Digital Reflections

Midweek Roundup

What a fun week. Today was the first part of our tea party camp and we had a great time crafting.  We sewed, glued, cut, taped, painted, and prepared for our actual tea party tomorrow.  We will spend the first little while in the morning finishing up some decorating details. But so far, we have made our placemats (painted and stamped), sewed our napkins (the kids cut and pinned, and helped sew some), cut and made our bunting, cut, glued and decorated our flower pots and baked the cookies...here are a few pics from today... (but you will have to wait for tomorrows post to see how cute the whole room looks)

this by the way, is my favorite photo from the day - little hands preparing to sew...

 

 

 

Here are some recent finds:

IN THE KITCHEN:

Sweet Chicken Bacon Wraps (paula dean)

Organgina cupcakes (baking bytes) 

Belgian Buns 

Mini Sugar Glazed Scones (king arthur flour) just like those delish starbucks ones, but better and cheaper - we love that!

FOR THE KIDS:

TEACH MAMA needing ideas for activities with your children, toddlers, great educational find -sent it to the top of my google reader list!

Eye Spy Bottle: 4 Crazy Kings (what a fun idea) 

Customized Water Bottles: Siggskins looking for new water bottles for my schooling kido's and this is it. love that i can create something personal for each of them.

And here are a few books we are enjoying from our trip to the library:

 this book is perfect for my animal loving 4 year old, especially since we are a pet free home, it helps him learn how to approach a new animal. and he loves the pictures.

 We love baking and cooking, and whats better than a book about all that in a fun natured and colorful artisic way. We love this book.

What I love about this book aside from the timing (ahem, wrong dryer setting recently - no not me!!) was how all 4 of kids were drawn into it even though it started by my reading it to the youngest. I love books that do that!

Well, come back tomorrow - the dining room is all decked out and a room full of beautiful little girls will be coming for tea. And I will share some pics and more details about everything we did...

Sunday's This Summer - Tea for two or 6 or 8

I dont know where the weekend went, but here are the plans for our week.  This week we are having a tea party camp.  The camps are short, just 2 days instead of 4 which gives us the beginning of the week to finish putting together our penpal gift packs. The kids have been so excited to gather items and make cards, we just have a few days to get them in the mail now.  For the camp, the idea is helping the girls put together everything they need for a tea party.  They will be sewing their napkins, making all the decorations, including hats, placemats, bunting, etc...  And on the second day, they will make the food, sandwiches, dipped fruit, petit fours, and decorate cookies.  The girls will set the table, and serve one another, and we will highlight table etiquette and friendship.  My girls are very excited about this week, but my boys on the other hand, well they arent super excited about this week, but they have had several weeks of science overload to carry them over and in the same thread of etiquette, the boys will serve the tea and help prepare the craft items and learn a little about treating girls with kindess and respect and serving their needs.... its gonna be a great week!

Here are some links with great tea party ideas for you.

Bakerella: petit fours

strawberries filled with creme (joyofbaking.com)

monda loves blog: paper bunting (we will be using some of my left over paper scrapping supplies)

 

Great 'pink' party deocration ideas from Martha Stewart. We will try our hand at the paper dolls.

Old Fashioned Tea Party Ideas (recipes)

The Long Thread: sewing napkins and placemats with kids

shortbread cookies with white chocolate and raspberries (joyofbaking.com)

Added to our bookshelf this week:

  

      

 

and just to finish up our space themed week from last week: here are a few pages i added to our scrapbook.

    

   

all supplies for the scrapbook pages are from designerdigitals.com.

Space Week continues. . .

Part way through our Space week and the kids are all abuzz about everything Spacecraft, Astronomy, Apollo and NASA related.  We have made moons, watched Neil Armstrong walk on the moon, flown in our homeade spaceship, and had a lot of fun doing all of our space related crafts.

 

Here the kids are busy making paper-mache moons. We blew up balloons, then began layering strips of glue/water soaked newspaper (you can use the flour/water mixture as well).  Once these dried we painted the newspaper.

After letting that dry, pop the balloons and tie a string to the "moon".  I had planned to coat with a glow in the dark paint, but the kids opted to leave it just like this.

Here the kids planned and made a spacecraft.  The shuttle was designed with all four kids input, especially making the little openings for their heads to pop out, and according to my oldest their had to be a way for him to get out to do a space walk.

We have enjoyed NASA tv a lot this week, the kids were very excited to watch the landing on the moon and the Special that they ran covering the Apollo's 40th Anniversary.

