posts that has loads of links that you may find helpful and that you may ultimately want to pin onto your special needs-specific Pinterest Boards for your child.

Here is a link for those who have special needs related to Gifted / Profoundly Gifted.
If you are on Twitter, you should follow the hashtag #gtchat Then, as topics are discussed, you can add them to your boards on Pinterest.

Works out so well to be able to pull from a chat and pin it onto your boards!!!

For Twice Exceptional, you could easily build your own board by selecting some from the Gifted Board and some that are applicable from the PediaStaff board.

Do you have a child with special needs?

Are you looking for particular resources related to your child?

Please leave a comment and if I come across any resources that might be helpful to you, I will add them to the comments section on this post or else, can send it to you through a @Mention if you are on Pinterest. Also, if you follow me on Twitter through my @pinterestmama account, then I will follow you back and will be able to send you the information via DM.

Are you both a parent of a special needs child and a fan of Pinterest?
Have you set up some great boards related to your child's special needs?

Please, do share!

Well, hope that you will love Pinterest as much as I do!

Have a happy week!

Full Disclaimer:
I am not an employee but am a HUGE huge fan of Pinterest who sees so much potential in what Pinterest can help you to do!

Spelling Target Practice! Great Nerf Fun!

2011-11-18T17:53:00.005-05:00

If your sons (or possibly daughters) are like my boys, they have been BEGGING for Nerf...
That presents a bit of a dilemma as generally, we are not huge fans of weapons.
We explained that while guns may have their place for certain scenarios, such as a tranquilizer gun if an animal has to be checked or given medical care, or for those who work on safaris, either to fend off poachers or if an animal were to charge and they would have not other recourse but to shoot, or in the case of self defense.
We also explained that some people like to use weapons to hunt for food and although we are not a hunting family, that we understand that some people choose to do this as a way to get food for their families.

So, it has been a process when virtually our entire neighborhood, chock full of boys, as well as our playdate and co-op friends, primarily families with boys, all seem to have Nerf and lots of Nerf, from humongous soakers to dart tag weapons of every variety.

After much discussion, Dear Hubby and I decided that the boys could get Nerf Super Soaker Scatter Blasts, essentially over-sized squirt guns / soakers.
They can play with them on our lanai and on certain days when our pool allows these toys.
Well, that led to them wanting to get some blasters called Nite Finders, specifically Nerf N-Strike Nite Finder EX-3's, that are equipped with laser for precision target practice as well as suction cup darts.
Since shooting and target practice are part of Olympic events, we decided to try to approach the concept of these toys as target practice.
So in an effort to focus on how these are appropriate for target practice, we tried to brain storm ways to make and use targets, both for fun and hopefully, for some learning.
The boys created some targets by re-purposing some items they have for play, including a soccer post, pieces of a plastic toy set, and a plastic basket that normally they use for restaurant themed play.
They set up their targets on our lanai and have a fun time shooting at them.
Today, Big Bro wanted to come up with a game that involved target practice...
So Big Bro took some sheets we have from Reading Resource.Net and cut out each vowel combination and then, we laminated all of the pieces onto two big sheets.
Then, Big Bro came up with several words for each sound...this was a game he generated...I just helped with the laminating...
He chose words including crusade, fuel, Australia, Europe, sword, prey, fir tree, foil, middle, devout, stout, barrel, armor, pie, fur, cloak, coat, toes, fruit, bestow, know, and knight to name a few...
(Can you guess that he read a book about knights and was kind of thinking of this theme with the words he selected?)
So then, he pointed his Nerf N-Strike Nite Finder EX-3 at the letter sounds and then, had to cross off the words with that sound from his list. He kept going until he had crossed off all of the words.
Big Bro loved this! Little Bro joined in for a time, but then, he decided to do another activity.
This did not detract Big Bro, as he was thoroughly enjoying himself while working independently.
Turned out to be a great learning activity that was fun on many levels!

He has decided that he wants to now do the same idea only with math facts.

That is the beauty of homeschooling...you can really follow a child's lead and something that would never be possible in a traditional classroom can have a special place in homeschooling.
Big Bro had the opportunity to explore something that could be used in a violent way and was able to use it in a non-violent way. The two key tenets of Montessori that we hold dear, following the child and non-violence, still could be upheld. Yay!

Here are some photos of Big Bro having a blast (literally!)

Have you thought outside of the box for how something could be used in a way that better supports your family's values?

Do you use toys as non-traditional educational tools?

What are your thoughts about Nerf toys, namely Super Soakers and target practice style Blasters like the Nite Finder?

Well, have a happy weekend!

11/30/11 Update:

While looking for more ideas to pin related to Nerf, I happened upon another neat idea for Nerf and school work that was done by The Only Pink in a World Gone Blue.
Here is a link to her neat idea. Neat to use the whole back yard like they did and to aim and fire at whole words! Am sure Big Bro and Little Bro will love trying this out as well!

Wanna See Karen Tyler's Updated Montessori Albums?

2011-11-13T15:14:00.004-05:00

Karen Tyler, Montessorian extraordinaire and dear friend, has updated her Montessori albums!

They are beautiful! Please be sure to check them out at Worldwide Montessori Online!

Karen's wonderful Montessori albums that are ideal for homeschool moms as well as for those who wish to open their own private Montessori inspired programs for children ages 3-6.
Karen pours her whole heart and soul into making Montessori accessible and affordable for all.

Please click here to read my whole post and to see these lovely album covers:
(I could not figure out how to insert a page break into my custom third party template and did not want to risk the chance that I would delete my template, so I back dated the full post for a couple weeks ago!!!)

DIY Crash Me Please! Update:

Our family is in 1st place for the number of page views for ALL of the southern states and in 6th place for ALL of the entries! We have the highest number of comments for our entry too. Hope that you will check out our family's link.

If you would like to leave a nice comment on the site under our entry, that would be great!

Pin It to Win It from www.pinterestmama.com #1: Willow Play Kitchen

2011-11-10T12:37:00.019-05:00

Hello Readers!

If you were directed here by http//www.pinterestmama.com or if you came by way of @pinterestmama on Twitter, you are in the right place!

It's me! I am @pinterestmama and www.pinterestmama.com is my new venture!

What is Pinterest Mama all about?

Well, let me tell you:

Pinterest Mama is a place you can use as a go-to source on how to make the most of your Pinterest experience. For those who are already familiar with Pinterest, you know how awesome it is!
I'm un-offically the world's biggest Pinterest fan and want to help you make the most of your Pinterest experience.

But for those who are not yet familiar with Pinterest, here is the exact quote of what Pinterest has to say about themselves from their own website (This is the exact quote from their own website):

"Pinterest is a Virtual Pinboard. "

"Pinterest lets you organize and share all the beautiful things you find on the web. People use pinboards to plan their weddings, decorate their homes, and organize their favorite recipes. Best of all, you can browse pinboards created by other people. Browsing pinboards is a fun way to discover new things and get inspiration from people who share your interests." Source: www.Pinterest.com

Simply stated, Pinterest is an awesome place where you can Dream BIG!
You can dream - pin - plan - organize - make a reality!
So my thought was to create a place to share ideas on how to make the most of Pinterest.
There are so many possibilities for using Pinterest!
Well, as an intro. of what Pinterest can do for you, here is a beginning idea for those of you who love giveaways:

Giveaway Prize:
Willow Wooden Play Kitchen and Metal Utensils Set.
Perfect for a an unschooling family, or a Waldorf - Play Based - Reggio Emilia - or Montessori inspired classroom or homeschool!
Also would be great for a nonprofit that works with young children!
This is just a gorgeous set, has two shelves for storage, is made of pine and is 37" tall 22" wide and 12" deep. No ply wood or MDF. Solid, sturdy, and handcrafted.
The Willow Wooden Play Kitchen retails for $250.00
The Stainless Steel Cookware Set retails for $22.50
So, the prize package is a wonderful prize worth $272.50!!!
Wow!!!

Here is the thing:

You have to either pick this up locally or make plans for shipping or pick up.

This package does not include shipping or packing.

If you live somewhere that is not close to where we are near Tampa, Florida, then if you want to win, you will have to make your own arrangements as far as how this awesome prize will get to you! You could pay to have it shipped or you could make arrangements for it to be picked up on your behalf if say you have relatives or friends planning to head to Florida during the next few weeks.

A little on the back story of this lovely set:
Had purchased this set thinking that it would be something neat for some friends of mine, but the shipping was going to be somewhat cost prohibitive.
So when I contacted Pinterest, purchased www.pinterestmama.com and set up @pinterestmama, decided that what might be a great way to get the word out about Pinterest would be to give this away to a lucky winner!!!

Update:

This giveaway is now closed. Comments are now closed.
The winner, as determined by Random.Org, is comment #19, submitted by tlb.

Congrats to tlb!

tlb said...

Would Love to Win! Enjoy your blog!! and pinterest looks very informative and Fun for all! Willows products quality look wonderful and play stands could be used for so much imaginative play, Thanks!

Drawing started 11/10/2011 and ended 11/25/2011.
Winner, tlb, will be notified on or by 11/28/2011 following the review of all submissions.
Winner was chosen randomly via Random.Org

Some Disclaimers are here, but for the complete disclaimer post, please click to read here.

Contacted Pinterest and have permission to go as Pinterest Mama, @pinterestmama and www.pinterestmama.com as long as it is very clearly stated that I am not an employee of Pinterest.

Also contacted Willow Toys and have sent them a link to this giveaway!

Here are some photos of Big Bro and Little Bro in our kitchen with this lovely prize!

Wouldn't this be awesome to win???

Fabulous Willow Kitchen Set!

Stainless steel utensils set is in this bag.

Gorgeous Willow Play Kitchen!

Stamp from Willow showing that it is authentic.

My goal is for all of you to want to Dream BIG...
Follow your heart and pin what makes you happy and what you feel passionate about as far as creating - visualizing - and learning for your family and for yourself.

Nature Walks: What a Great Way to Learn & Play!

2011-11-06T18:52:00.002-05:00

This weekend, we went out and about and had a lovely time on a nature walk!
We had a wonderful time!
Nature walks are a great way to explore your surroundings.
They are fun, easy to do, and free!
Plus, they help children to make connections to the world around them.
We were up at The Villages, Florida at my parents' home there so we went on our nature walk on the nature trails there. Such a perfect time of year for a walk! It was actually cool enough for us to wear long sleeves!
Since it was cool and clear, it was a great weather day to take in all that we passed.
Here are some photos from our nature walk:

Checking out what is in the water under the bridge

Hugs and smiles as we stop for a photo by the water

Lovely! Even more so in real life and up close

So pretty

Little Bro's very happy to find some pine cones!

Big Bro and Little Bro on a pine cone hunt. If only this photo could really capture the sun shining through the pine trees and the cool. clear air that was blowing...what a glorious fall day!!!

Pine cone stash! Yay!

Having fun on the trail!

Lovely...

Boys wishing that we would have thought to have brought a bag to place their stash of pine cones in...trying to figure how to carry them all without dropping them

Such a vibrant shade of green

Boys being silly!

A little pause for some meditating and relaxation!

The heron looked like a statue but was real! So neat to watch!

