My Quivers Full

Also known as the “I’m cleaning out the camera” post  At least the Grandma’s will be happy!!!

Little Monkey (9) was very excited to get his own desk.  He had to help build it though:

Peanut (7) has really begun to read!!!  Here, he’s reading one of his early readers (as a bribe, he must read Daddy a few books then they can play Mario Cart):

A certain Big Man turned TWELVE!!!  How, oh how did my baby get so old??

Since his current love is everything Lord of the Rings, he got the entire collection for his big day.  (Book, Audiobook performed by the BBC, and the special extended edition of the DVD trilogy)

Little Monkey figured out how to design a Lego cable car with a drop out floor & hooked it up in his room:

He also tied a parachute onto a poor little Lego guy & sent him plummeting to his death:

And as a very special Christmas gift, my amazing hubby arranged a night away complete with our lovely, dear friend Chandler coming to take care of our kids (who, by the way I’m pretty sure is Peanut’s favorite person on earth!!)  To prepare for Miss Chandler’s “sleepover” Peanut just *had* to shower her with gifts:

The crown for Princess Chandler

working hard creating her royal jewels

And finally, Peanut was released from speech therapy for the next year WOO HOO!  He made her a Valentine to remember him by

Well folks, that’s a quick look in pictures at the first couple of months of our year.  Phew, my camera feels a lot lighter now

Our winter has been ridiculously mild.  The huge “snowstorm” we’ve had thus far contained one whole inch of snow.  That didn’t exactly help with my January planning for Peanut (7).  I had hoped to at least have a day or two outside making good use of the snow (spraying the snow colors, making snow cream, etc.)  Oh well.  If we can’t get snow outside, at least we could still have fun inside!

Of course, cutting snowflakes is the perfect winter theme scissor skills activity!

For about two weeks, my table looked like this by lunchtime:

I didn’t have the heart to take a picture of the floor!!

Favorite reading/sensory activity?  Snowman Smash!!

Little snowmen, cut out & laminated.  Write sight word on front, lay it on a small pile of shaving cream.  Call out a word, have the child find the correct snowman annnnnd……

SMASH!!

Prepare for LOTS of clean up!  A peek at the remaining snowmen carcasses:

Fun math game?  Snowy Shakeup:  (I think I found this on the Teachers Pay Teachers site, but I can’t remember for sure)

All you need is an empty egg carton, a marker, and a couple of marshmallows (snowballs).  Shake it up & open.  Either add, subtract, or multiply the two numbers the marshmallows land in:

One I know I got from the Teachers Pay Teachers site is just like this, only a winter version: http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Roll-the-Dice-Spring Didn’t get a picture of him doing it though

Another fun math game using marshmallows as snowballs uses marshmallows, dice, and these cute little penguin cards:

Roll the dice, add them together, & place a marshmallow on the penguin that shows the correct answer.  Set a number of rolls until the end of the game and see which penguin “wins” (has the most marshmallows on him)

Last item for this post isn’t really winter themed, but it is too cute not to include  I wrote all the sight words Peanut has been learning on index cards.  Tape one index card on each circle on a Twister mat.  Spin the spinner to determine right or left/hand or foot, and call out a sight word.  He.  Loved.  This!  (and thank you to Pintrest for the idea )

Now I need to collect Spring ideas!  Although with the weather we’ve been having, Peanut has been veeery confused why I keep saying winter is usually cold when we’ve had a few 60+ degree days!

For those who know us, you are very familiar with Peanut (7) and his many learning/developmental delays/disorders.  One such disorder is Dysgraphia coupled with a wet noodle of a pencil grip.  It took about a 1 1/2 yrs. of Occupational Therapy before he could make a mark on a piece of paper that could be seen easily with the naked eye.  Once we could see what he was attempting to put on paper….otherwise known as chicken scratch…..we began our handwriting program, Handwriting Without Tears.  This is the handwriting program most often implemented by O.T.’s.  It is a great program that was exactly what Little Monkey (9) needed when he was ready to begin handwriting.  Here’s the problem:  there is NO one curriculum that is good for every child.  I don’t care what subject you’re looking into.  We’ve done almost three loooonng years of Handwriting Without Tears with Peanut.  I’d say we gave it our best shot!  After looking around, I found a program that I though fit our Peanut to a “T” :  It was developed by an O.T.  check!  It’s on television.  check!  It has a catchy chant for each letter/number.  check!  It is filled with skits & songs.  check!  It has silly moments to make him giggle.  check!   I love this new handwriting program because it’s really teaching Peanut how to form his numbers & letters…..and he’s retaining it!!  Woo hoo!

http://tvteachervideos.com/ Alphabet Beats and Number Beats rock!!!

practicing along with Miss Marnie

taking some time to practice in dry jello powder (#’s 2, 3, & 0)

and letters (y, c, & j)

The program even comes with “fun sheets” that can be done along with Miss Marnie or independently:

I’m so relieved to have finally found a handwriting program that works for Peanut!  The only problem now is that he wants to watch new letters & numbers every day instead of practicing the few he chose for the week.  I’ll take that problem any day

Okay, I just had to put this one out there since I don’t quite have time to blog a longer post.  January was a month of snow theme for Peanut (7), and the older boys learned about clouds.  What better time to pull out a bar of soap

You see, a bar of Ivory soap does something really cool in the microwave.  My kids called it a slow-mo explosion.  Take one bar of Ivory, chop it into fourths.  Plop it on a microwavable plate and watch it closely!

This still had a chunk of bar in it!  So we scraped off the mound of puffy cloud/snow & stuck it back in for a few seconds.  When it comes out of the  microwave it is warm, not hot, and has the craziest texture.  (Great for Sensory kids by the way)  The big kids cried, “Cumulus Clouds!!”; the little kid cried, “SNOW!!!!”  And then the real mess fun began:

(Note the sensory avoider on the far right with his trusty paper towel…….and the sensory seeker in the middle with the wild look in his eyes!)

Sensory much?  I think if I had a baby pool of this, Little Monkey (9) would swim in it!

They played for almost an hour in the goo.  First dry, right out of the microwave.  It kind of feels like slippery paper.  You can rub it between your hands to make a light “snow” fall back to the tray.  As Peanut demonstrated, you can put in little plastic bear math counters to play in the snow  Then when they are beginning to tire of this, pull out the spray bottle and it gives a whole new texture experience.  If you spray enough, you’ll get to a bubbly mess which is fun to squish around in your hands.

Is it messy?  Yup, but cleanup is a snap since this is just soap.  Is it worth it?  Yup.  We’ll do this one again, especially outside

So we took the entire month of December off to enjoy.  What a wonderful idea  We’ll not be so joyful when July comes, but this new school schedule is working well for us so far.  I never posted what we did in December, and I’ll be leaving a bunch of things out here, but a quick run down:

No December is complete without a gingerbread house!

The cute little gingerbreadmen & gingerbread.

“The Masterpiece”

Sorry Little Monkey is washed out here.  He figured out how to attach his Batman Halloween costume to a chair & used it as target practice.  HA!

Had to have a Christmas Party, right?  The boys LOVED that I made a Calvin & Hobbes Snowman cake.

What would a school break be without a fun sleepover with friends?  This is one of about a half-dozen times I found the group of boys like this….in a pileup rolling around the floor.  A quiet sleepover with giggling girls is just not something that goes on in this house

Add in Mom knocking a bunch of things off her to-do list, Christmas shopping, traveling to see family, regular therapy visits, a little school planning, etc. and you’ve got our December.  It flew past much to quickly, but boy am I thankful we had the month off to enjoy!