We plan to take these shuttle's outside to spray paint them this week, but they have provided a ton of fun for all the kids this week.  One of the things I love about it the most, is the amount of their imagination that is being used to play Astronauts.  The conversations really allow me a chance to see how much of what they watch, read and learn they are retaining.  Who knew some tape, cardboard boxes and a lot of creatvitiy and the kids can land on the moon, fly to a galaxy leap years away or fight aliens on unknown planets.

Here my oldest (and a friend) were going over documents to build their own Hubble.  I gave them free reign to use the print outs from that web site or to "decorate" their own the way they wanted, and they opted to just decorate their own. But what I loved about this web site is that there is an 8 page pdf with full color printouts foruse to assemble the Hubble.  They came and went from this project for a few hours, and always on their own, which showed me their genuine interest in this activity...

 

Here is one of the finished projects, although I was just looking for it to see if he had made any changes on it and he was back in the dining room looking over the diagrams and writing on his some more.  He really likes the details on projects like this and I think now that his friend is gone and he isnt distracted by all the other things to do with his friend, that he is back to those details, which just makes me smile.

Here are a few more books we got from the Library this week:

    

Here is another website my friend Bailey pointed out to us this week.

AMNH Ology lots of interactive fun and filled with great information on a kids level so my kids have enjoyed exploring this site. (thanks bailey).

Now, since I am a digital scrapbooker, I just had to play around with a photo of my son, thanks to the NASA space your face site (its an interactive site within the NASA main site) you upload a photo and turn into a dancing Astronaut.  And as you can imagine, my kids loved seeing themselves dancing in spacesuits. So I managed to save the image of my youngest since his room is already filled with lots of space items.  Including this fabulous inflatable solar system.  I was playing with his photo and he was so excited to see that he was completing a space walk on the moon (gotta love kids input).. so here is the page, turned printout - now framed in his room... digital scrapbook page.

  

 

This page was created using a kit from designerdigitals, it is Anna Aspnes OuterSpace Page set.

Also I used Pattie Knox's Fasten-Its. 

Just gotta love when something silly and fun like this comes together and makes your kido smile.  I have no doubt he will dream about floating high above the earth tonight.  I am grateful to encourage the kids imagination.  Tomorrow will finish up our space activites and then we will have a field trip on Friday to conclude our space week.   It has certainly been a blast and couldnt have been better timing with the Apollo 11 anniversary / and current mission in space...

Hope you are encouraged to go the extra mile with your kids this summer. 

Sundays This Summer: To the Moon

                  

We have been to the first frontier, and the western gold mines, we have visited China and explored beautiful gardens, so why not fly to the moon.  Celebrating with the Apollo 11's 40th Anniversary we are starting our Astronomy week.  As always, here are some links that we will be using for crafting, learning, exploring and discovering all about space travel and mans landing on the moon.  We are fortunate to have a lot of activity around us dealing with this anniversary, so we will have a lot of activities/field trips as well.

                      

NASA kids club website.

Amazing Space website.

We Choose the Moon real time recreation of the the Apollo 11 landing on the moon. 

Glow in the Dark Shirts from Family Fun.

Phases of the moon craft from DLTK. 

Outer Space Scenes from That Artist Woman.

Balloon Powered NanoRover activity.

Make your own Hubble 

Galactic Mobile

Build A Moon Habitat  

Other activities will include:

glow in the dark moon rocks 

space walk (using moon shoes)

eating astronaut food

              

We have already been watching NASA tv since the current mission launched last week.  It is something we have always been interested in, especially my oldest, he loves the wake up calls, and watching the space walks. So it is a natural part of our learning this week to tune in to these incredible images coming from space.

Here is what we added to our bookshelf this week:

  

  

Well, we will be back with lots of pics from our crafts and experiences this week.  One thing is for certain, this will be a fun filled week with lots of oppotunities to learn about our Space Program, about Space and Astronomy.

Simple Summer week, cont.

One of the things I have noticed as a result of having a busy summer planned is that the simple everyday activities have gained more momentum.   Not that we do them more, actually that we do them less, so they are enjoyed even more.  We are almost finished with our Simple Week, filled with ordinary days that included VBS, School, lots of cooking, minimal formal crafts, few structured activities, lots of friends over. Perfectly good ordinary summer days, but they are being appreciated because we haven't spent our entire summer doing these things. 