View of all of the Spanish Moss draped on the tree.

The boys were fascinated by this...had to stop and check it out

Fun times! Nature walks rock!!!

Do you like to take nature walks with children?
If you do and have any photos to share, please leave a link in the comments section of this post!
Here are some resources in case you want to do more with outdoor learning in your home or school:

Thanks to Sara Hart for pinning this book to Pinterest! Think it looks awesome!

Source: simplekids.net via Colleen on Pinterest

This book looks amazing! On my wish list!

Source: images.search.yahoo.com via Colleen on Pinterest

Another great resource for outdoor learning!!!

Source: images.search.yahoo.com via Colleen on Pinterest

Plus, if you have not checked out our family's Crash Me Please entry for Yard Crashers, please click to see it now! We have the second highest number of page views for all of the South and the seventh highest for all of North America! We are hoping to win so that our back yard and lanai will be made over from a snake pit to a sanctuary. We want to have our own outdoor classroom and play area.

Hope that you will check out our entry!

Please leave a comment for us!

Hopefully, Ahmed and his crew will be coming soon to do our yard!

Matisse Artist Study & Cross-Curricular Tie-In's

2011-11-04T11:30:00.017-04:00

The boys have been studying about French artist, Henri Matisse.

Here are some photos of their Matisse-inspired art work:

Source: amazon.com via Colleen on Pinterest

We used several resources for this artist study:

Matisse Art Activity Pack
This lovely pack by Mila Boutan provides templates, papers, and a nice, simple overview of Matisse and his work.
We have several of Mila Boutan's Artist Activity Packs and find them to work very well within the scope of homeschooling.

Kinder Art has a nice Matisse lesson plan pack.
It includes three lessons from Eileen Urbanski at the Avon Village School.
Thanks Eileen! We really enjoyed doing the lessons you created!
Similar to what Ms. Eileen did with her students, we read some biographies about Henri Matisse.

We explored his use of positive and negative space, and his use of color.

We did an extension activity to highlight the notion of positive and negative space by using our Montessori inspired land form cards.

We went out and did a shape, color, and pattern walk at the park and talked about what Matisse may have seen while he went out and explored his surroundings.

We looked at and created Fauvres. We also created art similar to his later style of using simple organic shapes by cutting them and adding them to show movement and form.
However, instead of using white paper and painting it to get the perfect color we wanted, we used foam pieces that were pre-glued on the back sides.

The reason for this is that I wanted the boys to focus on cutting the shapes and using them to show movement and form as one lesson. We will do more with color mixing on white paper next week. Just wanted to start with the forms and the concepts of showing movement first.

Confessions of a Homeschooler has an excellent, free lesson pack called the World's Greatest Artists Unit Study. Thanks so much to Erica, as her lessons are wonderful and they tie in with the series of art books that we own by Mike Venezia. Worked out so well!
We have started to prep the Matisse section for a lapbook that we plan to complete throughout the year about the World's Greatest Artists. Was fun to work on the first artist for our lapbook.

We even added in some technology with this artist study: an interactive study on Henri Matisse called Matisse for Kids! This interactive website is part of the Baltimore Museum of Art's Cone Kids Program. Gives a nice overview of Matisse's art. Also allows children to create their own Matisse inspired art at the end of the program.The boys just loved this!!!

Incredible @rt Department - incredibleart.org has an excellent collection of art lessons on Henri Matisse.
Love that these lessons focus on Essential Questions and have so much variety and depth to them! Cannot wait to do some of these wonderful lessons next week with the boys as we continue our study of Matisse.

In addition to making Matisse inspired art, we have done a variety of integrated, cross-curricular activities:

Geography: Study of Land Forms and France
Math: Study of Patterns, Open and Closed Figures, and Positive and Negative Numbers
Sensorial: Positive and Negative Space, Color Tablets (complimentary colors)
P.E.: Movement
Science: Patterns, Shapes, and Colors in Nature.
Language Arts: Reappearing Themes, Feelings (how the notions of feeling happy and relaxed come through on paper, both in print and in pictures / art).

I have created a Matisse Board on Pinterest in case any of you would like to see more about our Matisse Study. Will add links to the cross-curricular activities, along with whatever we do related to Matisse next week to this board as well.

Has been super fun and interesting to learn about Henri Matisse!

Have you studied Henri Matisse? If you have, please be sure to leave a link to your blog or website in the comments section of this post so that others can see your neat ideas and so that I can pin your ideas to the Matisse Board on Pinterest.

On a side note, if you have not checked out our family's DIY Crash Me Please! entry, please do!

Here is a link to our entry. We are hoping to win to have our yard made over into an outdoor classroom and play area. Please leave a comment about our entry, especially if you love outdoor learning too...

This post is linked up with Sunday Showcase hosted by Bern from Mom to 2 Posh Lil Divas and Aimee from Classified Mom. Aimee informed me that I will be featured this Sunday for the Sunday Showcase. Thanks to both Aimee and to Bern for their lovely blogs and for this neat blog linky party each week! Always look forward to seeing and reading what everyone links, as there are always fabulous ideas on Sunday Showcase!

Notes & Disclaimers for the Pin It to Win It Willow Toys Kitchen Play Set and Utensils Set Giveaway:

2011-11-01T14:13:00.001-04:00

Notes & Disclaimers for the Pin It to Win It Willow Toys Kitchen Play Set and Utensils Set Giveaway:

For the winner of the prize, you will have to sign that you have to either arrange for pick-up of your Willow Kitchen Prize or that you will make arrangements for pick-up or shipping. The only person who is responsible for getting this prize to you is you yourself. I am not going to pay to ship it, nor am I going to drive all over the place to get it to you. If you are the winner and live outside the Greater Tampa or Orlando areas, you will need to email me your plans of how you will get this lovely kitchen set for yourself.

Nonprofits may enter. If non-profits or not-for-profits do, this would be considered a donation so you would have to provide the appropriate paper work for this.

Individuals may enter.

This giveaway is open to anyone who has a way to get this wonderful prize for themselves. So, say if you live in another country but have friends or family who will be spending the winter in Florida and they can get it for you, then you may enter.

If you enter this contest, it is implied that you are giving up the right to then try to go out and solicit to do this exact same sort of contest on you blog. Have worked hard to come up with this neat contest and am not doing it so that someone will win it only to give it away as a prize on their blog. Nor am I working on putting this all together for someone to win and then, use the contact information to try to set up their own Pinterest giveaways similar to my Pin It to Win It. You will also be giving up the right to give away products from Willow, as I am not going to make an in-roads and then, have someone else decide that they are going to do giveaways using my good name.
This has happened before and I will not let it happen again.

I own the domain and the rights to www.pinterestmama.com, www.sunriselearninglab.com, as well as the intellectual property rights to Fab Fresh Fun Format for Twitter & Blog Party Combo., Posse of Pinterest Peeps, @F5th, and @pinterestmama.

You acknowledge that I am not an employee of Pinterest or Willow Toys and that they are not to be held harmless in any way for anything related to this giveaway.

I contacted Pinterest and have permission to go as Pinterest Mama, @pinterestmama and www.pinterestmama.com as long as it is very clearly stated that I am not an employee of Pinterest.

I also contacted Willow Toys and have sent them a link to this giveaway!

I am writing this disclaimer on 11/10/2011 but am back dating the disclaimer to 11/01/2011 so that it does not show up in my blog feed for those who want to just read my blog and do not wish to enter this giveaway.

Montessorian Karen Tyler Has Updated Her Albums for ages 3-6!

2011-11-01T07:18:00.003-04:00

For those of you who have been regular readers of Sunrise Learning Lab, you know that I think the world of Karen Tyler and her fabulous program and albums.

Cannot say enough nice things about Karen and Worldwide Montessori Online

Karen Tyler is a wonderful Montessorian and has been a real inspiration to many of us, largely homeschooling moms...

Karen gets it...
She gets that there may very well be great reasons (ranging from spiritual to physical, from financial to philosophical) WHY we homeschool and why we choose to utilize Montessori materials and the Montessori philosophy in our homes.
She gets the notion of a Montessori inspired home and also gets the idea that some of us choose to not only use Montessori but also to incorporate some other materials and philosophies into something that works for our children.
She gets that we are all on our own life journey and that one size does not fit all with respect to educational settings, for some children have very specific environmental or learning needs, so Karen has been willing to share her expertise in helping us to navigate how to try to "do Montessori" in the home.
Karen gives it...
She gives freely of herself, her experiences, her materials, her insights...
She has made her online training, her excellent albums, and her lectures, essays, helpful hints very accessible.
She is incredibly generous. She does not charge nearly what her training is worth...she wants to share her wealth of knowledge and does so out of the goodness of her heart.

Although I have additional degrees in education and have classroom teaching experience, going through Karen's program really helped me to chart a course for homeschooling my sons. Homeschooling is a whole other "ballgame" than being in the classroom in a school setting, regardless of whether it is public or private, traditional or progressive, etc.

She offers both online training and albums, as well as albums for purchase. These albums are ideal for those who wish to provide a Montessori inspired homeschool environment for their children or for those who might be thinking of opening their own private Montessori school.

So, without further ado, here is a sneak peek of Karen's updated albums. I had the opportunity to preview one of her updated albums and it is wonderful! Am sure that the rest will be equally as nice!

Thanks for all that you do for the Montessori inspired homeschool community, Karen!

Amazing Geography & Art Project to Discuss Landforms! Perfect for Families or Classrooms!

2011-10-27T07:47:00.006-04:00

Do you and your children like learning about world geography and art?

Are you looking for a neat long term project related to landforms for either your home or classroom?

Well, today's post has some great ideas for you if you are doing just that!

Our family has been exploring landforms in the scope of homeschooling.
We are always adding to our learning by integrating additional projects into our geography studies.
Since the boys love art projects, we have been adding more art into our day-to-day, based on the boys' interests as well as current topics we are studying.

For any of you discussing landforms with your children, here is an awesome art & geography project courtesy of Crayola that highlights landforms:

Source: crayola.com via Colleen on Pinterest

What is fun is that Crayola has a lesson plan that is all mapped out so if you are a parent and want to do this as a family weekend project, or if you are a homeschool family who would like to do this as part of the homeschool week, or if you are in the classroom as a teacher or guide, you can take the lesson plan that they give and tweak it for your needs while your children make a fabulous display that could work well as a wall hanging or bulletin board. The lesson lays out all of the supplies you would need to make this project happen, although you could easily switch up the art supplies depending on what you have in your home or classroom...

Disney FamilyFun also has a great felt landscape banner project that would work very well with little ones. What is nice about the Disney FamilyFun project is that it has printable pages of the felt pieces that you would need to make, so that a child can use these as templates to cut out their felt pieces.
Also neat is that in addition to just having the landscape, the banner also features some of the animals and plants from that biome:

Source: familyfun.go.com via Colleen on Pinterest

The shapes and the concept of the Disney FamilyFun banner look a little more simplistic than the one from Crayola. Might even be neat to integrate the two projects from both Crayola and Disney FamilyFun into one big project!

Our family plan is to make this and tweak the materials a bit, instead of paper, we intend to use felt.
We are big fans of felt here! Think that most of the paper pieces for this project could easily be made with felt instead of paper.

