Spring Break Boredom Busters 2012

I know a large majority of my friends with school age children woke up this morning and said "Oh crap shoot! The kids are out of school this week...now what?!?!"
"Hi, my name is Sara, and I'm here to help!"
Below is a list of 6 kid tested activities that are sure to keep your kids busy (for at least 10 minutes, I promise!)
Enjoy!

MAGICAL COLOR-CHANGING DRINKS

-drop food coloring in bottom of a cup, let dry overnight

-Add ice in cup

-Pour in water or clear pop for a magical surprise!

BAKING SODA CLAY

2 c. baking soda

1 c. corn starch

1 1/4 c. water

food coloring (optional)

-Combine all ingredients

-Cook over medium heat until mixture resembles mashed potatoes

-Remove from heat and let cool in a glass bowl covered with a damp towel

-Sculpt using water to make pieces stick together

-Dry out for 2 days

-Paint with acrylic paint (can be sanded)

SIDEWALK CHALK PAINT

1/4 c. cornstarch

1/4 c. water

food coloring

-Mix water and cornstarch, divide into small bowls

-Color with food coloring of choice

-Paint on sidewalk/driveway (completely washes away in rain or with hose)

SHARPIE TIE-DYE

-Rubberband pre-washed white t shirt over plastic cups

-Color small circle with sharpie in center of shirt

-slowly drop rubbing alcohol onto marker

-watch as color spreads!

-Heat set in hot wash or with warm iron

 CLOUD DOUGH

8 c. flour

1 c. baby oil

-combine ingredients together

-may take several minutes or mixing for dough to be moldable

TIME CAPSULE

Studies show that between the ages of 6-9, kids are the most interested in where they came from. Why not start early and put together a time capsule for when they reach that quizzical age?! Here is a list of suggestions to include. Gather supplies and fill a box then hide it away in a closet for a few years!

-List of favorites things (ex. foods, friends, toys, games, shows, etc.)

-Load of shredded paper (to toss around when you open it!)

-Favorite character toy

-Current family picture

-a Hand print and footprint to compare later

-Note of current height and weight

**Please expand on this list. This is just to get you started!

Hand print Chick Easter shirt

My 2 year old (almost 3!) is big for his age. He's in 5T's already and they just don't make cute holiday clothes in his size anymore! I had found a cute onesie for Sawyer for Easter and was looking for something for Riley with no luck. So I did what any self-respecting teacher would do; make it myself!! I am a HUGE fan of hand print art. I try not to save a whole ton of art from Riley's class, but anything with his hand print/fingerprints goes straight into his special box of stuff I'm keeping for him. So I browsed around the internet. At first I was specifically looking for thumbprint chicks, but found this hand print bird that I liked better. The teaching website I found it on originally made it as a bluebird. One bottle of Sunny Yellow paint later, it's a cute Easter Chick!

Step 1: Mix 2 parts acrylic paint with one part Textile medium

Step 2: paint subject's hand making sure to fill in all the chubby wrinkles :o)

Step 3: carefully print hands on shirt

Step 4: Use orange acrylic paint to create beaks and legs. Use a fabric marker to 

make the eyes and wings

**Note: The bottle of textile medium says to allow the shirt to dry before heat setting for 7 days. Unfortunately we were under a time constraint and I only had 3 days for it to dry. After it dried, I laid an old towel over top and used my iron on the cotton setting to heat set the paint!

My love letter to Pinterest...

My dearest Pinterest;

   Where were you all my life?!? How did I ever get along before knowing about the Dawn and vinegar cleaner? Or bacon pancakes? Or even yogurt drops??? True, you did let me down on a few occasions...broccoli soup, parmesan honey pork. But to make up for it, you brought me Crack bread...and cinnamon roll cake. <sigh> How I do love thee...

