"Toothy" Fun

I love this book!!! It is perfect for young children when you are talking about issues of teeth.


At our local school store I picked up a pad of teeth shapes, teeth stickers, and 10 tooth erasers. I took 10 of them and put the numbers 1-10 and then another ten and put stickers on them 1 on 1, 2 on another and continue through the number ten. This is great on so many levels and this what I use these for:
1. Taking the teeth with numbers on them and practicing number recognition and then putting them in proper order.
2. Taking the teeth with numbers and the one with stickers and play a matching game
3. Use the teeth erasers as counters and the numbered teeth to practice counting.


I found these pictures of mouthes on line and I printed them off and cut them out and programmed them. One says "t at the beginning" and the other says "t at the end". I then took several pictures of different items. Now we are ready to play this game. I put the mouthes side by side with a space in the middle of them and put the pictures face down. Each child takes a turn picking up a picture and deciding which mouth it belongs to. To make it a little trickier I have some pictures that don't go on either and one that goes on both(tent).


These teeth definately need some brushing! With the same tooth shapes from above I took the left overs and laminated them. I then took a dry erase marker and drew sugar bugs all over them. Now with all the children armed with a sugar bug laden tooth and tooth brush they get busy brushing those sugar bugs away(be prepared to keep readding sugar bugs to the teeth, in my experience 15 minutes or more)

I also take the oppurtunity to teach the "t" sound and the "th" sound and tooth is the perfect word to teach the difference.


What makes out teeth happy and sad? I programmed 2 teeth shapes one with a sad face and one with a happy face. Then cut out some pictures of different foods. I place the teeth next to each other and put the pictures face down and the kids take turns deciding what makes our teeeth happpy or sad!!!

Stories from the Bag

This is what happens when you get 6 3-5 year olds together and have them use the story bag:

Once upon a time... there was a treasure chest on a big boat and a pink flamingo took the treasure to an underground mountain where the flamingo played football. The flamingo flew in a rocket ship to space over a rainbow to the planet Saturn to hide the treasure forever. The End


Once upon a time... there was a tree on a hill with a lion waiting for his friend the monkey. They looked up into the sky from earth and a robot came from space and said, “I am going to eat you!” An airplane landed nearby and out hopped a frog and he ate everything in sight except the airplane and he flew far away.

The End

These crack me up!!!!

Once Upon a Time....

I made a story bag and this is how I did it:

I picked up this bag at Michaels for $1 and



these for .59 each(I bought around 15 of them)


Our story always begins with Once upon a time and then we draw a piece (without looking)and we start to tell our story. Every person adding to it as we draw new pieces. My children loved it and could have done it for hours, literally!

Activity Bags

Life gets busy as we all know and I was feeling like I wasn't giving my children enough. That is the only way I can describe it as...just not enough. In particular the educational practice they need and in the case of my children, want. I knew there was an easier and more efficient way and in 1 hour for my three younger children I came up with these:

Preschoolers:

Practicing counting 1-10 and patterns. Also by putting the beads on the pipe cleaners-fine motor skills.


Upper case and lower case puzzles. I also have him practice the sounds when he is doing this activity.


Name Practice. He loves putting the magnetic letters in order and then practicing writing his name. Okay okay not totally true he loves putting the letters in the correct order and singing the little song I taught him to practice his name. He could do without needing to practice writing it!


Fine Motor Skills by taking pop poms from one container to the other.

Kindergarteners:


Reading and words, words, words! Practice, Practice, Practice!!!


She absolutely loves these we practice counting and patterns with these and they are great for fine motor skills as well.


Practicing words again and this time she is writing them too!


Yes these are rose petals and as you know my girl is a girly girl and lets be honest what better way to pracice counting to 1-100 and learning all the numbers in between than by using rose petals...maybe chocolate!


First Graders:

He loves to pracitce making words and writing them out. We also use themt o practice his word wall words(not pictured)


Time to learn time and he loves that he can check it himself when I am busy making dinner!


Show me the money, another concept they work on in first grade and he loves this too!


This is for him and I to do together and he loves to play these fun games while learning his addition and subtraction!

These little activity bags have done a number of things for me. 1. If you are going to a meeting or doctors they can grab a bag or two 2. It has given them something to do while I make dinner, that I have chosen but they get to choose too 3. I feel like I am giving them more of an opportunity to learn and have fun at the same time and really what can be better than that! Oh yeah chocolate!

A New Member of the Family

Oh yes how crazy silly he is but my kids have loved him from the minute they saw him and we are so happy to have him in our home. I think pictures speak louder than words so here he is:


He was a display at a store and my kids loved him. Every time we were there they would hug him. Well a few monthes later he was raffled off. You had to buy 3 bags of M&M's per ticket so I bought 12 bags of them and actually forgot all about it until the call came that we had won. With every new season he has a new costume(Rudolph for Christmas not pictured)and he even passed out candy at Halloween. Yes it is ridiculous but my children love our new addition and he makes me smile whne I see him standing there greeting the kids into the family room!!!

Menu Board

I wanted it to be magnetic so I required an old tray from my Grandma.
I accidently erased the picture of the before but as you can see from the final product it was bad. I am going to need to redo this project someday because it was bad to begin with but for now it will do and the endless what is for dinner has ended.

All Things Random

Okay I am catching up and I am not putting anything in order but the posts following this one are "our life" and all of its randomness and not so random!!!

Look Who Is.....

60 Uncle Dixon!!!




THE SILLINESS




THE SWEETHEARTS


THE SILENCE

The Virginia Reel

Four Generations

A Trip to Frakenmuth

First stop Zehnders....



Followed by the traditional stop to Raus Country Store(can you say barrels of candy)

Followed by a trip to Bronners so all can pick out an ornament....



It was so nice out when we went this day we were able to hang around outside afterwards!!!

The Santa Parade

Looking or their brother(this is obviously before the candy started to fly). The funniest thing is once Jensen had about 10 pieces he was done until this lovely Grandma aged women started to collect candy for him!


David is on the student council and so walking in the parade is one of the things they get to do!!!

I loved working with these great women and am grateful for all that I learned from them and their wonderful spirits!!!

The Story of the Love Bucket

This is the original "Love Bucket" from bucketofloveinc. This is the company my sweetheart created when we were dating(now whenever I get a sweet gift it is from the CEO of bucketofloveinc or some other random person tied to the company). I received this bucket one day and it was full of hearts. On each heart was something he loved about me. Several monthes had passed and I in turn added hearts to the bucket of thingas about him(I had some help from our oldest son).

Now the tradition continues on and the kids have their very own Love Buckets. It was so sweet to see their faces light up as I read each of their hearts in their buckets. I Love My Children and the founder of the Love Bucket!!!!

My children love to craft!!!!! If has anything to do with glueing, cutting, painting, coloring, markering, sticking, folding, tearing etc...they are all about it. Here are a few of our creations this month:

Our Little Heart Monsters

Valentines Butterflies

The Marriage of Q and U

Mr Q and Mrs U get married in words only and will forever be known as Mr and Mrs QU(the sound q and u make together)
















The story I'll Love You Forever being read(one of my favorites)
















What wedding wouldn't be complete without a little chicken dance!!!






















The kids also sang What a Wonderful World(tears tears)




















They also have love potion punch(pink lemonade) and wedding cake!!!