I love me some shelves

I love to organize.  I’m always in search of The Perfect Organizational Solution for everything.  But I also have to work with what I’ve got.  Lucky for me, my hubby is pretty handy, being a carpenter ‘n’ all.  He actually asked me to prioritize our project list - no promises, though – and I told him I really wanted to have some shelves like these.  The first spot I wanted to put them was above the desk in Gwen’s room.  He just happened to have some old planks that he sanded down and re-finished. 

Voila!   

I love how they turned out and can’t wait to sprinkle some more floating shelves across the house – above the desk in the office, in the living room to spread around the photos and knick-knacks.  And since I’ve been simplifying our posessions I’m thinking an open-shelving plan for the kitchen would be sweeter than new cabinets.  Something like this or this or this?

Phil just shook his head at me when I hemmed and hawed over what to display on Gwen’s new shelves.  He told me I should let her pick what to display, but I maintained that I should at least give her some guidelines.  In addition to fixing up her desk area, I put some wall stickers from Auntie Nikki on her bureau. 

 

Josiah got his own wall stickers, and since his hand-me-down bureau (which I have yet to fix up) has pink drawer pulls I decided to boy it up a bit with the transportation stickers.  So cute!  I put the rest of them on the rail above his converted crib. 

 

 

I have a few wooden crates that used to belong to my grandmother and I’m always thinking of the best way to display them.  Currently one of them displays Josiah’s books ‘n’ things, but I’m thinking shelves, again.  I already took a cue from Pinterest and hung one on my kitchen wall.

What else can I organize?

Picture Projects

Rememer those picture frames that I had good intentions of repurposing back in the Spring?  Well… I finally got around to fixing them up!

Here’s the before:

Phil helped me spray paint the frames and cut glass to fit each one… but then they were just sitting around waiting to be put together.  I kept asking if we should order some matting, but he finally got a big piece of white board (not sure what the material is) from Lowe’s and cut it to fit the frames.  There were some pieces leftover and the kiddos use them for dry erase boards – how cool is that?

After:
   
 

Our walls were bare for the longest time, and slowly but surely we have been filling them with pictures.  The silver frame is now up in our loft where Phil and I often watch movies after the kids have gone to bed.  The picture is a favorite of mine – a sepia-toned version of Gwen pushing Josiah in their toy shopping cart on Josiah’s first birthday.  They love that shopping cart, use it almost every day and often take it to the store.

The two large black frames greet me each morning as I go down the stairs.  At night I’ll stand at the top of the stairs and look down at their faces as I brush my teeth, wondering how I survived another day taking care of them. :)  I like that I can see the pictures from the bottom of the stairs, too.  I had planned on changing out the prints each year – the two currently in there are favorites from last year – but I think I’ll just leave them, they look so good.  I got the large prints during a Shutterfly sale.   

Phil had this shiny blue paint in the garage and I thought it would be fun to use on one of the frames.  I thought of displaying the kiddos’ artwork in it or something like that, but apparently it might be harder to change the contents so I decided on three 5x7s.  It currently hangs on the wall near our dining room/entryway but we’ll be changing that area soon (hopefully) and I’m not sure where it will end up. 

I took some inspiration from Pinterest for my next project.  Some of my family members will be moving away soon – *sniff sniff* – and I put together a little going-away present for them.  I got some old maps of the area, cut it to fit a frame I got for about $3 at Homegoods, and used this neat tutorial for stem stitching a heart around our town.  I used photo corners so the picture can be changed.  
I love how it turned out and can’t wait to give it to them!

Preschool: R is for Rainbow

Lately I haven’t had as much energy or enthusiasm for preschool, and writing about it oftentimes feels forced.  This week the kiddos were wild banshees, gleefully messing up the house, pulling down the curtains in my room, breaking a light and three glasses, spilling countless cups full of beverages.  Whenever they break something I try to look on the bright side and call it “clutter control,” but it’s not always easy. 

