Glue and Bead Suncatchers

Another light week here in our house. You would think that with the rain and cold weather we would've gotten a lot accomplished. Instead it made us (....me) really sluggish and unmotivated. I'm pretty sure that I'm just going to quick finish up the letters for Annabelle (V,X,Y,Z). She already knows them and instead of taking our time with it I feel like we should just move on. Plus we are both really excited about starting her K curriculum. The little guys will continue to get some fun theme work and we will finish out their letters before we start Hubbard's Cupboard in beginning/mid Julyish (yes, I said Julyish lol). We did manage to get up some new decorations in our window and cross something off our Summer Bucket List.

I was again inspired by Melissa at the Chocolate Muffin Tree when I saw how her bead and glue suncatchers turned out. She has some really great art activities she does with her little girl. Stop by and take a look. Promise you'll come away wanting to do a couple (or 20) of her ideas. We did modify it a little. In her post she says to use clear plastic lids. We didn't have any of those on hand so I just used wax paper and made and filled in a circle with glue. When the glue dries you simply peel it off the wax paper and ta-da....a really pretty suncatcher.

Annabelle loved this and worked really hard on it.
Glitterizing it. :)
Asa shaking the glitter.
Silas even enjoyed it.
Digging for gems.
The finished product. We did these Wednesday, and I was able to hang them up on Saturday. So it does take a while to dry, but they are quite pretty! This picture really doesn't do them justice.
On another note they have been doing construction on the road. I would like to thank the construction workers for entertaining my kiddos for all of 35 min. There is fire coming out of one of the machines that they used. This just really enthralled all three of them. They pulled up their own chairs and sat down to watch. Annabelle even asked for a snack. lol
I hope that everyone else had a productive week (cause mine was not!). Happy blogging.

jess_hak

Linking up to Preschool Corner and 1+1+1=1. Head on over if you have some time and check them out.

Garage Sale Treasures: Week 5

Had a pretty unadventurous week of garage saling over here. I went out briefly on Friday morning, but it was cold and raining off and on (kind of like the entire week here!). I did manage to find some fun things though.

These are really fun dry erase cards. 3 haven't been opened! 2 addition, one telling time, and the other for money. These all say 1st and up, but after looking through Annabelle's math curriculum I knew that we'd be going over all of this in her K year. Hopefully this will add some fun to the mix of work for her. $2.00 (total)
I paid more than I wanted to for this matching game ($5.00), but I saw it and I couldn't put it down. Now before you think that I'm crazy for spending that much on a matching game I will say that it is Eboo (they have some really great products), and it is in brand new condition. What can I say...it was one of those 'if I don't get this I'm going to be thinking about it for the next week' purchases. :)

I have some fun ideas outside of just a matching game. I was thinking of using this to help learn geography and sticking the people in their correct countries on a map as we learn about them (like an interactive mapping game). I don't know....either way we won't be using them much until next year.
I got a whole slew of paint with water books and a coloring book for FREE!!! The marbles were .25
Another assortment of great books for an even better price. $4.00. One can never have too many copies of Brown Bear, Brown Bear (especially if your kids love it as much as mine do). I think that this is our 5th copy that we've owned. My kids will read and love on this book until it is destroyed. So I ALWAYS will buy it if it is under $1.00.
A pair of crocs for Annabelle and Asa. I used to think I would never put my kids in crocs.....best. playing. outdoor. shoe. ever. EVER! Don't Break the Ice a classic. $3.00
Adorable bag from Bath and Body Works (still with tags) $1.00. It is huge. It is the perfect beach/day outing bag. We will be using it tomorrow when we venture out to the Detroit Zoo. It did have some watermark stains on it, but they washed right out.
GRAND TOTAL: $15.25

Next weekend we will be having a garage sale of our very own. Our very first one! I just hope that people will like our stuff enough to buy it. The money is going to go toward the huge swing set that we just bought for the kids. Zak insists that he bought it for me though, because it will assist me in maintaining my sanity. lol He's a funny one I tell you. What he doesn't know is I said good bye to my sanity quite awhile ago. ;) This is just a sampling of what we'll be selling. It is currently residing on the dining room table. The rest is in the basement and the garage.
I hope that everyone else had a great week. AND if you feel like joining in and sharing your treasures head on over to My Life on a Taffy Pull and link up. So fun! Happy blogging.

jess_hak

Checking off the Bucket List

Just thought I would post a little Summer Bucket List update.

Last weekend we were able to cross out one item. Painting with our feet. It was a cooler day because of the breeze, and it was supposed to rain (as it has been this entire week so far) but the kids still had fun. Well, all except Silas. This wasn't his idea of a good time so he played in the yard with Zak and the dog (Amos).

Finished. They got their little hands in there too. On a side note I should have been forward thinking and not let them wear decent clothing.
Something else exciting got done this weekend. Phase one of building a firepit! We had to make a better clearing in the trees in our yard so Zak got to work and cut several limbs off a couple trees (and looked pretty good doing it). Bonus: Between these limbs and the huge branch (small tree) that fell on our house right before Easter we have firewood to last us well into August/September.

To finish the firepit we (and by we I mean Zak....I'm just going to watch him look good doing manual labor, and maybe provide some lemonade) need to dig a hole and insert the metal rim given to us (thanks Carefelle's!!) and get some pavers (stones I think...this is just a fancy word Zak used) to outline the pit. Pretty exciting! Hoping to have our first fire next week sometime. If this rain ever STOPS!!!

