May 31, 2012

Teacher Appreciation Gifts 2012

(Find other ideas for teachers HERE and HERE)

We had some great teachers to thank at the end of this school year and did several things to say thanks. This is the biggest one we gave to Christopher's preschool teachers:


The tag says "For a STAR teacher. Thanks for sharing your light".  I found the little buckets in the dollar section of Target and thought it would work well.  I filled it with a small candle, starburst, and star shaped chocolates.


He's been going to preschool at a Baptist church that is close to us, and since it's a religious school we also put in some religious things.  When looking for the star chocolates, we saw these shoe shaped ones, and Christopher said "Hey mom! We should get these for my teachers because they help me walk in Jesus' path!" I couldn't say no to that, so those were also in the bucket.


Then I also included a gift card to Great Harvest Bread Co. with a scripture attached about Jesus being the bread of life.


The kids participated in many activities this year, so we also did some smaller gifts for those teachers.  Some received a bag of starburst with the tag : "Thanks for sharing your light! You are a star teacher!" (I don't know why I used different wording on the different gifts)


And some got a small candle with the same tag attached.


We gave some teachers small gifts and some larger ones.  I know it doesn't seem fair, but some teachers did more for our kids.  Hopefully they don't know each other and compare.

Now, I'm going to try something new, and if it doesn't work, oh well.  I'm going to try to attach the tags so if anyone wants to use them instead of making some themselves, they can.  They aren't fancy.  I don't have any fancy software to do fancy things, plus I'm not much of a designer, but I thought I'd attach them anyway.  Let's see . . . hmmmmm, try clicking here and see if that works. 

Phew.  That was a lot of work.  I need some blogging classes.  



Busy Busy Busy

Even though we homeschool, the end of the school year brings about all sorts of busy-ness, as the kids perform in programs and say goodbye to their teachers from outside activities.  We might have been doing a little it too much, but the kids enjoyed it all.  Maren was doing sewing, gymnastics, drama, violin, piano, choir, and soccer.  Next year she is starting at a fine arts magnet school and we've been discussing which things she is going to drop.  Joshua was involved in gymnastics, drama, piano, choir, and soccer.  Christopher was just doing preschool and soccer.  Nathan was doing a lot of sitting in the car.  Poor neglected 4th child.

And we are trying to sell our house.  Things have been a bit stressful of late.

Here are some pictures.  Just skip them if it bores you, but I tell you, these kids are pretty cute.

Maren and Joshua were in a production of Suessical Jr.
Joshua was Max the Dog, and Maren was a Who.  I love their
facial expressions in this one.  You can tell Maren's just feeling it.   

piano recital

Maren got her braces off this spring too.  Very exciting.
And no, she is not an orphan, her mother just lets her go out looking like one.

The 3 older kids loved playing soccer.

The youngest one was not as much of a fan.

This cute kid finished up preschool and gets to start Kindergarten with mommy in the fall!


Now aren't you glad you looked through all of those?

May 8, 2012

"Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs" Book Activity


It's Children's Book week 2012, and most of my children's books are packed away so the house will look less cluttered because we are trying to sell it.  It's very sad.  There are probably about 25 boxes of books feeling lonely in our storage unit, wondering when someone will come read them again.  So sad.  I did keep out some of our favorites, and I know there are these places called libraries where you can borrow books, but I miss my collection.

(To see other book related activities, click HERE)

"Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs" by Judi Barrett is one that we still have out, so we used it for an activity today.  I invited the kids to come to snack time in the afternoon, but told them to sit at the table and listen to a book first.  We read the book, and then I told the kids that we were going to pretend we lived in the book's town called Chewandswallow.  Maren looked incredulously at me and said "Mom, you're not really going to throw food at us, are you?"  Heeheehee.  

I had the kids sit on the fireplace, and then one at a time they got stand up and catch their snack in a plastic strainer, pretending their snack was falling from the sky.  I stood on the couch and tossed the food.  


I hade made popcorn, but it was too hard for the kids to catch, so we didn't use it.  I tossed handfuls of goldfish crackers, mini graham crackers, marshmallows (which were the easiest to catch), a few m&ms, and some Hershey's Kisses I had found in the cupboard. 


The kids thought this was a great activity, but it also made a bit of a mess on the floor.  After each turn they pretended to be the sanitation department and pick up all the food they hadn't caught.  

After their turn was done, they poured their snack mixture into a paper bag and ate it for snack while watching Word Girl.  

(Maren just got her braces off last monday, so she can eat popcorn again.
She's very excited about that.)


Then we talked about whether or not we thought it would be fun if food always fell from the sky.  We decided it wouldn't, but it was fun once in a while.


Book Activities from the Past


I thought I would post some links to previous activities we've done with books.  I love doing activities with books and the kids love it too.