As far as background materials to cover the concepts of landforms, we have some wonderful materials from Laughing Star Montessori that have helped to lay a solid foundation for the boys.
From handwriting materials to three and four part card sets, we have been so happy with their materials. We are very blessed to have a wonderful relationship with Laughing Star Montessori.
Every Laughing Star Montessori material we have either been given to review or we have purchased has been an instant favorite with the boys!
Susan, owner of Laughing Star Montessori, has made such wonderful materials for children in early elementary, ages 3-6, as well as children in elementary, ages 6-9.

If you are a new Montessori guide, you should consider building all of your card materials around what Susan has to offer and purchasing the lovely materials from her for your classroom needs.
The laminated cards Susan has are simply amazing! They are unmatched in the Montessori materials industry! They would last you and your students a lifetime, as they are so durable.

What makes Susan's materials stand out from the rest is that she gets it that non-Montessori trained folks also might want to incorporate Montessori-inspired learning into their day-to-day, whether they are homeschool parents, parents of a child attending a traditional school, or a classroom teachers in a traditional school.
Laughing Star Montessori card materials come with a wonderful sheet that explains how to present these cards, as well as the actual idea for the lesson and for lesson extensions.
If you are thinking that you would like to explore how to integrate a Montessori approach into your home or traditional classroom but are not sure of where to start, using her lovely materials will be an excellent introduction to what can be possible with Montessori-inspired learning.
Her cards give such wonderful background information, along with fabulous photos of the images for each card.

My sons simply love using materials made by Laughing Star Montessori!

For those of you, who like our family, might be studying landforms, here are some terrific sets from Laughing Star Montessori to get you started:

World Land & Water Set - Elementary*
(*There is also an Early Elementary version of this work for little ones):

Source: laughingstarmontessori.com via Colleen on Pinterest

Here is a super set for Cave Formations for Elementary:

Source: laughingstarmontessori.com via Colleen on Pinterest

We have the Cave Formations Set and just love it!
It is one of Big Bro's favorite works!

Here is Big Bro enjoying exploring Cave Formations! So cool to learn about caves and caverns!!!

Laughing Star Montessori also has a great handwriting series. The Beautiful Handwriting Series: World Geography Masters is perfect for the study of landforms! We have this book and it is great!
You can get it in cursive, print, or d'Nealian. Here is a photo of our cover of this book:

The Laughing Star Montessori Beautiful Handwriting Geography Masters helps to give a young child a solid grasp of geography vocabulary. We have this book and use it pretty regularly.

Having excellent card materials and handwriting materials will be a solid way to get your children the background information that they need to get landforms, although it could work to do the art project and then, drive home what has been created with Montessori-inspired shelf work based on the card and handwriting materials.

You could either make the landforms art project first and then, explore the Montessori-inspired cards or you could do what our family is doing: use the Montessori card sets first and then, make the landforms banner...

Either way would work...just have to do what works best for you and your children...

Well, hope that this will inspire you and your children to want to do a cool long term project to drive home the concept of landforms.

We will probably do bits and pieces of our felt landforms project over the course of the year, but from time to time, will upload some photos of our work in progress.Will probably add the photos to my Pinterest Felt Projects Pinboard.

If you have not joined Pinterest yet, you should! It is awesome!!!

Do your children enjoy integrating art into their daily learning?

How has it worked for you to integrate geography and art?

If you have done any neat projects related to landforms or geography in general and you would like to share, please leave a link in the comments section of this post!

Speaking of hands-on learning and family fun, have you checked out our family's entry in the DIY Crash Me Please contest???

Hope that you will take a few minutes to see our entry and to please leave a comment. We are hoping that DIY will select us to make over our back yard and lanai into an amazing outdoor classroom and play area...we want to go from Snake Pit to Sanctuary!!! Please pop by and tell us what you think of the boys' ideas for an outdoor classroom and play area!

Full Disclosure:
As a family, we review materials for Laughing Star Montessori, in addition to being a paying customer of the business. Opinions expressed in this post are my own honest opinion of the materials and the projects mentioned in the post. Was not expressly asked to highlight Laughing Star Montessori, Crayola, Disney FamilyFun, Pinterest, or DIY but am happy to do so!

The Smoothie Shop!

2011-10-25T16:17:00.004-04:00

The boys have been on a smoothie kick lately, especially Little Bro.

They love buying pre-made smoothies, but they also LOVE coming up with their own concoctions.

This is not really a surprise though, as I like to do the same thing!

Ever since the boys were little, we have made a smoothie for them that we call "Sunrise Surprise"...
What is that, you ask?!?
Well, basically, it is orange juice with whatever other sort of other reddish juice or berries we have on hand, from strawberry to pomegranate...
We usually make the smoothies by just pouring a variety of juices and some crushed ice into cups and stirring or shaking.

Every once in a while, we toss in a little yogurt.
If we have fresh fruit on hand, we will puree that and add a little to the smoothie...but that is it.

Well, Little Bro decided that all this week, we should have a smoothie shop in our home.
He made up the menu, named his smoothies, created the work calendar, and set the prices.
Little Bro said that the shop will always be closed on Wednesdays because we usually do play dates on Wednesdays. Neither boy wanted to miss a play date to run the smoothie shop.

Little Bro suggested that he could be "the maker of the smoothies and the shop owner."
He then suggested that Big Bro could be "the helper of making the smoothies and the customer."
Little Bro said that Big Bro is also going to be "the guy who handles the business side of things."
Big Bro has been learning about how taxes work in his social studies lessons, so even though this is a pretend business, he will still work on figuring taxes and marketing, etc.
Little Bro said that Daddy and I get to be customers, and we have to pay him with real money!!!

We have been doing some product testing the last few days.

Both boys' smoothies sound so good that I can't wait to try all of them!

Berry-Grape and Berry-Berry-Banana are very yummy!
So that is the plan.

We will have this whole week as a practice week and then, next week will be the real opening.

The boys have been helping to clean up the lanai, as they plan to use it as their shop area, along with our real kitchen.

Should be a fun time!

Well, here are some photos of prepping things for The Smoothie Shop!
Real life learning at its "finest & funnest"!!!

Big Bro is making mini slush-typesmoothies.

Little Bro is filling the mini slush cups with the smoothie concoction.

Big Bro is organizing the mini slush cups before pouringing them into the freezer.

Little Bro is working on the signs and the menu for the Smoothie Shop.

What sounds good to you? Berry-Berry Banana, Berry-Grape, Sunshine Pineapple, Berry-Apple, Apple-Pineapple, or Berry-Berry-Pineapple? And do you full sized or mini slush-smoothies?

Cover of Little Bro's menu for The Smoothie Shop...

Gotta taste test before putting the products on the menu!!!

Big Bro and Little Bro having a business meeting. Big Bro is giving his input into the business here (while being wrapped up in a blankie!)

One of the staple ingredients for the smoothies...the boys chose Welch's because it is made in Erie County, where Mommy grew up, and also because Alton Brown is their spokesperson and they love watching Alton Brown on the Food Network!

Our other smoothie staples...we just love Naked Juices!

This one was a hit with Little Bro...he had a tiny bit left and offered me a sip of his test product.

Do your children like to create little businesses?

Do you let them use real products and real money or do you have them use play products and play money?

Well, if you have an idea of a business that you have done with your children as a practical life / role playing sort of thing, please feel free to leave a link in the comments section of this post.

Would love to see what you have done in your homeschool or your classroom!

And speaking of real-life learning, we entered to win a chance to have our backyard made over from a snake pit to a learning and relaxing sanctuary...we are hoping to win an outdoor classroom and play area. Would you please take a minute to click on our DIY Crash Me Please entry?
If you would like to leave a comment on our entry at DIY, that would be great too!

Halloween Math Fun for Older Ones! (Ages 6-9)

2011-10-23T12:37:00.003-04:00

Today's post is about some neat and inexpensive ideas of fun for children, ages 6-9, for Halloween themed math fun!

To do these activities, you will need to do the following:

1. Find a large assortment of Halloween themed manipulatives, such as mini erasers or plastic rings that are meant to be Halloween party favors.

2. Make or purchase the following charts:
Venn Diagram paper chart or Venn Diagram math tray...
Sorting paper chart or sorting math tray...
Graphing paper chart or graphing math tray...

Here is a link to the Lakeshore Learning math trays. We have these trays. The boys love using them!

3. You will need:
Some paper, pencils, and various bins, jars, and baskets for the erasers.

4. For a more Montessori-inspired setting, you may also wish to add the Hundreds Board, Fraction Circles, wooden trays, and self-check charts for the Control of Error for these activities. This way, as the child works through the activity, he or she will be able to check to see if their answers are correct. For the activities that involve using the Hundreds Board, the Hundreds Board also inherently works as the Control of Error for this work, as there is only room for one eraser per space on the Hundreds Board.The same is true with the Fraction Circles. The wooden trays are so that the child can easily carry his or her work to their work space with ease.

For the set-up for each math work, determine whether or not your child or children are familiar with the following math concepts. Make the call if this concept is new and will require a mini lesson on how to do the work or if it is a skill that they already know how to do...

Fractions

Have the child go through the Halloween erasers and set them into groups.
For a child who still needs a very concrete experience, you can use your Fraction Circles with this work. Have the child stack the erasers on the Fraction Circles to get the hang of how to determine the fractions.You could also have a child use your set of Fraction Skittles if you do not have Fraction Circles. To do this, have the child set up the Fraction Skittles, then, behind each section of the skittle, the child should place one eraser. Either way, whether you use Fraction Circles or Fraction Skittles, the child gets to see the one to one correspondence for each part of the fraction.
If a child has yet to learn how to simplify fractions, you can do a mini-lesson after they have grouped their erasers. For a child who already knows how to simplify fractions, you can have them simplify after they figure the initial amounts.
For a Variation of doing fractions work, if you have fractions dice, you can have the child roll the dice on their tray and then, do then problem using the erasers. Then, depending on how proficient they are with fractions, they could add, subtract, multiply or divide the fraction amounts rolled on the dice.
They also could play a game where the first roll is their roll and the second roll is the challenge roll. They can then compare if their roll is greater than or less than the challenge roll.

Decimals

You can either have the child convert their fractions into decimals or else, for a more concrete experience, you can use the Hundreds Board. Have the child place one eraser on each block of the hundreds board in random order...some children may decide that it will be easier to place each type of eraser into groups on the board...others might choose to keep the board random but will then figure out how many out of 100 are a particular type of eraser by counting the various types of erasers one group at a time.

Percentages

Pretty much the same as above, converted into a percentage...

Multiplication

Give the child the basket or bin of erasers and see if they can make some multiplication facts out of the piles.

Division

Have the child try to make division facts using the erasers...you may want to pull out your division facts box for your child to refer to, to make sure that they have covered the different facts.

