Snowflake Count and Clip Cards

This is a great little seasonal counting activity I found at Making Learning Fun. You can head over there yourself and print out your own for FREE! Gotta love that! The great thing is that you can print out cards for the quantities your child is ready for all the way from 0-19. I printed out 4-12 for my 3 1/2 year old to do at home. He's done this activity once so far. I am thinking of taking it to my Montessori preschool classroom. Since he attends class there, he will still be able to do it, but then all my other students would have access to it as well.



Here is how I have it set up on our learning shelf at home. I found the little basket and wooden box at my favorite local thrift store. I seriously need to stay away from that place, but it draws me like a magnet.




Here you can see a better view of the cards. I am using the little wooden box to hold the clothespins.



To do this activity, the child counts the snowflakes on the card. Very good for practicing one-to-one correspondence.



Then they attach the clothespin over the number that represents the quantity. Great for strengthening finger muscles AND for practicing number recognition.

I had my cards laminated at a local teacher supply store. Then I used a permanent marker to make a dot on the back so the child can self-correct.

DH is awesome!

For some reason as I was putting away laundry tonight it hit me that I wanted to write a post all about the DH (dear husband to those of you unfamiliar with blog lingo). It struck me that I wanted very much to publicly acknowledge what a great guy he is. So...........as I was finishing evening tasks, I was mentally brainstorming what I wanted to write about him. It may end up sounding like rambling, but that's okay.

He is a great daddy to our boys. He will participate in any and all parts of care-giving. He is usually the one to give baths. He often makes meals. He usually does the grocery shopping. He takes the boys to the public library, to the park, and on various other fun outings. He totally takes care of yard work, garbage, snow removal, etc. He also usually fills the cars with gas and takes care of all maintenance needs for the cars. He is great about taking the boys outside to play in all kinds of weather (such as the kinds where Mommy would rather stay inside). He reads to the boys and follows any and all of their interests. He buys treats for them and can always be counted on to have something "up his sleeve" to surprise, pacify, and/or amuse them. He is totally fun for them to play with and will get right down on the floor with them, be silly, and make up new games. He is a master of distraction when grumpiness sets in and is much better about redirecting the boys' moods than I am. He is so supportive of me and my career and my hobbies. He is just all around a great person and I am so blessed to be married to him. I am truly thankful to God for bringing him into my life and for the amazing fact that he is still here after 15 years of ME. Like I said, a true blessing, and one I don't take for granted.

So there you have it...........in case you were ever curious about the "better half" of me.

How do you spell addicted?

Q-U-I-L-T! Yep, that's right! I stayed up until about midnight last night so I could finish the first block. Those of you who know me in RL (real life) or who have been reading my blogs for a while are not surprised, I'm sure. Before reading any further, be forewarned.........this is a very photo-heavy post. In fact, it might be obnoxiously full of photos kind of like the 50 photos you take of your firstborn sitting on a blanket not even moving. There is a good reason (in my opinion, and it is, after all, MY BLOG) that I added so many photos. I wanted to show you the step by step process on part of one block so you could see how actually easy it is. It's possible that some of you may have thought about making a quilt and felt it was too hard or intimidating. So that's why I'm doing this post. I promise future quilt-related posts won't have so many photos, just finished block photos. Keep in mind that if you've ever wanted to quilt, you can start (and stop) with just one block. The block I just made would look great finished off with some border fabrics and framed, just by itself. So...........think outside the box and don't be scared. If you've ever wanted to make a quilt, why not in 2009?



This photo shows my 6-inch quilt ruler. The quilt directions said to make diagonal lines on the back of my small squares using a pencil. So I used this small ruler to do that. Very simple.




Then the little block with the line is placed on top of the larger block, right sides together as shown here.




Then you simply sew right on the traced line. I am doing this by hand; you could also do it by machine.




Then you trim away the extra fabric as shown here.




Next, you flip your little triangle over and press the seam. Pretty cool, huh?




Repeat on the opposite corner as shown here.




Now one of the nine blocks needed for my larger block is done!




Here are the nine blocks for my first quilt block before I sewed them together. You can see that I made 4 blocks like the one I described above. I used the exact same steps to do the other 5 blocks, just with different fabric combinations.




And here is the first finished block. To see what the whole quilt pattern is click here. I've already printed off the directions for Block 2. Hopefully I'll be able to squeeze in some time today to start it. Now aren't you motivated to go try this for yourself? Maybe? If you are, check out the site I linked to........Block Central. It's got so many great projects and really great step-by-step directions. If the directions weren't so good, I'm sure that I couldn't have tackled this on my own.

Off and running..............

Oh yeah!! I got the quilt pieces all cut out. I spent about 1 1/2 hours last night cutting and was interrupted by a very cute little SOMEONE who woke up and wanted mommy. This was around 11:40 p.m., so I decided just to call it a night and go to bed. It took me about another 30-40 minutes this morning to finish. I packaged everything up in little ziploc baggies as you can see in the photo below. I labelled each bag with the dimensions of the pieces. While this did take a fair amount of time, I think it will facilitate the process once I start sewing.