Today, I was reminded about an afternoon when we were rushing home from another part of town a good hour from here, when my oldest saw a merry-go-round in a neighboring park and he began talking about how he had never been on a merry-go-round. I was so shocked, but they have removed them from all public school playgrounds around here, and I guess I just hadn't thought of it before.  So I pulled onto a cross street, made the turn and headed back to that park.  And for about 10 minutes he ran and jumped and lay down on a spinning merry go round.  And when he got in the car, I told him, "well you cant ever say you haven't been on one now" to which he responded, "thanks mom!" Don't despise the simple things and learn to take advantage of those moments when they are presented to just BE in the moment, creating experiences and lasting memories for your kids.

 

 

And then there are some real simple things to do on a summer while waiting for your older brother and sister to come home from vbs...like pulling out the halloween costumes.

 

Or making mud pies....

 

then you can get all settled in and comfy for a late afternoon movie...

 

or head outdoors to play in the sprinkler....

 

It doesnt have to be something planned or scheduled, it doesnt have to be something spectacular or expensive, you just have to BE there, BE responsive to their ideas, BE ready for anything, BE creative, BE silly, BE spontaneous...just BE with your kids.

I cant wait to post about our summer plans for next week. I will be back to our theme week on Sunday's this Summer...and lets just say, its "out of this world" fun!!

Sunday's This Summer: Living Simply

It's vacation bible school week for the older kids which makes a nice little break for me and the littles to enjoy a few quiet activities in the mornings.  Since I knew we would have less time to do a big theme this week, I decided to break things down a bit, enjoy this little hiccup in summer and find ways to slow down our time together, because summer is flying by. And as much as I love Autumn and Winter, there is just so much to enjoy about the freedom of summer, not limited to sunlight hours or long school days.  One of the books I am re-reading is this book by Marie Sherlock :

What you may not be able to read is the subtitle but it really echos so much of what my maternal soul is calling out.

"A voluntary simplicity guide for moms, dads, and kids who want to reclaim the BLISS of childhood and the JOY of parenting."

I am determined to help my children stay children for a long time, to enjoy their youth, to be nurtured in their own environment, to be taught about life through experiences that expand their horizons and challenge their minds. Living simply isn't about doing without, or withholding things, its about a choice to seek out the things which add quality to life, living simply causes you to slow down and prioritize.  Living simply reminds you of the values you wish to share and instill in your little ones. Living simply allows you to focus on what really matters. 

So, here is my challenge to you if you are up for it. Set aside a time each day to explore simplicity for your family.  We probably all do these things in some shape or form already. Do you read at bedtime?  Do you pull out a game to play together?  Do you share household chores? These are all ways to embrace part of a more simple lifestyle.  In the book there are several games, so turn off the tv and try one... 

Fictionary: using a dictionary, pencil and paper, one player picks an unusual word and pronounces/spells it out loud for everyone.  Everyone tries to think of a definition for this new word and writes it down. Then, using the real definition - the narrator reads all the definitions aloud and you guess which one was the correct one.

Song Chain:  one player begins singing a song and when someone hears a word that they know are apart of another song, that person begins singing the new song - and this continues.

Here are a few more activities:

Storytelling: take a blanket outside and have everyone lay down looking at the sky, begin describing the clouds and see what you find, then have the children begin telling stories based on the clouds, their imagination will not disappoint on this one.

Put together a puzzle as a family.

Play flashlight tag.

Play charades.

Build a tree-house, fort or hideout.

Enjoy a relaxing day playing an old childhood favorites of yours.  Here are a few of mine.

Make your meals together.  Here is what we did last night, not only was it fun and messy but it was good.

 

And the best part was the conversation during this time.  We talked about my cooking in my childhood and younger years, we talked about eating healthy and why we make some things home-ade, we talked about our extended family, we talked about measuring, and decided it was time to check their heights again.  We even had a little flour fight, and at first I wanted to make it stop knowing I would be cleaning up this white mess from all the nooks and crannies in the kitchen (and trust me sweeping the cracks on the hardwoods is not a treat) BUT, it was a moment in time when I embraced childhood for all the joy it has to offer, and watched the flying flour and listened to the endless giggles and my soul felt good.  And when it was time for the cleaning, the joy overwhelmed my tired bones and the job was a delight to do.  I will add these new additions to my list of 100 free things to do this summer.

Science Week - Wrap Up

We built things, made things bubble, watched things fly, made things go, watched things hover, made a big splash and had a great time doing these things and more.  The boys certainly seemed to be having a good time with all the activities.  Here are the last few pictures that highlight the end of the week.

The boys were given 10 minutes to think and create their own lego creation with one requirement that it had to have a minimum of 4 wheels and be able to move with minimal force. The race would determine a winner - but not on speed but which creation could reach the finish line. Only one vehicle did that, and we had a lot of conversations about why some of them veered off course and others hardly moved.

