FUNdamentals

Day 16 - Day 22 Truth in the Tinsel Advent Experience

2012-01-13T04:30:00.000-08:00

Due to the busy holiday season we missed out on day 15, 23 and 24 but we managed to complete and have great fun with all the rest of the activities. We will definitely do this again next year. The kids really enjoyed their treats out of their advent calendar daily stockings too so all in all our 2011 Advent Experience was awesome. Here's pics of the days I haven't posted yet...

Day 16...

Day 17...

Day 18...

Day 19...

Day 20...

Day 21...

Day 22...

Day 14: Truth in the Tinsel Advent Experience

2011-12-14T23:15:00.000-08:00

Day 14... the stable because there was no room in the Inn...

Yesterday was a gloomy and very wet day despite the fact that it is summer so when we realized we had to go outside for twigs for our crafts we started to despair. Not for long though... because we're really good at improvising ;)

As we were eating our morning fresh fruit snack I looked at the twigs on the bunches of grapes we were munching and had a light bulb moment... ting!

So we gathered our supplies... some craft sticks, glue and our 'creative' twig substitute...

And made this delightful little stable...

Fridge Magnet Notebook Tutorial

2011-12-14T05:42:00.000-08:00

I had this idea a few months back and stored it in the back of my mind to make for Christmas presents for two of my sisters and my sister-in-law. So I thought I'd put a tutorial up incase anyone else wants to make a frugal Christmas present for a loved one.

The supplies you will need are:
3 small notebooks
1 A4 sheet of thin wooden board. I used a decoupage blank I found in the craft store.
Scrapbook paper. You could also use a photo or a little picture your children drewor painted, this will be a perfect option if this gift is intended fordoting grandparents.
2 pencils
Embellishments of your choice

You will also need one of those plastic book binders you get at the print shops. A size that your pencil will comfortably fit into.

And a magnet sheet...

Now on to the crafty goodness... take your wooden sheet and cut it into 3 equal pieces. I asked my Dad to do this on his rotary cutting machine. Sand the edges with sand paper until smooth.

Take you pencils and with a scissors make a groove then snap it into two...

Sand the ends to make it smooth. Now you have 4 small pencils out of 2 large ones...

Cut your coordinating scrapbook paper, photo or art into squares to fit the top of your piece of board...

Cut your book binder into sections of three...

Now on to the gluing. Heat up your glue gun and get rid of the kids i.e. put them in the room with play dough while you work with the glue gun on the kitchen counter far away from little hands. Glue the notebooks to the bottom half of your wooden sheets...

Then glue your scrapbook paper squares onto the top half...

Now glue on the sections of book binder (this is to hold your little pencil)...

Embellish your scrapbook square as much or as little as you like...

Then take a moment to admire the beauty of your embellishments...

Lastly glue on your strips of magnet...

And you're done...

For the gift tags I used little window cards...

and glued in little squares that I embellished with beads...

And made three of them for the three gifts...

Now all that's left to do is to wrap and admire your handy work...

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial. Have fun.

I linked this up to...

and...

Day 13: Truth in the Tinsel Advent Experience

2011-12-14T05:04:00.000-08:00

Day 13 was Bethlehem so the kids made the cutest little houses out of egg cartons. This craft was extra exciting because it was one that Jane could join in on.

They painted their houses and made little black dots for the windows with black paint.

Andy and Jane's finished ornaments...

Day 12: Truth in the Tinsel Advent Experience

2011-12-14T04:59:00.000-08:00

On Day 12 we did a cute 'I spy jar' relating to the census where Mary and Joseph had to go to Bethlehem to be counted. I thought it was a really excellent connection between subject and craft the rice grains being the many people and Mary and Joseph being amongst them. Ours turned out rather hilarious but fun none the less :)

Their treats were Woolies eggs. Andy got the dinosaur egg which to his delight contained the skeleton of a T-rex's skull and a small packet of sweeties and Jane got a Hello Kitty one with a hair clip and sweeties inside :)

Jane asking for hers to be opened...

Andy coloring the rice in a bag with gel food coloring and a bit of hand sterilizer cause we didn't have rubbing alcohol, which I thought was an excellent tip given in the book.

Feeling the rice before setting it down to dry...

In the mean time Andy took all our pipe cleaners out of our craft box and made rings out of them then using the lid of the craft box he went around selling his wares...

I of course bought some because who could resist such beautiful jewelry...

Our supplies for Mary and Joseph were rather unusual. I of course couldn't find the permanent marker when I need it so we opted for thin black tape. For the heads we used a bunch of plastic balloons from the cake shop.

We cut pieces of tape for the faces... told you ours came out hilarious...

Our i spy container on the tree...

Days 9, 10 and 11: Truth in the Tinsel Experience

2011-12-12T00:36:00.001-08:00

We seem to form a patteren of not getting the time or oppertunity to do our advent crafts over the weekend. Which is understandable seeing that weekends are always jam packed with family fun :) But we did however make the time to have our advent treats. On Sunday Andy pulled our a slip of paper out of the stocking on which I drew a gingerbread man indicating that we will be baking gingerbread men as his treat for the day. He was so excited and had great fun decorating them. I did most of the baking of coarse because the kids prefer to eat cookie dough while occationally helping. The icing part though was done very enthusiastically by all (including Mommy). :)

So Monday is a crafty goodness day of catch up. This morning we made Joseph for Day 9. I didn't have the correct shaped peg called for in the instructions so we used craft sticks for the legs and a round Christmas ornament for the head. I glued it with hot glue...

Joseph with Mary and a felt heart on our tree...

Day 10 was about Joseph's dream so Andy made this pillow stuffed with cotton wool. I inserted an eyelet for easy hanging and we glued the bottom shut with fabric glue...

This Mommy is a decluttering Mommy so unfortunately we didn't have magazines lying around to cut up. I did however have scrapbook paper which we cut some letters from. I didn't like the lowercase j in the front of the name of Jesus so I just filled in a capital J with a marker :)

We glued a pipe cleaner to the back to hang it...

We had so much fun this morning! My lounge floor needs a good sweeping now cause Jane has to join in on the crafting fun by 'sorting' through our craft box while we are busy and Andy loves cutting up the little bits of left over materials into tiny pieces :)

Andy is really happy cause it's school holidays so the neighbour kids are all at home. He's busy right now having a lovely morning picnic under the shade of a big tree with 2 of his friends. I so fondly remember my own carefree summer holidays! Okay enough day dreaming... got to go do those dishes... and sweep the floor :)

Day 8: Truth in the Tinsel Advent Experience

2011-12-08T01:57:00.001-08:00

Andy's reaction to today's treat... Wow, sugar-free lollipops :-)

Luckly the kids see the sugar free lollipops I buy from the health shop as a treat and seeing that it contains no artificial ingredients or sugar there is no Mommy guilt attached to giving them. :-)

The craft for today was to make a sun so we cut out a sun from the template given in the book using fun foam and Andy 'painted' glue onto it...

While Jane tried to get up to have a better 'look' (somehow toddlers, glue and glitter don't make a very friendly combination - don't ask me how I know that)! ...

He then sprinkled golden glitter all over his sun...

We inserted a brad and proudly pegged it onto our tree...

Day 7: Truth in the Tinsel Advent Experience

2011-12-07T22:49:00.001-08:00

The little stocking for Day 7 contained a map and following the directions Andy discovered a beach sand castle mould bucket with a rake, sand sieve, spade, sand mould and 2 packets of soft gum sweets shaped like sea animals. Jane played with her packet of sweeties for a while and then was allowed to eat half a sweet :-)

Now Andy wants to go to one of his favourite places... the beach :-)

Day 7's scripture reading, discussion and craft was about Mary singing so we had to decorate a CD. Andy wanted to do sand art so we collected the supplies including some shiny paper to cover the back of the CD.

Andy doing his sand art...

The finished ornament...

And the shiny back...

Day 6: Truth in the Tinsel Advent Experience

2011-12-06T11:33:00.001-08:00

Enjoying Advent calendar treats in our pj's (but after breakfast - cause even this mommy doesn't bend the rules too much in the festive season)!

After getting dressed, on to crafty goodness. Andy painting Mary and Elizabeth...

And Jane plays with play dough...

While Mary and Elizabeth dries Andy joins in the fun...

Andy cut the paper dolls and their clothes out and assembled them. I decided to pin them up cause our little Christmas tree is getting rather full with all this festive craftiness and there are still many more days (and ornament crafts) till Christmas!

DIY Pin board

2011-12-06T11:09:00.001-08:00

I've been wanting to get Andy a pin board to display some of his art work at his school desk but couldn't get it over my heart to spend R200+ on one so I've been thinking about how to make my own. We recently had to buy a new microwave so when I opened up the box and saw the square slab of Styrofoam my mind started working. While I was buying craft supplies yesterday I saw a large sheet of cork and it was settled.

I took the styrofoam and cork sheet...

and using the foam as a template I traced a line with a pencil and cut out the cork...

I then rolled some glue onto the top surface of the foam...

Stuck the cork on, weighed it face down with some books for a while and then air dried it outside...

When it was dried I displayed some of Andy's mosaic art as well as his latest two Christmas ornaments. I also put up some letters that I decoupaged with scrapbook paper...

A fresh look for his 'school' corner and the pin board cost me all of R8 to make... can't beat that!!!

I linked this up to...

Day 5: Truth in the Tinsel Advent Experience

2011-12-06T00:32:00.001-08:00

Day 5 was Hello Kitty treats and a Mary craft.

Jane is a bit too small for so many treats so I let her open it and then she shares it with me :-)

We made a Mary ornament out of a peg...

When we finished our scripture reading and discussion we played with Gabriel and Mary, acting out the scene...

Day 3 and 4: Truth in the Tinsel Advent Experience

2011-12-05T12:40:00.001-08:00

On Sunday the 4th we caught up and did Days 3 and 4...

Day 3 had a treat a little too big for our Advent Calendar stockings so I put a little map in it along with the little Truth in the Tinsel clue. The map led Andy to two marshmallow pies which he found under Jane's chest of drawers...

Afterward we did our Day 3 Zachariah ornament. I searched everywhere for our googly eyes but couldn't find any so we used buttons instead and I promptly started organizing our craft supplies again. It's amazing how quickly it gets in a muddle.

Everyday we do the extra 'activity' giving and Andy thought this the funniest. We had to talk holding our tongue at the same time. The effect was hilarious. While we were driving back from visiting my mother in law Andy burst out laughing in the car and through his giggles he said he was thinking about when we talked while holding our tongue :)

Day 4 was the angel Gabriel. Our craft supplies weren't entirely organized yet so I couldn't find any pipe cleaner which the wings were supposed to be made of but we're good at improvising by now right, so we used our trusty fun foam for the wings, scrapbook paper for the body and a Christmas bell ornament for the head. This was a really pretty and fun one!

Day 1 and 2: Truth in the Tinsel Advent Experience

2011-12-05T12:28:00.001-08:00

Because we were at the Homeschool camp on December the 1st and 2nd, we did these two days on Saturday the 3rd to catch up.

Day 1 was a candle ornament. We didn't have black card so Andy painted blue fun foam with black paint which worked out fine and had the same effect only with more painting fun added :)

It has strips of tissue paper sandwiched between two of the foam cut outs cut from the template provided in the eBook. Our finished candle ornament...

Day 2 was a crown made from the inner tube of a toilet roll. Andy chose to paint it yellow...

And decorated it with beads and glitter...

These activities are out of the eBook Truth in the Tinsel: An Advent Experience for Little Hands.

2011 Homeschool Camp

2011-12-05T12:08:00.001-08:00

The kids and I attended our Homeschool group's annual camp from 30 November till 2 December. We had such fun. Andy was freeeeeeeeeeee... he could play with friends, run without boundaries, explore nature and discover huge 'sticks' beyond his wildest dreams...

He loved swimming in the river...

Jane enjoyed the camp too although she was stuck to me like glue the entire three days :)

She got her feet wet...

She made sure to take time to moisturize her beautiful skin...

She made sure her dolly got lots of early morning fresh air and hugs...

And she had fun exploring nature and looking as adorable as possible while doing so...