Estimation

If the child is familiar with estimation, have them estimate how many erasers are in each bin, basket, or container.
For estimating how many are in a filled container, you can use a large amount and then, see how they work through trying to estimate the total.
You can have an older child or a child who understands the concepts behind estimation to give some pointers to a younger child who has not had a lesson on estimation yet.
Clear containers, whether they are glass or plastic, work best for estimation work.
Mason canning jars, applesauce jars, spaghetti sauce jars, and leftover Rubber-maid type containers, etc. work well...
You can also do the reverse of this by having them start with an empty container and having them estimate how many erasers they think will fit into the container. Empty single serving applesauce cups and baby food jars work well for this estimation activity...
Both of these activities also reinforce the concept of re-purposing and re-using containers, so bonus there!

Solve for X

Using a different eraser for each problem, solve for X.
Set up problems for your child for any of the operations where the eraser represents X.
3rd Grade Gridiron made super cute Halloween flash cards where the child has to solve for X for both multiplication and division problems. We had already done solving for X using the erasers so it was a great transition to then have Big Bro solve for X using these adorable Halloween themed cards.
If you have not checked out 3rd Grade Gridiron and you have a child around the age of a third grader, be sure to check out her lovely blog! She has some wonderful freebies and really neat ideas!

Graphing

For a concrete graphing experience, the graphing math tray from Lakeshore Learning is excellent, as the child literally places one in each space on the graph.
The graphing tray literally work as a Control of Error, as there is only room for one eraser per space.
For a child who is more comfortable with a more abstract version of graphing, the child can make a paper graph on chart paper.
For graphing work, limit it to say five different types of erasers...then, have them graph how many there are of each type.
Again, if a younger child has not had much experience with graphing, this is something that an older child can easily model for a younger child...

Venn Diagram

The Lakeshore Learning Venn Diagram math tray is a very visual, very concrete way for a child to lay out how the erasers are alike and different.
If a child is new to doing Venn Diagrams, you can intentionally limit what is in the bin or on the tray for them to compare and contrast...

Depending on where you particular child is at with these math skills, you can design mini-lessons similar to how you would do a Montessori math presentation.

Hopefully, your child will enjoy doing these fun, Halloween themed math activities as much as Big Bro has been enjoying doing them!

In case you are looking for Halloween fun for little ones, ages 3-6, here is a link that shows you all of my Halloween and fall themed posts, many of them featuring ideas for younger children.

Hope that you find these ideas helpful! Happy fall fun!

Disclosure:
I was not asked by Lakeshore Learning to highlight the math trays mentioned in this post. Rather, wanted to tell you about them, as we have them and love them! One of the best math purchases ever! You can use them for all sorts of subject areas beyond just math, too.
Regarding mentioning the Hundreds Board, the Fraction Circles, and the Fraction Skittles:
Again, these are materials that we have and use for these sorts of math works.
Ours are not necessarily the same brand as the ones I have listed. I just did a search and found ones that have direct links to similar products like the ones we have in our home.

Please Help Us Go From Snake Pit to Sanctuary!!!

2011-10-16T15:15:00.001-04:00

Hello readers, if you could please take a few minutes to go visit this link on the DIY Network, please watch the videos, check out the photos, and leave a comment for the DIY Crashers to choose to crash our back yard! We would love it if they would make over our back yard to take it from being a snake pit to a sanctuary...a great space to play, learn, relax, and grow.

Here is the link to our entry.

For some reason, all of the video clips are either on their side or upside down, so hope that you will still try to watch and to leave a comment for them to please choose to crash our yard!

Our yard seems to really attract Cottonmouth Snakes, Marine Toads, Nasty Hornets, and occasionally Cuban Tree Frogs...none of these are really kid or dog-friendly.

Since we have had such a snake and hornet issue, and since it is so overgrown, we never use our back yard. It could be an awesome outdoor classroom and play area!

Please leave comments so that they will hopefully choose to "Crash" our yard!

We would love to win so that the boys would have an amazing outdoor place as part outdoor classroom, part play area. Dear Hubby would just love a nifty, updated grill area, too, although we did not mention that in our entry...

Big Bro, Little Bro, Dear Pup, Dear Hubby & I would love it if you would please leave a comment for them to select our entry!

Thanks and hope that all of you had a happy weekend!

What a Weekend: Blog Action Day & World Food Day!

2011-10-15T13:20:00.001-04:00

Did you know that this weekend is both Blog Action Day and World Food Day?
How about that here in the U.S.A., October 24th has been designated as National Food Day?

Well, we are just learning and can't wait to do a family project related to the theme of Food!

How has this unfolded for us as a family?

Well, today's BrainPOP movie happens to be on Blog Action Day.

(So you will know, I moved the BrainPOP Daily Featured Movie to my side bar, so that it is there each and every day for all of you to access right through my blog.
You can click on the four arrows icon to enlarge the movie to full-screen size.)

Thanks to BrainPOP for highlighting Blog Action Day and giving an overview about what a blog is in a way that makes it concrete for young children.

Had not heard of Blog Action Day until watching this movie with the boys.
See, when you homeschool, you learn right along with your children each and every day!

Following watching the movie, did a search and found out that according to Wikipedia, Blog Action Day is an annual worldwide event where bloggers write about a single topic on October 15th or 16th of every year.

From the topics I have seen listed, it seems as if they are designed to raise awareness about social justice and major issues that the world is facing:

Environment (2007)
Poverty (2008)
Climate Change (2009)
Water (2010)

This year's theme is Food.

Since October 16th has been designated as World Food Day, many people will be posting for Blog Action Day around the theme of Food on both October 15th and 16th.

The theme for World Food Day for 2011 is Food Prices: from Crisis to Stability.

According to the FAO, the organization that is spear-heading this day,

“FOOD PRICES – FROM CRISIS TO STABILITY” has been chosen as this year’s World Food Day theme to shed some light on this trend (of upswings in food prices) and what can be done to mitigate its impact on the most vulnerable.

On World Food Day 2011, let us look seriously at what causes swings in food prices, and do what needs to be done to reduce their impact on the weakest members of global society.

So what are your thoughts and ideas for Blog Action Day and / or for World Food Day? If you are an American, what are your thoughts and ideas related to National Food Day?

Since we just found out that this is the theme, will do some brainstorming with the boys to see what we can do as a family on this theme to raise an awareness as a family about issues surrounding food in the world, as well as locally, here in our community...

We could do a project for the soup kitchens or food banks in our area, or we could learn about organic produce and how it is best to eat what is grown locally and is in season...and how to encourage people to buy and eat organic and locally grown when there is a misconception that anything organic automatically means expensive...or maybe a combination of these.

Do you have any specific plans for Blog Action Day, World Food Day, or National Food Day?
National Food Day is celebrated each year here in the USA.

Here is our area, National Food Day is being celebrated on October 24th.

Sweetwater Organic Community Farm is partnering up with Whole Foods Market to have a special events for National Food Day.

According to their website, Sweetwater Organic Community Farm is set up as a non-profit community-supported urban organic farm and environmental education center.
They have an excellent Vision, Mission Statement, and Values.
Sweetwater Organic Community Farm really reaches out into the community and provides wonderful educational experiences for all.
Plus, they grow and sell wonderful organic produce.
There is a very good chance that our family project will involve something related to Sweetwater Organic Community Farm, so if we do, will share with you in the future about our visit there and the project we chose to do.

We love Whole Foods Market, although we really wish that they would build one closer to us!

We are glad that both Whole Foods Market and Sweetwater Organic Community Farm are both working in conjunction with a project for National Food Day. We can't wait to find out more about their project!

If you are doing something, do you plan to integrate something around this theme of Food into your weekend plans with your family or are you planning on doing something in your classrooms related to this theme?

Please feel free to share a link to your blog posts related to Blog Action Day, World Food Day, or National Food Day in the comments section of this post.

After we do some brainstorming and planning as a family, and after we do our family project, will do a follow-up of what we decided to do to look at the issues surrounding Food.

Would love to hear what all of you are planning to do for Blog Action Day, World Food Day, and National Food Day!

Halloween Oldies But Goodies...

2011-10-14T15:00:00.003-04:00

For today's post, am going to share via a photo tour, the Halloween and fall themed work we have done here in the previous few years.

Then, next week, will share the Halloween and fall themed work we are doing this year.
The items for next week will be for children ages 5-9.

Since many of my blog readers have younger ones, I thought that you would like to see works we have done in the past, as my sons were younger then, so the ideas might work well for your little ones in your home or classroom.

The works featured in these photos are ideally for ages 3-5, although you can really do them from about 2 to about age 6.

In our home, we do not do scary things for Halloween. We obviously did not when the boys were younger, but we continue to not do scary stuff now that they are a little older.
We focus more on the fun of the activities surrounding Halloween, such as carving pumpkins into Jack-o-lanterns, making fun bat, pumpkin, and spider crafts, dressing in costumes, and going trick-or-treating.

We keep trick-or-treating to a very small amount of homes in our neighborhood, usually not even around our whole block.

The boys, enjoy putting on costumes year-round, not just for Halloween.
They love to role play and dress as vets, pirates, cowboys, astronauts, Star Wars characters, and super heroes. Little Bro especially loves to dress up! He will sometimes put a costume on and sport it all day, from morning Montessori inspired work time, to the playground and so on...
So the only thing that sets Halloween apart for him, according to him is that "the neighbors give you candy and you usually get a doughnut and some apple cider."
Well, hope that you will enjoy our Halloween Oldies but Goodies...

New photos for Halloween and fall themed works for older ones will be up in next week's posts...

Fall counting, 1-20, using silk fall leaves.

Halloween village...works well for story telling as well as hiding clues for scavenger hunts. You place the scavenger hunt clues under the little houses.

Bead Transfer: One to many...the ghosts are actually taper candle holders, but they work great to hold tiny beads.

Orange scented dough with festive, fun Halloween themed cookie cutters...

Halloween items for the functional play kitchen area...

Math game using tiny white dominoes and little Halloween erasers as the counters for the game.

Wooden jack-o-lantern mask: Child colors and then, can hold and wear. These wooden masks also work well for shadow puppet shows...

Weighing and balancing activity...child selects the pieces to weigh and places them on the balance...

October mini book to make, along with word cards to go with the book. The pumpkins have hooks on them and go on a display for the months of the year...

These little jack-o-lantern containers have lids that come off...you can use them for a variety of work, such as matching upper case and lower case letters, words and word cards, or math facts. We have used these in a variety of ways over the years...

If you have posts with photos for ideas of Halloween themed activities for little ones, either ages 18 months to age 3, or else ages 3-6, please add your link to this post.

If you have Halloween / fall themed activities for older ones, say either ages 5-9 or 6-9, please feel free to add them here or to next week's post, as next week, will feature Halloween and fall fun for 6-9.
It does not have to be a Montessori inspired Halloween or fall themed activity...it can be play based as well, just nothing scary.

We do not do scary here in our home so I just don't feel right about promoting scary things to young children.

When we first moved to Florida, we decided to take the boys for a ride to see how the homes were decorated for Halloween, expecting to see pumpkins, some blow up Jack-o-lanterns, and the like.
Well, there was a home south of us that Dear Hubby and I were horrified to see...they took a stuffed mannequin and had a noose around his neck. They had him dressed like a cross between a zombie and a farmer. They had him dangling, as if he had hung himself, from outside the second story bedroom window of their home! To me, that is not remotely appropriate, nor festive or fun... it was very scary and a horrible image for anyone to see. I happen to know two people who have committed suicide so to see someone making that into a "trick" for Halloween is beyond disturbing.