Here are a few of our Pinterest experiments:

Yogurt Drops-squirt on tray, freeze, voila! Instant yummy frozen treat! (Note: They thaw extremely fast! Not the best for a dawdling toddler... I may try adding some juice the next time I make these to see if that helps the thawing time)

With both boys on antibiotics at any given time of the year, it gets tricky tracking their doses. Hello handy helper! Use a permanent marker, write AM/PM and check it off as you administer the dose. Easy peasy dosing!

Muffin Tin Meals-the cure to picky eaters! Makes any meal more interesting and fun for a child who doesn't want to eat. Riley now enjoys picking out the cupcake liners he wants and choosing what should fill each hole. Another bonus-instant portion control!

The grand finale--bacon pancakes. Hellooooo gorgeous! 

1.) Precook bacon in pan. Only cook about 2/3 of the way, so it's still floppy 

(for better use of a word)

2.) Pour premixed pancake batter over top of bacon, covering entire strip. Flip pancake when it gets bubbly on top.

MmmmMMmmmmMMMmmmmm

(insert drooling here!)

30 Tasks in 30 Days Challenge

With March coming to an end and April closing in upon us, I am inspired to tackle the big ginormous job of spring cleaning. With 2 kids under the age of 3, I don't have large chunks of time where I can sit and tackle a whole room in one sitting. So I created 2 different challenges to get the job done. I'd love for some company as I attack my house!

30 Tasks in 30 Days Challenge:

1 task a day for 30 days...

(Your goal is to clean out 1 bag of junk from each task to trash/donate/sell, etc.)

1. Junk drawer

2. Utensil drawer

3. Kids dishes

4. Pantry

5. Under kitchen sink

6. Fridge

7. Spice cabinet

8. Office desk drawers

9. Magazines/catalogs

10. Closet (clothes/shoes)

11. Closet (Hubby)

12. Dresser drawers

13. Night stand

14. TV cabinet

15. Accessories

16. Jewelery

17. Makeup bag

18. Bathroom drawers/bath toys

19. Kids closet

20. kids closet

21. Kids dressers

22. Toys

23. Upstairs closet

24. Scrapbooking stuff

25. Laundry Room

26. Garage (Tool bench)

27. Garage Shelves/lockers

28. Garage (general)

29. Cookbook cupboard

30. Car/console

Feel free to alter as you see fit. Keep me updated on your progress!

SAHM'ing it!

Ever the worrier, I've been concerned about Riley's (and eventually Sawyer's) continued progress educationally now that they aren't in preschool anymore. So I sat down and developed a short term curriculum so that they continue to be exposed to the educational values that are so important before kindergarten.
Riley already knows his colors, shapes, letters, he can spell his name and can read about 15 high frequency words. We have started working on his writing and letter sounds as well as continuing to review the previous skills. I also added in math, literacy and science activities as well. I created what Riley calls his "learning basket" which I fill with books/activities/objects, etc. that correspond with each weeks theme.

March 11-17 Letter A/St. Patrick's Day


The basket this week included:
-A books (A was once an Apple Pie, My A Book, Alphabet Construction)
-A cards to review the A sound
-A collage paper
-foam A's for art
-Rainbow A's
-St Patrick's Day rainbow handprint art
-St. Patrick's Day books
-coupon cutting

Thanks to his obsession with all things with wheels, I found these letters that look like roads and made up his name to practice spelling.

We utilized the easel for several activities this week, including writing and painting our letters

Arrow punch for letter A

Number matching with puffballs

Handwriting exercises (Big A)

(Little a)

We made rainbow rice for St Patty's Day

Practiced our color mixing to make green eggs for breakfast on St. Patrick's Day

(blue and yellow make whaaaaaaaa??)

After making up some batches of avocado baby food, we planted the avocado seeds to see if they will sprout (we're also trying to sprout green onions as well)

Here's what the start of the letter B basket looks like. It includes buttons, Bb books and cards, B art. It also includes some Easter books as well.

DIY Laundry Detergent and fabric softener review

 In an attempt to save some more money (and Meijer has stopped carrying my detergent of choice) I purchased the ingredients for DIY laundry detergent. I'd had several friends who swore by it, so I jumped on the band wagon! 