Each year we have a prize giving where each child receives their certificate for their Homeschool year and a present provided by the parents. This year I bought Andy the T-Rex toy that he's been wanting for the last few months. It lights up and roars and he was over the moon when he opened his present and realized what it was. It was so much fun watching his surprise and joy.

One of the activities at the camp was moulding with clay. Each child had to make something out of clay and I was so very proud of Andy when he won first prize in the 5 year old category for his cobra...

We had a BLAST!!!

Our 2011 Advent Calendar

2011-12-05T12:05:00.001-08:00

The idea for our calendar came to me when I was in Woolworths buying some birthday gifts and I spotted some Christmas chocolates with a little felt Christmas stocking ornament attached to it. My mind started working over time and the result was a felt stocking for each day to hold a treat and I strung the lot onto a festive ribbon and mounted it on our lounge wall near our Christmas tree.

Andy wanted to help so he embroidered the two orange stockings with bells cut out of felt and I embroidered his name and the year on it so that we will remember in years to come...

I inserted an eyelet into each stocking to put the ribbon through and decorated each with whatever I created or had on hand...

I made sure it was high enough to be admired but not within reach to be handled LOL! I've learnt from previous years that treats seem to mysteriously vanish when within reach of certain people :)

So when it's time to receive the daily treat I simply slip the one side off and lower it for collection :)

We are also doing an eBook this year called Truth in the Tinsel. I first heard about this over at one of my favorite blogs Love and Lollipops. I fell in love with the idea of having scriptures, discussions and an ornament activity laid out for you to do each day! My husband bought the book for us on the 30th of November when the kids and I were up in the mountains on the annual Homeschool camp (unfortunately he couldn't join us this year due to work commitments) so when I came back on the 3rd of December I printed it out, put each little clue picture in our advent calendar along with the treats and then we played some catch up over Saturday and Sunday. So now we've started the new week up to date on our Advent calendar and almost up to date with the washing from the camp :)

I will be blogging our Truth in the Tinsel Advent journey.

Lap Harp

2011-11-27T01:04:00.001-08:00

Andy loves playing on his lap harp. It's lovely to hear his natural musical abilities being expressed as he follows the little notes but keep perfect timing even though he doesn't fully understand the timing of different notes yet. The lap harp comes with handy little music sheets that have the notes underneath the right string so that it makes it very enjoyable and easy for young children with no frustration involved :-)

Yanky Doodle is by far his favourite song to play :-)

As a family that doesn't own a TV (by choice) we appreciate the developing skills and delightful entertainment by candlelight after supper...

Playmat Tutorial And Give Away

2011-09-18T09:28:00.000-07:00

Okay, here's the tutorial and giveaway I promised. Phew, now I remember why I haven't blogged in so long. To get the housework and washing up to date and the kids playing and happy in order to sit down to blog is no joke. As I type I have Jane breastfeeding and a little hand trying to contribute some text to my blog post :)

Anyway, this tutorial won't be super detailed but hopefully it'll make sense and at the end I'll give the details of the give away.

Cut two circles of fabric (whatever size you want your playmat to be). I used the kids' little round dinning table as a template.

Cut a pond out of felt and tack it to the circle of fabric that you will be using for the inside of the playmat. I mounted the area onto a large embroidery hoop to keep things in place and level. Then use embroidery thread and secure the felt onto the playmat by doing a blanket stitch edging. Please don't think skipping tacking will save you time because in the long run it will cost you time to unpick things when they start going skew. It only takes a few moments to tack your felt in place SO DO IT!

This is the template I free-handedly cut for the caves. The felt in the picture is held double with the fold on the left.

Cut as many caves as you want and then TACK it onto your fabric and blanket stitch it down with matching color embroidery thread.

Put the two circles of fabric wrong sides together and stitch it together along the edge with as small a seam allowance as possible. This is just to keep the two layers together and in place for you to stitch the bias binding on. Stitch the binding all the way around with matching thread. Now for the eyelets. If you don't have a eyelet tool then make button holes on your sewing machine or by hand. I found a knitting needle the same size as the eyelets make a great hole so you can place the eyelet over the created hole and then press it down with the eyelet tool.

When your eyelets are spaced as desired you can take some cord in a matching color to your fabric and thread it through making a knot on each end so that it doesn't pop back through the eyelets again while in use.

To fold your playmat up, simply pull on the cord and tie a bow. This is really nice and compact and you can even store your little toy animals inside to save space.

And last but not least, get down on the floor and join in with the fun by playing animals with your kiddos.

Being my first tutorial I hope that made sense! I got the idea of making this when I saw this blog post at Loving little Sweetpeas linked through this blog post at Love and Lollipops.

Now for the give away...

The last two pictures above shows the playmat I made for the give away. I will let it run from now till 31 October 2011 by which date I will pull a number up on a random number generator and announce the winner. All you have to do to enter is leave a comment to this blog post.

Welcome back to me!!! :)

2011-08-24T04:24:00.000-07:00

After moving in Feb, not having Internet for too many months and now not having a home pc (cause I managed to break it) I couldn't resist anymore and am doing this blogging in a longer rather more tedious way on the iPad. I'm hoping to get my blogging done on Hubby's laptop in the evening so I'm going to set one evening a week in which I hijack his laptop for an hour or two to get my blogging done.

I'm not going to even start to attempt to catch up on what we've been up to in the last 7 months but I will disclose what my future blogging will hold!

Amongst many other sewing projects I've finished, I sewed a round play mat that folds into a bag for Andy. I got this idea off of a link in a blog post on love and lollipops (a link to love and lollipops can be found in my sidebar). I not only made one for Andy but I took step by step photos cause the blog post I got it from only had a picture not a how-to so I figured it out by myself. But not only am I going do a tutorial I also made an extra one for FUNdamentals' very first give away. I guess it's a sort of welcoming-myself-back-into-the-blogging-world gesture :)

So keep your eyes peeled for a play mat tutorial and give away but don't hold your breath cause I first have to hijack a laptop from my software developer husband which might sound easier than it is ;) LOL!!!

Snack Ideas

2011-02-22T09:35:00.000-08:00

Snacking is essential for kids. I found that the only time Andy gets really irritated or moody is when he's hungry (just like us adults do) so I thought I'd share my way of dealing with snack times. This also came in especially handy with the addition of Jane to our family because inevitably Andy would ask for a snack when I'm putting Jane to sleep or nursing her. Every morning I prepare his 'snack box' while I prepare breakfast (either raw rolled oats with fresh fruit, nuts and yogurt or cooked oats with milk and honey or fruit salad with yogurt or homemade whole wheat pancakes are a few of our breakfast choices, both my husband and I agree that sugary cereals don't enter this house!!!)

I use my Tuperware cake holder which is perfect because he can lift the lid on and off by himself and it keeps the food covered and fresher as well as keeping flies out.

I base it on 80% variety fresh fruits, some protein (nuts, cheese, biltong etc.) and a little carb. I keep the starchy foods to a minimum because his set meals contain a lot of this e.g. oats for breakfast, homemade bread for lunch and pasta, rice etc. for supper.

So here's a few examples...

Full cream yogurt, homemade bread with cheese, banana, plum, grapes...

Grapes, cling peach, rough oat cakes, cheddar cheese, droewors (dried sausage)...

Cling peach, apple, grapes, sliced mango, carrot sticks, biltong, droewors...

This snack was just a quick morning snack cause we were going out for the day. Banana, naartjie, ants on a log (celery, peanut butter, raisins)...

Here is a fun breakfast we made one morning. Cut a circle out of a slice of bread with a glass, put the bread into a pan and fry an egg in the hole, also toast the circle piece of bread from the center on the side. I sauted some mushrooms to go with it and Andy spread his own tomato sauce on...

The key to a peaceful home is to be prepared!

We're moving!

2011-02-16T08:53:00.000-08:00

I was hoping to get more blogging done this year but it looks like that'll have to happen once we've settled into our new place. My husband and I have been thinking of moving closer to his work for quite some time now becauce he spends far too much time traveling everyday. Our area of choice has been Pinelands from the start as it's an easy distance to his work and my parents and granny lives there :)

So a few weeks ago we went to view a place, liked it very much and now we're moving at the end of Feb. Needless to say my days have been filled with decluttering, sorting, packing, cleaning etc.

We're very excited cause we'll be a 5 minute walk away from my parents' house, a 10 minute drive away from Andy's cousin and best friend, Jude, who is the same age as Andy, and we're right across the street from all the shops and the library!!! So instead of having to buckle the kids up into the car and try entertain them both on the journey I can take the pram and be at the library in probably under 2 minutes!

I have a ton of stuff to blog about but no time to do it in so once we're settled in I'm hoping to have a bit more time to start recording once again what we are doing for homeschool.

Until then...

xxx

'Digesting' 2011

2011-01-26T01:20:00.000-08:00

I am not going to attempt making excuses for not blogging in the past month because we all know 'life' happens, and sometimes in such abundance that time for blogging is non existent. My husband was on leave for more than a month so life has been a busy whirl of outings, holidays, cooking gorgeous food, eating gorgeous food and spending loads of time with the family. We started off our holidays with going to the annual homeschool camp for three days and then two weeks later we went camping again for a week. Christmas day I spent at home cuddling Jane who had an awful tummy virus and the boys spent Christmas by my husbands family. We had a gorgeous Sea Side holiday at Paternoster in early January and it was by far one of the best holidays ever!!!

Andy experienced his first time eating crayfish. He really enjoyed it, especially getting the meat out of the legs...

So our school year has officially started as of last week. My husband is back at work and our lives are back to the normal routines. We started by decluttering and tidying Andy's room so that it's neat and stream lined for clear thinking and fun times. In between doing this we've started studying the human body and Andy is fascinated. I find he's at such a nice age now where he can start understanding and appreciating the way the human body works. This morning he chose fresh fruits for breakfast and when he ate a nectarine the skin was a bit sour. Usually he would eat the flesh and leave the skin but he asked me "Mommy, is the skin healthy?". I explained to him that all parts of the fruit contains nutrients and without another word he ate all the skin and flesh and continued eating his other fruit. I find it so beautiful because we've been studying the digestive system and he's been very fascinated with the journey food takes through our bodies and the way our bodies use what it needs out of the foods we eat. He's been very conscious of making healthy decisions about the foods he eats with the only help from me being the answers to his questions whether the food is healthy or not. I believe this is the foundation to a healthy lifestyle and food choices for his childhood and adult life. We have such a HUGE responsibility because what we instill in them now as children makes a huge impact whether they will make healthy choices or not for the rest of their lives!!! Here is the book I bought which has been such a great tool in teaching Andy about the body...

In the next few blog posts I would like to share a glimpse into our weekly homeschool activities and subjects and a few other things that I've been thinking of blogging about but never got the time to sit down and do it :-)

Happy learning! And remember, have FUN!

Christmas presents for Andy's cousins

2010-12-15T08:19:00.000-08:00

For the cousins' Christmas presents this year we are making DIY Bird Feeder Kits! I came across the idea of making bird feeders out of pine cones a while back but then there's the issue of peanut butter smearing everywhere so how do you store it to gift!? So I came up with the idea of making up a kit so each cousin can make his/her own feeder. :)

So if you're still looking for gift ideas here's what I did...

First make the instruction tags. I cut out squares of green card and used some pictures from a roll of Christmas gift wrap to decorate it...

Punch a hole in the top corner of each tag and write step by step instructions on the back of the tag.

Now gather your supplies. Pine cones (we collected ours when we went camping last week), Peanut butter, bird seed, ribbon (1m per kit), containers for peanut butter, containers for seeds, sandwich/or freezer bags, tags and Popsicle sticks (I thought the Popsicle stick would be the perfect size and shape to get into the grooves).

Now fill your containers with peanut butter in some and seeds in the others (we found the pill containers were perfect for the seeds).

Fill each bag with a pine cone, a container of peanut butter, a container of seeds a popsicle stick and a piece of ribbon cut into a length of 50cm. Thread another 50cm length of ribbon through the punched hole in the tag and tie the bag shut with a knot and a bow.

Now make a bird feeder with your lil' 'un. Take the Popsicle stick and smear peanut butter onto each 'spike' of the pine cone (or you can simply roll it in the peanut butter and then roll it in the seeds). Cover the p. butter with the seeds. Tie one end of the ribbon round the top and the other end round a branch in your tree.

