A year later!

I'm not entirely sure what happened, but an entire year has just passed me by!  In the meanwhile we finished up summer 2011, we went home to South Africa & Swaziland for a holiday and to see the family, my wonderful husband got a new job, we moved to Boston, my big girl finished second grade, my little boy learned to ride without training wheels, and on and on and on.  So much has happened that there's really not much chance of me remembering it all!

So now we're back, and it's June 2012!  We now live in a cute little blue house near Boston, MA and things are going well.  Moving was hard, but we're in a great place now, and the kids and I are very much enjoying exploring our new home!

Summer Week 2 - Mad Science!!

Yes, it's Wednesday already and I'm only now getting around to blogging about last week.  At least I can't complain (yet) about the summer dragging on!  We had another fun and busy week last week, but our plans got changed a little at the end of the week - so we did a little less activities and a little more playdates with friends :)

So last week our "theme" was MAD SCIENCE.  Some of our stuff worked - other stuff, not so much, lol.

* Monday - We started some rock candy, using these instructions.  The plan was to eat it on Friday, but for some reason we got NO crystals at all.  I think that the seed crystals we created by rolling the skewers in sugar just disolved and left nothing to start the crystals growing.  The kids were disappointed, but it was a lesson in how not all science experiments work.

We also did some colour mixing in test tubes - and I was amazed at how long both kids were kept entertained!  We happened to have some plastic test tubes and pipettes, which I filled with water and added a few drops of food colouring to.  The kids sucked up colours with the pipettes and transferred to other test tubes.  We ended up with a lot of messy spillage, and a lot of brown-ish black liquid but they both spent a long time seeing what happened to the colours, and honing their fine motor skills.  Success!

















* Tuesday - The kids had their first swimming lesson!  As predicted my big girl (who was a mermaid in another life I think) loved it and was in her element.  My baby boy on the other hand screamed, kicked and fussed for most of the lesson.  He screamed "I want my Mummy" at the top of his lungs every time the instructor came near him.  Not much fun.

We also headed to the library for their free arts and crafts activity - where we created an artists book of places we'd like to visit.  Fun!  Can't say how much I love that our local library has so much happening this summer - they've been a lifesaver already!!!!

* Wednesday - Today we headed out to meet friends at the $1 movie !  So nice to be able to take all the kids to the movies for so cheap, and always fun to meet up with friends.  We also did a little shopping there (for the Mums, not the kids!) and had pizza for lunch.

When we got home we did a quick experiment with ivory soap and the microwave - very cool!  My main tip for this one is to cut the ivory soap into quarters - for 2 reasons, 1) it will expand and with a whole bar you may end up with soap all over your microwave!  and 2) they WILL ask to do it again :)

* Thursday - In the morning we headed back out to our beloved library - their show this week was none other than Mad Science!  We also collected the kids first prizes for reading 10 books - we got tickets to the baseball!!!  And also bubbles, erasers, a recorder and an inflatable globe.  The show was fun too.

Then we had another swimming lesson, which went off much better - thankfully!
In the afternoon we tried to do a couple more experiments at home - we did the mentos and coke experiment outside.  I think I was considered the coolest Mum ever after than one!! But not quite as cool as these guys!

We also did magic balloons - I found the protocol in an activity book of my daughter's.  I put some baking soda in a couple of new uninflated balloons, put some vinegar in some empty water bottles and then put the balloons on the tops of the bottles.  When the balloons are on the bottles you empty the baking soda into the vinegar and it fizzes, releasing carbon dioxide, which in turn blows up the balloons.  It worked really well, but I used entirely too much baking soda and vinegar so the balloons got liquid in them too.  The protocol calls for 4 TBS vinegar in the bottle, and 2TBS baking soda in the balloon - I'm sure that would be plenty!