Happy blogging. :)

jess_hak

Tot School: Umbrellas, Weather, and Watermelon

We had a pretty full week here. As we're nearing toward the end of the alphabet I find myself getting anxious to be done with this and move onto something new. I have to breathe and remind myself that I can be just as excited about these next couple wrap up weeks as I can about the material I'm planning on starting in July. We are going to be using Hubbard's Cupboard as our main outline. It should be fun...it is a great guideline. First things first....we need to finish up this year!

Umbrella fun
Asa decorated coffee filters with markers and then sprayed them with water. We used the Uu for the handles.
The finished piece. Asa added glue dots and glitter to make raindrops. I think it turned out cute. (I have got to buy some white coffee filters...this would've turned out better if I had them).
Sorting uppercase and lowercase Us. These are from Confessions of a Homeschooler. He is very over these. He will do them to humor me, but it takes him all of 15sec. before he's done. He is ready to move onto something more difficult. He may just jump right in and learn how to read alongside Annabelle!
We talked about how umbrellas aren't only used in the rain, but can also keep the sun off of you. I made play-doh, left it the natural color and added in some vanilla extract. Then I gave him an umbrella and shells to create a beach scene. What a ham. :)
This is another fun activity from the Confessions link. Count the raindrops and match the number. This boy not only knows all his letters and their sounds....he also knows all his numbers 1-10! He is a sponge for knowledge and never ceases to amaze me.
He does really well with one-to-one correspondence too.
Fun with weather
One Tuesday we talked about clouds. I got some really cute ideas from a blog that I read and now can't remember. If these activities look familiar to you let me know so that I can link back to you! We read It Looked Like Spilt Milk. Afterwards we made our own cloud pictures with white paint and blue paper folded in half. I instructed Asa to only paint on the one side and then fold it in half and pound on it. Then when we opened it back up we tried to figure out what it looked like. This was really a lot of fun....even though most of our pictures resembled.....spilt milk.
This is one that we decided was a butterfly.
We then talked about how wind blows the clouds and had a cloud blowing race.
Poor Asa.....he could only blow his cloud backwards.
This says pre-writing, but I thought it would be more fun for Asa to practice cutting. You can print this out from 2 Teaching Mommies.

Toward the end of the week we got sidetracked by watermelon. I cut out a rough looking watermelon and laminated it. Set out some letters and black beans. Asa counted out the correct amount of 'seeds'.
Working on his watermelon for the letter Ww.
The finished masterpiece.
SILAS
Silas had a great time with this tray and played with it many times this week.

He also had a lot of fun drawing. I asked him, "Silas, what are you drawing?" And he said....
"CARS!" I couldn't believe he was actually practicing his still life drawings. lol
Putting beads into the container. Another activity that was played with a lot this week.

He also made a couple of 'spilt milk' pictures.
.....and participated in our cloud race.
We had extreme weather here in Michigan this week ranging from the upper 40s one day to the upper 60s the next....and I really hope that we get that 80 degree day tomorrow. So it was fun to talk about the different weather every day. I thought I would end with a few pictures of the different activities we did in different weather.

On our cold day we played Hungry Hippos (really, very, loud annoying game lol).
On our warm day we played outside. My little artist at work....
....he was practicing his still life again. He said, "Mommy....flower." He's a genius. ;) lol
Asa picking me a bouquet of flowers. (I rather like dandelions...they're so cheerful).
I hope that everyone else had a great week! Happy blogging!

jess_hak

Hop on over to 1+1+1=1 to see what other tots have been up to this week!

Garage Sale Treasures: Week 4

Well, I'm done garage saling for the weekend. I was hoping to get to go tomorrow, but it appears we are out of extra spending money. Which is a bummer because one of the nicest areas I have gone to the last couple of years is having their block sale tomorrow. :( Oh well. So what can you get for $15 these days? Let me show you.....

Really fun flash cards that you move and the pictures change. Silas will love these!
A really cool teacher book with a ton of ideas organized by month for ages 2-3. This will be great to look through and see if I can add any activities to Asa and Silas' Tot School.
Some fun books. I've always liked The Kissing Hand. The sticker book has never been used and has all of its stickers. Asa is going to have a ball!
Annabelle got a new pair of cute brown sandals.
These next 3 pictures were at a fill a bag for $2 sale. There was someone there picking through the girls size that I was looking for before I got there so it was pretty picked through. I still managed to find some fun things for $2. A couple sundresses, a few skirts (I got the Hello Kitty purely because I knew she would love it....and I still had room in my bag. lol), and a Speedo swimsuit (looks brand new!)
A few things for Asa
And a zip up sweatshirt for me.
This is hard to see, but I bought 2 pair of jeans and a pair of dress pants for me. A t-shirt for me, and an AEO shirt for Zak. Also, I have a boot obsession. This was my most expensive purchase at $3 a pair of brown suede (looks like new) boots. The brand is one carried at Target.
I am pretty bummed looking at that last picture because I realized after I got home that I also bought a Calvin Klein sweater at that sale that didn't get put into my bag....now I don't know what I'm going to wear to church on Sunday. :/ lol

Head on over to My Life on a Taffy Pull to see other great finds. Happy blogging!

jess_hak