Happy bird watching and Merry Christmas! :)

I linked this to:
ABC and 123 Show And Tell
Christmas Sharing Time

Holiday Baking

2010-12-15T04:18:00.000-08:00

Yesterday Andy and I felt like baking so in the morning while I was busy with breakfast I quickly made a batch of sugar cookie dough and kept it in the fridge till we were ready to bake it later when the housework and other activities for the day was done.

First we cut out gingerbread boys and girls and stars with our cookie cutters and decorated them with choc chips and other sprinkles...

Then when they were baked and cooled I put different colour butter icing in bags and snipped the tip to make it into a piping bag. To get white butter icing use the white wooden spoon margarine not the yellow marg. We used white for the facial features and hair and red and blue for the clothes..

Andy iced his own ones...

But got a little carried away with the excitement of icing...

So Mommy had to doctor them a little to avoid hectic hyperactivity...

And then of coarse we ate them...

It was my dad's birthday 2 weeks ago so for the fun of it we thought we'd try our hand at decorating cupcakes in a special way - not just icing and sprinkles. We were first inspired to be more adventurous with cup cakes when our neighbour blessed us with the most gorgeous gift of gorgeous cup cakes a few weeks ago. So we found this video and just HAD TO make these super cute sunflowers for my dad's birthday. The middle is made with oreo's which give the perfect colour and hight and we made the ladybird's out of mini smarties...

To give the petals that variegated, realistic look you put yellow on one side of the piping bag and orange on the other so the two colours pipe out together.

Hope everyone else is also having fun in the kitchen these holidays!

Animal Hospital

2010-11-23T03:14:00.000-08:00

Andy chose this activity out of The Rainy Day Book by Jane Bull.

He painted a medium sized cardboard box yesterday so this morning we made the door out of the cut off flaps of the box opening.

The latch...

Putting his doggie toy in the pet hospital for some special TLC... I've had that dog since I was two :)

He took a bowl and put some scraps of wool yarn for Dog's special food...

Felted Soap project made easy for kids...

2010-11-22T00:41:00.000-08:00

Andy really enjoyed this activity. We're making lots more for Christmas presents. It's so great that Andy can make his own useful presents for his cousins.

Take some pure wool roving (can be purchased at your local yarn store) and a piece of soap and cover the soap with thin layers of roving alternating the direction of laying the fibers until the soap is covered with a few layers (about 3 or 4). It's fun to use different colours.

Slightly wet it with hot water so the fibers stick a little better to the soap then put it into a plastic bag making a knot near the soap to close the bag (I used a see-through small freezer bag - you could also use a zip lock bag). Doing this makes it much easier for kids because the fibers shifts a lot in the beginning before it starts felting and the bag helps keep it in place on the soap.

You then let your child rub it vigorously as much as they want. After doing this for a while I like to shock the fibers to help it felt easier so we took it out the bag and got a glass bowl of hot water. We then put the soap under a a running tap of cold water and then briefly dipped it in the hot water before placing it back into the bag to rub again. The sudden cold water wash shocks the fibers into locking tighter together as does the combination of rubbing (agitation), soap and warm water. Do this procedure a few time (about 3 or 4) until the felt is dense and to your satisfaction. Wash the 'foam' off with cold water and roll in a towel or some roller towel (kitchen paper towel) to get the excess water out and leave over night to dry.

Our dried soaps... (I like the way Andy arranged his soap to be purple on the top and bottom and green round the sides)

How to use: Wet it when bathing or showering and work up a bit of lather then rub on your skin as you would a cloth or sponge.

Rubber Stamp people

2010-11-17T10:28:00.000-08:00

We recently got a great art book out the library. I like to give a book to Andy and ask him to choose which craft he wants to do so this time he chose rubber stamped people. It was fun and of coarse I joined in to experience the fun with him.

You literally take a rubber (pencil eraser) and cut it into the following shapes...

Then you take strips of paper and a sponge with some black paint on and stamp the body parts in different directions for fun little men. I just cut the top off of a kitchen sponge and used it for the paint. The only black paint we had was fabric paint (which I bought for painting the face onto a rag doll for a family members sewing project) which worked perfectly.

He asked me to make stamps for a car so I cut those out too...

With this masterpiece he smudged a stamp to create a ... Spaceship!

We used bits of his art and some imagination to make a birthday card for one of his cousins' up coming 8th birthday...

And we made another card with scrap pieces of scrapbook paper, beads and felt for the sister of the cousin who's turning 8 so she won't feel left out...

My Personal Blog

2010-10-30T10:37:00.000-07:00

I started a new blog (used to have one but not using that anymore) for all my crafty projects (mainly knitting) that I'm working on. So now Andy, Jane and me each have a blog to record our interests and enjoy in years to come. Pop on over to Ann's Work Basket if you're interested in seeing what's on my needles. :)

Some Randomness

2010-10-26T04:44:00.000-07:00

Every night we tell Andy to choose some books to read before bedtime. One night I got met by this! Andy's bedtime reading selection... Wishful thinking!!!

We had a lovely family outing strawberry picking. Andy LOVES strawberries. It's impossible for him to stop eating it even if he's full so I have to do a spot of daily strawberry consumption monitoring.

And of coarse he spends loads of time with his little sister. Kissing, hugging, cuddling, kissing, kissing, kissing and just in case I didn't mention it... kissing. Often poor little Jane is caught between Andy attaching her one cheek and me the other with hundreds of kisses :)

Andy's 4th Birthday Party

2010-09-20T10:34:00.000-07:00

We had Andy's party at a indoor play place near to where we live called Kidz PlayZone. And oh boy was it worth every cent! The kids had a wonderful time and I didn't have any washing up - win/win situation I would say :)

Andy said he wanted a Tigger theme cause he chose the Winnie the Pooh party room so here's some pics of his Tigger party...

Having fun on the trampoline...

Jumping Castle...

The party room...

Party packs on the table. Tigger buckets with lids...

The cake! I ordered the cake from them cause I could hardly manage making the adult platters let alone bake and ice a cake. It was sooooo delicious! Andy loved it!

Tucking in. Each party pack for 2 year olds and up had a 'real' cell phone as the party favor. It's the case of a real cell phone with all the proper buttons and heavy too but obviously without a working screen. They had such fun making phone calls. In fact I had to wait for Andy to finish his conversation on his new cell phone before we could cut the cake.

I made some sweet and savoury platters for the adults table...

All in all we had a wonderful time and I will not be surprised if Andy's 5th birthday party is done in exactly the same way. Why try improove on something that worked so well, hey!?

HAPPY 4TH BIRTHDAY MY SWEETHEART!

Farm take-along set

2010-09-20T05:50:00.000-07:00

I try to have some 'creative' time for myself once a day so whether it's knitting 5 stitches or sewing a bib at least I keep my creative bug under control :) Another thing I like to do is to read my favourite blogs once a week (usually on a weekend when I have a free hour or two when Luke takes Andy out and Jane is asleep). I spotted this lovely project on Frugal Family Fun for a Farm take-along toy and I knew I just HAD TO make it for Andy's ever growing collection of farm animal toys. I started the project about a month ago and completed it last week. It was so much fun! It could easily be done in a day if you have the opportunity of sewing without interruption. It was so simple. I just took her photo as a guide and made my own out of felt. The playmat was hand stitched everything else I did on the sewing machine.

For a bit of a 3D effect to the play mat I stitched this lilly pad out of felt...

Andy took it with to his grandparents on the weekend and him and his cousin had such fun playing farm under the dining room table :)

Jelly Sweets Fun

2010-07-30T06:31:00.001-07:00

For our activities today we spent some time in the kitchen. First we made some yummy lemon and poppy seed muffins (inspired by the delicious muffins my sister-in-law made on Monday) ...

Then the pirate made some gummy sweets with jelly (we made half the recipe)...

These came out great. It's like eating jelly but just in a much more fun form. It doesn't show up very nice on the photo but we made butterflies, bears and of course dinosaurs...

T-rex didn't survive very long...

Comments

2010-07-30T00:23:00.000-07:00

Some of my blog readers have told me they can't post comments so I went through the settings and changed it from 'registered users only' to 'anyone' so there should be no problems with posting comments now.

I know when Andy is older he will look back on this blog and enjoy all your comments.

Thank you!

Rainbow Rice

2010-07-29T05:38:00.000-07:00

This is one of the best activities yet! Yesterday we took 4kgs of rice and divided it into 4 large ziplock bags. We put a generous splash of water into each bag, sealed it and squashed it around so all the rice grains were wet then we added a generous splash of food colouring and mixed it around again until it was well coated.

We then put it on trays to dry over night. I lined the trays with foil in case it got stained but it wasn't necessary cause the rice held the colour very well.

I put the rice into a large plastic container that has a lid so now we can store our rice container and play with it whenever we want.

Of course Andy played with it first thing this morning and the colours stayed separate for about a split second but it looks even prettier when mixed.

I bought a mini rake and spade and funnel for him to play with but be collected all his toy animals and insects and they're all having a great time in the rainbow rice (he's playing with it now as I type). You could also make it into a discovery center and hide things in it for them to dig out and find.

Balancing Butterflies

2010-07-28T05:51:00.000-07:00

Andy made these lovely butterflies this morning and had such fun! The instructions and templates can be found here. He was so excited to do this craft that neither of us got time to dress this morning before starting our homeschooling for the day. It was just as well though cause I discovered that doing homeschooling before we go shopping makes for a much happier boy at the shops.

He requested to sit by the computer so that he could copy the colours of the butterflies in the photo.

Balancing his butterfly...

Having fun with some tricks...

Car Caddy

2010-07-26T10:36:00.000-07:00

I saw this car caddy tutorial and just HAD to make it for my darling boy so one morning last week I popped Jane in the sling and while Andy built lego in his room I made his car caddy out of scrap corduroy pieces I had left from sewing 5 pairs of pants for him a few weeks ago.

A road and 6 pockets...

My sister bought him a set of 6 cars...

For the cover I used left over lightning McQueen material from the pair of pajamas I sewed for him...

It folds up and fastens with a ribbon and velcro...

Very fun 'scraps' project and Andy loves it.

LOL

2010-07-23T00:11:00.000-07:00

Last night we put Andy's hamster, Teddy, in his hamster ball and Andy followed him around the house talking to him etc. Andy has a bit of a cold so when he coughed over Teddy this is how our conversation went...

Mommy: Please don't cough over Teddy.
Andy: Why?
Mommy: Because hamsters can get pneumonia from human colds and then die.
Andy: Huh? Do hamsters die in Ramonia and in South Africa!

Chores

2010-07-23T00:04:00.000-07:00

Andy loves his daily responsibilities. His main chore for the day is loading and unloading the washing machine and the other day he had a wonderful brainwave. Instead of letting Mommy carry the heavy basket he put the washing into his cart and off we go...

Yesterday Andy washed all his sandpit toys so that we can put fresh sand in his sandpit. He loved working with water and afterward went to wash his dishes (his kitchen toys).

What we've been up to this week...

2010-07-16T07:44:00.000-07:00

We've done other daily activities such as collages etc. but it's not always that the camera is handy and with our new baby it's not always that our hands are free :)

So here's just a few pics...

We have a fruit salad every day so on Tuesday I made it into a muffin tin meal...

One of our crafts... (will blog another time about our schooling system we're using if anyone's interested). Blow painting with bubbles and food colouring...

Dressing his 'baby' while I'm dressing mine :)

One of our daily Bible story times...

Keeping up with homeschooling and having a Baby has proved to be quite a challenge but that's what makes each day fun. We've settled in nicely and I'm even finding some time to blog again :)

Actually at this moment I'm typing with one hand, rocking Jane in my other arm and listening to Andy playing in the bath. :)

National Geographic Cards

2010-02-24T09:41:00.000-08:00

Andy received his latest NG Kids magazine and as soon as he saw the valentines cards in it he asked if we could make it so we made it as normal cards not valentines and had lots of fun playing with them. They have holes for your fingers to go through as the animals legs.

The Croc is Andy's favourite...

He chose this lovable bear for his cousin Kezia's birthday card to give to her on Saturday, her 6th birthday. We wrote a little message in the green card and pegged it to the bears paw.