On Friday we headed out to the mall to meet up with our friends again - the kids got to jump in the bouncy house, ride the little train, splash in the fountains and eat Chinese food for lunch - the Mums got to go to The Children's Place, Gymboree and Sears, and eat Chinese food for lunch.  Definitely a good compromise, and we all enjoyed our day!

Week 3 is half over already - and the theme is Fairytales!

Summer - Week 1 - The 5 Senses

I kept meaning to update over the weekend, but somehow life (and the pool, and Father's Day etc) got in the way and I didn't have a moment to sit down and blog.  And now week 2 has begun already and I still need to blog about week 1 (I suspect this may become a common thing....).

My plan for the summer is this - have a "theme" for each week, and plan an outing and one or two activities each day.  I do want the kids to have time for relaxation and free play, but I also need something to pull out of my pocket when they start to go at each other's throats (or otherwise drive me crazy).  My "themes" are just a loose general idea - more to give me some direction when choosing activities than anything else.  There are SOOOO many great ideas out there, so I like having a way to narrow them down and pick a couple to do with the kids.

Last week our "theme" was The 5 Senses.  So we did things like:

Funfetti & Angel Foodcake yogurt
with chocolate chips

Chocolate yogurt with mini M&Ms

Tuesday- go to a frozen yogurt shop (self-serve, pick your own flavour and toppings, everything done by weight - it was scrumptious!) for "taste". 

Scratch n sniff Koolaid painting

Koolaid scratch n sniff paintings for "smell" - I got the idea from Serving Pink Lemonade It was a lot of fun, but we were all a little disappointed that the smell had pretty much disapated by the evening (when Daddy got home & the kids wanted to show off their artwork).

And we spent some time at the pool, since it was the first full day of our summer vacation :)

Wednesday - scented playdough (I've seen this idea around a lot, but I used a recipe I tore out from a magazine ages ago, and just added a few drops of food colouring and flavouring).  I was AMAZED at how long the kids played with this - even my very "grown-up" 6 1/2yr old daughter!!

Fun with scented playdough - we had vanilla, peppermint & banana scents

We also went out to the Farmers Market, where we rode Llamas, bounced on the bouncy castle and tasted some samples. We also bought some very yummy chocolate covered strawberries.

Thursday - We headed up to the library, where we signed up for the summer reading programme.  They also had a musician performing - he was showed the kids all different kids of instruments, from the usual guitar, to ukelele's & banjos, recorders and various other flutes.  It was a ton of fun!!  We also stopped and picked out a couple of new books to read.

We made Father's Day cards using shaving foam marbling - I used these instructions and was AMAZED that it actually worked.  This was also fun because it turned into the kids playing with shaving foam for ages (I put some freezer paper down on the table and they just smeared it all over them and the table).

Friday - by now I was getting tired, lol. We spent the morning at the park, and then got my little guy a much-needed haircut.  And we still managed to make some swirl cookies (which turned out VERY colourful, but not particularly yummy - I think that may be something to do with the fact that I am not very good in the kitchen, AT ALL!) .

I also tried out some sandpaper colouring - we put some paper over the sandpaper and coloured, noting the texture.  We also tried colouring with crayons on the sandpaper and melting it in the oven (I got the idea here ) but nothing remarkable happened.

And we're on to week 2 - and our "theme" for this week is MAD SCIENCE!

It's ALMOST summer!!!!

Well my little guy has been off school for a little over a week now, but my big girl still has 2 more days of 1st grade left, so it's not quite officially summer holidays here yet.  She's almost done with first grade and I simply cannot believe it - the year has flown by.  She's growing up WAY too fast for my liking!!  I've been neglecting the blog a little because of having my little boy home, and having the neighbour's little girl here too, but I really do intend to get back and blogging because I have so much fun stuff planned for the summer.  I'm actually looking forward to summer this year - I have a plan to keep us learning, playing, being active and having fun (and hopefully not at each other's throats all.the.time!).  Lets see how long my plan works for (I am notorious for starting with guns blazing and having things fizzle out before too long....)....