We luckily were ably to distract the boys so that they did not catch a glimpse of the house. I do not want that as an image that my sons associate with Halloween or any other day of the year, for that matter.

So, what are your thoughts on scary decorations? Yes or no?
I would love to hear your thoughts and appreciate input from all sides, but will not put up links to posts on my blog that are not family friendly and fun for fall...

Would love to see your ideas and to visit your family friendly blogs and websites!

Have a happy weekend!

Fun New Halloween Themed Montessori Math Work

2011-10-13T15:00:00.002-04:00

For those of you who use Montessori inspired math beads, here is a fun Halloween themed math work for the month of October:
Instead of using the arrows for counting by 5's with the beads or bead chains, you can use tiny ghost erasers.
First, you will need a total of 20 ghost erasers.
These are available at the dollar section of Target, although you may find other Halloween themed erasers at other stores that would work just as well...
To prepare this work, do the following:
Take a black permanent marker and write the following numbers on the ghosts:
5,10,15,20,25,30,35,40,45,50,55,60,65,70,75,80,85,90,95,100.
Then, if you normally use a light colored rug for math work, swap it out for a dark colored one, such as navy blue or black.
This is so that the beads and the white ghosts show up nicely...
Then, explain to your child that instead of using bead chain arrows for counting, that they may choose to use the ghosts for counting by 5's and if they do that work and like using the little ghosts in place of the arrows, that you will make other sets of erasers for the other counting with the beads...
The child should roll out their mat...
Then, he or she should lay out either their 5's bead chains from the Bead Cabinet or else their 5's beads from the Decanomial Bead Box, depending on what beads you happen to have...
Then, next to the pile of beads or bead chains, the child should lay out the pile of ghosts so that all of the numbers written in marker are face up...they can be kept in random order if the child chooses, or else, the child could choose to place these ghosts in correct number order first...
Then, the child should proceed doing the counting by 5's work as he or she normally would do, except subbing in the tiny numbered ghosts for the bead chain arrows.
This work was a hit with both boys!
If you feel so inclined, you can use other small erasers for additional counting.
The bats from Target work well for counting by 2's, as the bats have two wings...the boys loved this work as well!
I have added some photos of the boys doing the work with counting by 2's using the bats.
To use the bats as the fill-in for the bead chain arrows, buy the bat erasers from Target.
Then, in silver metallic marker, write all of the counting by 2's numbers onto the bats. For the purpose of this work, we just did up to 50:
2,4,6,8,10,12,14,16,18,20,22,24,26,28, 30,32,34,36, 38,40,42,44,46,48,50.
For this work, the boys added a felt tree and they decided to put the 2's green beads in the tree as the leaves...then, they added some gray pieces for a cave and put the bats in and around the cave and the tree.
Candy corns work well for counting by 3's, as the candy corns are like triangles, with three sides, plus they have three colors on them...
Pumpkin candies work well for counting by 10's...
This is the extent of what we have tried and have enjoyed, but you could certainly come up with more Halloween themed replacements for the bead chain arrows.

Well, here are some photos of the work with the ghosts filling in for the bead chain arrows for counting by 5's, as well as photos of the bats filling in for the bead chain arrows for counting by 2's.

We use the beads from our Decanomial Bead Box for counting

Blue beads for counting by 5's; ghosts filling in for bead chain arrows...

Close-up of little ghosts and beads...

One view of the beads and the ghosts...

Whole view of completed counting by 5's work using ghosts for bead chain arrows...

Big Bro set up the counting by 2's work for himself and for Little Bro.

Close-up of the bats filling in for the counting by 2's bead chain arrows.

Little Bro doing the counting by 2's work.

Do you have any Halloween themed works that you would like to share?
if you do, please feel free to provide a link in the comments section of this post.

I will be adding other Halloween themed activities over the course of the next few days, so be sure to pop back to see the others I will be adding...

Adding the BrainPOP Daily Movie to My Blog for All of You to See!

2011-10-12T10:46:00.002-04:00

Hello Readers!
Wanted to share with you the BrainPOP Daily Featured Movie, as it is something that both Little Bro and Big Bro really enjoy watching. The BrainPOP app on my iPhone has been so handy to have them watch the Daily Featured Movie. Each one is interesting and informative. Both of my boys look forward to seeing the Daily Featured Movie, before we start our morning work, as well as while we travel. Hope that you will like watching the Daily Featured Movie too!
Enjoy!

For this week, the BrainPOP Daily Featured Movie will be embedded in this post.

A big THANKS to BrainPOP and its creators!

In the future, might move things around a bit and will feature the BrainPOP Daily Featured Movie on my blog to the right of my regularly featured posts.

The BrainPOP Daily Featured Movie is free and is available for viewing directly from the BrainPOP website for viewing on your computer or your iPhone.
To view it on your iPhone, simply download the app from the App Store.
To view it from the BrainPOP website, go to their website and select Daily Featured Movie.
To get BrainPOP for your website or blog, you need to contact the company and request that they send you the code to embed it.

Since we were traveling quite a bit over the last few weeks, it was great to be able to have them watch the daily video as we were on the road traveling.

The free movies are factual in nature, focus on one topic at a time, and are well done.
For example, movies this week have included Eleanor Roosevelt, Carbon Dating, and Maya Civilization...

Such a wealth and breadth of topics...

According to the BrainPOP website, it is geared to grades 4 and up.
There is also a BrainPOP Jr. for grades K-3.

We signed up for a free trial of BrainPOP and will have to check if that gives us access to BrainPOP Jr. as well.

We will need to explore this as well, but regular BrainPOP has worked out very well for us.

Do you use BrainPOP or BrainPOP Jr. with your children?
How do you like using them?
How about the foreign language versions of BrainPOP?
Anyone using those, if you would share your experiences, that would be great! Please mention if you use French or Spanish, too. We are very curious about the foreign language versions, as it might be a neat way for the boys to do some language lessons in either target language.

Full Disclosure:
To get this code to embed it onto my blog, I contacted BrainPOP and they sent me the embed code.

Sweepstakes & Giveaways

2011-10-10T22:54:00.009-04:00

December 28, 2011 Update

Please be sure to pop back to see current giveaways, reviews, and sweepstakes from my blog and other blogs.

Hope that all of you are enjoying the holiday season with your families!

Recent Works Selected by the Boys

2011-10-05T17:25:00.005-04:00

The boys have chosen a variety of works lately so thought that I would share a few with you...

Both boys have been selecting Learning Palettes for the last few days.
We have these for grades 1-3 for both language arts and math. Let me tell you, the boys just love to use their Learning Palettes!
Learning Palettes are great, in that they focus on a particular skill set at a time, are colorful and interesting to use, have a built in control of error, and are a self checking - self correcting work.
The math ones in particular are great, in that they correlate with the NCTM standards for math. We also like the reading ones, in that the skills covered are similar to how Montessori covers reading and language with children.

Big Bro has been having fun learning about caves and caverns. He has been working with the Caves and Caverns Elementary Work Pack by Laughing Star Montessori, a material that we were sent to review. He has enjoyed not only learning the terms and seeing the photos that tie in with caves and caverns, but also, playing the Who or What Am I? game that goes along with this work.
What a great pack of Montessori inspired materials!
So interesting and very challenging to boot!
This work goes way beyond stalactites and stalagmites.
Big Bro loves this work!!!

A work that has been a keen interest of both boys is the Road Trip USA Animal Unit from Confessions of a Homeschooler. They have enjoyed matching the animals to the cards, finding the various states on the map, and researching animals that are new to them since doing this work.
They have done some of the work together, some in tandem, and some separately.
Thanks so much to Confessions of a Homeschooler for this lovely work!
My boys really have gotten so much out of it! It continues to be a family favorite in our home.

Little Bro has been also selecting to do a fun twist on language objects work. One variation / extension to his regular Montessori inspired language work is a work made by Lakeshore Learning called Mystery Word Builders. The work features round balls that can be opened by the child. Inside each colorful ball, there is a language object, along with foam letters that spell out the name of the object. There is a control of error built into this work, in that there are only the exact letters that a child needs to spell the word, but then, in addition, the actual word is spelled on one of the two halves of the interior of the ball for the child to be able to self-check.
Even though we have a huge tub of language objects, and many different Montessori-inspired language works, this twist from Lakeshore Learning seems to be a favorite with Little Bro.
He loves the colorful balls, how they look and feel.
Plus, it adds another element of interest to be able to shake the balls first and to guess what might be inside of them...

Big Bro has been selecting to work on his cursive. He has been using a wonderful wooden movable alphabet set of cursive letters from Alison's Montessori.
He chose to have this set in dark green so he practices writing his cursive words in dark green pencil or marker.
Big Bro enters them into a dark green notebook.
So very like Big Bro, as everything goes together so well!
In addition to the cursive practice with the movable alphabet from Alison's Montessori, he also has been enjoying doing work from Laughing Star Montessori's Beautiful Handwriting Series.
The work he creates from these books turns out so nicely!
The Laughing Star Montessori Beautiful Handwriting Series has really helped to improve Big Bro's handwriting.

We also updated Little Bro's bedroom recently, as he had outgrown some of the decor from his original room. He wanted to have a dinosaur theme room, so we switched things around and voila! Dinosaurs galore! One of the things in his room now is an activity table where he can play with dinosaurs. We have a nice collection of plastic dinosaur figurines.
Several of his dinosaurs are from the Safari Ltd. Carnegie Collection. They are attractively hand painted, interesting, and detailed. Little Bro loves to play with these dinosaur figures in his room. He also has enjoyed reading about dinosaurs, so we have been doing just that, for pleasure reading, bedtime stories, and as homeschool reading too.

Last but not least, since the temps have been slightly cooler than normal, the boys have spent a great deal of time at the park playing, riding bikes, checking out insects and other interesting critters, and climbing trees. What a great way to take in the sunshine and to enjoy the cooler temperatures!

Here are some photos of the work and play times here in our home:

Little Bro doing his language work, Mystery Word Builders from Lakeshore Learning.

Big Bro doing Road Trip USA Animals Unit from Confessions of a Homeschooler.

Here, the boys chose to work together on the Road Trip USA Animals Unit ...they worked hard and matched up all of the animal cards!

Little Bro is working hard by himself on Road Trip USA Animals Unit here...

Little Bro is having fun using his Learning Palette for this math work. Big Bro also loves doing his work using Learning Palettes. He uses the ones for older children. It is so nice that Learning Palettes are for a wide range of ages, for both language arts and math!

Big Bro is working on his Caves and Caverns Elementary Work from Laughing Star Montessori. Such a cool work!!! He absolutely loves this work!

Little Bro's new dinosaur table in his newly re-decorated dinosaur themed room. Some of the neat dinosaurs are part of the Safari Ltd. Carnegie Collection. How he loves this activity table! What fun!

This is one of the black line masters books from Laughing Star Montessori's Beautiful Handwriting Series. Such a neat collection of works for children to practice their writing! Big Bro is enjoying learning how to do cursive!