Most days I’m sick of my own voice; I even resort to the proverbial “how many times have I told you…?”  Because really, how many times have I told them?  It seems when they aren’t actively fighting or disobeying, they’re putting their mischievous little heads together and devising secret little plans to gang up against Mommy. *sigh*

How ironic that last week’s theme was about rainbows.  I meant to do a general theme about the sky and even got some constellation books from the library – the kiddos really enjoyed Constellations: A Glow-in-the-Dark Guide to the Night Sky - but we (I) ended up simplifying the focus.

I try to post most – if not all – the resources I use for each week in a themed board on my Pinterest wall.  Much of the time I have a slew of inspirational ideas and only get around to using a few of them.  Occasionally, there’s a resource that doesn’t have a corresponding image to pin so I have it bookmarked elsewhere.  

Confessions of a Homeschooler has a whole slew of rainbow-related activities, many of which we took advantage.  Gwen did the letter R hunt worksheet, Do-A-Dot page, Color By Number and Roll-a-Rainbow game (a hit with both kids). 

  
 
 

1+1+1=1 has a Rainbow Lapbook, and I printed out the ROYGBIV minibook for Gwen to color and write in the words.  She did really well!  I verbally spelled the colors for her and only helped in a couple of spots.       

One of our Highlights magazines had a rainbow vegetable memory match game so I laminated the pieces and we played a few rounds.  Gwen kept beating me!  And she’s a pro at her alphabet puzzle now; I should time her next time.

 

For some reason I wasn’t able to download their file, but I got this neat idea for Color Books and used some cardstock, ribbon and stickers to help the kiddos put them together.  Josiah seemed especially excited picking stickers for each of the different colors; his favorite stickers were the fruits. 

 

Though I had a number of different rainbow-related crafts in mind, I went with these super-easy rainbow circles.  The kiddos love getting the glue sticks out, and after pasting the circles together (Gwen did not want help putting hers on straight)  they colored them and I taped them to the kitchen window.  Josiah calls them “lollipops.’ *grin*

 

We read a few books about rainbows and then I got a couple crystals out and we found a sunny spot to make rainbows.  At first we just got beams of light, but if we tipped the crystal just right, we made a rainbow.  Gwen had lots of fun with this one.

Probably the kiddos’ favorite rainbow of the week was the rainbow fruit platter we had along with breakfast one morning.  

 

I had gotten the idea from an issue of Family Fun a couple years back and have been wanting to try it ever since.  Initially I was going to use marshmallows or whipped cream for clouds at the bottom, but figured I’d keep it healthy – and the kids would be just as pleased with all that fruit.  I used raspberries, tangerine segments, pineapple, kiwi, blueberries and grapes.  Yum!

See my R is for Rainbow Pinterest board for more ideas!

Gwen did her usual assortment of dry-erase activities and workbooks (you can read more about them on my Homeschool page) along with one of our newfound favorites - the letter maze.  She concentrates so hard while trying to work her way through the maze, staying on the correct letters. 

Sometimes I like to break up the “academics” with some lighter activities, and since we had just gotten some new issues of Highlights Hidden Pictures Playground in the mail, we’ve been working our way through the hidden puzzles.  We’ve been doing a new one each day, and these are one of Gwen’s favorite activities.

 

I just noticed that Highlights has an interactive section on their website; I’m always looking for fresh ideas for Gwen’s computer time!  We’ve been doing the Starfall letter activity at least once a week - if not more – and I also let her play Sesame Street games - there are lots of different subjects and categories from which to choose. 

Along with some number dot-to-dot pages, we broke out the rubber stamps to decorate the number 17 poster.

Purple was our color of the week.  Along with a pile of story books, we had some worksheets and coloring pages which Gwen and Josiah colaborated on. 

