Making Books with Young Children

The other day my 6 year old was playing with his camera and came to show me the "action shots" he was getting of his playmobil people.  It was pretty cute.  He had set them up and taken pictures of them sword fighting, climbing a mountain, and fighting a dragon.  He told me who were the good guys and the bad guys.  It game me an idea.

The next day we sat down at the computer together and made up a story.  At this age, kids have so many stories in their heads but it's hard for them to write them out by hand.  I love typing up stories my little ones tell me. I have many saved on my computer and the kids like reading them.  Usually I would print them out and let the kids illustrate them by hand, but Joshua and I decided to use his camera this time instead.

After we had written the story, we got out his toys and set up the scenes for each page.  We had a lot of fun working together to make the pictures look just right.  He was in charge of the camera, and we talked about  how best to take the picture, whether it should be from a distance or a close-up.  Sometimes we had to take several to get it just right.  I tried not to be bothered by crooked ones. Then I put the pictures on my computer and added them to his story.  It took me a bit to figure out how to do the pages so that I could print on front and back and fold it and have them be in the right order, but finally got it figured out.  Joshua loves his book and wanted to print lots of copies to share.

There are so many things you can teach your kids while writing a story together.  While I typed up the story with Joshua we talked about the different parts of a story.  We talked about when to use quotation marks, synonyms for when a word was being used too much, capitalization, and ending punctuation.  When he didn't know what should happen next in the story, we would talk about possibilities and he would choose his favorite.  It was a great project to do together and he told me he is already planning a book 2.

This would also be great to do with beginning readers.  Children are more motivated to read a book they've created themselves.  Make a book with words your begining reader can already recognize and some they are working on.  They will love reading out loud to you a book they have created themselves.

Related to this idea, when my daughter was little she had 2 best friends move away.  To help them remember each other, my friends and I made up stories for them to be the stars of, took pictures of our daughters, and made a book for each of them.  My daughter still likes to look at hers and remember her friends, 6 years later.

Snack Shop Math

Joshua just finished a chapter about money in his math workbook, and so we set up a snack shop in our kitchen as an end of unit project.

We started by going through our pantry and deciding what he wanted to sell.  We then typed up a menu with prices for each item.

He made a sign to hang by his shop.

He counted out $2.50 in play money for his brother and sister, and for himself.  Then they marked on their menu what they wanted.  Joshua was supposed to add up the total This was good money practice for him and Maren, as they had to figure out what combinations they could buy with the money they had.  I helped the 4 year old.

Nathan got his snacks for free.  It pays to be cute.

My Creative Daughter

My daughter loves to make dresses for her little dolls.  She's been doing it for a couple of years.  And although I have given her scraps of fabric to work with, her preferred medium is toilet paper.  She's such a goofball.  

The last couple of months she has really stepped up the quality of her outfits, and not only has she added colorful designs to the toilet paper, but has given up the usual tape to hold them together in favor of needle and thread.  

I thought I would share some of her creations, because I find them delightful.  

the green polka dot shirt is my favorite

this is a doll apron, with a sewn on pocket

toilet paper pillow with toilet paper blanket

Here she has colored and cut out the imprinted rose from the toilet paper to decorate
a birthday card for her cousin.  Seriously, why haven't other crafters
picked up on this yet?  So many possibilities.  

I'll let you all know when her Etsy shop opens. 

She was very excited when I told her she was going to start sewing lessons today with some friends. I sure love that girl.  

Fun Get to Know You Game (or Pumpkin Pile-up)

At our church, I help lead bimonthly activities for a group of 8 to 11 year old girls, called Activity Days.  This past week, we did a fun get to  know you activity since many of the girls hadn't met each other before.

In this game, the girls found out about each other and laughed, a lot.  I called it Pumpkin Pile-up because I put the all the slips of paper in a plastic halloween pumpkin, and because the girls end up sitting on each other.  