This is the map showing the Continents of the World. This is the page that Big Bro decided he wanted to practice for the day! Very highly motivating program for handwriting! Thanks to Susan from Laughing Star Montessori for creating this super series!

Fun in the cooler temps! Great days for climbing trees, playing outside at the park, and riding bikes! Yay!

What have you been doing in your homeschool or classroom?

We would love to hear what you are doing!

Please feel free to leave a link if you wish to share what you are doing for early October work in your room.

Full Disclosure:
We were given a set of the Caves and Caverns Cards Elementary Pack by Laughing Star Montessori for the purpose of reviewing it and using it in our homeschool. We were given some of the Beautiful Handwriting Series blackline masters books from Laughing Star Montessori, although in addition to what was given to us for the purchase of review, we also have been very happy customers of Laughing Star Montessori and their materials.
The Road Trip USA Animals Unit is available as a free download from Confessions of a Homeschooler.
To download this work, please visit the Confessions of a Homeschooler blog directly.
Our family purchased all of the following materials:
Learning Palettes for both math and language arts,
Mystery Word Builders activity from Lakeshore Learning,
the cursive movable alphabet from Alison's Montessori,
the activity table and all dinosaur accessories and decor featured in Little Bro's room.
We did receive some of the Safari Ltd. Carnegie Collection Dinosaurs as part of an arrangement for me doing an earlier project for Safari Ltd. and those are featured in the photo of Little Bro's room.
All opinions expressed in this post are my own.
My boys thoroughly enjoyed all of the materials that were mentioned in this post, regardless of whether the products were given to us or whether we paid for the materials ourselves.

Did You Know That October 4th is World Animal Day?

2011-10-04T20:54:00.003-04:00

Yes, it is true!

October 4th has been designated as World Animal Day.

According to the World Animal Day website, the mission of World Animal Day is as follows:

MISSION STATEMENT - WORLD ANIMAL DAY

To celebrate animal life in all its forms

To celebrate humankind’s relationship with the animal kingdom

To acknowledge the diverse roles that animals play in our lives – from being our companions, supporting and helping us, to bringing a sense of wonder into our lives

To acknowledge and be thankful for the way in which animals enrich our lives

So what can you do with children to promote World Animal Day?

Well, that is really up to you...but there are loads of possibilities...here are a few:
Visit an animal shelter.
Send financial support to your choice of a non-profit that works to help animals.
Build a bird feeder or put out bits of materials that birds might want to use to make a nest.
Adopt a shelter animal.
Help care for family pets or class pets by helping to feed and care for the pet.
Make an animal enrichment for a pet, such as a new animal-safe toy or else make homemade animal- specific treats, such as homemade doggy biscuits, etc.
Learn about endangered and threatened animals and see what you can do to help them.
Read several books about animals and their habitats.
Our personal favorites for animal books include:
Maurice Pledger books, Leap Frog Nature Books by Jennifer Boudart and Sarah Toast, and One Small Square books by Donald Silver.

There are also some neat projects from around the world listed on the World Animal Day website, including:
Worldwide WAD - sharing experiences

Malta - Animals and Art

Nigeria - Cultivating Kindness

Romania - a School Visit

Singapore – Safari@PL: a Celebration of World Animal Day

United Kingdom - an Early Years Perspective

USA - Classroom Management and the Teacher's Pet

USA - Super-Humane Kids

United Kingdom - Minny's Dream - the nightmare world of the battery hen house

Big Bro loved reading about what was done in the USA by a school about Class Pets. Little Bro loved reading about what was done in Malta about animals and art.

How does this tie in with Montessori inspired learning?
Dr. Maria Montessori felt strongly about caring for animals and highly encouraged middle school aged children to work on caring for animals, such as those on a farm.
Caring for a family pet falls under the realm of practical life.
Learning to be gentle, compassionate, and peaceful towards animals in general and in particular, towards family pets, is a great life lesson.

How does this relate to discovery based, Reggio Emilia style, Malaguzzi inspired learning?
Well, in a Reggio Emilia environment, projects arise from the interests and the environment of the child and his or her community as a whole. The environment is considered to be the third teacher. How this relates to learning about animals is learning about animals that are indigenous to your area and how to protect native species from being overtaken by non-native ones. Examples of that here in Florida are snakes, fish, and pigs that are not native to Florida that have wrecked havoc on native animals. Florida Fish and Wild Life does different programs throughout the year to educate families about the problem with releasing animals into the wild that do not belong to them. People who have not been educated about the harm of introducing non-native animals to ponds when they are tired of having them as pets need to learn how that harms the environment.
Taking a young child out to see and learn about the animal habitats near their home is a good way to have a child develop an appreciation for the circle of life and native species in their region.

What are we doing as a homeschool family here in Florida?
We have been reading many animal books and learning how people can impact the habitats in which animals live. We try to do things that are eco-friendly and animal safe.
We have done several art and science projects related to animals and protecting their environments.
We have visited animal shelters, animal sanctuaries, nature centers, organic farms, and zoos.
We have had our sons take nature classes through various co-ops to learn about wildlife native to Florida.
We encourage our sons to actively help out with our family pets here in our home, consisting of three frogs, one fish, and a pup. The boys love their doggy and their doggy loves the boys!
Our dog likes to have the boys play with him, take him for walks, and keep him out of harm's way.
One problem that we face here in Florida is that there are several little creatures that can make a dog quite sick if they come in contact with them, from frogs to toads to snakes, so one of the things we do here is to always make sure that we walk our pup in a well lit area.
We have worked at educating how important it is to keep a watchful eye not only on our dog and what he does manage to get into while walking but just the general area around where we walk our dog.
The boys know what a Marine Toad looks like, as well as Cotton Mouths and Coral Snakes, and they do their best to stay away from any of these creatures in our neighborhood.
they also have learned as to where the armadillos nest near our home and try to keep our dog away from their den, as they would not want our dog to scare the armadillos or for the armadillos to scare our dog.
Also timely is the release of the wonderful movie based on the true story called A Dolphin Tale. Pulls at the heartstrings on many levels because the Clearwater Marine Aquarium where Winter, the dolphin, was rehabilitated and where the movie was filmed is in Clearwater, Florida...a short hop, skip, and jump away from our home. We have been to that aquarium, we have seen the dolphin, and we knew about the subject of the movie long before it was in the theaters. Also special is that the boy who helped the dolphin is a homeschooled student!
Yay for homeschooling!!! He was able to be so devoted to his beloved Winter, the Dolphin, because he had the time to devote to his passion of caring for the dolphin! How cool is that?!?

Well, hope that you and your children had a Happy World Animal Day Today!

Here are some photos of some of the books that our family enjoys, as well as some World Animal Day posters and some photos of our pets:

Little Bro showing some of his favorite pets!

Big Bro working on some posters for World Animal Day!

Some of Big Bro's pet pictures for his poster...

One of the neat animal books that we have read...very timely, as with the release of the movie, A Dolphin Tale. The movie was filmed at the Clearwater Marine Aquarium nearby our home.

Checking out pets for adoption with a family friend. This is something that we do once in a while, to go visit animals that are up for adoption. We did not go today to visit animals, but it is something that we do pretty regularly to think about helping animals in need.

Visiting a show about animals at G-Wiz Science Museum in Sarasota, Florida.

All About Pets Lapbook...Big Bro made a Pets lapbook when he was five so now, it is Little Bro's turn to make one!

Pockets for Little Bro's work about pets...

Pet cards for Little Bro. He can copy these cards using his movable alphabet.

Bendaroos Pets that Big Bro made. Bendaroos work well to make tiny, colorful animals.Both boys love using Bendaroos for animal themed art projects.

Holding a little lizard on our lanai...this is a daily occurrence. The boys love to catch and release the various lizards they find by our home. They are very gentle and know to wash their hands thoroughly before and after handling them.

Pets artwork created by the boys. Boy, how they love animals!

Doggy love!

Walking our doggy!

In addition to lots of lizards, snakes, toads, frogs, and alligators, we also have all kinds of turtles living nearby our home.

Did you do anything for World Animal Day?

We would love it if you would link up your post in the comments section.

Have you done a neat Pets theme or Animal Conservation theme with your children?

Would love to see and read about what you did about animals in your homeschool or classroom!

Have you gone to see the movie, A Dolphin Tale?

What did you think about the movie?

Did you know that there was a homeschool connection to the movie?

Please feel free to share a link to your animal themed posts in the comments section of this post.

Cool Mornings in Florida = Time to Bake!

2011-10-03T07:25:00.008-04:00

Yesterday morning, we woke up and it was cool enough to open the windows to let some fresh air into our home! Yay! It would have been a perfect morning to bake with the boys, but we had decided in advance to use the day to sort boxes in our garage...the good news is that it is supposed to once again be unseasonably cool this morning so baking will be bliss today!
Instead of it being in the high 90's with loads of humidity, it is only going to be in the 70's.
The 70's to us here feel like the 50's if you live up North.
While growing up in either Erie or Chicago, the 70's would mean shorts weather, but once you live in the Sunshine State for a while, it does actually feel cold.
Dear Hubby left for work this morning sporting his hooded Illini sweatshirt.
My kids and I will all be sporting polar fleece or sweats this morning for sure, as it really does feel cold to us when it dips into the 70's.

We have been reading some books about Johnny Appleseed so we are going to make some Apple-Zucchini Bread, and some Hot, Mulled, Spiced Apple Cider! Yummy!

Can hardly wait for the boys to wake up and for the stores to open to get going with the baking fun!

For the Apple-Zucchini bread, I did an online search and found a great recipe by Rose Putman who describes her bread as:
"A variation of the zucchini bread that is fluffy and light, with a touch of sweetness."

Who can say no to a little sweetness to start your week???

Her original recipe makes enough to serve 24 people. I only want the recipe to serve say 4-6 people. What is nice is that there is a recipe converter on the All Recipes website where Rose Putman's recipe appears, that does the calculating for you.
So, I entered that I wanted the recipe to be for 6 servings and voila!

Here is what the All Recipes recipe converter came up with for me:

Ingredients

(Thanks to All Recipes for not only listing Rose Putman's yummy recipe, but also, for having a recipe converter on your website!)

1 egg
1/4 cup white sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
3/4 cup and 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 tablespoons and 2-3/4 teaspoons chopped walnuts* (*We will just round up to 3 T.)
1/2 cup peeled, chopped zucchini
1/4 cup chopped, peeled apple

Big Bro and Little Bro will help with washing, peeling, and chopping the zucchini and the apple.
Will have them help to measure the ingredients and to place the batter into the pan.
We will have to keep a close eye on the bread though, as the recipe conversion converts only the ingredients and not the baking time or the pan info.
Am just planning on using one greased loaf pan and then, will keep a close eye on things as it cooks.

Am pretty sure that they will love this bread...know that I will like it as well.

Update:

We decided instead of making one 9 x 5 loaf, we would make two little loaves.
Each boys wanted to add his own touches to their loaf so that is what we did.

Big Bro added extra cinnamon, vanilla sugar, and then, he mixed chopped nuts consisting of almonds, pecans, and walnuts to his little loaf.