Anyway, this week my boy-tjie has been on his new "big boy" bike a lot:

And we made some banana bread (the best part ofcourse is licking the bowl!)

And my big girl (did I mention how she's growing up too fast - LOOK at this photo?!!) has had a dress rehearsal for her Jazz dance recital.  The recital is tomorrow night - she's so excited!

Next week she has a short day on Monday and then we are officially on

summer holidays - YAY!!

Super Quick Fairy Wands

We recently had a playdate problem - we had 3 kids, and only 2 fairy wands!!  Oh, the drama!  After a moment of diffusing the "I got it first", "She won't share" issues, I quickly resolved the problem with this little craft.

Super Quick Fairy Wands
What you need:
* Paper
* Glue
* Sticky Tape
* Contact paper
* Scissors
* Crayons/stickers/markers (something to colour & decorate with)
* skewers

Here's what we did:

My beautiful fairy girl carefully colouring the star for her wand

1) I printed some star shapes off the internet (2 for each wand, a back and a front)
2) The kids coloured & decorated their stars
3) Once they were done I cut out the star shapes (my big girl was able to do her own)
4) I taped the skewer to the back of one of the stars
5) I glued the back and front stars together (sandwiching the skewer between them)
6) I covered the stars in contact paper (both sides) and cut them out
7) Perfect fairy wands for each person at the playdate!!

2 wands in the making - so you can see the back and the front

This little man wouldn't stand still long enough to let me photograph his wand,
but you get the idea.

Ofcourse you could always embelish these and make them much fancier with glitter, ribbons etc

Letter E elephant

Just a quick post, to let you all know I have not, infact, fallen off the edge of the world :P  All is good here, just busy - as life tends to be with 2 kids!  They both seem to be full of the summer sillies at the moment too, ready for the L   O   N   G summer holidays to begin.  Not sure Mum is quite so ready!

Anyway - here's the Letter E, elephant that the little guy and I managed to fit in one day recently.

Here's what we did:
1) I printed out the outline of a letter E (lowercase)
2) The little guy painted it.  We talked about how elephants are grey etc, but he still wanted to use all the colours in his watercolour palette - so that's what he did.
3) While the paint dried I cut an elephant ear and trunk out of black construction paper.
4) When the paint was (mostly) dry - I cut out the letter E
5) The little guy glued the letter e onto some construction paper, and then glued on the ear, trunk and googly eye.

I think we ended up with a cute little multicoloured elephant!

Beautiful Butterflies

We're still very much working off a "spring" theme for inspiration for crafts etc in this household :)  Here's our latest creation:

Beautiful Butterflies
You will need
* Clear contact paper
* Some coloured celophane (I used celophane gift bags that I picked up on clearance at Michaels!)
* Coloured paper
* Scissors
* Pipe cleaner

What we did:
1) I cut the contact paper into the shape of a butterfly (for the little guy - my daughter managed herself)

Butterfly shape out of contact paper

2) Cut the paper into a butterfly body shape
3) Have the kids cut the celophane into little pieces
4) Have the kids stick the body onto the clear contact paper
5) Let them decorate the wings with the coloured celophane (it's so nice that the contact is sticky and no glue is needed!)

Concentrating on wing design!

6) When they're satisfied with their wing design take the butterfly and put it decorated side down onto the sticky side of another piece of contact paper.  This sandwiches the celophane and the body between 2 pieces of contact paper. 
7) Cut out the butterfly
8) Push a pipe cleaner through the body of the butterfly to create antennae
9) Hang on your window and enjoy your beautiful butterfly!

Beautiful Butterflies

Slugs & Snails & Puppy Dogs tails

Well, slugs and snails at least.  The spring weather seems to have brought them out all over our apartment complex.  And ofcourse the warmer weather means we've been outside more, so we're noticing more of the bugs, slugs and snails etc. 