And our blue monkey...

Some sewing for Andy

2010-02-22T03:48:00.001-08:00

Andy needed some shorts so I made him five pairs from this cute pattern. It's nice and comfy and has a pocket on each side panel. I made 2 green and 3 beige.

Trying to get a shot of a pocket with a active toddler...

I made this pair of pajamas for him as well but of course it's summer so I'm making a set of summer pj's soon and we'll save these for when the colder weather start. He absolutely loves these...

I did the button holes on the machine...

More projects coming from my needles soon! :)

Some recent knitting fun

2010-02-17T23:38:00.000-08:00

Yesterday morning I set upon the task of taking photos of what I've been knitting in the last month or two. I still need to take photo's of my completed sewing projects but Andy's been wearing them so they're on the clothes line.

Jan./Feb. Finished Knitting Projects...

I knit these shorties for a friend in England who had a Baby Boy a few months ago. I knit a medium so hopefully it will reach him while it will still fit. I also knit a pair of Saartjie Bootees to match but still need to sew on the buttons.

One of my favourite family blogs is Back To Ancient Ways and she recently had her eighth child, and sixth son, Michael. She lives in the same area as us and they own a wonderful little health shop where we like to buy our health foods so I'll drop this pressie off at the health shop sometime this week.

Blue Saartjie Bootees and a garter stitch face cloth knit with 100% pure cotton yarn...

Another friend had a Baby girl about 2 months back so I knit her this butterfly face cloth from 100% pure cotton yarn. The butterfly design would be much more visiable with a plain color yarn but what-the-heck I just couldn't resist...

I just love the colours of this cotton - it's so girly and cute and I'm very tempted to go buy a few more skeins. I knit this face cloth for our Baby Girl (on the way) and am going to knit about two more so she'll always have beautifully soft pure cotton used on her delicate baby skin...

I intend on knitting and sewing all her bibs as well and what better to start with than this adorable 'bib o' love'. Knit with two different colourways of 100% cotton...

So after knitting face clothes for all the Babies I made one each for Andy and myself. Andy loves his face cloth and has already designated the spot where his sister's hook must be when her face cloth needs to be hung up.

My very first wool soaker knit with 100% pure wool. I got all my soaker patterns on ravelry.com and lots of advise from other moms on one of the ravelry forums. This is the Curly Purly Soaker and was really fun and easy to knit...

I finished up two more soakers from different patterns this morning and still need to take pics of it so I'll be putting those photo's up soon along with the sewing I've been doing.

Andy helps me with EVERYTHING I make cause he's just so excited about making things for his sister and asks tons of questions and makes little projects of his own as well which I'll have to pretend we're using when Baby comes cause he's so proud of them. He helps me knit a stitch now and then on whatever project I'm knitting on and when I sew he's always in charge of pressing the foot pedal which he does wonderfully because he understands when to stop or start on command. The other day he was sitting and twisting away at his yarn and clicking with his knitting needles declaring that he's "making a pair of mittens for the Baby so when she's born she can wear it and no ice will come on her hands." :)

It's a ...

2010-02-07T04:15:00.000-08:00

So we went for our scan about 2 weeks ago and found out that we're having a GIRL!!!

It took a while to get used to the idea cause we're so used to be surrounded by blue things but it didn't take me long to take a trip to the wool and material shops to stock up on pink :)

We're so excited about this new adventure of raising a daughter. Andy is super excited as well and when I sit and do knitting or sewing he asks for material, thread, needles or yarn and makes his own little item for his sister. When he's done with his little creation he puts it in the baby's cupboard ready to be 'used' when she arrives. Often I have to sneak to the cupboard when he's not looking and remove his large sewing needle from his project :)

As soon as I found out we're having a girl, Andy and I sorted through all his baby things that I kept and divided all the boy items for his cousin and a friend of mine who recently had a boy and we took all the things that can pass for a girl (even some blue items that a girl can also wear) and packed it into the compactum drawers. My oldest sister is coming a month before due date to help me wash everything and re-pack it in the proper order.

Our homeschooling for 2010

2010-01-11T04:14:00.001-08:00

Although my nausea has calmed down a lot over the last few weeks I just haven't been able to get into the mode of blogging or spending a lot of time on the internet. These last few months has been so much more of a challenge than when I was pregnant with Andy. I'm 18 weeks now so we'll be able to go for the scan soon to tell us if it's a boy or a girl. Andy is so excited about the Baby and he keeps telling me how he's going to cuddle it and he gets so excited when we go through the baby things and asks me tons of questions.

We've started our homeschooling for this year. We are doing the Hands on Homeschooling 3yr old curriculum untill Septemeber 2010 (the month Andy turns 4) and then we'll start with the 4yr old curriculum. I love the curriculum as it has everything layed out so easily and practically and everyday we just open our file to the page for the day that tells us exactly what to do. I love it mostly because it's Bible based but also because there's hardly any planning or thinking involved for me so I have just as much fun as Andy.

HAPPY 2010!!!

THE BIG EXCITING NEWS!

2009-11-02T03:06:00.000-08:00

The reason for my recent blogging absence is that I have constant nausea due to this little darling...

(The big circle is the forehead and the body is facing directly to the front so one arm on the one side one on the other and same with the legs).

I'm 8 weeks and 2 days pregnant! We are very excited and Andy is starting to warm to the idea because at first he insisted that it's him in my tummy cause he's going to grow smaller like a baby and go back into my tummy. We answer all his questions and started involving him in everything from the start. He went with us to the first scan and is already saying he will help me bath the baby and change stinky poo nappies. He officially asked for a brother so we'll just have to wait and see :)

All my energy is going on staying on top of the housework and keeping Andy busy so any blogging will have to be done as energy levels and nausea allows.

Muffin Tin Monday

2009-10-19T02:54:00.000-07:00

There is no theme for this week's MTM so Andy and I made...

Freshly squeezed orange juice, potato cakes with butter, hard boiled egg and cherry tomatoes.

To see what others have done visit Her Cup Overfloweth.

Tot School - Week 7

2009-10-19T00:19:00.000-07:00

Andy is 37 months old

I'm a bit late with my Tot School post this week. Andy and I slept over at my parents house this weekend and we had a wonderful time visiting. I did daily blog posts for Tot School most days last week so I'll link to them and mention the highlights so if you read something you're interested in just click on the link to that days blog post.

Monday
- Homemade Montessori Sandpaper Numerals
- Nature Drawstring Bag

Tuesday
- Caterpillar Numbers Project
- Baking Peanut Butter Biscuits and 100's and 1000's biscuits

Wednesday
- At the Park: Picnic and Expedition
- Open Ended Art

Thursday
- Mommy's Little Helper
- stART
- Foam Finger Puppets

To see what others have done for Tot School this week visit 1+1+1=1

Tot School: Thursday

2009-10-15T10:01:00.000-07:00

So much for Spring being here (snort)! We woke up to the sound of rain outside and the wind was howling all day. And as for this evening, well, as I sit here I can hear it pouring with rain outside. So much for Spring (snort)!

Anyway we made the most of the weather again and kept busy with lots of housework today. Andy was a great little helper and I was really proud of him. He played a lot with his Tot Trays and other toys when not helping me with housework...

After he played with each thing he packed them all neatly away without me saying a word. I praised him each time though to show him that he's neatness and obedience is not going unnoticed.

He asked to go to the park so with it being so cold and the wind howling outside we bundled up real warm and blew all the way to the park, played with clattering teeth, and blew all the way back.

We read The Bad-Tempered Ladybird by Eric Carle today and Andy made a ladybird out of paper and a cd for his stART project...

And last but not least we made some foam finger puppets from a kit I bought for him...

Andy had fun helping me cook supper this afternoon. He chopped the zucchini's real nice, did his regular supper prep chore - chopping garlic, and ate half a bowl of grated parmesan :)

We went to the library and got some great books so I'm off to take over from Daddy now and do another hour of bedtime reading. Better get a cuppa :)

stART: The Bad-Tempered Ladybird

2009-10-15T02:35:00.000-07:00

For stART this week Andy and I read The Bad-Tempered Ladybird by Eric Carle. This gorgeous book was part of Andy's birthday present from his Gran.

"The bad-tempered ladybird picks fights with every animal it meets, but soon learns the importance of friends. In this humorous story, Eric Carle explores the concepts of size and time through brightly coloured pictures."

The animals he meets each have their own flap similar to The Very Hungry Caterpillar book also by Eric Carle. Each flap has a clock at the top with the time which he meets the animal which is great for older kids.

So I printed out the templates for this ladybird craft and Andy coloured it in with red and black...

He also glued some eyes onto the face and I covered a cd with red construction paper for the base of the ladybird...

Then Andy glued on the wings, face and black dots...

The finished project...

To see what others have done for stART visit A Mommy's Adventures.

Tot School: Wednesday

2009-10-14T08:01:00.000-07:00

Andy started the day off by playing with his water Tot Tray outside and helping Mommy with housework. For his mid-morning snack we made his favourite fruit and yogurt face after all ready eating an apple and 2 oranges (to say he loves fruit is an understatement)...

And then we set off on a long outdoor 'expedition' to the park. We had some juice and toasted cheese sandwiches for a picnic lunch and finished the meal with some of our 100's and 1000's biscuits we baked yesterday...

Andy enjoyed playing on the miniature but fun jungle gym... :)

And off he went with his Nature Bag to go collect some 'Treasures'...

He 'fished' in 'The Bubbley Stream' (as he calls it) and proudly brought his 'fish' to Mommy...

And he had stacks of fun with his new magnifying glass which he got in the post from my friend Jerushia and her girls. He found spiders and bugs and ants but unfortunately no matter how much I explained he still thought it was great fun to examine each and then give it a great big squash with the side of the magnifying glass... boys will be boys...

When we got home he put all his 'treasures' onto a tot tray and examined them. He found little flowers (without petals) and the inside looked like white eggs and he was so excited about this phenomenal find...

We also did our Open Ended Art project for this week and the theme was black and orange...

I'm so glad that Spring is finally here.

Open Ended Art - Black and Orange

2009-10-14T03:48:00.000-07:00

For this week's Open Ended Art Andy mixed red and yellow powder paints to make orange and painted on black card...

When his painting was dry he stuck some orange themed stickers onto his masterpiece...

The finished project...

Visit Mommies Wise Little Bookworms to see what others did for Open Ended Art.

Tot School: Tuesday

2009-10-13T07:38:00.001-07:00

Today was a typical beautiful Spring day and due to the weekend and yesterday being so wet I had 5 big loads of washing to do so Andy painted while I sorted out and started...

Andy did a numbers craft this morning by coloring in a caterpillar printout...

And them we went through each number discussing it and feeling each by using our Sandpaper Numerals...

and then Andy pasted it onto a large sheet of black construction paper...

He then pasted some random foam numbers around his caterpillar...

The finished project...

He asked to spoon his beans (one of his favourite tray activities) so he took it out of the Tot Tray Supplies draw and proceeded...

He spent most of the morning outside and Tian his little 2 year old friend popped round for a visit so they had fun outside too.

This afternoon we decided we wanted to bake some cookies and Andy did a great job helping...

Mixing 100's and 1000's biscuit dough...

Mixing Peanut Butter Biscuit dough...

And the end products...

So after an afternoon of baking, many loads of washing and playing outside in fresh air and sunshine, Andy wanted a soft house before bath time so we made one in his bookshelf corner...

And he 'read' books and used his Rooster Torch...

Bath Time! And the end to a lovely day. :)

Tot School: Monday

2009-10-12T07:16:00.000-07:00

Today was a very cold, dark and rainy day - not at all the Spring weather we're supposed to be having. So Andy and I made the best of it and kept busy indoors.

I made Andy a set of Montessori Sandpaper Numerals. I asked my Dad last week to cut pieces of hardboard for me with his machine and we went to go fetch it this weekend. I printed out some numbers, onto scrap paper, and had to alter the numbers 4, 6 and 9 slightly to make it like the Montessori Sandpaper Numerals that you buy.

Printed numbers (I used the upside down 6 as the 9), hardboard (cut to 11cm x 9cm), sandpaper...

To trace the numbers I drew the outline of the reversed number with a pencil onto the back of the sandpaper...