To play this game, you need one chair for each player and a list of "if" statements.  Here are some things from my list:

if you like to listen to Christmas music in September

if your favorite color is blue

if you have a pet

if you’ve ever visited another country

if you like cake more than ice cream

if you play a sport

if horses are your favorite animal

if you play the piano

if recess is your favorite subject in school

if you love to cook

if you are the oldest in your family

if you’ve lived in another state

if you get scared easily

if you are grumpy when you don’t get enough sleep

if you complain when it’s time to take a shower

if you like to buy things at yard sales

if you are afraid of spiders

if you sleep with a stuffed animal or blankie

if you have a nickname

if you have super powers

if you’d rather have a pet monkey than a pet dog

if you’ve been on a roller coaster

if you’d rather go swimming than bike riding

if pizza is your favorite food

I added more as I thought of them.  The game goes quickly, and most girls wanted to keep playing even after we had run out of questions.  

Everyone starts in a chair.  The leader picks up a slip of paper and says "move over one seat" and then reads the paper.  So you get "Move over one seat if pizza is your favorite food".  If it applies to you, you move over one seat.  But, if someone is already sitting in that seat and isn't moving, you just sit on their lap.  You end up getting several girls sitting on each other.  If someone on the bottom needs to move over one seat at some point, you just get up and let them move, and then sit back down on your seat again.

We'd ask the girls to elaborate on some of the things, like telling us their nicknames as they moved over, or telling us what things make them scared.  Girls who weren't moving also liked to chime in with their favorite food or favorite color, so there was a lot of talking among the girls, and I think everyone left feeling happy and feeling like they had made some new friends.

Monkey Birthday Party for a 2 year old

My little monkey turned two last week!  I can't believe how quickly he is growing up. To celebrate, we threw him a monkey party with some family.  He's very into monkeys right now.  And the Wiggles.  And the Wiggles singing "Do the Monkey".  That is the perfect combination for him.  

I try to do fun and simple birthday parties.  It's always frustrating to me to search online for birthday party ideas and only see decorations, invitations, party favors, and such.  I am much more focused on what we do at the party than what the party looks like.  I try to think of things the birthday child will enjoy and will make good memories.  Granted, a 2 year old isn't going to have great memories of his 2nd birthday party, but his siblings will!

Here's what I came up with for his party.

nothing fancy, but the kids loved them!

I made monkey party hats for the kids.  These were very simple.  I just bought some brown and tan fleece, cut out ears and a hat, and sewed them together.  Sorry I'm not going to give directions. I figure they're probably easy enough to figure out just from looking at them.  The kids got to keep them as their party favor.  Although I found out the hard way that the fleece was only stretchy one way, so some of the hats that I hadn't cut out with the width going the right direction wouldn't stretch onto the kids' heads.  Luckily I was able to make more right before the party.  So be careful how you cut!

Nathan was not a fan of his hat, strangely enough

Next, we played "5 little monkeys swinging in a tree", except we had 7 little monkeys. We just chanted the rhyme together:

7 little monkeys swinging in a tree
Teasing Mr. Alligator  "Can't catch me!"
"You can't catch me!"
Along came Mr. Alligator quiet as can be
And snapped that monkey right out of that tree!

6 little monkeys . . . .

The kids all sat on the tree/couch, and we enlisted the help of Uncle Jon to be our alligator.  He would go back and forth along the couch and snap up a kid when it was time.  The kids LOVED the anticipation and giggled with excitement, wondering when they were going to be snapped up.  The little birthday boy, however, was not so happy.  He got a little bit scared of Uncle Alligator and opted out of the activity.  Perhaps acting out 5 little monkeys jumping on the bed would have been better for him.

uh-oh, which monkey is he going to snap?

Aaaaah!  He got the Brittany monkey!!
(He was taking her to the snapped monkey waiting area)

Next, we practiced balancing bean bags on our heads and walking and talking like a monkey over to the monkey box and putting the bean bag in his mouth.  (I had drawn a monkey, cut out his mouth, and taped it to a box) The kids had fun with this activity too.  Even Nathan!