After researching several different recipes, I landed on the following one mainly because there was very little labor involved and it didn't need to be boiled like some other recipes.

DIY LAUNDRY DETERGENT:

1 1/2 bars Ivory soap, grated

1 c. washing soda

1 c. Borax

*Mix together and store!

*Use 1 T. for light loads, 2 T. for heavy loads

I used a leftover formula can to store and the recipe filled the can about halfway.

Unfortunately, I was not impressed with the results. I found that it could not handle baby spit-up stains, or potty training stains. I don't want to spend a ton of time doing extra pretreating. In the long run, it just didn't cut it for me! So I went back to my old brand (even though I have to get it at a different store now).

The next recipe I tried was the DIY fabric softener. I've been reading that fabric sheets (which I use) cause heavy buildup on the dryer screen, eventually rendering it useless/even dangerous! Plus, due to sensitivity to scents on my part, I needed something less irritating!

DIY FABRIC SOFTENER:

6 c. water

3 c. white vinegar

2 c. hair conditioner

-Heat vinegar and conditioner

-mix in water

-stir to combine

-spritz on washcloth and toss in dryer with load

**(I did make a couple of adjustments to this recipe. I quartered it because I didn't have a way to store 11 cups of fabric softener. The research I found also suggested 2 ways to use it: you could either spritz it, or keep a jar of it and store a wash cloth in the jar and just wring it out and toss in when ready to use. I've found that just making the washcloth damp is plenty. In fact, this is one of Riley's jobs when he's helping me do laundry. He lays the washcloth on the floor and just keeps squirting it while I switch loads!)

The laundry smells fresh with no heavy floral scents and the vinegar makes everything SO SOFT!!! Plus I love that I can use it on all of our clothes and not have to worry about what I'm using on Sawyer's baby clothes.

Long story short:

detergent-thumbs down :o(

fabric softener-thumbs up! :o)

It's been 1 month...

It has officially been one month since I quit my job to stay home with the boys! It's been a transition from the world of a working Momma to staying home...actually a little harder than I thought it would be. I find myself baffled as to why I seem to have more laundry now than I did when I was working...hmm?

The main reason I quit my job is because, as a preschool teacher, not making any money seemed to be the norm. After paying my child care costs, I was bring home a measly $50 a paycheck. Not exactly rolling in the dough, is it?? There were some other reasons, personal reasons, that I wanted to stay home too. I found after the birth of Sawyer that I struggled with some postpartum depression...I found it hard to get out of bed in the morning. I had lost my motivation to really do anything other than stay home with the boys. I had lost the joy in teaching that I had once had. I didn't feel like a normal functioning person anymore!

So we made the choice for me to stay home. We pulled the boys from daycare and stayed home. Now I see them 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. I am the one responsible for their early education. I am solely responsible for getting Sawyer on a schedule (yikes). The first 2 weeks we were home was spent getting Sawyer back to optimum health. He spent 2 months of his tiny 4 month life in and out of the hospital with pneumonia and RSV. His lungs were weak and day care germs weren't giving him a fighting chance. Now that he's been home, he's thriving! He's gained back the weight he lost and is chunking up, my little piggy!

Over the last week, we did make some changes to our daily schedule. I found that as we were adjusting to being at home, we were becoming a little stagnant. True, we went to story hour at the library and we were playing outside for a couple of hours every day (80 degrees in March?!?!) but I'm concerned about Riley falling behind other children who will be in preschool up until kindergarten. So, I did what I do best...I created a curriculum for him! He now has a basket of activities to complete every week that include literacy, science, art and math skills. He completed his first basket yesterday. He calls it his "Learning Basket."

So, we're learning to adjust to our new schedule. We are learning to budget our time. We are learning to lean on each other. I'm getting used to being the sole dish washer, laundry washer, maid, chauffeur, cook, etc. It's taking some time to get used to not being out in the world with other adults. But how could I say no to them?