Cheap school games

I was recently inspired by this post from Mama Jenn's blog to make a new file folder game from bulletin board borders. I made a trip to the Dollar Tree and bought three sets of classroom border. Each packet had 14 sheets in it and each sheet of border has 8 different pictures on it. I took one set of pictures, cut them apart and glued them into a file folder and gave the other set to Emily to match. It was a very good activity for her because she could do it successfully but she had to study each picture a little to get it.For the rest of the sheets I am cutting them apart and using them for a memory game for Emily, Ellie and I to play together. For Ellie I plan on using them for patterning. So basically for $1 you have three different activities to do. You can't beat that!!

Ellie's School Activities - Farm

We recently spent a week learning all about farms and farm animals. This has been one of our favorite studies. We read lots of great non-fiction books about the different types of farms, farm equipment and the animals but there favorite book was Mrs. Wishy Washy's Farm. We read it everyday at circle time. The girls loved this book!!

We went to see some farm animals:
Can you see the chickens?

The girls were being very sweet to each other:)

Ellie worked on a farm puzzle:

Farm math worksheet (I can't remember where I printed this from)

Rhyming farm house from Kidssoup (such a great resource and well worth the money)

Egg Story Sequencing

I filled two tubs, one with clean water and one with chocolate pudding. I put plastic farm animals in the pudding and we acted out the Wishy Washy story. I got the idea from here. The girls loved this

and it quickly turned into them being the animals

Using these little chicks to do addition problems. This idea came from Kidssoup too.

Roll Mrs. Wishy Washy from Making Learning Fun

and using magnetic pom poms from Making Learning Fun

and how to draw a cow from Making Learning fun too.

It was a great week of school!

Tot School

~Emily is 29 months old~

We had a pretty good week of tot school last week. Emily continues to love to do school with her big sister. Here are some of her activities from school last week.

Putting the checkers into the Connect Four.

Making letters with our How to build an A book. I made most of the letters and she named them but she was able to make a few of them.Matching the color of the bugs to the board.It is hard to tell from this picture but she is matching our counting bears to the matching color on the little twister board that came from a Wendy's kids meal.Using Popsicle sticks to color scratch Dora pictures. She didn't really like this much. I just don't think the colors are vibrant enough.She loves using her drawing board!!! After all of that hard work she is enjoying lunch outside with Ellie.

Letter B Activities

Two weeks ago we worked on the letter B. We did mostly butterfly activities but we also did a few bird things. I didn't take many pictures but I did take a few of our favorite activities.

We made the Life Cycle of a Butterfly using noodles. We used an orzo noodle for the egg, spiral noodle for the caterpillar, jumbo noodle for the cocoon and bowtie noodle for the butterfly. I copied the idea from Muses of Megret.
We made a tissue paper butterfly like the one at Confessions of a Homeschooler. We also did many other of her B ideas but I just didn't get any pictures.

We made these paper plate bluebirds like the ones from My Montessori Journey. Ellie enjoyed this because she didn't need any help from me!

I wish I would have taken more pictures of our other activities but I will do better next time:)

Favorite Games

Ellie and Emily both love to play games and I love that Emily is old enough to take turns and understand how to play for the most part. Here are some of our favorites.

What are some of your kids favorite games?

Baked Peanut Butter Oatmeal

I have been in major baking mode lately. I have tried several new recipes lately but nothing to write home about until I made this yummy oatmeal this morning that came from here! I really liked it especially with milk poured over top. Let me know if you try it!!


Peanut Butter Baked Oatmeal
3 cups quick cooking oats
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 cup milk
2 tablespoons butter, melted
2 eggs
2 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons vanilla
1/2 cup peanut butter
Mix all ingredients together and stir well. Spread in a greased 9×13 pan. Bake at 350 for 20-25 minutes. If you like it a little crunchy on top cook for a few minutes longer. Serve with warm milk poured over top. Enjoy!

Emily's Chores

Emily has wanted a chore pack like Ellie's for months. In the mornings when Ellie would clip on her pack Emily would ask where her chore pack was and I do mean every morning. Well this past weekend I finally made her one. She was so excited Monday morning. Honestly she was more excited then if it was time to open presents. She was running around squealing and showing us over and over. I only put one chore card in it each morning because she is too young to switch her cards around like Ellie does. Here chores are:
Monday: water plant
Tuesday :wipe down table after breakfast (she started doing this by standing in the chair and when I came back in the room she was on the table cleaning)

Wednesday: help mom load the washing machine

Thursday: dust the living room
Friday: help Ellie clean the playroom (I am sure I will spend this time refereeing all of their disputes)

She is so excited to be apart of our chore time and I hope it lasts:)

Spring

We are enjoying Spring so much and spending lots of time outside. We took 2 weeks off from workboxes and have just spent lots of times with friends and playing. I have also taken a little break from blogging. It hasn't helped that Emily has mucked up the camera with mud so I can't take any pictures. I always want to add pictures to my post:) Anyway, hopefully I will get the camera back in working condition soon and we are starting back with our workboxes tomorrow.


In other news I ordered Happy Phonics a few weeks ago and I am so excited to get started. I think it will be so fun because it is just lots of games!! There is a lot of cutting and putting together but luckily I enjoy doing that sort of thing. I am also almost done with our circle time board that you are seeing all over the blogs. I will post about that soon!

Nature Bag

The girls and I are going on quite a few nature walks lately and they always want to bring things home with us. I decided to make them an over the shoulder nature bag so I don't end up carrying all of their finds!! I followed this easy tutorial and it was really simple. I purchased a pair of cargo pants from Goodwill and cut a section of the leg off that included the cargo pocket. I stitched the bottom and hemmed the top and sewed ribbon for the strap and viola! We played with our friends recently in the woods and when we were in the car she pulled out several earthworms from the pocket. I was thinking of putting colored pencils in the pocket so we could sketch nature pictures.....silly me!!

Doesn't it go great with her PJ's???

Easter Weekend

We had a great Easter weekend even if the girls over dosed on junk and were not on there best behavior (I am being nice). We spent some time at church enjoying crafts and an Easter egg hunt, we had fun dying eggs and getting dressed up (believe it or not my girls really think getting dressed up is fun) for church on Easter. I wanted to get some cute pictures of the girls in there Easter dresses but that is easier said then done!!! The first few turned out like this:

but then I got a few of these:

and I was happy! Hope everyone had a wonderful Easter!