Color Grading

So we have been painting A LOT!!! The whole house is getting painted room by room and I'm getting a little sick of it! I will survive! It will be worth it it the end:) Anywho, we have a lot of different colors that we are using and the guy at Home Depot handed me a huge hand full of paint stirrers. I didn't need all of them so I used them to make a color grading activity for Caden but it was WAY to easy! I am going to go back and get the paint samples that have 5 or 6 colors on it to make it more of a challenge for him.

The How To:

First cut your paint sample so that you have as big of a rectangle as possible without having the printed letters on it. Then use a saw(or a kitchen knife or box cutter) to cut the the wood into even pieces. Glue the paint samples on and cover it with a coat of Modpodge and you are done! I'll post again when I get the more advanced set done.

The idea of this activity is for the child to grade the colors from lightest to darkest. It helps the child strengthen their visual differentiation skills:)

P.S. How cute is this sweet boy?!?!?

Plant a Tree!

We planted our first tree!! We had so much fun doing this as a family! Caden and Drake thought it was so great! Caden worked really hard and wanted to use the big shovel! When I say he worked hard, I mean he WORKED HARD! He was grunting and everything:)

Drake helped step on dirt clumps:)

Three boys in a hole:)

Both boys helped Daddy fill in the hole with mulch and dirt and put the tree in the hole!

We took a picture of the boys with the tree and hope to take more as it grows bigger! It will be fun to look at the tree years from now and tell they boys "you were this big when we planted that tree!" I just hope it lives:) I don't know if I could take telling the boys we have to dig up their tree because it's dead:(

What's Out Wednesday!

We're Officially Back!

We have our temporary play/school room set up in what will one day be our formal living room. We are remodeling our entire upstairs so we are all living downstairs. Eventually we will have a school room and a separate play area but for now this works:) So here is some over view pics but, they are horrible! I couldn't get a good angle! Oh well, you get the idea!

Quiet Area

I will start with my absolute favorite area!! We call it the quiet area because it's a place where we read books together or sit and do a puzzle. I also put several stuffed animals because I remember at the preschool that we had stuffed animals in the library and the kids loved it. I was right! The boys have loved them! I have seen them sit with them and read a book and I have seen Drake lay down and snuggle with them (and his blankie of coarse). On the floor I put a quilt and a cushion for me to sit on. I have read more books to the boys in the last few days then I have all month! I Love It!! I recommend making a little space for yourself next to your child's book shelf! It has been wonderful!

A close up of the shelf(can you believe the previous owners of the house left this behind?? I love it). The bottom shelf is books of all kinds and the top shelves are simple quiet toys. I put a little basket for the mini-books a very small puzzle rack is storing four puzzles down below the shelf.

Table Toys

Our table toys shelf is a little lame right now because we can't put out anything that Jack can swallow or make a huge mess with:( For now we have our work books, wooden lacing beads, puzzles, play doh and play doh tools( we take this to the kitchen table so that Jack doesn't eat it:), pound a puzzle(Caden it calls it the Letter factory), and the name tracing plates.

Pretend Area

This is our little cooking station! It's actually a little work bench that comes with tools and such but I made a laminated stove top and sink so that it can serve as a kitchen to. This is Drake's favorite area!!! On top we have some spoons and forks and little pots.

On the bottom we have a basket of fruits, veggies, and sandwich fixings! We also have some random little dishes from our kitchen and play doh set along with a little basket of silverware. And way below is some little grocery baskets. I really would love to get all of the cute dishes and things from ikea but I just can't justify it. There's just not enough interest there to spend that kind of money:) Random kitchen things work just fine:)

Art Area

I set up our Melissa and Doug easel with a spattering of art supplies and plan on changing it out often. The drawing was made by yours truly and it was done while supervising Jack! He loves playing with the art supplies and luckily he is not a very mouthy baby! In the containers we have Crayon Rocks, Markers, Glitter Pens, Crayons, Color Pencils and a Crayon Wheel.

So far the only thing that has been used is the Glitter Pens. Caden loves them and he has to really squeeze to get them out so it's working his little hand muscles! (I drew the little hearts:)Floor Toys
This shelf is now our block area and floor toys. From the top we have Furniture and Accessories for the Fire station, Lincoln Logs and some little animals, Trains, Cars, Tools, stacking tractor, pop and lock vehicle beads, toddler Tonka cars, and the bottom three are baby toys. Jack hardly plays with his baby toys but we have lots of baby friends who come over. I will most likely reduce it to one tub and put out some different things.
I got this sweet little bench at a garage sell for 15 dollars! Woo-Hoo! I am going to paint it but for now it is our bench and it stores busy toys AND if I slide it in front of the opening to the kitchen it also serves as a baby gate(to the right).
BEWARE!!! What you are about to see might disgust you! This is the room that I will be turning into a school room!!! We have torn out the disgusting carpet and washed the walls but that's it! I have a lot of work ahead of me:)

Pounding a Puzzle

I found this puzzle at the Dollar Tree and I got the idea to use his hammer to pound the letters in from this blog. I can't find the exact post:( He has done the entire puzzle 10 times since we got it 2 days ago:) I'd say it's a hit! And it was only a dollar!!!!

Sneak Peak!

What's Out Wednesday will be back this Wednesday! We have our temporary school/play room set up and everyone is feeling better so we are having a lot of fun! See you Wednesday! This a picture of our quiet area:) It's been my favorite:)

FYI

The Name tracing plates work as rubbing plates too! I'm going to make some more!

Sick

We are so sick around here:( I'm the least sick of the bunch and I was wondering if any of you have ideas for fun things to do with the boys besides watching endless movies??? Anybody?? Cough*cough* sniffle:(

Name Tracing Plates

I've been wanting to make some sand paper letters but haven't gotten around to it. Caden loves tracing and when we made our Family Rules Poster I realized that the glitter glue dried very well and had a great texture to it! I traced my finger over it and it didn't shed a single spec of glitter so I whipped these up:)

It's starts out very bubbly but when it dries it flattens out perfectly!
Caden really enjoyed and worked with it several times! (ignore the filthy window sill! We haven't painted every where yet:)

Drake loved it too but he didn't trace it as much but he loved pointing out the letters in his name!

Family Home Evening

We made a family rules chart:) It was really fun and it is helping all of us remember the kind of family we want to be:)

Things to remember when making a rule chart:

• Keep it positive ie. "Gentle hands" instead of "No Hitting!"
• Keep it simple and down to a few rules for little ones!
• Let the children get as involved as possible!!

Correction and Praise

I just read a great post on a blog I now follow, All about the Journey! It's about correction and praise. I've always know to praise but she writes about trying to catch her son being good in order to correct an issue she had been having. I loved it and wanted to share:)

Spelling and Counting Puzzles

I bought these puzzle packs at Costco for 9.99! It was a great deal like always! I love Costco!

First Caden worked on the letter puzzles. I only put out 5 as to not overwhelm:)

He did great putting them together and sounding them out. Then he used our homemade spinny speller to make some of the words.

Than he did the counting puzzles all on his own. When we have reviewed the counting a few more times we will move on to addition:) I just want to make sure that our little "break" didn't leave him forgetting things:)