Little Bro does not care for nuts so instead, he chose to add mini chocolate chips to his tiny loaf. He also did his best to try to pull out any pieces of the zucchini that he could plainly spot in his loaf, saying that he was okay with having a little zucchini into the mix, but did not want to see the zucchini as he was eating the bread...

For the Hot, Mulled, Spiced Cider, I helped things along by buying the base, Five Apple Cider Concentrate, from Williams-Sonoma.

Both of the little loaves of bread & the hot, mulled, spiced cider were delicious!!!

So awesome to bake while it is crisp and cool and then, do our regular Montessori morning work later in the day when it warms up a bit.

For those of you who might start to bake and have extra walnuts to use up after this recipe, here is a link to my Grandma Murray's Irish Nut Bread Recipe! We may end up making a loaf of this as well. it is quite delicious.

Do any of you ever shift your daily plans for things such as cooler or warmer weather?

If you shift your day to take advantage of what nature brings your way, would love it if you would share and if you have blogged about it, please provide a link!

Also, if you have any neat apple themed ideas or activities, would love it if you would share those with a link to your blog in the comments section.

Update:

Here are some photos of our morning:

Big Bro adds the sugar...

Little Bro takes a turn and adds the flour...

Little Bro adding in some ingredients...

Big Bro adds chopped apples...

Little Bro's loaf with mini chocolate chips and Big Bro's loaf with extra cinnamon, vanilla sugar, and lots of chopped nuts!!!

Big Bro doing his work about Johnny Appleseed.

Big Bro trying out his nutty apple-zucchini bread! Yummy!

Little Bro doing an extension to the apple tree felt set we have. Here, he is adding the apples to the tree and then, he adds Johnny Appleseed to the board.

Johnny Appleseed felt set that I made.

Little Bro doing some work about Johnny Appleseed. He did a little Johnny Appleseed art work and then, made a booklet about the life cycle of the apple.

Eating some of his delicious apple-zucchini-mini-chocolate chip bread! Mmm!!!

This is the one of the books we read together...

This is a Stepping Stone Reader about Johnny Appleseed called Johnny Appleseed: My Story Big Bro read this as a read-aloud to Little Bro and then, the three of us discussed the different information in the book.

Happy Monday!

Felt Alphabet Fun!

2011-09-30T21:52:00.002-04:00

What is very versatile, easy & fun to make, and works well for both little ones and bigger ones?

Well, if you guessed a felt alphabet set, you are correct!

Recently, I made a felt alphabet set primarily for Little Bro to use as an extension to his language objects work.
Little Bro has used the felt set to sort language objects, to do beginning ABC order, and to sort magnetic letters (both upper and lower case).

When Big Bro saw Little Bro having a blast doing his work, he actually wrapped up his own work and joined in the fun. Big Bro then wanted to see what he could do that would involve using the felt alphabet set. We decided that it would be a great way for him to do a variety of language tasks as well, albeit differentiated than how the set would be used by Little Bro.

Both boys love using our felt alphabet set!!!
They both like to choose to use it in conjunction with their specific work.

Big Bro has been using the felt set for higher level work, including putting dinosaur names in alphabetical order, putting reading, science, and math vocabulary into alphabetical order, and putting the names of countries that are on a World Stamps Set into ABC order.

When it comes to homeschooling, it is always great when you make something that both your younger child and your older child can use and enjoy.

This work feels and looks nice, only takes a few hours to make, and has been very well received by any child who has seen it in use.
If you have a much younger child, you could also use this set to tie in with all kinds of Alphabet themed books, such as Chicka Chicka Boom Boom or Alphabet Adventure.
Here is a link to an entire collection of alphabet themed books in case you want to make a felt set and tie it in with books.

Here are some photos of the felt set I made, along with the boys using it in a variety of ways:

Since both boys like the feeling of the soft felt that I used for this work, have been making other neat felt homeschooling items as well...will share some photos of some of the other items I have made out of felt.

Have you tried making materials from felt for your children?

Would love to see and hear about what you have made out of felt.

Do you have activities that work well in your home or classroom for both younger and older children?

Please feel free to share your ideas in the comments section of this post.

Also, hope that you will consider following me on Pinterest, as I have all kinds of neat crafts and homeschooling materials pinned to my boards, some of them are Montessori and some are just very creative, fun, play based ideas.

Here is the direct link to my Felt & Flannel Board Project Ideas Board.
If you are on Pinterest, please let me know so that I can check out your neat pin boards too.

Have a happy weekend!

Tooth Fairy Gift Cards!

2011-09-29T20:51:00.004-04:00

Perhaps you are like our Tooth Fairy here...

If you, by chance, do not have change or a dollar in your wallet and the need for some remuneration from the Tooth Fairy arises before you can make it to the bank, you can make a little Tooth Fairy Gift Card!

To make the Tooth Fairy Gift Card, simply cut out a thimble-sized sheet of folded paper to look like a little tooth.

Then, in very tiny writing, write that it is a Tooth Fairy Gift Card and put the amount on the card.

You can personalize the card on one side and then, sign the card on the other side.

Recently, we had to do just that for Big Bro.
Since our Tooth Fairy almost never carries cash in her purse, she was caught off guard when Big Bro lost not one but two teeth! One came out because it was very wiggly and ready to come out, while the other was a result of biting down on a hard, chewy candy. Ouch!!!

Big Bro actually does not and never really did buy into the whole notion of the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny, or even Santa. They are not very logical (like how he thinks), so he just did not seem to really care about any of these holiday or special event mascots.
Up until now, we have not done anything at all to really promote the notion of pretend mascots for holidays or special events.
Things have changed a bit though, as Little Bro LOVES make-believe things.
He adores Santa, the Tooth Fairy, and the Easter Bunny. He is much more open to pretending than Big Bro...it is just how Little Bro likes to look at the world.

Since my wallet was completely null of any cold, hard cash, and since Little Bro was so very excited about the notion of the Tooth Fairy leaving something for Big Bro and luckily, Big Bro's a very good sport, I came up with making a spur of the moment Tooth Fairy Gift Card.

Although Big Bro actually lost two teeth, one got lost in transit to under his pillow.
This was a tall two dollar order for the Tooth Fairy and she could not show up empty handed!!!

Little Bro was super excited about seeing the Tooth Fairy Gift Card and cannot wait to get one of his own soon (although think he will have another year or so before he loses a tooth).

Big Bro smiled, gave a little wink, and quietly said "Thanks, Mom...I love you...This is very cute"!!!
He took his gift card to Toys R Us and redeemed it for a squirt gun that was on clearance for the end of the season.

To go along with Tooth Fairy traditions, you may want to buy this great book that we have for the boys called Throw Your Tooth Out on the Roof, written by Selby Beeler and illustrated by G.Brian Karas. This book shares various tooth traditions from around the world. It is really a neat book that any family who has little ones in the age range of losing their teeth will just love!

Well, without further ado, here are some photos of the Teeny Tiny Tooth Fairy Gift Card, as well as a goofy-but-cute, partly toothless shot of Big Bro.

It was very easy to make the Tooth Fairy Gift Card although a little hard on the eyes to write on something so small.

Thanks to Dear, Sweet Big Bro for being such an awesome sport to play along with this whole crazy notion of The Tooth Fairy!

What does your family do when your child loses a baby tooth?

Would love it if you would like to please share any tooth and kids stories in the comments section of this post.

Kinda Wordless Wednesday: Dino-Mite Dinosaur Dig!

2011-09-28T20:35:00.003-04:00

We have been reading about dinosaurs for the last two weeks. This week, the boys decided to set up their own dinosaur dig in our sand table! They have had a great time digging for dinosaurs.
We have done all kinds of "dino - mite" projects so hope to share those soon with you, too.

If you read this post and you have done some neat dinosaur-themed projects, hope that you will leave a link in the comments section so that the boys and I can see what you have done in your homeschool or classroom.

This post is linked to Mom to Two Posh Lil Divas for Wordless Wednesday!

September = Busy, Busy, Busy!

2011-09-27T20:54:00.002-04:00

The lovely wedding party...

Our month of September has been very busy.

We started out the month by taking a long trip up North to Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Canada.

Uncle Kevin got married so we all went to the wedding.
Welcome to the family, Auntie Lisa!

Big Bro and Little Bro at the rehearsal dinner...

The newlyweds opening their present from us...

Having fun with the cousins at Uncle and Auntie's pool at their new house!

Big Bro attempting to tackle his much older and bigger cousin during a game of what was supposed to be flag football!!!


Big Bro gets a hug from Auntie Lisa...


Big Bro saying grace before the rehearsal dinner...

It was great to see family and friends before, during, and after the wedding celebration.
Checking out Pennsylvania and Ohio was a blast!

We checked out many sights in Erie and in Cleveland, too.

We also had a wonderful time in Canada, first at Niagara Falls and then, in Toronto.

Then, wrapping up the month of fun, we celebrated Big Bro's birthday. Originally, we were supposed to go to visit the Grands to celebrate the big weekend with them, but plans had to change. So, we went to Papa and G's winter place here in the Sunshine State and had a great time doing fun things there.

Here are some photos of our fun times spent traveling over the last several weeks, from Canada and then back to Florida:

Family fun on the Maid of the Mist

The Maid of the Mist was a great way to see Niagara Falls up close!

The boys also enjoyed looking at the falls through the viewer...

Funny hat time!

Checking out the Lego display in Niagara Falls.

This is the CN Tower in Toronto. We had an awesome view of it from our hotel room.

The boys in our hotel room in Toronto.

The boys outside the Hockey Hall of Fame...

Hockey Hall of Fame fun!

Big Bro trying out some hockey moves!

Little Bro having fun playing hockey (simulated; not a real puck for him)

Climbing at the park at Presque Isle in Erie PA

Outside the Pufferbelly Restaurant in Erie PA (one of mom's favorite places from back in the day!)

Big Bro having fun at the ExpERIEnce Children's Museum

Little Bro having a blast at the ExpERIEnce Children's Museum

Both boys having a terrific time at the museum!

Little Bro checking out snails at Papa & G's winter place in The Villages

Little Bro enjoying a late night squirt gun fun at Sumter Village Square in The Villages, FL.

Big Bro waiting to get Little Bro with a surprise blast of water!!!

Little Bro riding his Kettler bike. This bike is awesome! it does not have pedals, so a young child learns to focus on balance and then, skips right over riding with training wheels. Little Bro is just about ready to go right into riding a regular two wheeler now. Since Big Bro got a new bike for his birthday, we now have a smaller bike to pass onto Little Bro. Yay!!!

The boys LOVE to ride their bikes at Papa and G's house in The Villages. Big Bro just got a new bike for his birthday, so that made it even more fun! We had such a fun time over Big Bro's birthday weekend. It was so nice, as we truly had a relaxing time just doing simple things like looking at snails, riding bikes, playing with chalk, having water fights, taking golf cart rides, and going for frozen yogurt.

Big Bro opening some birthday presents. Thanks to the Grands and Papa and G!

Little Bro is wearing his super hero cape while he and Big Bro play in the sand!

Big Bro is drinking from a straw set that makes into a pair of glasses! Little Bro picked this out as a present for Big Bro for his birthday! Big Bro likes his present from Little Bro!

Playing at the pool back in our neighborhood! Fun times all month!!!