With that in mind we spent some time the other day on a SNAIL craft (although my daughter insisted on adding spots and trying to convert her snail into a ladybug!).  Here's what we did:

Snails
* Empty ribbon roll
* Empty toilet paper roll
* glue or tape
* pipe cleaner
* googly eyes
* paint & paint brushes

1) First I cut the toilet paper roll into pieces about an inch wide. 

2) Then I glued them on to the ribbon roll - to make the head.  (I did learn that the glue doesn't stay stuck all that well if your kid drenches the thing in paint - and resorted to taping the heads on later.  So maybe using tape would be the best option here!

3) Let the kids paint their snails in whatever colours they like (as I said, my daughter added spots to hers!)



Painting the snail





4) Once dry poke 2 holes in the top of the snails "head" and thread a pipe cleaner through to make the "eye stalks/antennae/sticky-outie things" on the snails head

5) Add googly eyes

6) There you have it - very cute snails :)

Resurfacing and.... Letter R Rabbit

Where have I been (incase anyone noticed I was missing)...  Well, my Mum was here visiting from Swaziland.  We get to see her once a year, for about 2 weeks, and have to pack a ton of stuff into that short amount of time.  We definitely did do a LOT this time, and had tons of fun, in the midst of school, preschool and other activities too.  We did SeaWorld, and Hollywood, and the seals at the Children's Pool and an art museum, the library, the Mt Soledad Cross, Old Town, Baskin Robbins (lol) and so many other things.  It's wonderful that my Mum (who's terrified of flying) travels all the way across the world to see us.  The kids love it, I love it, it's awesome.  Except the end, when she leaves and we have to say goodbye for another year.  Luckily we live in the days of internet, email and skype, so we'll still be in touch.

It's been a while since she left though, and we've been slowly getting back into our routine.  The little guy and I even managed to do a letter recognition activity this week.  We're working on the letters of his name, and "R" is the next one to learn.  Since it's springtime I figured that a Letter R Rabbit would be perfect!

Letter R Rabbit

What you need:

• 3 different colours of construction paper
• glue
• scissors
• googly eye
• cotton balls

What we did:





Sticking on the cotton balls for a really fluffy tail



1. I cut out the letter R from beige construction paper, I also cut a small circle from this colour (for the tail).
2. I cut out some ears, a nose and some feet from pink paper
3. My little guy glued the letter R to the green piece of construction paper.  Then I showed him how we were going to make it into a rabbit, so he could glue on the ears, feet, nose and tail too.

4. He stuck on the googly eye (and was a little concerned about it only being one eye - it was hard to explain the whole "viewing it from the side" concept!)
5. He stuck the cotton balls onto the circle, creating a cute fluffy white tail for the rabbit.

It was quick and fun (and turned out cute) - yay!  Afterwards we read "Pat the Bunny", which is also really cute (if a little young for my kid - he liked it anyway).



Letter R ~ Rabbit



Letter recognition - matching game

Sorry I have been MIA for so long - there are times when the days just fly by and you have no idea what you did, or how it got to be bedtime again.  Well, that's what it's been like here - nothing particularly exciting going on, but we've been busy!

Anyway, in the midst of this all my little guy is finally showing interest in learning his letters!  I'm thrilled!!  He has had next to no interest up until just recently, so I'm happy that he wants to learn now. 

I devised this little matching game for him.  All I used was a computer to print a few words - I did his name, his sister's name, and Mummy & Daddy (I plan to expand at some point by adding more words).  I printed them all in little blocks, so their was clear separation between the letters.  Then I got some scrabble tiles (mine are from Michaels, not a scrabble game) and found the correct letters for him.  He has a grand old time matching up the letters on the tiles to the ones on the paper!  Sometimes I sit with him and tell him the names and sounds of the letters - other times I just let him do it himself.  It's all in a ziploc bag together - and he pulls it out to do it pretty often.

Quick, easy, fun and educational - who could ask for more!!??