Cam Jansen Book Club Activity




Scranimals and Mrs. Wishy Washy ideas













A Pizza the Size of the Sun Book Club Activity






How I Became a Pirate Book Club Activity























May 7, 2012

Chicken Books




Happy Chicken's Book Week 2012!

Wait.  I mean Happy Children's Book Week 2012.  Children. Chickens. I've heard it both ways.  

To celebrate I'm going to share with you some favorite books, starting with chicken books - and yes, we really have a chicken book collection.  Many years back, when trying to decide what the kids could give Jason for Christmas, I decided we should give daddy something that went along with a theme every year and that would make giving him gifts easier.  I thought it would be fun to give him a picture book he could read aloud to the kids, because we love reading books, and then I thought it should be a chicken book, since he thinks chickens are funny.  So, every Christmas and Father's Day the kids (and I) give him a chicken themed present.  Most of the gifts have been books, but we've done some other chicken things as well.

I think I've only bought one chicken book I didn't like and ended up giving away.  Here is a list of favorites:












Chickens to the Rescue
by John Himmelman
The kids love yelling out "Chickens to the rescue" each time the chickens save the day.












Rosie's Walk
by Pat Hutchins
This chicken manages to evade the fox without even realizing he's there.












Chicken Big
by Keith Graves
He's a very wise chicken.












Louise, The Adventures of a Chicken
by Kate DiCamillo
Even chickens get tired of being cooped up and need some adventure, like on a pirate ship or in a circus.











Interrupting Chicken
by David Ezra Stein
Little chicken is not a very good listener.













Philadelphia Chickens
by Sandra Boynton
Mostly I got this for the CD of fantastic songs the kids love listening to, but they also like to hold the book while we are listening to read the words and sing along.


That is a good list of books.  They are all winners.

If you have favorite chicken books, let me know.  Father's Day is coming up soon.







May 2, 2012

Charity Bake Sale

Many weeks ago, we had a very scary set of storms pass over us.  People not too far from us were not so lucky, as tornadoes ripped their towns apart.  We talked to the kids about what had happened and gathered lots of items to help with the clean up efforts and donated them.  While we were doing this, Maren asked if she could have a bake sale to raise money to help out the people.  I told her I would support her in this effort.  She was suprised, because usually I tell her no when she wants to make bookmarks or bracelets and sell them, and I told her that's because usually she's trying to raise money to buy a toy for herself, whereas now she was raising money for other people.

She was very excited to get started.  We set a time and I asked permission from the neighborhood association to hold the bake sale in a more prominent location, since we live on a cul-de-sac that doesn't get much traffic.  They thought it was a great idea and said we could do it by the pool on a much busier street.  They also sent out an announcement and I was surprised at the support the neighborhood gave to Maren.  She was thrilled.  



We got busy making treats.  I supervised while she made cupcakes, cookies, cake pops, and rice krispie treat birds' nests.  She made signs and a place to put the money.  



Her brothers helped advertise.  




At first she had come up with prices for each treat, but we ended up just deciding to let people donate what they wanted and take what they wanted. This worked pretty well.  We had some who paid a 50 cents for a treat, some who paid $20, and one very generous neighbor who paid $100 for a cake pop, so it all balanced out.  The kids thought that was pretty great.  In the end, Maren had raised $387 to donate to the Red Cross.  

We made an online donation to the Red Cross, and then Jason and I matched the money so that Maren could also have a more hands on donating experience.  Her grandma lives near a town that was wiped out by a tornado, and the soup kitchen where Grandma lived was busy feeding many people, including workers trying to clean up.  They were in need of supplies.  Grandma took Maren to Sam's club where they filled up a couple carts.  


She paid for it with the cash she had collected.  




They took it to the soup kitchen.  Grandma said Maren was beaming.  





This was a great experience for Maren, and I was so glad she was able to do it.  


Well, hello there!

Well hi! How are you doing?  It's been a while since I last posted anything, and I know I don't have to many readers, but I do have some, so thanks for being readers, and sorry I haven't posted anything lately.  I have LOTS of excuses, such as potty training, trying to sell a house, a time consuming church responsibility, homeschooling, etc. . .  BUT it does look like things are settling down a bit, and so I'm going to start trying to think of fun things to do with my kids and posting them.  I haven't been a very fun mom lately.  Stress makes me be grumpy and eat candy - I know, not the best coping strategies.

Anyhow, since I've been gone, the blog has still had lots of traffic thanks to a great place called pinterest.  In fact, this blog is currently at 104,295 page views, which you might not care about, but I think is pretty cool.  49,000 of those pageviews have been for the super spy training party I threw for Maren a couple of years ago.  That was a fun party.

So thanks for reading and I'll be posting more soon.  I'm still here.  That's all.  Thanks.