Hope to be back into the blogging groove soon...

We have just been having too much fun doing family things here!

The Elephant in the Room

2011-09-08T19:04:00.007-04:00

Assuming that there are some others out there like me, there are certain topics that you just don't feel comfortable with addressing head-on with your children.
As the tenth anniversary of the September 11th terrorist attacks approach, it is starting to feel like an elephant in the room...

The boys have been in the room when the tenth anniversary of September 11th has been mentioned either on television or on the Internet when I open up my browser.

Somehow, know it is something that has to be addressed, discussed, explained, etc. but I do not feel quite comfortable with tackling the topic with the boys.

Big Bro had mentioned that on a channel for kids, there was something about September 11th and he wanted to know what happened.
Honestly, I acted as if I did not hear him, because frankly, I don't quite know what I want to say about that day. Think that he sensed that somehow, I did not want to explore that topic, as instead of him repeating the question, he just moved on and took out a puzzle. I know that it probably is not the best way to handle something...to act as if you don't hear what is being asked, but I really needed to take some time to think and gather my thoughts as to how we are going to explain this topic to the boys...and whether or not we should explain it to both boys now or just to Big Bro, as he is the one who was curious about what happened. Little Bro has not mentioned September 11th at all, even though he was in the room when the topic was very briefly mentioned on one of the kids' television channels...

Part of me wants to share in very general terms what happened...

Then, part of me wants to tell the boys how Mommy and Daddy spent the day together just a few blocks from The Pentagon, sitting with a classroom of children in the dark, and then, part of me just does not yet feel like it is the appropriate time to disclose all that happened on that horrific day.

I can still smell the smoke, hear the sirens, and picture how the day played out for us there so close to The Pentagon.

When tough subjects have had to be addressed (by me), I usually feel better writing out my thoughts and then, handing them to the intended person to read. Then, we discuss what I have read and our feelings on the topic. Actually think that that is one reason why I enjoy blogging, as it gives me a voice but I can write down my thoughts and feelings. They don't have to come directly from my mouth. While writing can be raw and packed with emotion, it also can be more controlled, more reflective, more organized. You as the writer can take as much or as little time as you choose to take to edit, delete, re-word, etc.
Almost would like to do that with this topic, namely, to carefully map out what I would like to share with them and then, just have the boys read my thoughts on the day.

Someone sent me a link to a website called Brain Pop that has a whole animated piece about 9/11.
This video clip tells the story and spares all of the horror and some of the reality of the day.
It is a boy recounting what happened to a sad looking robot.
This clip is not at all graphic...no blood or shots of total devastation...which is good, in some respects, in that it shares the facts without being too graphic or emotional for a young child.
While this piece explains, it does not really provoke a child to ask more about the day...it might work as part of the explanation of the day, but there needs to be more...do like that this clip starts with a disclaimer at the beginning that it should be something watched with an adult and that it is a sensitive topic...

Then, I think of a former colleague who lost her dear brother on that day and how she is now a parent...
When her little one is old enough, she will have to explain to him how her brother (whom she just adored and admired) died on that fateful day.
Am sure that she will not be having her child get the news by watching a video clip...
She will have to tell him and then, she will have to share photos and stories of their lives together.
Thinking of my colleague from my teaching days back on that day makes me want to share more about how many people's lives were changed and despite the devastation, that life is worth living.
Want to also share that we need to continue to have a sense of strong faith and love for one another after such a tragedy.

Also timely is that in Roman Catholic circles, today (9/8/01) is the Feast Day of the Birth of Mary, considered to be the Blessed Mother of Jesus.
So, for those of you who are either a practicing Catholic family or else possibly if you were raised in a Catholic family, you know and can share with those around you about how Mary was a woman of such strong faith and love. We need to all take lessons from such a strong woman of faith and love.

Regardless of our individual religious preferences, we ALL need to diligently learn to love one another and to work for peace.

We need to remember The Golden Rule and to realize that violence and terrorism are the enemy, not a particular religion.

To finally get rid of this particular elephant in the room, we need to acknowledge it, address it, and model for our children how to be loving, gentle souls despite what the world whips at us at times.

We need to continue to highlight the importance of working towards having a greater understanding for the world and its people. We need to continue to honor the memory of those Americans and Foreign Nationals who lost their lives, as well as to honor the lives of the survivors who made it through the day and the years that followed losing their loved ones in this tragedy.

Will try to do a follow up within the next few days, but after writing this, think that the elephant will be expelled very soon from our home.

UPDATE: We spoke with the boys about 9/11/01 and it went very well.

If you click on the highlighted sections in this blog post, it will take you first to my blog post last year about how September 11th played out for Dear Hubby and me, and my thoughts on the day from the nine year anniversary...

Then, if you click where it mentions Brain Pop in this post, it will take you to the video that gives a run down of what happened. It is a possible way to start to open discussion with your children, although you most likely will want to add to what the video presents so that they reflect on peace instead of the time line.

Please continue to pray for those who lost loved ones on September 11th, or who survived but hold many emotional scars from witnessing first hand what happened on that day. There are some who still struggle day-to-day with this loss.

Please also pray that those in power will actually take into consideration what Dr. Sanjay Gupta shared with respect to there being a connection between 9/11, first responders, and cancer...
If there is any chance that there is a causal relationship between inhaling all of that horrible ash from the day and cancer, please pray that treatments for these particular cancer ridden folks will be considered to be a covered condition. It should not have to be proven beyond all reasonable doubt...these first responders were the heroes of the day, as well as the weeks and months that followed, so if there is even a sliver of a chance that their ailments were due to them being selfless and dedicated, then by all means, give them coverage for cancer treatments.

Also pray that there will be consideration for those still hoping that there will be more of a concerted effort to continue to dig through the fresh kills area near Ground Zero. While I respect that Mayor Bloomberg does not want the area to be known anymore as Ground Zero and wants there to be positive change in that area, people who lost their loved ones still want this to be a place of respect and reverence.

Finally, my blog was criticized a few weeks ago by someone for not being relevant to Montessori, because I discuss topics on my blog that are not strictly Montessori.

Dr. Maria Montessori was a peacemaker and devoted her life to working with children in a way that was respectful towards them, as well as demonstrative of how to live life in a peaceful, loving way. Think that if she were alive and shared her thoughts about the events of September 11th, that she would call for a prayer for peace and would want adults to present things in a way about the day that would not scare them, but would get them to think, to reflect, and to honor those who died in the attacks.

I do plan to share with you about the lovely work that the boys have been doing, but sometimes, there are more important life lessons than just showing you shots of what happens to be on our shelves at the moment...hope that you will agree with me on this...

Re-purposing for Purposeful Play!

2011-09-01T09:38:00.000-04:00

If your family is like ours, you might have lots of little random containers that came when you purchased another product.
We have tried to make a concerted effort to re-purpose some of these containers for other uses.
We had some neat little plastic containers with lids that came with a craft kit.
The containers can be used for a variety of other crafty projects, but for now, the boys thought that they would be neat to fill with Crayola Model Magic modeling dough.
Both Big Bro and Little Bro had a good time filling the containers and tried doing some color mixing as well.
They used some cookie cutters and some very young child sized flatware as tools to play with the modeling dough.
For quite some time, they squished and squeezed, stretched and mixed, created and re-created...shared their ideas for what could be made with the modeling dough and discussed whether they wanted to let their creations to air dry or whether they would rather re-use the dough on another day and therefore, store the dough. Both opted to be able to re-use the dough so they chose to store the dough in the containers they had already re-purposed for color mixing.
It was such a happy, laid back, unplugged play time.
This made for a wonderful sensory activity, but also a good lesson in re-purposing items for new uses.
Fun!!!

Win it Weekend! Enter to Win Karen Tyler's Montessori Training Program Plus Her Pink, Blue, & Green Series

2011-08-26T16:00:00.005-04:00

If you are a homeschool family and have been hoping to get some Montessori training and the albums to help you navigate through Montessori inspired homeschooling, this is your weekend to win the program, albums, and the Pink, Blue, and Green Reading Scheme.
Karen Tyler has graciously offered for one of my readers to win her entire program, including all 12 albums, and the accompanying online training program that she offers through A Montessori Marketplace.In addition, Karen has added her pink, blue, and green Montessori reading scheme into the prize pack.
Karen is a wonderful, generous person and a fabulous Montessorian!

Hereis a bit from one of my other posts about Karen and her program:

Karen Tyler is a wonderful Montessorian and has been a real inspiration to many of us, largely homeschooling moms...

Karen gets it...
She gets that there may very well be great reasons (ranging from spiritual to physical, from financial to philosophical) WHY we homeschool and why we choose to utilize Montessori materials and the Montessori philosophy in our homes.
She gets the notion of a Montessori inspired home and also gets the idea that some of us choose to not only use Montessori but also to incorporate some other materials and philosophies into something that works for our children.
She gets that we are all on our own life journey and that one size does not fit all with respect to educational settings, for some children have very specific environmental or learning needs, so Karen has been willing to share her expertise in helping us to navigate how to try to "do Montessori" in the home.

Karen gives it...
She gives freely of herself, her experiences, her materials, her insights...
She has made her online training, her excellent albums, and her lectures, essays, helpful hints very accessible.
She is incredibly generous. She does not charge nearly what her training is worth...she wants to share her wealth of knowledge and does so out of the goodness of her heart.

Although I have additional degrees in education and have classroom teaching experience, going through Karen's program really helped me to chart a course for homeschooling my sons. Homeschooling is a whole other "ballgame" than being in the classroom in a school setting, regardless of whether it is public or private, traditional or progressive, etc.

Karen is the founder, owner, and online director / instructor for Worldwide Montessori Online and runs A Montessori Marketplace.

Here is part of Karen's own description of her program:

World Wide Montessori Online course is for all the teachers/parents that are trying to implement the Montessori Method in their classrooms/home schools.
...upon finishing my 24 month course you will receive a Certificate of Completion.

Three times a week I add pages, photos and other curriculum support materials for the album that is currently being taught. We will discuss the lessons and share our creative ideas. We use a Message Board to post questions and comments. At any time you may e-mail me privately for consulting. By the time you complete the course work, you will feel confident in guiding children ages 2 ½ - 6 in discovering the wonderful world of knowledge!

Although Karen's program is primarily geared to ages 2 1/2 through 6, there are some great ideas and inspirations into early elementary, ages 6-8.
I found her program to be very helpful and hands on and still am using many of the ideas from the albums for both of my sons, ages 5 and 7.

Well, to win, please enter (in the comments section of this post) your first name and your email with all words instead of the @ or the . in the email written out so that spammers cannot use it such as "your name at yahoo dot com"
If you would like to share why you hope to win, that would be great, too, but that is optional!
It is that simple to enter!

Drawing will be held on Monday, August 29th at 4 pm Eastern time.
A winner will be selected from the entries submitted in the comments section of this giveaway post. Winner will be selected via Random.Org
Winner will be posted on this post on Monday and will be notified by email.

Update:

The Winner of this giveaway, as selected by Random. Org, is #2, Ewa, from Poland!

Congrats to Ewa! hope that you will love Karen's albums and program.

This giveaway is now closed. Winner will be notified by email.