 
 

We had our first big snow of the season at the end of the week and the kids were so excited!  Gwen won’t play outside if it’s “too cold,” but the minute she sees snow she runs to get her snowsuit.  They play till their cheeks are rosy, their noses running and one of them starts crying because they’ve lost their mittens and their fingers are about to fall off.  Good times! 

 

I’ve continued my own childhood tradition of serving hot chocolate after coming in from the snow.  I occasionally buy the packaged stuff when it’s on sale, but normally I try to make it from scratch – it’s so simple!  I’ve been using this really easy recipe I clipped from Eating Well magazine as a base: Combine 1T cocoa powder and 1T sugar in a mug. Swirl in 1c steaming milk.  I like to use coconut or almond milk, Hershey’s Special Dark cocoa, and rapadura or coconut palm sugar along with a splash of vanilla and some cinnamon.   

Bulletin Board

Book Basket
*our favorites
Theme/Vocab
Constellations – a glow-in-the-dark guide to the night sky
Pie in the Sky
Sky Tree
A Rainbow of My Own
Planting a Rainbow
All the Colors of the Rainbow
What Makes a Rainbow? A magic ribbon book*
Let’s Paint a Rainbow
Eating the Alphabet
Weaving the Rainbow

Letter
My “r” Book
A River Ran Wild
Roar of a Snore*
The Rainbow Fish*
Miss Rumphius*
Rapunzel
The Magic Ring*
Rhythm and Blues
The Fairies’ Alphabet Book

Color
Harold’s Trip to the Sky
Lilly’s Purple Plastic Purse*
Purple Little Bird
Purplicious*
Sally and the Purple Socks*

DVDs
Ratatouille*
Rapunzel… and more classic fairytales
Racing Stripes
Castle in the Sky

Linking Up…

Chocolate Chip Coconut Oatmeal

I first fell in love with Chocolate Covered Katie‘s healthy desserts when I stumbled upon her Fudge Babies recipe and decided to whip up a batch.  And proceeded to eat them all.  I’ve since been making my way through her recipes, and let me tell you, I have not been disappointed. 

I’m not a big fan of oatmeal – I just can’t get past the texture – but when I saw her recipe for Coconut Cookie Dough Oatmeal, I knew I had to try it for the kiddos and myself.  Since I wanted to make three portions, I multuplied the original recipe times three and made my own little tweaks.  Here’s my version: 

1 1/2c old-fashioned oats
2T coconut palm sugar (or rapadura, maple syrup, or other natural sugar)
3/4c unsweetened applesauce
1t vanilla extract
3/4c milk (combination buttermilk & almond milk)
3T melted coconut oil
2T unsweetened shredded coconut
handful of dark chocolate chips

In the past, I’ve had better success with the texture of the oatmeal when I’ve soaked the oats overnight, so I did the same here.  I mixed the oats with the milk(s) and let it sit on the counter overnight (if using milk other than buttermilk, I would put it in the fridge).  In the morning, I added the other ingredients, put it in a small casserole, and baked it for 10-15 minutes in my little convection toaster oven set around 375.  

This was a huge success – definitely a keeper in my book!  I topped it with a little extra coconut milk to cool it off for the kiddos and they gobbled it right down.  Nothing like starting the day off with chocolate! 

I’d love to try this with coconut milk and coconut extract to make it really coconut-y, and maybe some chopped almonds to make it Almond Joy Oatmeal – yum!

Preschool: Q is for Quicksand

Daddy was home at the start of our week – always a treat!  He has a knack for working in lessons that are fun and practical at the same time.  Being a fireman (both paid and volunteer), he taught the kids about fire safety. 

While making breakfast, something on the bottom of the oven started burning off and the resulting smoke travelled around the house and accumulated in the office.  Gwen kept running back into the “smoke,” so she had to be rescued over and over.  And over.  They took turns being rescued and even convinced Mommy to play victim.

