Coloring Journal

I grabbed up a few of these great spiral bound journals at Michael's [craft supply store].  They are made by Crayola and were only $1!  They are made for kids to color their own journal.  My 2 year old likes to "journal" like her big brother...but her entries are slightly more difficult to decipher. 

I, however, have grown quite acute to her writing style and I would be happy to interpret for you. *ahem*

"I have the best mom ever!  I appreciate everything she does for me."

"Today I was talking with mom and I noticed just how gorgeous she is...wow!"

"I don't even mind much when mom says, 'No.'.  I know she probably knows better."

"Man!  My mom is super smart!"

"I like ice cream."

"When I grow up, I want to be just like my mommy."

"Dad's ok and all, but it's hard to compete with a mom as fun as mine!"

"Once upon a time, there was a cute little girl [me!] with a super awesome mom. The end."

Magazine Alphabet

My son finished a project today that he has been working on for the last week.  His assignment was to search magazines and choose pictures of items that begin with each letter of the alphabet.  Next he needed to cut each picture out and tape them to his workbook page.  And then he was to write the letter each image begins with next to the pictures. 

His "workbook" is simply a basic spiral lined paper notebook. 

We found a box of them at Walmart several years ago marked 5 cents each - yes, that's right!!!  FIVE cents!  Can't beat that.  So we purchased them all...and have found great uses for them.  For my son's school workbooks I simply labeled each of them. 

We use them for just about everything, Math, Bible, Writing, Journaling - but I think that's a post for another day. 

I thought this project was a great way for him to develop motor skills as he practiced cutting with scissors, to identify images, to sound out and spell words, to gain experience organizing alphabetically, and to practice writing letters.  Plus, it was a way to put a few old magazines to good use! 

I was delighted with his creativity in choosing his pictures, so I thought I'd share with you what he found.

A is for Animals.

B is for Baby.

C is for Crackers.

D is for Dollars.

E is for Eat.

F is for Food.

G is for Grass.

H is for Him.

I is for Ice Cream.

J is for Jack-O-Lantern.

[He didn't know what this picture was, when I told him, he exclaimed, "Hey Mom!  That starts with J!"]

K is for Kid.

L is for Light.

[Because "the lamp is turned on and the brightness is coming out of it..."]

M is for Money.

[Ok, so far we have Dollars and Money...]

N is for Naked.

Now, when he came to me while I was cooking and proclaimed proudly that he had found a picture for "N" and it was "naked", I was initially slightly alarmed.  Ummmm...gee son, what kind of magazines are you ruffling through?  I was relieved when he clarified that it was a naked baby.  Ohhhh, a naked BABY...whew.  [I was pretty confident it couldn't be anything too risque...I mean, he was cutting up Martha Stewart and those free Parenting mags they send out to new moms...but you never know.  A boy could stumble upon a Dove advertisement or something...]  Naked.  Lol!

O is for On.  The boy is On the clouds.  Nice.

P is for Parachute.

[This picture is sooo tiny!  I'm amazed that he spotted that parachuting teddy in the first place - and knew what a parachute was.]

Now, "Q" was a little bit difficult.  All he could think of was quilt.  But he couldn't find a quilt.  So, I listed off as many "q" words as I could think of for him, and this is what he came back to show me:

Q is for Quack.

I know he misspelled several words...but spelling out the words wasn't even part of his assignment.  He tried on his own initiative and did pretty well phonetically.  So, I bit my OCD-perfectionist tongue and told him "good job."  We can work on the details later.  ;)

R is for Read.

[...because "these are words that you read, Mom."]

S is for Silly.

T is for Toy Story.

[This was by far his favorite picture to cut out: a Toy Story Lego Set.  See the missing triangle above Woody and Jessie's heads?  More on that later...]

U is for Up.

["This bear is riding an airplane...which goes Up in the sky."]

V is for Vegetables.

W is for Walk.

["Look, somebody is walking."]

"X" was another tricky letter.  Neither he nor I could think of very many words that begin with "X".  So I told him he could find a word with the letter "X" in it.  He found...

X is for relaX.

["Because it looked like she was gonna relax."]

Y is for You.

Remember the missing triangle from the Toy Story Lego set?

Z is for buZZ.

BuZZ Lightyear.  To the end of the alphabet...and beyond! 

So...now you have a use for your stash of unwanted magazines.  Turn them into crafts/homework.  ;)

Simple Solution for a Puzzling Problem

My children LOVE puzzles! And consequently, we seem to have accumulated many. Some were Christmas gifts, others were received on birthdays...a large majority have been acquired at rock bottom garage sale prices. But regardless of HOW they were obtained, the bottom line is: they were ALL OBTAINED. And now must each be issued a space to reside in our home. 

I truly enjoy watching my kids arrange puzzles.  And I am amazed at their ability to reconstruct the images.  But beyond their developmental value, I enjoy puzzles and naturally find pleasure in observing their enjoyment also. 

My house is actually a bit of a puzzle itself. We have a small space to function in and a growing number of people who function in it...and so every little nook has either a purpose in its emptiness, or else its contents are methodically planned with intentional precision as to how to gain the most use of its area. And oftentimes items in my home must be placed in a specific order in order to appear orderly otherwise one thing or the other inevitably ends up utterly orderless and with no place to be placed. [Now read that 10x fast - haha...jk...don't hurt yourself. Ps - I may have *ahem* used a non-word...orderless, I liked it though…and I kind of feel like a Minnesotan saying it.]

So...this plethora of puzzles had me puzzled.  "Where can I possibly store all these?!", I wondered. 

I have several puzzle spaces.  Wooden baby puzzles are placed in a bin.  Large floor puzzles and puzzles with many small pieces are placed in a game cabinet.  And the stack of about 15 boxes of smaller 24-100 piece puzzles were shoved randomly in whatever space could be claimed for them on the educational shelves.  Those not lucky enough to be squished in somewhere were generally either dumped on the floor or piled on the counter.  This was not gonna fly.  Either the puzzle stash needed to be well thinned out - or I had to get more creative with my organization of them.  So, here is what I did...

I found a stash of plastic zip-closure bags. [I used up all my quart sized bags, so the image just shows sandwich bags...which may be big enough - you'll have to try it out and see.] I transferred all the puzzles into the bags. Then I filled an empty shoebox with the puzzle bags. I was able to fit 10 puzzles in the space that less than six puzzles would normally fit into. Not extremely drastic, but like I said, every inch of space counts around here.  

Before I tossed the boxes, I cut out the puzzle image from the top of each box and one of the smaller images from the side of each box.  The smaller images I taped to that puzzle's bag.  And the larger image I placed inside the bag. 

I also labeled all the puzzles with unique numbers. Sometimes the kids like to complete all the puzzles and line them up in the kitchen. That's great...until they disassemble all the puzzles at the same time. So, to alleviate some of the difficulty in regrouping mismatched pieces on occasions such as these, each puzzle was given it's own number. I wrote both the puzzle's # and the number of pieces in the puzzle on the cardboard back of the larger image I had cut from the original box. And then wrote the corresponding # on the back of each piece of that puzzle. Very easy. Takes just a little bit of time - but for the time and more so the frustration I know it will inevitably save me, I sure thought it was a worthwhile project. 

[uhhh...just realized this photo says 666...weird, and unintentional, just so ya know...]

So now, instead of random stacks like this everywhere...

I have one box...with a place...and a space, in my residential puzzle.  Ahhhh...nice.  [Sometimes it's just the little things, ya know?]