I cut out all the numbers and placed them onto their bases to be glued...

I glued them with clear drying glue suitable for wood and put them under a heavy book to be pressed. When they were dry we put them onto our tray to enjoy...

Andy absolutely loves this. We focused on the numbers 0 - 5 today and we traced each one a few times while saying what number it is...

Then I set them out and asked Andy to e.g. "find number four" he then pointed out the number tracing it and repeating the number while tracing...

He asked me if he could paint so he spent some time creating whales and sharks...

Tea time I gave Andy 2 oatmeal biscuits to have with his Rooibos tea and left the packet on the counter so next thing I knew he had served himself the remainder of the packet...

Of coarse I gave him a few and packed the rest away so when I looked again he was 'recklessly' looking for them...

I spent most of the afternoon sewing on Andy's pajamas and his cousins 7th birthday present and I also made this drawstring bag for Andy to collect things from nature in it when we go on walks...

Some close ups of the embroidery I did...

Because it was a very rainy day and we couldn't go for a walk Andy asked if he could put his beans in it...

Admiring Mommy's handiwork... :)

Tot School - Week 6

2009-10-11T10:07:00.000-07:00

Andy is currently 37 months old

My Tot School posts were getting far too long, and even then I felt like I didn't get in all the details, so this week I did some daily posts so if you're interested in reading them just click on the link I will provide.

Here is a brief overview of our week:

Monday's Tot School

Tuesday's Tot School

Wednesday:

We spent most of the day sorting through cupboards and Andy was a great help. He loved helping me sort out my sewing cupboard and sorted the threads and buttons very nicely...

We also did our Open Ended Art project.

Thursday:

We did some random Tot Trays including our stART project...

On Friday we spent the whole day visiting my sister and her girls. She hosted their homeschool nature study group in the morning so I baked some choc chip cookies while they were busy and we served it after lunch.

This post was so nice and quick and easy to put together! I find doing daily posts allows me to express everything at my leisure instead of cramming it all into one loooooooooong post once a week. :) And you don't have to read it all if you don't want to. ;)

To see what others have done for Tot School visit 1+1+1=1

stART: The Thunderstruck Stork

2009-10-08T03:36:00.000-07:00

For stART this week we read The Thunderstruck Stork by David J. Olson. It's about a stork that has an accident and does his work all wrong by delivering the wrong babies to the wrong parents e.g. the frog parents receive an elephant baby, the sparrows receive a pig. But when he wants to correct his errors after his mind being set right through being struck by lightning he realizes the families he made love each other and were perfect. It's a captivating story as the text rhymes in a fun way and Andy and I had a great many laughs over who receives what baby.

So Andy cut up some feathers...

Glued them onto a printed out stork...

Glued on an eye and colored in...

And here is his finished stork... (He says those words - the squiggly lines - says "Webster the stork".

Here's the cover of the book...

And one of the delightful illustrations (the sparrow parents trying to help their piglet to fly)...

To see other stART books and projects go to A Mommy's Adventures.

Open Ended Art - Autumn Colors

2009-10-07T02:49:00.000-07:00

This week's theme for Open Ended Art is Autumn Colors (red, orange, yellow, brown) because they are in Autumn. So I just replaced the brown with some green to represent a tiny bit of our Spring. We did a really simple but fun craft today.

Andy pasted red, orange and green beads onto yellow card...

That's it from us this week. To see what fun Open Ended Art projects were created go to Growing and learning by leaps and bounds.

Practical Life Tuesday

2009-10-06T10:56:00.000-07:00

Our day started off with Andy's request before breakfast to 'play Baby Elastics'. I was just starting to have alarming thoughts of baby dolls being stretched to it's limits and rejoicing that we don't own any baby dolls when Andy said, "you know Mommy, what Wowo plays with me". Wowo is his Aunty Rachel and thank fully I recalled that on her weekly visit she plays 'Baby Gymnastics' with him so I proceeded to follow wild maneuvers demonstrated by Andy until it was decided that breakfast was to be served.

Andy did great with sweeping today and was only tempted once to hit the broom on the wall after sweeping. On previous occasions the broom was used for more brutal purposes and thus it was packed away high until he could use it properly. This seems to have worked wonderfully because on seeing the broom revealed his face lighted up and he declared that he "won't hurt anyone" and swept the lounge for me like the dear little boy he is :)

He loves 'ironing his own clothes'. He goes to his cupboard and fetches an item of clothing and unfolds it on the way to the ironing board. He then irons it, folds it up and then takes it back to his cupboard to fetch another item. When he does little household tasks as this it is amazing and adorable to observe how much he learns from watching me do these same tasks. I love the way he smooths the fabric with his free hand so that all the creases disappear.

Andy helps me with nearly all the cooking and baking. He's starting to be more of a real help now that he's getting older. Last night he was actually very helpfull with chopping the sausages for our Italian pasta so while I was busy with other preperations he patiently chopped them into slices and all I had to do was add them to the pot. Today we baked some biscuits and I don't even have to help him any more cause he rolls out, cuts and places it all himself. :)

And of coarse he ices them himself too...

The Tot Trays that we did today were great and when I was busy with housework Andy asked for his favourite audio book (The Giraff, the Pelly and Me by Roald Dahl) and sat doing his Tot Trays at his school table.

We made this easy yet effective homemade game this morning by cutting paper towel rolls into different sizes so as to practice size sequence...

We re-did our I Spy Bottle after reading a very helpfull blog post by One Hook Wonder. We first took a photo of all the items before placing it into the bottle and then I enlarged it and printed out a copy. Andy has such fun with this. He points on the picture what he can spy in the bottle. A brillent idea!

And of coarse we had to put out our peg game inspired by Growing and learning by leaps and bounds because it's more tricky than all different colors and I believe that repitition results in perfection...

This evening we spent a cozy hour or more curled up on the couch together and I let Andy talk, and talk, and talk to his little hearts content with my full attention. He talked non-stop on various topics and I love to hear his views on things (he has many) and love to encourage him to express himself by occasionally asking a question which is always enthusiastically answered and at length. One of the things he said (and which is an example of how his imagination and reality often collides) is, "Remember when you saw me swimming in the water with all the fishies and the shark ate me up (with a sigh) I wonder when we're going to the beach again." Now I have never seen Andy swim because he refuses to and we don't force the issue and all his limbs are still in tact so no shark eating occurred so we both looked at each other and cracked up laughing. He's such a joy to be around and I enjoy his company so much. But esspecially being at home and together all day I believe it is very important to take time out of daily household chores and even Tot School fun to sit and have a face to face chat with nothing else taking our attention. We communicate all day long but these special talks with Andy makes me appreciate him so much more and lets me see and understand how he thinks and what a darling individual he is.

Monday's Tot School

2009-10-05T07:36:00.000-07:00

I am taking a different approach to the way I do my Tot School blog post this week and will see if it works out better for me. I feel I have far to much to say to try and squeeze it all into one weekly post so I want to post about our school each day in detail and then my weekly Tot School post will contain titles and photos of activities which will have links to my more detailed posts.

We had a very nice day today even though the weather was slightly chilly and windy.

We did three Tot Trays (four including the water tray)...

I will explain each activity in detail a little further on...

Spooning shells into containers (Andy is in love with his shells and wants it included in every weeks activities - most probably cause he collected them himself)...

Sound / No Sound...

Color pegs (I got this great activity idea from Growing and learning by leaps and bounds)...

Spooning shells: Andy opens each container, spoons shells in and...

then closes the container...

Sound/No Sound: I bought little bottles, that where not see-through so that Andy would have to shake it to hear if there's anything inside to make a sound...

He shakes each bottle and then says 'sound' or 'no sound' as he puts them into the appropriate bowl...

Then he packs them all straight again for Mommy to have a turn. This is a favorite and we took loads of turns each...

This peg game is such a lovely idea. I got those little sheets from the hardware store (for the shades of paint colors) and pasted one set to a piece of white card and another set I cut up and glued to the pegs to match...

He did shades of blue and orange...

Andy asked to do a water activity outside so while I was getting that ready he put his outside table and chair on the grass. I put different levels of masking tape on different bottles and asked him to transfer the water (which I colored blue) with a large syringe till the water reaches the line of the tape. He's only used the syringe once before and I left him to try and figure it out for himself - which was so cute to observe. First he decided teeth work best and so drew the water up by grasping the white part with his teeth and pulling it up...

He was very proud of the result...

And transferred it into the jar...

After a while he must have figured that there must be a better way than using ones teeth so, with intense concentration, pulled it with his hand...

And was delighted with the result...

We took the flowers off of a bunch of carnations that had reached the end of it's vase life...

And prepared them to be plucked and dried for our little pouches we intend to make as Christmas presents for Andy's grannies (we previously dried lavender as well which is now stored until we start the pouches)...

Andy had fun plucking all the petals off the flowers and placing it on newspaper...

Left to air dry...

We spent some time in our herb patch today collecting more lavender for drying and other herbs to freeze. We like to keep our bushes trimmed cause not only is it fun but it encourages growth.

We picked Rosemary, Lavender, Peppermint, Oregano and Fennel...

I let Andy rub each one and smell the fragrance that was transferred to his hand...

He smelt each one and told me whether he liked or disliked the smell...

Then we picked the leaves off the twigs and put it into the holes of an ice cube tray...

We filled each hole with water and popped it into the freezer. When it is frozen I pop it into labeled freezer bags. It's ideal to use in soups, stews or any cooked food. We love to pop a mint ice cube into our homemade lemonade as it is very refreshing.

And last but not least Andy played his favorite before-bath-time game. He sits at his school table while I sit at my laptop on my desk and he takes paper out of the scrap drawer and draws pictures and 'writes' and sticks stickers onto a 'letter' which he then posts into he's 'post box' (which is the top of the chest of drawers). I then 'open' the post box and act surprised and delighted at this wonderfully unexpected letter and proceed to open it with shouts of admiration and joy. He then tells me in detail what the picture is and what he has 'written' and a huge amounts of kisses and hugs and thank you's are given. What I love about this game is that it is a wonderful way for him to improve his folding skills. It has improved a lot since he first invented this game a few weeks ago. Here's my overflowing postbox...

Ahhhh! (satisfied sigh). Now I feel like I've had my say. Looking forward to what delights tomorrow's Tot School will hold!

Muffin Tin Monday (All About Me)

2009-10-05T02:16:00.000-07:00

We made this week's MTM as Andy's morning snack cause we have left over homemade chicken pie from last night for lunch today. It's a super cute theme this week - All About Me. I bought this perfect four cup jumbo muffin tin. It's perfect for us because I found sometimes that too much of a variety in food groups for his muffin tin meal makes Andy's tummy a little sore or this four cup tin provides space for a drink and 3 themed foods.

Andy is as sweet as these Strawberries and Yogurt...

He is as talkative as this mouth implies :) We made the mouth by cutting a section out of an apple and inserting teeth gum sweets on the top and bottom.

And he 'almost always' resembles this smiley face... (made from half an orange and corn nuts)

This was such a lot of fun and Andy was super excited! To see what other fun MTM's were created today pop over.

Book Fan Friday - A Very Blustery Day

2009-10-04T09:49:00.000-07:00

This is by far one of Andy's favourite books. It has levers to pull which makes the characters move. It's the classic story about a very blustery day that ends in a flood and Piglet being saved in one of Pooh's honey pots when going down a waterfall. It's a delightful little story and Andy loves to pull the levers while I read...

Piglet's scarf unraveled and Pooh is flying Piglet like a kit holding onto the yarn of the unraveling scarf...

The friends are tossing Pooh and Piglet up in the air singing 'Hip Hip Hooray for Pooh for saving Piglet!'...

To see what other books have been reviewed pop over to Three A's and a C.

Tot School: Week 5 (Winnie the Pooh and some bees)

2009-10-03T05:51:00.000-07:00

Andy is currently 37 months old

This weeks theme for our Tot School was 'Winnie the Pooh and some Bees' but it turned out to be 'a whole lot of socializing and some Winnie the Pooh'. We didn't get much in the way of Tot School done this week because the most part of Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday was taken up with visitors but Andy still had lots of fun.

We started off the week with examining the shells he collecting from the beach last week in detail...

This is our favourite one...

