The outside is my farm.....

There was a time when children lacked educations and learned everything from home. The amish are quite familiar of these lessons of life for their children. My mother learned on the farm with her family of 9. I find every opportunity for my children to grow and learn no matter where I am: The grocery store, the post office, the drs. office, etc.

Here is a great idea I came up with today. M-F My kids and I wake up to take my daughter to school in the mornings. This has been the routine for years but today.. yes finally today it dawned on me the possiblities of learning. On our less than 5 minute drive we pass a college where many cars are parked on the st. So starting tomorrow my kids will have to pay attention to the cars and count the "color" of the day car.

Counting Cartons...$2

I recently found a 10 pack of dice at the $ store. I thought I would replace my Yahtzee dice that the kids have lost but then had a bright idea. My son came home yesterday and was so excited to share that he learned subtraction. So I gave him 2 dice and had him roll. I then arranged the dice to show a subtraction problem that he could count and answer. He LOVED it.
The following morning I used a foam egg carton and placed the dice where the eggs go. Bella and James gave a light shake and opened the cartons to reveal the dice with their numbers (not hard or dice will combine...good lesson for addition) Using a bag of beans the first thing they had to do was match the number on the dice with the beans on the table. So for 3 on the dice the placement of bean would be the same. My 4yo did this successfully but my 3yo had a little hard time so I drew some dots on cardstock to represent each face of the dice and he had to match the dice with the paper then place the beans on the correct dice. The last part of this lesson was the counting. Once they had the beans arranged they needed to count the beans and place them in the carton with the dice. They played for hours. I used pinto beans which were everywhere because of their size so I would recommend maybe a fava or lima bean for lil hands. Will post more pix later.

Have tried updating since but...you know the cyber lost and found

I have had a few crafts but have had them all go to the cyberland and was to lazy to retrype everything again. Been MIA lately because of some medical issues but will be back posting some more thrifty ideas for learning...

Valentines mailbox

With creative inspiration from BHG.com we had a great rainy day project for the upcoming Valentines Day. Although, they had craft instructions and downloads on their site I couldn't blow it up so I had to improvise and make my own templates

What I used.
1 12x12 cardstock
Corragated colored cardboard
Red paper(I used corragate cardboard) for the mailbox flag and heart decorations
those things that you push in and flatten pins??
stapler

I cut the cardstock to match the size of my pink corragate paper and then folded the ends up with a ruler. we stapled the corragated paper to the card stock which resembled a wagon (hmm can you see where my mind is going on this one...oregon trail next project) Then I traced the ends out of the remaining pink cardstock and glued them inside the mailbox. The kids cut hearts to cover the staples and glued on a flower bead for the mailbox knob.

Dinosaur eggs

We recently went to the Western musuem which exhibits fossils. Of course, I had to have a craft and something fun to tie it in with what they learned. I decided we would try making a paper mache egg. Then the bright thought of maybe stuffing it with a toy dinosaur to actually hatch. It worked with a lot of fumbling. This is time intense so it will take a few days to allow for drying.

What you need:

Mache mixture 1 part flour 5 parts water cooked to paste.

shredded newspaper

balloons

plastic dinosaurs

grey paint

shaving cream

First I had to try to squeeze a dino into a balloon without poking a hole. Then I blew up the ballon and knotted the end. The kids then painted the glue around the balloon and began placing strips of newspaper around the balloon. When they were done we let this dry for about a day.

The next day the seemed relatively dry so they began to paint. I wanted to create a texture for the eggs so I mixed equal shaving cream to paint to get a thick pastey paint and the kids painted over there eggs. DO NOT LET THESE DRY NEXT TO EACH OTHER. I had one resting on a bowl and the other two became a little contorted. So we used the two as our newly hatched eggs. I poked a hole in the ballon and it was pretty neat. You could hear a cracking as the mold began to crack and break open as the balloon let out its air and pulled away from the side. When we waited another day to crack the other egg it wasnt as neat to watch we had to help crack the egg. I think it was because it was drier than the other when the ballon whipped away from the edges. Well I hope you like this or can use this craft.....

Homemade Ornaments---$5.67

I recently saw this at another school and it was just soo cute we had to do it.
What you need:

Food coloring...green and red $1
Shredded Wheat large bricks $3
Tall Glue $1
ribbon $.67
Margarine tub lid x 18
glue gun w. glue stick

Place a 1/8 cup of glue in one bowl and the remaining in another. Combine red food coloring in the 1/8 cup of glue and green food coloring in the other. Add enough food coloring to give the green a pine look.

You can give a brick to each child in a plastic baggy and have them crush. One brick = one ornament. Then on a plate have them mix the shreds of wheat with the green glue to coat evenly. Take mixture and pack it around the plastic lid in the shape of a wreath. Let dry for at least 2 days. After the first day you can paint plain glue on the top to give a shiny look.

using the red you can put little slivers of red around the wreath or tiny beads for holly.

Carefully pop the wreath out of the plastic and turn around to add hanging ribbon for the tree. Attach using ribbon and hot glue.

You can also cut a piece of cardstock and place a picture of child and attach to the back of wreath. Attach a small red bow at bottom and it is ready to hang or gift.

Went to michaels and found some red ribbon and flowers for another $2 to add more glitz to our wreaths.

Chika Chika Boom Boom Craft...

My youngest are reading this adorable book, so naturally a craft had to come from it. So my gears were clanging thinking of what to do.

What you need..

Brown Paper Bag
Green construction paper
Brown construction paper
foam letter stickers
foam circles
fabric glue
stick glue
sand or sticks...
black crayon or marker

Using the bag is the foundation of your tree. On the non flap side paste a 2 inch wide piece of brown paper for the tree trunk. Then cut or rip out palm tree frawns about 5 per tree. Glue the leaves on top of the brown trunk and let dry. Mark xs from bottom to top of trunk to create palm tree look. Then have them decorate with foam letters going up the tree just like in the book. You can add enrichment by having them look for the letters in their name or sorting the letters by color, etc. As a final touch I wanted something that had a sensory feel so I took fabric glue and placed some on a foam circle and then glued some sand/use small twigs or even old grass to look like a coconut (I was considering using real coconut shreds died brown) then glue to their masterpiece. When dry, you can open the bag and the tree should stand up on its own.

Enjoy...my kids had a blast....