File Folder Freakout

We are going on a trip soon (I still can't believe that my nephew is getting married!). I wanted a way to bring plenty of entertainment for our children for the plane and car rides without having to bring TONS of books and/or gluing them to a screen. In the past, we have brought a bathroom bag with small books, stickers, pens, and markers inside it. It has worked well, but what we could fit inside never really held their interest for very long. So, I took to the internet to get ideas for ways to go about this in a new way. I saw that someone used a binder to hold different travel games. I couldn't get to the full post (link was broken) to see what they included in it, but I thought a binder was a good idea. I started searching for ideas and came across file folder games. Educational and fun (hopefully) games that can be made reusable with some laminating paper and velcro strips. Below you can find just a sample of the games I have included in our binders.

Five Senses game 

Match the Heart game

In this game you place the animal in its habitat: Forest, Farm, Pond (not shown), or Ocean (not shown)

Mazes and connect-the-dot games, laminated for repeated use.

"Frozen" sequencing game

Simple Patterns

Classic games, again, laminated for repeated use

Color Sorting

Money Practice

Categorization

Dinosaur Math

Rhyming

Troll Math

More "Frozen" games

Oh, how I thought this was a perfect idea -- one contained binder (OK, two of them, one per child), with many games, most reusable, that are travel-friendly.  Just throw in some dry erase markers (I even found some with erasers attached to the cap so I didn't need to bring any sort of wipe), a few books and crayons and we have entertainment to last. And did I mention that most of these games are free to print online?! But, that's the problem. I now have two, very thick binders to transport and deal with on our trip -- or have to try to cut out some of the games (most that I have spent precious time carefully cutting and laminating, not to mention that I have already cut out games I wanted to include). I'm not sure I am any better off for our trip. Yes, the kids will (should be...) entertained, but it isn't looking like it is going to be any less weight/space taken up if I bring these as-is.

Stained Glass Kite

While S was napping today, A and I made a "stained glass kite." I saw the idea posted on Google + from Make and Takes. I followed their link which had step-by-step instructions. We pretty much followed it to a "T."

Rainbow Wreath

I had been wanting to make a new Spring wreath for awhile. I wanted to make something that the kids could help with, was made from things we already had on hand, and that was colorful for Spring. A couple ideas had come to mind, but none that really grabbed me. I did see some that I really loved (and still do), but they weren't ones easily made with the girls' help. Then I came across this post from the Nurture Store blog. It was just the idea we needed for our wreath! S did the red, yellow, and blue handprints, and A did the orange, green, and violet handprints.

I put the paint on the lids to glad-ware containers.

The girls each had a side of the paper to do their handprints. 

I used hot glue to attach the handprints to a cardboard circle. Then, I sprayed it with an acrylic sealer. It wouldn't normally have done this, but since we hung it outside I thought (hoped?) that it would help it last longer. It is after all still paper. 

The completed wreath on our door. I explained to the girls that it is paper, and that paper isn't really meant for outdoors. Our porch does have an overhang to keep it mostly dry, but it isn't completely blocked from the elements. We decided to still take a chance. We are about five days out now, including some days with wind and rain, and it is still looking good! Hopefully it will last awhile!

Family Dinner Book Club - The Day The Crayons Quit

I discovered a great idea of doing a family dinner book club on the blog, Growing Book By Book. I decided to try it out for the month of February. It was so much fun!

The basic idea is each month Growing Book By Book will choose a book (alternating each month between a picture book and a chapter book). In February the book was "The Day The Crayons Quit" by Drew Daywalt and Oliver Jeffers. I thought this was a cute and funny book! The girls seemed to like it, too. Mid-month, dinner ideas and decorating ideas are provided by Daisy At Home and Enchanted Homeschooling Mom (respectively), and questions are provided through Growing Book by Book. You can choose to do as much or as little as you want to make it work for your family. We followed the general ideas for the decorations and the dinner (some minor adaptations), and we used most of the questions this time around.

Here are pictures of our table decorations/setting:

Here are pictures of the making of our homemade pasta noodles (first time ever making our own noodles)! We chose to only do the green-dyed pasta instead of the orange and the red/purple as well. We wanted to keep it simple since it was our first time. Sadly, while we got many pictures of the process of making them, we did not get any after it was done. We made the alfredo sauce from the same site. It turned out delicious! We had colorful fruit, a salad, and some french bread to go along with it.

 #throughglass

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Here we are at the dinner table:

#familydinnerbookclub #fdbc #growingbookbybook