After talking about and dimenstrating magnetism, we pulled out the cases of magnetix and I marvelled at the creations of these boys.  My favorite is on the left, a spinning wonder created by an 8 year old.  We watched as popcorn danced in water that had been mixed with baking soda and then the addition of vinegar created the dance.  With the same combination (minus the popcorn)the boys placed baking soda and vinegar into film canisters which were in their rockets to watch them fly - this took a lot of work...We then tried to launch a rocket car.

The boys really enjoyed making the various paper planes and jets and watched as we propelled them through the air. 

                                                                                   

And of course we finished up our week with a very fun day, including water balloon fights, eating freeze dried ice cream, playing on the slip and slide and just enjoying the end of our week. Of course our week would not be complete without the mentos / diet coke activity. Unfortunately I wasnt set up quite right to capture the true height of the soda but it was over our garage roof for certain.

Here are a few of the shots I did manage to get off while we watched. 

Well, this is just a quick recap of our week.  We as a family are enjoying our summer and all the experiences we have had.  We have found a wonderful way of including our friends, expanding our learning and plain and simple, having fun being a kid. And that is my goal this summer, among all the things that surround our kids that seemigly force them to grow up so fast, I just want this summer to be one of slowing down and enjoying the simple nature of being little.  The time passes so fast, and I hope the memories we are creating will certainly last a lifetime. Back tomorrow with Sundays this Summer post to tell you about our new week of adventures that awaits us.

Summer Camp 2: Science Week

Catapults, Rube Goldbergs, Hoover Crafts, Oobleck are just a few things we have become entrenched in this week.  "Who knew science could be this fun" was a comment overheard that made me smile. Kids just need the hands on experiences that are fun - no pressure - no test -  experiences to discover the many fascinating things that exist in our world.  I love that the kids dont really know they are learning but they ask questions out of their natural curiosity and soak up a conversation that is not being directed at them, but is simply being had with them. 

Today it was Oobleck, Glurch, or Corn Starch Suspension, its all relative and the kids splashed it, stuck army men in it and got their hands deep into it today discovering the wonderful world of molecules and they didnt even know they were learning.  But words like surface tensions, molecular makeup, and Non Neutonian Fluids were all discussed at the table during this time.  We made hover crafts with balloons and cd's and were engaged in the scientific process without their stoping to complain that I was speaking a foreign language, they participated, hypothesized, drew conclusions, asked questions, answered their own questions and discovered a whole realm of friction, volume, how heat relates to air, and air cushions. Well, two successful days and two more to go.  Space, aerodynamics, gravity, magnetism, temperature are just a few of the things we are going to be discovering and exploring these next two days.  Here are some pics. And I thought I would let you know that although our day is jammed packed with activities (keeping them engaged is key to keeping things calm when you are talking a house full of boys)... while I set up new areas for our next activities I am pulling games/activities from pbs kids ZOOM show, they are totally age appropriate and fast paced and MOST of them dont require parent interaction.

Here are a few pics from the first 2 days. Now go - have fun playing in some goo or building lego towers with your kido's.

 

Here the boys were given several large boxes of legos. They were split into teams, and allowed to draw 10 items per player -after each team member had gone twice, they made a plan of what/how the structure was to be built. It had to be 2 feet tall and support a full can of playdough.. The teams went straight to work and immediately I could see the difference in their thought process, one team went with small pieces (which took longer to build but time wasnt a requirement)the other team went for big base pieces, building with larger supports on each level. In the end both held 6 cans without falling, the 7th can collapsed the tower built with levels.

 

The kids were given a box of supplies and a board, and we watched several rube goldberg videos on youtube before they began.  The goal was theirs to create and one team selected to use several marbles to go through their course before the final marble made its way into a cup. The other team, used a single marble to go through the course and end in a convertible hot wheel.  Both teams were successful in their goals and both teams thought it was harder than they thought it would be. 

They played with the cornstarch/water mixture, the little guys loved that too. We added salt on top of icecubes to pick up the icecubes with string - they loved this one.  We also put pepper into a plate of water and they touched dish soap to their finger and watched the pepper run to the edges. Here is a great explanation of why this happens. 

 

They made the hover crafts with a water bottle lid, a cd, and a balloon - lots of fun was had with this, we made a different catapult for the younger boys, and they built paper towers with 2 pieces of paper, scotch tape and two pennies..

 

Here are the bigger boys catapults, the funnest part was after all the planning (I have them draw their idea first - its a great way to get their mind working on the project) and after the testing their catapults, we took all the army men and they catapulted playdough balls into them, they were having a blast and couldnt believe it was time to go home when their moms started knocking on the door!