 

Bible
Our Bible story of the week was about the wise man and the foolish man, so we listened to the familiar children’s song, “The Wise Man Built His House Upon the Rocks” over and over.  I did the hand motions and the kids loved it!  They kept asking me to play it over and over.  I intended to use blocks as houses and make some sort of analogy but never got around to it.  Another homeschooling mama used the story of “The Three Little Pigs,” which I thought was an excellent idea.   

Theme
Though I planned the theme for the week to be the desert, I realized later that quicksand – our Q-word for the week – isn’t usually found in dry areas.  Oops.  I stuck with the theme anyway.

2 Teaching Mommie’s has a Desert Unit, so we made use of some of their printables.  Gwen did a tracing maze…

identified which picture in a row is different than the others…

pattern cards…

and scrabble spelling. 

 

She did well on her “desert” tracing page and wrote the letters all by herself.  Not bad for a 4-year-old!

For a fun, sensory activity I wanted to combine a couple ideas I came across – cornstarch quicksand and moonsand.  I thought it would be neat to have a tray full of moonsand desert with a section of quicksand for the kiddos to play with.  It didn’t turn out quite like I imagined - probably because I used a silica sand instead of playsand – but the kids had fun with it anyway and made many a toy animal sink in the quicksand pit.  I had the vacuum handy to clean up the sand all over the place.

Letter
We almost always start our letter activity with a Do-A-Dot page because they’re fun, quick and easy. 

I also started using 1+1+1=1′s alphabet color-by-number pages and I like to color them with Gwen. She typically gets impatient with straight coloring but seems to enjoy finding out what color comes next. 

Another favorite is the Letter Hunt Worksheet, and Gwen has become a pro at identifying her letters right away.  She even takes the initiative to identify and circle the correct letter in other sheets we happen to be working on, even if we’re not specifically doing a letter hunt.

Another letter hunt resource I shared recently is the letter maze, which kicks the find-and-identify concept up a notch.  Gwen concentrates really hard as she’s connecting all of the correct letters through the maze.  If she makes a mistake, she quickly goes back and finds the right letter.  We also continued with the beginning reading: alphabet worksheets; my PDF viewer has been printing them out kind of wonky, but we get the idea. 

 

Number
We press on with number sixteen, and though Gwen gets easily confused when we get to the teens, she seems to be understanding that they progress in similar fashion as 1-10.  If, when I ask her what comes after fifteen she says thirteen - or something like that – I aske her if three comes after five.  She knows six comes after five, so I point out that sixteen then comes after fifteen. Savvy? 

We used the clip cards from the Desert Unit…

along with some counting sheets on which I had her stamp the correct number with her rubber stamps.  She used the number 1 and 6 stamps on her number poster, too. 

 

Shape
The shape of the week was pentagon, and the shape matching game from the Desert Unit just so happened to include this shape! 

We’ve already learned octagon from our octopus week, so the name of the shape probably wasn’t as foreign-sounding as it might otherwise have been.

Rhyme
We used education.com’s alphabet nursery rhymes again this week, who’s Q-rhyme was Five Little Ducks. 

Etc.
Josiah got a hold of my camera and practiced his technique.  There were about ten or fifteen pictures that all looked alike.  I call this Still Life, by Josiah:

Since we have a bird feeder attached to the window right near our kitchen table, we can watch the birds come and go during the day.  This week, we were amused at the squirrel who kept clamoring up the side of the house and sitting in the feeder.  We all had a good laugh and Daddy managed to poke it before it jumped down.

I had a couple more things planned for the week but just didn’t get around to ‘em all.  Another time! 

Bulletin Board

Book Basket
Theme/Vocab
Desert Trip
Life in a Desert
Animal Babies in deserts
Way Out in the Desert
The Quicksand Book

Letter/Alphabet
Ps and Qs
I.Q. Goes To The Library
Click, Clack, Quackity-Quack
My “q” Book
The Keeping Quilt
This Quiet Lady
Quiet LOUD

DVDs
Planet Earth – Deserts

Linking Up…

 

Gwen is 4 years old and Josiah is 2.