Then I scattered a bunch of banana cut-outs I had found at the parent teacher store all around the house and the kids went and gathered them up and fed them to the monkey (the monkey box again).  This was probably Nathan's favorite activity, other than eating cake and opening presents.  I told the older kids to just get 7 bananas each and leave the rest for the little kids.  Nathan wanted to do this over and over again.

For our last activity, we played duck duck goose.  Well, monkey monkey banana.  This is always a favorite with the little ones.

Finally it was time for presents and cake!  His cousin Ashley has a birthday just a few days after Nathan, so we did a family celebration together.  Those are bananas on top of her cake, in case you couldn't tell.

To make the monkey cake, I used a Wilton Ball pan, adding cupcakes for the ears.  The ears were tricky.  I used straws to help secure them to the sides of his head, but I had several fall apart, so I was glad I had made extra.

And just because I think it's too too cute not to include, here is a bit of a video of Nathan opening his favorite present.  His grandma has had this toy at her house from when my first son was crazy about the Wiggles, and decided to pull it out and give it to Nathan.  He had never seen it before and to say he was excited is an understatement.  I had to pry his fingers off this thing at bedtime as he screamed at me.





He has carried it around with him for the last several days and I still laugh every time he starts dancing.  He's just too cute!  I sure love my little monkey.  

Family Reunion 2011

We just got back from a great week with my parents and brothers and sister!  It was so much fun visiting with them.  We haven't been all together in one place for three years, since my parents were serving a mission for our church in Albania.  The cousins had so much fun playing together and I hope we can do it again soon!

Here are some highlights of our trip:

There was a water fight with grandpa in the backyard.  Christopher was a smart kid, and told grandpa he was going to be on HIS team.

Picnic in the park, with grandma's homemade oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, playing frisbee and pass, and playing at the playground with cousins

Visiting the San Jose Children's Museum.  There were so many fun things to do!

We took a trip to Gilroy Gardens, a fantastic amusement park for young kids.

We convinced Maren to go on the only slightly scary roller coaster they have there.  She was not a happy camper.  After about the first 10 seconds, she was screaming and crying "mommy! mommy!" and I felt like the worst mother in the world.  But then about 5 minutes after we got off, she asked if we could go again, so I guess I didn't traumatize her for life after all.  Phew!!

Jason had the camera with him on the ride and captured this moment, which I'm sure she'd rather forget.

We took a hike and found a stream to play in.  The kids decided to build a dam with the help of the dads.  Jason couldn't resist making dam jokes, and kept saying things like "this looks like a good dam stick" (please don't be offended).   We figured most of the kids didn't get it, and the men kept making jokes. Then on the way out I said something about all the bugs flying around and Maren said "you mean the dam bugs from the dam dam?"  Yeah.  We all laughed.  I don't think she was quite expecting the reaction she got, and she said "What? I was just doing what daddy was doing!"  Oops.

taking turns crossing the dam

Grandpa is famous for pillow diving.  All the grandkids got a turn.  They loved it! Too bad my camera is not so good at action shots.

Nathan's first time pillow diving with grandpa

We also went to the Monterey Bay Aquarium.  The penguins, sea horses and sea dragons were favorites!

We did a lot of playing in my parents backyard and eating outside.  Summer weather in California is the best!  The kids played soccer, pass, croquet, and rode around on tricycles and scooters.

I believe Jack beat all the adults this round

Other highlights I don't have pictures of include, but are not limited to: talent show on sunday night, where Emily performed her backwards and upside down piano playing and Greg played with his feet;   eating grilled vegetables and grilled salmon (another favorite); Emily's veggie enchiladas (she will share the recipe soon, I hope).

Thanks for reading through my travel log.  Not that exciting, I'm sure.  I just wanted to write down some memories before I forgot the fun we had.