Tonight while the DH gave our little boy a bath, I set up my "quilting basket." This is such an awesome basket that my sister-in-law Carole gave me a few years ago. It has been next to my bed holding books and magazines and has now gained a new purpose as the place where my quilting stuff will stay during the process of quilt construction. It is perfectly sized for the task. I love that it can easily be transported. Right now it is sitting next to my blue rocking chair waiting patiently for me to finish typing and get started on BLOCK 1!!



Here's the basket. I have all the little baggies of pieces inside it as well as a file folder with the printed directions for making the quilt. I also put together a little repurposed pencil box with some quilting supplies. It is bugging me (especially after seeing the photo) that it doesn't "match" the sage green of the basket liner. Isn't that insane? Don't worry.....I'm not changing it (unless I find something better that I already have). Oh, I also have my 6 inch quilting "square" ruler in there. That will REALLY come in handy. I'll show you why when I write about making the first block.



Here you can see everything nestled in the basket.



Inside the little box are my needles, scissors, quilting thread and a pencil. I have a little one sitting on my lap demanding "hot cocoa right now!" so I guess I'd better attend to that. Hopefully within the next hour I'll be starting my first block. I'm exicted (and a little apprehensive). I'll keep you "posted"......... :0)

Project 365

I just stumbled across a cool thing yesterday. It's called Project 365 and is a scrapbook kit developed by Becky Higgins, one of my favorite scrapbookers. Unfortunately, the kits are sold out, but I'm pretty sure that due to overwhelming demand they are going to make more available. If you want the most recent information you can check Becky's website. What I love about this is that it easily allows you to capture the real life living (as opposed to just special events) of your family over the course of a given year. It looks like the kit makes it completely easy to do even if you're not a scrapbooker. Basically there are just pockets to slip photos and journalling boxes into. No cropping, no gluing, nothing! I am preparing with the assumption that I WILL get my hands on a kit. I've set up a separate photos file on my computer called "Project 365" where I can send copies of the photos I want to use. I also just set up a Word document to type a VERY brief little snippet of our daily stuff. I will keep you posted about this as I find out more. It sounds very doable, reasonably priced for what you get, and an amazing keepsake to make for your family. Leave me a comment if you're up for this project. Maybe we can keep in touch and brainstorm ideas for things to capture through photos.

A Snowy Scene with Animal Friends

One of my favorite activities to put together for our learning shelf this month was a winter playset. We have MANY toy animal figures. So I chose some forest ones and put them in a basket. (NOTE: I also added a polar bear and penguin. I wanted you to know that I am aware that they would not be located anywhere near the forest animals in real life. I also know they live on opposite poles.) I had picked up some great little trees at my favorite local thrift store a while back, so these were added to the tray along with a small mirror (AKA..........frozen pond) I bought at Hobby Lobby. I also put out two pieces of white glitter felt for the snowy ground.

Here are all the materials on the tray.

I took this photo to show you the motif on the tray. I found this tray on a thrift outing to my fave shop. I love how perfect it is for this activity!!

Both my sons have already loved playing with this little scene and setting it up. I am happy that they are enjoying what I've put together for them. I am going to set up something similar for my Montessori preschool classroom, but I think I'll put out a frozen "iceberg" for that. Maybe we'll try one of those at home too. For more info about that, you'll have to read my other blog!!

Our new learning shelf

I am excited to show off our new learning shelf. As I mentioned before, it's funny that I've never done anything like this at home before. I do try to provide lots of learning experiences and opportunities for my boys at home, but this is the first time I've actually set up something just for that purpose. This shelf is in a new location now.......it is set up on a little "stage" area we have in the corner of our computer room. This room is located right off our other main living area which is a kitchen/dining/living room combo area. This is also the spot where our Christmas tree is every year. My oldest son immediately commented on how the new location of the shelf would interfere with our tree placement. I assured him that our shelf could easily be relocated during the holidays next year. Anyway..........I'm really happy with how it turned out.
It's just been up for about 24 hours and the boys have each already selected things to do from it.



On the top shelf are two books that I'm planning to read to/with the boys this month. I have already printed off all the lapbooking materials for each book from Homeschoolshare. When we get started on those, I'll be sure to post more details. One thing I want to point out about this shelf is that I have WAY more activities on it than I would place on any shelf in my Montessori classroom. I think this is fine for the home setting since only two children will be using the activities. In a classroom setting with 20+ children using materials from many shelves, it helps to have fewer activities per shelf. This helps the children remember where they got the activity and where to return it.



Here you can see the books we'll kind of focus on the next few weeks. I am VERY open about how we do this. In other words, I'm not going to be really uptight about WHEN we read them, or whether or not we do any or all the activities. I just want to enjoy some special book experiences with the boys. That's all.



Here you can see the other activities I've placed on the shelves. I'm going to keep you in suspense about the specific activities for now and will be posting more about them over the next week or so.



I took this photo to show that we do have one Montessori-type rug for doing activities on the floor. I'm not going to be really hung-up on that either in our home setting. However, both boys are used to it from their respective Montessori classrooms, so I'm guessing it will be used some. Last night my older son used it when giving his little brother a "lesson" about one the the activities. It was very sweet to watch.