Stay tuned, more things to come later this week.

Sundays this Summer: Week 5 Science Camp

Camp #2, Its all boys and all hands on deck for science week.  This week we have friends coming over for a week of science experiments, hands on exploration, lots of building, and lots of fun.  My oldest was in a program at school this year geared toward getting a team to work together and collectively solving a problem, creating a skit to reinact how the problem was solved and showing the results of their solution.  This is one of the many things I am incorporating into our week.  Something that I feel is different this week than the other times I have offered a science camp, is that I intend to be more a facilitator than a teacher, I really want to engage their minds and allow them to draw conclusions and think through processes on their own and as a team.  Here are a list of links to give you an idea of the things we will be doing.  Check them out, there are some great resources here.

Great Solutions: Moon Landing  (Team Activity) 

Journey into Unschooling: Catapults

KIDS WHO THINK: pulleys

PBSKIDS: Suspension Bridge

PBS KIDS: Rube Goldberg

Lego Building Contest

Steve Spangler's Diet Coke and Mento's Geyser

Science News for Kids:  Oobleck

Reeko's Mad Scientist Lab: Build A Hovercraft

Captain Curiosity: The Great Egg Drop

EHOW: Making a surface tension boat

Added to our bookshelf this week:

   

Last week my oldest did story time with the girls that were here for the crafting camp, and the stories were such a hit,  I wanted to let you know what they were.

 

Robert Munsch was one of my oldest's favorite when he was learning to read, you may recognize him as the author of this very popular book:

I will be back with updates and photos this week. Hope you had a fabulous fourth, we sure did.

 

(digital scrapbooking supplies used with these are photos are from: designerdigitals.com

katie pertiet: stars and flourishes, lynn grieveson: uncle sam mini kit).  

Summer Camp Wrap Up & Friday Finds for the Fourth and beyond

First summer camp done, 3 more to go.  This week we had about 9 little girls over for some fun crafting, games, story time and songs.  The kids had a great time and here are the last few pictures from the week.  I didn't realize how hard it was going to be to remember to take photos but in the moment with all the giggles, glue, paint, glitter, etc. its easy to forget to snag the camera to document the fun.

 

And I couldn't believe I grabbed the camera as we headed outside on the last day for some fun in the sun and slip-n-slide.  But I did, and I sat at the end of slide camera in hand hoping I was far enough away to prevent my beloved lens from getting wet! I was and I love the action shots I got as the kids came down the slide.  Next week is jammed pack with boys science projects, we are talking rockets, bubbling things, building things, exploding things, measuring, catapults, cars, slimy things, it'll be a blast! More detail on Sundays this Summer.

Here are a few things I stashed into my files this week as I meandered the world wide web.

Things to make:

CRAFTY CROW 4th of July Games

CRAFY CROW 4th of July sweet treats

4 CRAZY KINGS -modge podge 

 COUNTRY LIVING -Old fashioned 4th

Vintage Holiday Crafts - Vintage downloadable 4th postcards 

Things to bake:

Pioneer Woman - 4th of July menu

SMITTEN KITCHEN - Summer Slaws/Salads

SURVIVAL COOKING - Campfire Pockets 

SIMPLE MOM - Summer Desserts 

Things to read:

 

Hope you enjoy the 4th surrounded by friends and family, making memories, enjoying one another, and celebrating life.

100 Free things to do with your kids +a few more.

After making the list of 100 FREE things to do with your kids this summer, the ideas kept coming so I am adding a few of them here before I post about our summer camps. 

101.  Teach the kids camp songs or chants.

102.  Reuse pillowcases to make dresses.  (expanding on #22 with a new FREE pattern)

103.  Make newspaper hats and write a skit.  Hold a performance for the family.

104.  Create an ACTIVITY BAG for a quick boredom buster.

105.  Make a cereal box globe.

106. Gather sticks and play "pick up sticks"

107. Make Ice Treasures.

108. Make a Rube goldberg.

109. Create school games, file folder games, your own monopoly to help teach money, use household objects for counting and sorting, etc.

110.  Make your own tic-tac-toe game with seashells or other collectibles.

Those are just a few more, and I am sure I will be adding to the list as I go. But for now, I hope you are enjoying the summer with your family.

You can see the complete list by clicking on the pic below.

(yellow alpha is basic paper alpha by katie pertiet can be found at designerdigitals.com)

I will post a camp summary tomorrow after we finish up our last crafts.