I prepared a 'Bee' craft for Andy out of things we had in our 'Resources' drawer...

The yellow strips are material scraps, the wings are paper and the body is a foam dish from a milk tart that we bought...

The finished bee... I'm so glad we did this craft on Monday because Andy played with it everyday zooming around the house with his bee. He had such a lot of fun. (we made his sting out of the back of a duck's feather)

Then he did some work on his 'Winnie the Pooh and some bees' lapbook which we got from lapbooklesson.com (we just added a few things of our own as well)

On Tuesday my Granny, eldest sister and 2 nieces came to visit so Andy and I spent the morning making these homemade cinnamon buns (we added chopped walnuts to the frosting)...

Here's Andy's one which he made all by himself. He had it when it was warm out of the oven and was so proud of it...

He also had a neighbour's grandson and granddaughter over to play. N is the same age as Andy and Andy asks after him everyday now.

Wednesday: Our little Winnie the Pooh display...

Andy painted this little bear and filled the container with a different snack everyday...

We spent the morning doing some random Tot Trays...

Some work on his bear counting book out of his lapbook...

And in the afternoon Aunty Rachel came for her weekly visit so Andy and his friends spent several fun hours running around outside and jumping on the trampline which we put outside on sunny days.

In the evening he asked for his The Very Hungry Caterpillar Lapbook and insisted on balancing it on the arm of the chair where Daddy was sitting and taking Daddy through the lapbook showing him everything again and explaining it and he concluded by playing with his favourite threading activity section of the lapbook...

On Thursday Morning he played mostly outside with his water activity Tot Tray...

And his little friend arrived wearing an almost identical shirt to Andy's. Of coarse the boys thought this newly invented Lightning McQueen club was just the best thing ever...

At last Andy found an equal and willing companion in pulling faces for the camera (maybe it's some secret code in the Lightning McQueen club)...

In the afternoon we had a friend over who is studing Educare and needed to do a workshop making homemade toys with some parents. So a few of us ladies did the workshop while 8 children filled the air outside with screams and laughter.

Can't put a photo because of certain contious ladies.

So it was Andy, 1 boy and 6 girls!

On Friday we read some Winnie the Pooh books and Andy did his five page Italian Winnie the Pooh puzzle book (each page has a different puzzle with a story in Italian). I was on strike most of Friday (which means sitting on the couch drinking tea and alternating between knitting and embroidering) because I felt exausted so Andy kept busy in his school area. Luckily he has a long concentration span and is content with keeping himself busy, esspecially when he has a audio book on. We've been listening to The Giraff, the Pelly and Me by Roald Dahl and Andy doesn't ever seem to tire of it - the result being that we're both completely brain washed and quoting from the story at regular intervals during our day - which often results in shrieks of laughter.

We took Andy to Cape Garden's Centre today (Saturday) where there are lots of rides and a Nursery with animals. I also went to the shop, that I bought the Tot Trays from, and bought a whole lot of bottles, trays, containers etc. that we'll be using next week and in the future.

Here are some photo's of our Winnie The Pooh and Some Bees Lapbook from Lapbook Lessons...

The Cover...

Bee Tic-Tac-Toe game with the game pieces in the floral pocket and a cute Bee Rhyme...

The lapbook folded out...

Bears counting book and a flap up Winnie the Pooh scene that Andy enjoyed painting...

Andy coloured in and counted the bears on each page and then put the corresponding amount of stickers in the circles...

The first flap of the tree...

Completely unfolded...

With a balloon colours mini book...

Some vocabulary words which we went through, each flaps open to reveal the definition...

Three question flap books... for each answer Andy did a colour in page which we put under each flap...

Who does Pooh belong to...

To see what others have done for Tot School visit 1+1+1=1.

Muffin Tin Monday (No Theme)

2009-09-28T02:31:00.000-07:00

There's no theme for this week's MTM so we just had a normal lunch with the yummy addition of some honeycomb from my Dad (who is a bee keeper by hobby). Andy loves honeycomb and I served it cause our Tot School theme for this week is 'Winnie the Pooh and some bees'.

Cake pan from left: cheese cut into sticks, toasted sandwich, honeycomb, cucumber slices, cherry tomatoes. And of coarse some extra honeycomb for dessert.

To see what others have done for MTM pop over to Her Cup Overfloweth.

P.S. Sorry it's in a cake pan, I still haven't gotten round to getting Andy a proper muffin tin. Wrote it on my to do list right now so little chance of forgetting again.

Book Fan 'Friday' - Big and Busy Ocean

2009-09-27T13:13:00.000-07:00

Our book for last week's Book Fan Friday (which can be posted on any day but which I will try and do on Fridays) is Big and Busy Oceans by Priddy Books. This is an amazing book Andy got as a gift from his Gran. It's written in a 'interesting facts style' as apposed to a story like, 'Once upon a time... to... The End', but it's written in such a way that Andy sits through this book from cover to cover not only listening but asking a gazillion 'interesting' questions. It has amazing flaps, pop-ups and a wheel that gives the book just that much more appeal and depth. It's aged 5+ but Andy is 3 and as I said VERY much interested. Here are some pics...

The front cover...

The back cover...

One of the pages...

Another page...

Close-up of some pop-ups...

To see what others have done for Book Fan Friday visit Three A's and a C.

Tot School - Week 4

2009-09-26T11:01:00.000-07:00

Andy is currently 36 months old

We didn't have any particular theme this week as we only had half a Tot School week with Thursday being a holiday and everyone taking Friday off to make it a long weekend.

MONDAY

So on Monday Andy painted his farm animals which he received in the post last week and which we molded over the weekend...

My Mom bought him a years subscription to the National Geographic Toddlers Magazine so he received his first copy in the post and we had so much fun reading it and doing all the activities inside...

He then worked a bit on his Ressurection Lapbook which we printed from Lapbook Lessons...

In the evening he asked to do some more lapbooking so we took out our Footsteps Of The Prophet lapbook which we created ourselves and he worked on cutting and pasting the leaves onto the tree...

As well as sticking stickers of dogs in the dog section... we also read all the matchbooks, mini books and layer books we created in these sections...

He then made a little dog puppet which is actually a toilet roll craft from dltk-kids but we made it with a paper backing so that it could go flat to put into our lapbook pocket...

TUESDAY

On Tuesday morning he asked to 'do' his Humpty Dumpty Lapbook which we did a few months back. That's one of the many things I love about lapbooks - you keep using them over and over...

It was a beautiful Spring day so Andy spent many happy hours playing outside...

We hang some lavender up to dry so that Andy can make some lavender pouches for his Grannies for Christmas presents...

In the afternoon we had SO MUCH FUN creating and playing with homemade toys out of one of my favourite books...

It's a South African book called Learning With Scrap which my Aunt gave to me when I was still at College studing Educare. It has lots of templates and wonderful ideas...

This is a outline board I made as one of my College projects 7 years ago and it's such a joy to be using it with my own child...

You just collect household objects, outline them on a piece of A3 sized card and laminate the card.

These are threading cards we made a few months back. I used a colouring book with very simple outlines, traced a picture onto white paper, pasted it onto card, cut it out and punch holes along the edges... I put some clear tape at the tip of the thread to make it more sturdy and easier to put through the holes and the other end of the thread I taped to the back...

We made this 'feely matching board'. We had fun collecting different textured objects round the house, cut two of each into squares, pasted one of each onto a piece of card and pasted the others onto individual pieces of card...

I let him play with it in two ways. One - to put the matching pieces into a dish concealed by a napkin. He put his hand under the napkin took hold of one and without looking felt it and with the other hand showed me on the 'feely board' which one he thinks it is. After he's guessed he takes the square out from under the napkin to reveal wether he was right or wrong. It was such fun and he wanted to do it over and over again. I think the whole mystery about it thrilled him to bits...

The other way was to just match them up by sight which he also enjoyed...

So here are our homemade toys Tot Trays...

WEDNESDAY

On Wednesday we did a bit on construction and farm vehicles. Andy did some colour, cut and paste...

Then he did some sticker fun on the topic as we discussed each vehicle...

He also did his Open Ended Art which I blogged about here and it was by far the highlight of the day...

Andy 'helped' bake some choc chip cookies...

And dipped the end product into a glass of milk with all the sucking and sighing and aaahhhhhing accompaning such a consuming task...

THURSDAY

On Thursday we spent our holiday in Hermarnus about a 2 and a half hour drive up the coast to my Aunt and Uncles house for my Aunty's birthday. It was also the whale festival at Hermarnus so we decided to take the alternate root which was mountains at your immediate left and the sea at your immediate right with a heck of a lot of twists and turns. So 2 hours into the drive after only two stops Andy exploded with vomit from car sickness. So we were inbetween mountain and sea half an hour away from our destination with a quarter roll of toilet paper and a back seat covered in vomit. We cleaned Andy up and changed his clothes (which I packed in forseeing either vomit, wee, mud or cake) and used the last of our valuable toilet paper cleaning up as much vomit as possible. One can but learn from ones mistakes.

Our peaceful drive before the above mentioned episode...

After we had lunch at my Uncle's house of which Andy had none and we had very little (still vividly recalling the vomit episode) Andy and I headed to the beach down the road with some of the family and Luke stayed behind to remove the seats from the car and wash them in my Uncle's back yard.

Andy has been asking all winter to go to the beach and this is the first time after winter that he has, so before any of us had a grain of sand between our toes Andy was on the beach in a flash just sand, beach toys, waves, sky and him...

Andy with his cousin nearest in age to him, Jude...

Some cousins walking my Uncle's dogs and some enjoying the rocks...

Jude the very brave one headed into the freezing water...

Andy preferred to stay on solid ground telling me, "The water is going to pull me far into the ocean"! I don't blame him cause no matter how much explaining I got I thought exactly the same till I was a teenager.

Escaping from the waves...

He found solace in patiently collecting shells and was very proud of the result of his labour...

FRIDAY

On Friday my eldest sister and I with her two girls and Andy went to visit my Mom and seeing as my Mom is our dear mother hen with her five chicks hardly ever further than half an hour away from her my brother and his family and my sister and her boys were also there for the day with only one of my sisters being absent.

All the cousins played in the storage flat at the back of my parents property and built a house out of empty boxes as the prison and Andy as the prisoner, feeding him pieces of sandwiches through the 'window'...

Hope, his 6 year old cousin is a second mother to him and when they are playing alone he is in her capable care as she reports the smallest incident which might raise concern. When most of the kids were inside getting doughnuts I went looking for them and there they were in the storage room with Andy in a stored cot and Hope lovingly watching over him from a stool and giving him half of her doughnut. :)

Here she is joining him in the prison. She will even willingly put herself into prison for the sake of her beloved Andy. :)

Okay so I've said far too much this week and if you've reached this far - well done! :) These Tot School posts just gets longer and longer don't they!? Please don't be put off by the length I'll try my best to make next weeks one shorter.

I'll put the link to the other's Tot School posts here once 1+1+1=1 has put her Tot School post up.

Open Ended Art: Play Dough/Clay Mosaic

2009-09-23T04:22:00.000-07:00

This weeks theme for Open Ended Art hosted by Growing And Learning by Leaps and Bounds is Play dough/Clay Mosaic. And what a fun theme it was!

Andy made some salt dough...

Which we cut into squares...

And he pasted it onto a little flower pot...

We left it in the sun to dry and then he fetched it in to paint it (with these cute paints we had left over from another project)...

He also experimented by painting with the back of the brush...

"Spring has sprung and the grass has riz, I wonder where all 'em flowers is!" - as my Mom would say. Andy cut some 'flowers' for his pot. So far we've mostly been cutting lavender and herbs for our School area, waiting for the spring flowers to appear...

Andy doing some 'flower/foliage' arrangement...

And the finished project...

To see other fun Play Dough / Clay Mosaic projects pop over.

Learning Corners: Favorite Spot

2009-09-22T10:16:00.000-07:00

FAVORITE SPOT YOU LIKE TO TEACH YOUR KID(S):

We recently moved our school area to a section of the lounge. It used to be half of one of our two bedrooms which was also sleeping and toy areas so you can imagine how cramped the room was. So I decided to make a third of our lounge into our school area with only school supplies and the room for sleeping and toys. Wow what a wonderful change. The sun streaming in through the sliding doors, the birds chirping and starting off the school day with picking fresh flowers for our sunny school 'room'. The patio leads directly onto the grass so Andy can pop out at any time and have a run around or work in our little herb garden.