Fun Face Flowers

That's right - yet more Valentine's crafts, lol!  I actually waited until the big girl was home from school to do this one because I knew she'd want to join in :)

We made some very cute flowers, with heart shaped petals, and little smiling faces in the middle - simple, quick and easy, yay!

Here's what we used:
- pink scrapbook paper, which I cut into hearts

Sticking down the stem - deep in concentration!



- green construction paper - which I cut into leaves & a stem (I should have made the leaves heart-shaped too!)

- White cardstock - to stick the flowers onto

- Photos of your kids (or you, or granny & grandpa, or whoever you like) - which I cut into circles



- Sparkly stuff to stick on - because my kids are never satisfied unless they have sparkly stuff add to their creations!



Sparkles are serious business!!



Once I had cut all the shapes out I showed the kids how to make the flower from the hearts.  We put a big glob of glue on the cardstock where the flower was to be, and then went about sticking the petals on.  The little guy needed some guidance since he kept wanting to stick the "humps" of the heart in the middle of the flower - the big girl got it all on her own. 

After the petals were in place we added the photo of the kids to the middle.  They were both super amused by this!

Then we stuck on the stem & leaves, before going to town with the sparkles!

Fun Face Flowers - complete with LOTS of sparkles!

Lacing Heart Garland

In keeping with all the other Valentine themed crafts, we made a heart garland here a couple of days ago.  It was fun, and it turned out even better than I expected (which is always nice).

What you need:
* cardstock (I used an empty cheerios box)
* scissors
* paint & paintbrush (I used red, pink & purple paint, since we're doing this for Valentines Day)
* hole punch
* yarn (or something to lace the hearts onto)
* beads
* tape

What we did:

Painting the hearts

1) First I used a heart stencil to draw hearts on the back of the empty cheerios box (you could freehand them too) and then cut them out.

2) Then the little guy painted all 8 hearts - I was sure he'd lose interest, but he stuck with it and did all of them.

3) We let the hearts dry (and went and had a snack - always a good distraction)


Painted heart with the hole punched in the "humps"



4) Once they were dry I punch holes in the "humps" of the hearts and we began lacing them onto the yarn (I wrapped the end of the yarn in tape to make it easier for the little guy to thread through the hearts and beads).

5) I tied a knot on one end of the yarn and we laced in through one hole on the heart and out through the other, then we put 2 beads on, then a heart etc etc. until we were done.



Concentrating hard while lacing the hearts & beads



6) The results - a very cute heart garland hanging on my wall!

Very pretty heart garland

Valentine Trees

It's the beginning of Valentine arts & crafts season here :)  I've seen some really cute things around blogland and they inspired me to get my kids involved.  So our first Valentine themed activity was these little Valentine Trees



The little guy painting his "tree"



First we went outside to hunt for the perfect sticks to be our "trees".  Then I stuck the sticks in some styrofoam and let the kids paint them pink & red (outside in the beautiful sunshine we had that day).  While they were drying we came in and made some heart ornaments to hang on our trees - I just cut hearts out of scrapbook paper, and cardstock.  The big girl was able to cut her own, but the little guy obviously couldn't.  I punched a hole in the heart, put some thread through it and tied it (this was the hardest part for me, lol, I kept dropping the thread & couldn't tie a knot for anything!).



Decorating her "tree"



We also took the labels off some glass jars (ours were from premade formula samples way back when the little guy was actually little!) and poured in some red & white beans.  I put ribbon around the jars too, and let the kids decorate with heart stickers.

Then we brought in our pretty painted trees, "planted" them in the jars and hung our ornaments on them.  Ds decided to add the styrofoam bits to the top of his because they looked like snow to him....??



The little guy's Valentine Tree complete with styrofoam snow



The big girl's "Valentine Tree"



I think they turned out pretty cute!  They're now proudly displayed on top of my desk.

