Fall fling

We're off for a family walk, cold weather is on it's way so we'll enjoy Fall while it lasts!

Here I sit

It's 7:45 on a Saturday night and I'm home alone. G has taken the kids to see Madagascar 2 at the drive-in. I decided I'd better stay home and keep the puppy company. Outside it's dark and chilly, the rain has since stopped so it is both a perfect night for the drive-in and also for an evening alone with a pile of books and magazines, a laptop, some music to break the silence, a blanket to snuggle under and a puppy to keep my feet warm. I should vacuum the kitchen and mop the floor but a night alone doesn't happen too often so I'm going to relish it - the floor will get cleaned before bedtime but not right now.....

Foiled plans

Our afternoon plan of one last hurrah in our giant leaf pile before bagging them for leaf collection next week, had to be cancelled due to rain - not the nice puddle splashing kind of rain but the cold, chapped face kind of rain. Maybe tomorrow....

A recent pic of T1 launching himself into the leaf pile which is much bigger now!

T1 & T2 - the 'right' kind of rainy day

The downside of blog surfing

I spent much of T2's naptime surfing crafty blogs and looking through my many kid art/craft books and now I have so many more ideas in my head of things I'd like to try with my kids

Shaving cream marbling
Salty water colours
puffy paint
Rainbow in a bag
Post it art display frame
Felt board & felt shapes
home made paper (tried this once but was unsuccessful)
string painting (haven't done this in ages)
string rubbings
spaghetti painting (been a long time for this one too)
and so many more!

Learning with Robert Munsch

Robert Munsch is an awesome Canadian author. His books are a huge hit in our house and we have at least half of the 50+ children's books he has published.

T1 is currently being assessed for several learning disabilities and has lately been struggling with his grade 3 reading comprehension. He can read and understand what he has read but answering specific questions seems to stump him. I figured maybe if he were to answer questions about books he enjoys, he might find it easier. A while ago I bought a book - Reading with Robert Munsch, from our local teacher supply store. It has activities relating to some of his books including reading comprehension.

When T2 went for a very much needed nap, I sat with T1 while he selected a Munsch book (he chose 'Something Good') and read it (he chose to read it silently) and then I asked him the questions from the teacher book. I thought he would make it a long drawn out process as he dislikes anything resembling school work and often decides he can't do something before he has even tried. Surprisingly he was totally into it and answered questions with long detailed responses and when asked to find words in the books with specific consonant blends - he spent quite some time not only finding appropriate words but wanting to find more than the three required.

This was supposed to be a learning opportunity for him - to practice his comprehension skills to help grade 3 be a little easier for him - although I feel it did, the learning opportunity was as much mine. I saw a different side to him - an enthusiastic reader, willing to go beyond the requirements, calm without the after school chaos and content to hang out with Mom and a good book.

Parrot-day

T2 loves, loves, loves animals especially Macaws so I printed her some parrot colouring pages to colour and then adorn with feathers

Her finished Macaw

Bathtime fun

Tonight I'm making tubtime crayons...

1c grated bar soap

1/4c warm water

food colouring

cookie cutters/ice cube trays

Mix the soap, warm water and food colouring together until dough like. Either fill cookie cutters or ice cube trays with mixture. Freeze until firm, but not brittle. Allow to further air dry until hard. Can also be used as bath soap.

I'm looking forward to the kids trying these out tomorrow night. They came out a bit bumpy - I think the soap needed to melt a bit more.

Friday nights

In our house, Friday night is pizza night and has been for years. More often than not we eat our pizza picnic style on a blanket on the living room floor - often accompanied by a kid movie. No movie lined up for tonight so when our tummies are suitably satisfied, we'll pull out a game or two and hang out on the floor - might chow down on a few Hallowe'en treats while we play!

Our night changed direction and we spent our evening playing Wii World Tour - lots of laughing and high-fiving!

I love to recycle

Last week I decided it was time to sort through all our crayons and take out all the broken and grungy ones. In the past I would have either thrown them away or done a melting crayon craft such as this. I peeled off the crayon paper and crammed in as many crayon pieces as I could into 2 molds - 1 a silicon muffin pan and the other an ice cube tray designed to make ice to fit in bottles of water (long and skinny, rather than cubes). I put the molds on a baking sheet and baked them at 200 degrees until completely melted. I cooled mine on the counter but if you're patient enough, it's best to let them cool in the oven so the colours stay more vibrant (they'll mix together when you move them when hot).

Daily Danny Blog has another method using cookie cutters which looks cool too - I plan to try that next. Inspired by a friend (Corie) I plan to add glitter to my next crayon batch.

These crayons are especially good for doing rubbings as they have a nice flat edge to them. We used them to do some leaf rubbings yesterday

Hidden treasure

T1 has in the past received as gifts some cool little excavation kits where you scrape and chip away at a piece of 'rock' ultimately revealing dinosaur bones or similar. I stumbled upon a recipe for 'treasure stones' in one of my Kid Concoction books so I decided to give them a go. I wanted to make these myself initially so the contents would be a surprise for the kids.

1c flour

1c used coffee grounds

1/2c salt

1/4c sand

3/4c water

Mix it all together (dry first, then add the water) until it forms a dough. Break off pieces and form a ball, press a 'treasure' into the middle and seal with some extra dough. You can either bake them for about 15-20 mins at 150 degrees or air dry for 2-3 days until hard.

Arm your kids with some little 'tools' and let them chip away until they find their treasure. We'll be trying ours out in the next few days.

Earlier this week....

...T2 and I spent some time baking. I quite like baking but on the whole my family is not that interested in muffins, tea breads, pies etc so we don't bake very often. I asked T2 if she'd like to and she was very enthusiastic. It's been a while since she helped me make something in the kitchen other than cupcakes from a box so she was totally into scooping, measuring & mixing.

We made bran muffins and whole wheat cranberry scones.

Painty Friday

My blog starts today even though our activities at home have been ongoing for some time. Today, with T1 gone for the day visiting a local Warplane museum with Grandpa (school is closed today), I figured it would be a good day to get out the easel and brightly coloured paints. T2 has been easel painting at school regularly since September but our easel has been in the basement for a few weeks since we redecorated our main floor playroom. T2 was eager to get to work...






As she painted with brushes and rollers, she gave a running commentary. This piece is a safari with a cheetah with spots. It's quite the vibrant safari don't you think?

When we were done with easel painting, we moved onto bubble painting - T2 has never done this and it has been quite some time since I have. It was fun and luckily more paint was blown than swallowed!

2tsp clear liquid dish detergent

3tbsp water

1/4 c powdered tempera paint

Mix in bowls, add straws and blow, blow, blow. When the bubbles are raised above side of bowls, gently rest a piece of paper on top and when you lift it off, you should have a cool bubble pattern on your paper. I forgot to take a picture of the finished result.

We finished off the morning by doing some magic crayon pictures. Following my lead, T2 did a crayon design on her piece of paper.

After completing our crayon designs, we did a colour wash with blue water colour paint. T2 was quite excited to see the design showing through the paint.

We had so much fun - yeah the laundry is piling up and the beds are unmade but I'll get to those at naptime.

The painty clean up was pretty easy today - hand washing, table wiping, picture hanging and this