Our Tot School Area...

I labeled and organized our drawers so everything has it's own place and Andy's Tot Trays has their own place at Andy's level and are always accessible...

Taking frequent breaks to play in the garden... Spring is here now but there's still a bit of winter weather predicted in the near future so we're waiting till the Spring weather officially starts to set up the sand pit and his little swimming shell. He's really looking forward to it.

Pop over to Growing and Learning by Leaps and Bounds to see what others favorite spots are.

Muffin Tin Monday (Children's Literature)

2009-09-21T11:23:00.000-07:00

Seeing as we are busy with our 'Pancakes, Pancakes by Eric Carle' lapbook I decided to make it today's MTM theme. It is one of Andy's favourite books and of coarse Eric Carle is our favourite children's author. :)

In the book Jack wants a pancake for breakfast but his mother is busy and needs him to help her by going to collect all the ingredients from it's original source e.g. going to cut the wheat and take it to the miller to grind into flour.

So our MTM included milk (from the spotted cow), a egg - which I hard boiled (from the black hen), of coarse some pancakes, butter (Jack made from the cream scooped off the top of the fresh milk), stawberry jam (from the cellar) and cut up fresh strawberries (because it's much healthier than strawberry jam)...

To see what others have done for MTM go to Her Cup Overfloweth.

A Montessori Moment: I Spy Bottle

2009-09-20T03:18:00.000-07:00

I found this wonderful idea from The Wonder Years. We used salt which works just as well as sand and was more readily available. Andy had such fun choosing a few things at our local craft store and finding things around the house to pop into his bottle. It is one of his favourite toys. He rolls it over and over seeing what he can spy next. Things we included were a bell, a feather, some pom-poms, some shaped buttons e.g. flower, a little Lego soldier, some eye's (the ones you put on toys with the eye ball that moves), beads, etc.

After we made it he came to me out of his own and said "Mommy, I love my toy so much, thank you!" He appreciates homemade toys so much more than bought ones. What a lovely result to a little love and effort.

Some things he is enjoying this afternoon... his I Spy Bottle, tonging large pom-poms and spooning pasta bows with a large mussel shell...

He built a church with his wooden blocks and was very proud of himself and so was I. :) He's at this very moment having very lengthy conversations between his wooden blocks pretending they are different family members.

Great Posty Day

2009-09-18T13:12:00.000-07:00

Andy received two parcels today! The first was from his two friends, Michaela and Zoe, in Middleburg who sent him an adorable set of farm animal fridge magnets that you mold and paint yourself. We did the first step this afternoon because it has to set for 24 hours and he was very excited!

The second was a parcel from Aunty Lisa, Uncle Simon and Juliet in London. It's a beautiful Aesop's Fables book...

Which he put us to reading straight away...

A BIG THANK YOU to Jerushia, Michaela, Zoe, Lisa, Simon and Juliet. You really made Andy's day!

Andy's photography...

2009-09-18T12:31:00.000-07:00

Andy took to a bit of photography this afternoon. He sat on the bed and we showed him how to point the camera and look at the screen at what he's pointing at and press the button.

His first professional photo of Daddy... :)

He also took a self portrait. You can see the concentration on his face as he's trying to press the button without moving the camera...

Tot School: On the Farm - Week 3

2009-09-18T10:53:00.000-07:00

Andy is currently 36 months old

Our theme for last week's Tot School was 'Farm Produce'. We started on a lapbook we're creating for the book Pancakes, Pancakes by Eric Carle. We want to aim to do one Eric Carle book into a lapbook each month or so. Pancakes, Pancakes fit's in with Farm Produce as Jack has to go fetch each ingredient for his pancakes e.g. egg from chicken, milk from cow, flour from wheat and miller ect. It's one of Andy's favourite books.

We started the week off with some basic Tot Trays which Andy enjoyed tremendously. Spaghetti into holes in lid of container (I poked some holes in a container cause the spice shaker I bought proved to be useless by it's holes being too small), spooning dried peas into a funnel and montessori 'where things come from' cards e.g. matching up sheep - wool - sweater, cow - milk - cheese.

Spooning...

Spaghetti into holes...

Andy had quite a lot of crayons which he doesn't often use because he prefers felt tipped markers but after this activity it is no longer the case :) We took all his crayons, cut it up and Andy divided it into the holes of an old patty-pan pan while we preheated the oven to 180 degrees C. I then switched off the oven and put the pan in it until the crayons were melted. We transfered the pan to the freezer for about 10 minutes and then left it at room temperature for a while.

We then popped them out and Andy was SUPER excited about his 'new' crayons...

He put them to work straight away on a craft we did for our Pancakes, Pancakes lapbook...

Then later in the week we had another three Tot Trays. Tonging, sponging and play dough...

Sponging (transfering the water from one bowl to the other with a sponge). This is by far one of Andy's favourite activities. He must have done it at least a hundred times :)

We bought a set of these velcro fruit and veggies as part of Andy's birthday present. He loves playing with kitchen things and has his own cupboard full of kitchen toys in the kitchen which he unpacks and uses when I'm busy cooking or washing up. His Aunty Becky set him up with a tea set, pots and pans and play food for his birthday as well :)

He transfered the fruit and veg from one basket to the other using his tongs...

The he chopped them in half with his little chopping board and knife that came with the set and put one half in each basket...

And then he took the halfs and put them together again to make the whole fruit and veg again...

Having some more fun with his 'new' crayons with Aunty Rachel who came for her weekly visit and joined in on some Tot School fun...

Play dough...

Homemade play dough recipe:

500ml cake flour
125ml salt
10ml oil
10ml food colouring of choice
approximately 200ml water

Mix flour, salt, oil and colouring together. Add enough water to make a nice play dough consistency. Knead well.

Enjoy!

We studied potatoes by painting with potato stamps...

Discussing the 'eyes' and how potatoes grow (I put two potatoes aside in a dark corner of the cupboard at the beginning of the month so that they will grow roots for Andy to study)...

We got a great book out of the library on potatoes. Andy decided not to plant the potatoes and so relieved them of their roots. :)

And proceeded to chop them up just because chopping is fun...

This evening we did our weekly shopping and when at our local 'Fruit and Veg Food Lovers Market' a fresh load of veggies arrived from the farm so I had Andy choose some out and when we got home we discussed each one and felt and smelt them and Andy told me how and where they grow and what they're used for...

Then he chopped up a radish and a carrot...

And tasted each to identify whether it was sweet, bitter, etc. and whether he liked it or not. The carrot of coarse was pronounced as yummy and sweet...

And the radish? Quote: "It tastes gross. It's burny. Mommy, can't I have water!?"

At last after a long search I found the right trays for Tot School (the only ones I could find before being floral and kitchen printed ones). Sometimes I wished I lived in America where everything seems so readily available with little effort and cost (I might be wrong but that's how it seems) but at last, before I turned permanently green with envy ;) I found these locally. I got a few other containers and beads and things too and set these Tot Trays up for Andy to enjoy during the coarse of the weekend. He spent most of his Friday night doing these and you could hear a pin drop when he sat stringing those beads to the pipe cleaners, he was concentrating so hard. :)

Beads and pipe cleaners, sponging, spooning beans.

All in all we had a very fun week - explained in as few words as possible :) - and discovered many new 'favourites' to enjoy.

Visit 1+1+1=1 for some wonderful Tot School posts.

Andy 'Reading'

2009-09-17T12:04:00.000-07:00

I often wish I had Andy's memory. I can hardly remember what we did last weekend let alone the content of six different books every week. We take six books out of the library for Andy each week and after a few days he knows keywords in some books and other books he knows word for word. I must admit sometimes when we do our bedtime reading I get a bit drowsy and so shorten the very long books a bit but lately I've been caught out as even in the very long books Andy listens out for and remembers key words and if I miss them (when shortening the text) he says "No you must read..." and he names the sentence which I missed. Anyway here's a book that we took out of the library last week and this video was taken after he had the book for about 4-5 days. You might not be able to make out what he's saying some of the time but he's reading the whole book word for word (and he's very proud of the fact too). :)

New blog name

2009-09-16T11:29:00.000-07:00

At last we (my Hubby) came up with a perfect blog name. FUNdamentals! Short, catchy and says it all in a nut shell. The fundamentals of our homeschooling and raising Andy is pure FUN!

I'll keep the address the same though so as not to confuse things.

Love,
Celiah Ann and Andy

Open Ended Art - Bean Mosaic

2009-09-16T10:07:00.000-07:00

This is the first week of Open Ended Art for us. The theme is Bean Mosaic so I put out some lentils and peas (close enough to beans) for Andy to make his masterpiece. He wanted to stick some pom-poms on too and of coarse wanting to encourage creativity I put those out as well and seeing as we missed out on the first mosaic week (which I think was paper) I put some of that out too. So all in all Andy had a creative blast and loads of fun (I'm sure I'll be forgiving the variation on the bean theme as the main point of Open Ended Art is to have fun)... :)

Here is the masterpiece...

To see what bean mosaics others have done go here.

Farm Animals Lapbook Video

2009-09-16T07:29:00.000-07:00

I'm very sorry for the bad quality of the video but our camera has a problem with off loading normal video's so I had to make a compact one. I hope to have this problem sorted out soon so all future videos are better quality. After much help from my Hubby I eventually managed to do the whole YouTube thing so here's the video of our Farm Animals Lapbook:

Here's a nice link I found showing the sticker book we use.

MTM Recipe Requests

2009-09-15T04:46:00.001-07:00

Here are the recipes, that some of you asked for, of two of the items that we had in our MTM meal this week...

Chocolate and Vanilla Pinwheels

125g margarine
125ml sugar
5ml vanilla essence
1 large egg
600ml cake flour
2ml salt
5ml baking powder
60ml cocoa powder

1. Cream the marg, add the sugar, vanilla essence and egg to the marg and mix well.
2. Sift the cake flour, salt and baking powder together. Add the dry ingredients to the marg mixture and mix.
3. Divide the mixture into two equal portions. Incorporate the cocoa powder into one half. Roll out the white mixture into a rectangle. Roll out the chocolate mixture into a similar shape then place on top of the vanilla mixture. Roll gently together until both mixtures are stuck together.
4. Roll up the mixture starting on the long side to form a Swiss roll shape. (I found this was easier placed on a piece of cling wrap and as I roll a smooth with the wrap). Cover with plastic wrap and place in the fridge for at least 1 hour.
5. Remove from the fridge, place on a cutting board and cut into 2mm thick slices.
6. Place on a greased baking tray and bake for 7-10 minutes at 180C.

Pumpkin Fritters

(This recipe is from my dear friend, Jerushia, who used to be my neighbour but had to move far, far away for her husbands work. Oh how I miss those afternoons drinking tea, chatting, copying each other's recipes, etc. while the kids played together. Sniff, sniff!)

This makes a large batch so just halve if necessary.

30ml soft butter
500g cooked pumpkin
4x250ml sifted self-raising flour
2.5ml salt
10ml baking powder
60ml sugar
2 eggs lightly beaten
5ml vanilla essence
milk to mix
oil
Cinnamon Sugar:
250ml castor sugar
10ml ground cinnamon

Put butter into hot pumpkin.
Sift dry ingredients into a large bowl.
Mix in pumpkin and rest of ingredients adding a little milk to make a thick batter.
Fry on both sides till golden brown.
coat in cinnamon sugar.

Enjoy!

Tot School: On the Farm - Week 2

2009-09-15T02:30:00.000-07:00

Andy is currently 36 months old

Our theme for last week's Tot School was 'Farm Animals' continuing on from the same theme the week before.

The main things we worked on were our Big Barn Farm Activity Book that Andy received for his birthday from Aunty Lucille, a wooden farmyard puzzle (also a gift from thoughtful Aunty Lucille) and our lapbook and file folder games. We incorporated most of the Big Barn Farm book into our 'Farm Animals Lapbook' with exception to the back cover which unfolded into a farm scenario which I'll show pics of shortly...

Playing with his Animal Homes Match file folder game we made and later added to our lapbook...