Martin Luther King, Jr Day

Well the kids were both off school today for the holiday, and our plans for a playdate with friends fell through (feel better soon - all of you!!) so we were home all day today.  We did a lot of the usual chores, laundry, dishes, etc but the kids also needed to be entertained so I tried to do a couple of MLK Day things with them.

First we did a colouring page - just printed off the internet.  To change it up a little I had the kids paint it with watercolours, instead of just using crayons and/or markers.  They both enjoyed the change!  Sometimes the smallest change to a common activity can make it *new & exciting* again.  I was impressed with how much Little Mr concentrated and tried to get his picture 'just right' (and that he didn't wet the paper so much that he made a hole!)

The little blurb on the colouring page telling us about Dr Martin Luther King, Jr led to an interesting discussion with my big girl about equality, people's rights and why oh why people want to be mean in the first place??!  We talked a bit about the famous "I have a dream" speech and then decided to make a poster about our dreams.  We got a big piece of paper and I put "I have a dream" on the top.

I forgot to take a photo, but here are our dreams.  I started by saying I have a dream "that no-one would ever go hungry".  The little guy didn't get it at all (he's 3) he dreams (apparently) about "the moon" and "chugga chugga choo choo trains".  Gotta love him!  The big girl understood the project better - her dreams were "that everybody would be nice to everyone", "to do things that no-one else has done" and "that everybody could have friends".  What a sweet girl she is!

Salty Snowman

My little guy came home from speech class this morning full of talk of snowmen.  Snowmen are not something we see a lot of here in San Diego, but I guess they're working on their /sn/ blend sound and "snowman" fits the bill.  As we drove home I heard all about snowmen, and snowballs, and snowball fights and I had an idea for an art project.  (I swear every weekend I say I'm going to plan ahead for the week and get organised, have a plan of what to do with him every day etc etc - and every Monday morning I end up flying by the seat of my pants - again.  One day I truely will get a plan, get books that correspond with a theme, art & craft projects for every day, field trips to go with it all etc etc, until then, I'll be grateful for moments of inspiration, lol).

So here's how we made our Salty Snowman

What you need:
* white cardstock
* elmers glue
* paintbrush
* salt (with a spoon for sprinkling, or straight from the salt cellar)
* buttons, ribbon, odds & ends for decorating a snowman
* big piece of coloured paper
* pencil
* scissors



Painting the snowman with glue



1) First I drew a basic snowman shape on the white cardstock - just a big circle with a smaller circle on top.

2) I had the little guy paint the snowman with elmers glue (which he found amusing).

3) We added the googly eyes and counters (for buttons on the snowman's belly)

4) We sprinkled salt (by the spoonful - and more dumping than sprinkling.  Be aware, this is a MESSY step!) on the snowman



"Sprinkling" the snowman with salt



5) I shook the snowman to even out the salt a little, remove the salt covering his eyes (because someone was concerned that they were covered) and shake off the excess, and set him aside to dry a bit.



Salty snowman, drying



6) My little guy really wanted to decorate his big piece of paper - so he went to town with the elmers glue and the odds & ends pile.  He kept asking what everything was, showing me what he "found" and being very annoyed that the buttons with the sticky-outie bit at the back (what's the technical term??) wouldn't stick.

Decorating the background paper

7) After a little while I cut out the snowman, and the little guy glued him on to the paper. 

8) Add any last minute accessories - I decided the snowman needed a scarf, so I cut a little piece of ribbon for that, and I was instructed to cut out a hat too, because snowmen need hats!

9) I was pleased with this project for a number of reasons - it had the boy practicing his /sn/ blends a lot, there was a sensory stimulation with the salt, fine motor skills with the sticking of the eyes & buttons etc, as well as with the sprinkling of the salt.  And best of all, he had fun and made a cute snowman picture for me to hang on my wall!



The finished product - a Salty Snowman!


Linking up to Tot Tuesdays, at My Delicious Ambiguity