Make your own Playdough

It's SOOOO much better than store bought!
(Double or quadruple this recipe for lots of dough)
Cook on medium heat in a saucepan: 1 Cup four, 1/4 cup salt, 1 tsp. cream of tarter
Stir till smooth then add 1 cup water and 1 Tbsp. oil and food coloring if you want.
Keep mixing till playdough is nearly set then add some vanilla, almond, or coconut extract to make it smell good.
It will take the form of watery mashed potatoes before it starts to solidify. When it feels like dough turn it out and kneed it. Sore it in a tupperware container or zip lock bag.

Make your own Sensory Buckets and keep the kiddos busy!

I have been inspired by a Mom on Facebook to reach out to Moms at home with young children. We often wonder why our children can't just play with their toys while we facebook,make dinner, read a mag, or fold some laundry. Children tire of toys fast and this is where I come in. I will start including quick easy ideas for entertaing children so you can get things done. You can also take ideas from the pictures and activities that I post.
My first reccomendation is investing in some cheap dish buckets. The kind you would fill with water to soak dishes if you didn't have a dish washer- which I don't. You can fill these with so many great sensory materials to use with cups, bowls, spoons, funnels...things to pour, scoop, and fill! You do have to be will ing to have a bit of mess on your hands but the time gained is worth it. I will include a new material to add to your sensory bin with each post I do. Right now we are talking about Chinese new year so I filled my buckets with rice. If you put these on a child sized table or adult chair they will be just the right height for children to play in. Happy mess!

Valentine Week

We had lots of fun making Valentine hearts during the week of Valentine's Day. We glued and used stickers to make them pretty.
We sang lots of songs about love; Skitamarink a dink a dink, love is something if you give it away, Barney, The more we get together...
We talked about Love but noone felt like sharing why they loved someone.
The day of our party we had Cec's cousin and our friend Lucy over for the party. Kali and Madi were out sick. It was a bummer cuz they always add such fun to our special days. We decorated little pockets for our Valentines and made cupcakes. We played outside with the parachute then had a pizza party lunch.

Valentine Fun!

Valentine Fun!

Chinese New Year study and more Bakery

Last week we talked about Lunar New Year. We looked at Asia on the map and learned that Asian people celebrate Lunar New Year. We learned that symbols are used in Chinese writing. We discussed what symbols were again and looked at some pictures that represented things.
We learned that red is a good luck color in Chinese culture and talked about what luck means.
We made red hanging lanterns and red collages.
We read TIKKI TIKKI TEMBO a Chinese tale about a little boy with a long name.
We have rice in our sensory bins. Rice grows mostly in China.
More bakery...
We all made menus for our bakery by drawing and writing food words.
Madi wrote her first words by tracing. She wrote bread and cake. She was soooo proud of herself.
We are talking about the letter C now. We looked through the dictionary to find lots of C words. We also came up with some on our own. Kali pointed out that C and H together say "CH".
We learned about the word compliment(starts with C) and gave each other compliments.

Chinese New Year RED is Good Luck collage and lanterns

Madi and Cec serving Kali and Ryan baking different bread

Baker's clay, Letter B, Madi writing her first words for our bakery menu