We start off everyday with our Bible lapbook and toddler Bible and read Bible stories...

After each Bible story we read Andy puts a sticker in the block on the bookmarks. This lapbook is from LapbookLessons...

This is the back cover of the Big Barn Farm Activity Book which we cut out and...

Made into this neat farm scenario with farm animals on stands. Andy had SO MUCH FUN with this...

Playing with his wooden farmyard puzzle...

Painting a piggy craft for the back cover of his lapbook...

A bit off theme - but working a bit on his Oceans Lapbook which is still an ongoing project...

Playing with Animal Shadows match game in his Farm Animals Lapbook...

His little neighbour comes over once or twice a week to play and he thoroughly enjoys it. Tian is 2 years old so it's so lovely that Andy can have contact with someone younger than him as he's the youngest of all his cousins.

Putting mini pom-poms in a ice cube tray with some tweezers. He was very chuffed with himself when the task was completed...

We spent Friday with two of my (housewife) sisters and 3 of his cousins and had a fabulous time!

I made a video of our farmyard lapbook but have yet to figure out how to convert it to be able to put it on youtube so that I can put if on my blog. I'll have that up soon (hopefully) cause that's the main thing we worked on and was LOTS of fun.

Go here to see what others have done for Tot School.

Muffin Tin Monday (Apples)

2009-09-14T03:32:00.000-07:00

I made this week's MTM in my new round cake tin cause my muffin tins are in a shocking state due to being a few years old so hopefully I'll remember this week to buy a new muffin tin for MTM uses. Anyway the theme for this week is 'Apples' but because our Tot School theme for this week is 'Farm Produce' I decided to make Andy's meal 'Apples and other farm produce'. We had so much fun cause as we made the pumpkin fritters we discussed how pumpkins grow and where we get them from and when I set up his meal we discussed each item and their relation to the farm and who/what produces them e.g. egg - chiken, cheese - milk - cow, apple - tree etc. We also baked some pinwheel biscuits this morning whose ingredients relate back once again to produce from the farm e.g. egg, flour etc.

So here's Andy's meal for today...

Hard boiled egg, biscuits, pumpkin fritter, apple, orange, cheese. He ate the whole meal and another biscuit besides. A healthy apitite after a long walk and a play in the park this morning. :)

Please click on the MTM image at the top of this post to see what fun MTM's others have done.

Muffin Tin Monday (No Theme)

2009-09-07T02:04:00.000-07:00

I made this week's MTM mid morning so that Andy can snack on it when he wants to. He has a bad cold and so likes to eat little bits at a time instead of one big meal. I tried to keep the food plain so as not to upset his tummy. Oatmeal cookies, pretzels, water, sandwiches cut into star and flower, cucumber sticks and carrot sticks.

To see what others have done for MTM go here.

Tot School: On the Farm - Week 1

2009-09-06T02:21:00.000-07:00

Andy is currently 36 months old

Last week was our very first week of Tot School. It was also the week in which Andy turned 3 so we made our theme for the month of September to coincide with the theme of Andy's birthday party which was 'The Farm'. We are covering 'Farm Animals' in the first two weeks of Sept., 'Farm produce' in the third week and 'People and Equipment on the Farm' in the fourth.

We started Monday off with Andy asking to 'play' tot school outside. So luckily it being a sunny day amongst the still cold wintry weather we trekked outside to start on our farm animals lapbook...

We started off very simply with our Tot trays this week as we were so busy with party preparations. I bought these place mats instead of trays because I can't find appropriate trays anywhere so once I find it I'll upgrade to proper trays. These work great for now though.

He did farm animal stickers, made some of his own party packs and played with his farmyard felt board...

On rainy days when Mommy was baking for the party Andy built a 'Soft House' (blankets draped over chairs) and settled down with some audio books...

Andy helped a lot with decorating his birthday cake (apart from licking out bowls and snacking on decorations - one only has a birthday once a year)...

The finished cake after Andy and I spent a whole morning in the kitchen...

One of our cute little lambs...

and a chick...

Andy took his felt farmer from his Tot Tray and played that the cake was his farm...

My sister-in-law came to visit one day and Andy decorated some cupcakes into more lambs and chicks...

On Friday (his birthday) my sister came to visit for the day with her two girls (because they couldn't make it to the official party) so Andy had a little pre-party...

To see what others have done for Tot School visit 1+1+1=1.

Muffin Tin Monday (Circus)

2009-08-31T02:36:00.000-07:00

I must admit, I hit a blank when trying to think of the circus theme. But here's what we did today...

From top left: Smoothie, apple ring with apple ring master (the only circus thing I could think of), carrot sticks (Andy's favourite), 'boerewors' roll, corn nuts, cheese cut into small circles.

Here's Andy starting his feast...

To see other fun MTM's follow the link at the top of this post.

Muffin Tin Monday (People and Faces)

2009-08-24T04:59:00.001-07:00

Today we had our first of many Muffin Tin Monday's. The theme was people and faces so we cut a boy and a girl sandwich with gingerbread men cookie cutters. On top in the middle we made a face of apple and fruit and nuts and in the bottom three sections we put some noses (dried fruit sticks), some eyes (pistachio nuts) and some mouths (naartjie segments). We grated some apple as 'hair' and sprinkled it all over...

Andy enjoying his first MTM. He was very impressed...

To see what fun MTM's others have done go here.

Ocean theme

2009-08-19T10:05:00.000-07:00

I thought I'd put some pics up of what we're busy with this week with our Ocean themed lapbook.

Andy loves the ocean and it's creatures and I'm continually amazed at the amount of detail and information he absorbs and remembers. Reading theme related library books as well has armed him with everyday phrases such as 'porcupine fish are very ugly' and 'dolphins jump up out of the water to breath through their breath hole' and his favourite breed of shark is specifically the Tiger Shark. As a stroke of luck we spotted an article about Tiger Sharks in one of the diving magazines while house-sitting for my mother-in-law this past weekend and Andy really enjoyed the pictures.

Here is a few pics from our Ocean Lapbook that we are working on...

Accordion book - colouring each creature a different colour...

This is a cut and paste layer book activity on Sea Gulls - I read it to Andy and he cut out and paste the pictures...

This is collection of Ocean poems and songs in a layer book - each one has a picture and Andy really enjoyed singing the songs and listening to the poems...

A colour and paste activity to make your own sand castle...

Some counting star fish cards...

A mini book recording the theme related books we borrowed from the library and how Andy liked them...

A few variaties of different sharks - Andy loved hearing about the different sharks cause sharks are the best creatures in the whole world according to him...

And a previously blogged about 'fishy emotions matching game' that Andy pasted at the back of his lapbook...

This is a jelly fish craft which Andy made today and which he thoroughly enjoyed...

A paper lobster hand puppet... the orignal craft is made out of a toilet roll but that would be rather difficult to fit into the back pocket of a lapbook so we made it out of red card which works just as well but can become completely flat...

We'll still be doing the Ocean theme for another week so I'll be putting up some more ocean pics soon. We got most of our templates for our Ocean Lapbook from Homeschool Share.

Tot School

2009-08-19T09:35:00.000-07:00

We've decided to keep with the ocean theme until we officially start Tot School in the week Andy turns 3 years old which is in a week and a half's time. Tot School is really just recording through the week what you do with your toddler and sharing ideas with other parents of toddlers by posting about it once a week and in return getting ideas from them. It takes a bit of planning though as we will be doing themed Tot Trays as well as carrying on with our themed lapbooks. We haven't done Tot School at a younger age (it's from about 1 year old till PreK) for the simply reason that I only discovered it a few weeks ago and had to spend many hours reading up about it and searching for ideas etc. I feel now though that I am fully clued up and ready to start. We will be having a monthly theme with sub devisions on this theme for each week. Through experimenting I find toddlers are much more comfortable with repitition so keeping an overall theme for a month works much better than changing the theme each week - and it's less work for Mommy too - win, win situation!

We have decided to go with a 'On The Farm' theme for the month of September as we planned Andy's birthday party to be a Farmyard theme. So week 1 and 2 will focus on Farm Animals, week 3 on Farm Produce and week 4 on People and Equipment. I will be blogging about it so check in each week for my weekly Tot School post.

Lunch

2009-08-18T07:30:00.000-07:00

We're hoping to start with Muffin Tin Monday next week Monday but in the mean time here's our lunch for just an ordinary Tuesday. (I will be recording some meals for fun and the more meals I record the more I can look back on them and remember which ones Andy enjoyed most).

He had a snowman made from apple and banana on a skewer, a apple jaw (red apple as the lips with pistachio nuts stuck in as the teeth - pistachios are his favourite nuts at the moment) and a whole wheat 'carrot, apple and cinnamon' muffin (fresh out of the oven - at which he stated 'I'll have them hot, just one at a time okay Mommy?' - oh how this little guy cracks me up! :-)...

...after which he had 3 provitas (wholewheat crackers) with cheddar cheese, which also served as airplanes during the process of being devoured...

We made some homemade traditional shortbread today as well for tea time when Wowo comes for her weekly visit tomorrow. Andy LOVES to bake and prepare meals not only in real life but in play too. This afternoon he braught a kitchen chair into the room and told me to sit and watch him bake. He makes all kinds of things in play and it is facinating to see how acurately he does it... mixing, pouring, putting in the oven, checking up on it, smelling the delicious aromas, taking out of the oven and serving.

Stormy day fun

2009-08-12T09:06:00.000-07:00

It was very rainy and cold today so we spent part of the morning with me sewing and Andy played with his puzzles. After which he emptied the contents of his puzzle drawer in the hole where the drawer is supposed to go and 'made a fire' with the puzzle pieces as the 'fire wood' and the drawer was his 'boat'. Later when my sister-in-law came for her weekly visit he had a tea party in his 'boat'.

Random Conversation

2009-08-12T04:35:00.000-07:00

I thought I'd share some random conversations Andy and I had today. You can't keep a straight face for long when you have a Tot.

On someone dropping something on the floor of the upstairs flat:

Andy: What was that?
Me: The people upstairs dropped something.
Andy: The people dropped down the stairs?
Me: No, the people dropped something.
Andy: (enlightenment dawning on his face) Oh, they dropped the person.

On having lunch:

Me: Would you like some more?
Andy: No!
Me: Are you sure?
Andy: No!
Me: You must say 'yes' you are sure.
Andy: But I'm not sure.
Me: Oh, Andy (sigh)
Andy: Oh, Mommy (sigh)
We both burst out laughing

Winter

2009-08-11T10:46:00.000-07:00

It's been rather cold and dull this week but when the sun did pop out Andy and I went outside for some gardening and to savor the outdoors until it became too cold and overcast again...

Coming back from a walk Andy trip and fell into some soggy, muddy grass...

And when we're forced to keep indoors we play, learn, bake, listen to audio books and constantly 'dive' into the puzzle drawer...

A thought before creating tomorrows to do list...

2009-08-04T12:31:00.000-07:00

...so that we might look at this poem at the end of the day and answer, YES!

Did you have lots of fun with your child today?
Did you take time to climb, to run and to play?
Did you look at new things through his eager eyes?
Did you comfort and hold him when you heard his cries?

Were your fingers all sticky with paint and cold glue?
Was there enough play dough for him and for you?
Did you help him to cut, to paste and to thread?
Or did you sit quietly and watch him instead?

Was there enough time for a story last night?
Did you talk about why the stars looked so bright?
Did you talk about insects and why a bee stings?
Did you watch as a butterfly spread silky wings?

Your child's childhood years are so precious and few,
They're gone in what seems just a moment or two,
What he really needs most is for you to be there,
to love him and show him just how much you care.

by Doreen Maree

The Very Hungry Caterpillar Lapbook: Part 2

2009-08-04T05:13:00.000-07:00

The second section has our bugs matching cards, our expandable caterpillar, caterpillar and butterfly size sequence and our games folder...

My sister gave us a few sets of these great matching cards. This is the insects set and has the names on the back of each card...

Andy and I made this little caterpillar by folding two strips of paper together...

Here is a extra file folder attached to the last flap of the double lapbook for our games section with the game tokens in the pocket...

Opening the extra file folder section...

The game folder opened...

Caterpillar counting game...

Butterfly colour match game...

The back cover (a colour in picture)...