Why are we surprised?

This is not a hateful note, but a simple observation I made while drifting off to sleep this last week. So I ask that before you even begin, please keep an open mind and keep reading. Also, no, I did not vote for Trump.

So. Let's begin. When did you first hear about Trump? I think I must have been in high school when the show Apprentice first started. I can't imagine any other reason I would have heard about him as my parents didn't allow my sisters and I to watch Access Hollywood, or anything on MTV. Nor did my parents subscribe to any magazines so my knowledge of celebrities, or of the rich and the famous, was limited to the movies I saw in theaters with friends and the shows they talked about watching.

How old were you then when your first heard his name? Did you grow up watching MTV as so many kids in the 90's did? Did you love watching Lifestyles of the Rich and the Famous? Did you gobble up the gossip in People, Cosmo, Seventeen, or US magazines? When did Donald Trump first hit your radar?

As we should all know by now, Donald Trump did not make his fortune, he inherited it. The American media and it's people however, don't really care how an individual gets rich, as long as the rich becomes famous and gives us all something, or someone, to watch. 'Please sir, show us around your yacht. What does your mansion look like? Who is your decorator? You just divorced your wife b/c you were unfaithful?! Amazing, tell us more.'

Trump has been in our newspapers, magazines, TVs, computers, and now phones for decades. He has been making headlines about his money, multiple marriages, failed and corrupt businesses, and mistreatment of women for DECADES. Yet this country has been eating up this gossip with glee. Our country loves watching scandals.

So why are we surprised that Trump ran for president? Why are we surprised no one stopped him? Why are we surprised he is now President-elect? Yes, most of us in this country didn't vote for him. Yes, many are scared. No it's not a third party's fault. There really should be more parties represented and given options to run for president than just two. Seriously, let's be practical. Donald Trump is President-elect because he has been invading our homes for years. This country has been showering him with attention for, well honestly, for about as long as I've been alive. His name has been common and known by most people for longer than most of the country has known who Barrack Obama is. (Shocking right? Let's pause and let that one sink in a bit)

Hmmm. Wow, it's like 20 years ago Trump was famous and followed like Kim Kardashian is now.....

OK, now consider everything I've just said. Are you still really surprised? I'm not. I'm saddened. I personally am not pleased with the outcome of the election. I wasn't really too hot about the year leading up to it either. I'm not thrilled with the process of our government. Many parts of our government are out of date including the Electoral vote. If, my vote was to count, and my voice was important, why then was it not given to the individual I voted for? It was ignored and cast aside because a majority of those in my state/area voted for Trump. This is one of the many issues I've been pondering lately. These are the types of things infuriating many. I've been trying to not get down and out about it. I've been trying to keep my head cool. It doesn't always work, especially when I think about my kids and how their futures may be affected. Sitting around doing nothing though does no good. What's the use of moping, whining, complaining, fuming? There is no point. It only fuels the flame of pain and anger. That's not what we need. We need peace and love. We need patience and understanding. So what am I going to do to make the world a better place? What do you care about? What are you going to do?

"You can be anything!"

The other day I was cleaning the play room and I was stopped by Babycake's dress-up clothes. A super-girl cape, princess dress, a construction worker's hat, and a doctor's outfit. Since the day Babycake was born we've told her she can be anything she wants. I was so touched by the realization that we not only tell her she can be anything, but we encourage it in play and life. At the age of two, she came up with a little song, all her own, about being anything you want. "You can be anything! You can be anything! You can be a doctor, or a nurse, or a teacher, or a prince or princess! You can fly in space like an astronaut too! You can be anything you want to be!" The occupations may change every other rendition, but the message is always the same.

My husband and I are not the type of parents who sugar coat the idea that simply because our child wants something, she will get it. We tell her that if you want something you must work for it, and sometime it can be hard. Of course this concept of working for want you want means very little at the moment when she can simply imagine flying, and to her, she is.

In a time when so many more parents are worried about the futures of their children due to recent events I will not mention more than say elections, I've found myself drawn into the worry as well. Will our daughters be told that they are not worthy of being great, that they should be in the kitchen, that they will never be anything but a pretty face?

No, our daughters will be fine. We parents are worried about these things because we care. Because we care, we will make sure to give our children every opportunity possible to achieve more than we. My dream for my children is that they become better people than me. I myself am a good person, but I want them to be great. I want them to be healthy in mind, body, and spirit. I want them to have the serenity to accept the things they can not change, the courage to change the things they can, and the wisdom to know the difference. I wish this for myself everyday but do not always succeed, I hope my children will be able to do this with ease.

My child's life in play- she can be anything.

Pre-K Here We Come

In the beginning of August we began working on reading skills with our Bob Books set. Babycake really took off with it and enjoyed it. We flew through the first five books, but then they became more and more difficult, as each new book built on top of previously learned words and sounds. By the time we were to start book eight, Babycake was finished. She has a hard time not "getting" it right away. She understands that learning means practice, but she thinks practice means going over something once, maybe twice, and then you're a master. She doesn't like to repeat something 10 times in order to fully comprehend the lesson. So. We have taken a hiatus from reading, though she did just read "Bears on Wheels" last night, because, you know, she wanted to so she did. (insert eye roll here) Babycake has always loved learning, so I don't want to force her to read if she doesn't want to. She's smart and will get it in her own time. Plus she's only four.

Anyway, since completing her Preschool workbooks, Babycake has really enjoyed working on her Kindergarten workbook and talking all about how ready she will be for Kindergarten next year. As with most workbooks, each page builds on the content learned on the previous page. She is enjoying the Math and Games sections of the workbook, but so far is finding the Language Arts section boring as it has her tracing letters. Babycake already knows her letters by sight, and can write most of them without aid. However, I still have her doing these pages as her letters are not perfect and half the time they are backwards. So far its been a good experience and she's enjoying it.




 Here we are enjoying some learning outside, tracing letters and doing a word search.

Preschool: Mission Completion!

Well I would say that as far as Preschool/Pre-K preparedness, we're finished! Last year when the new school year was beginning, and all the new school supplies came out for sale, I scooped up a couple Pre-K workbooks to use with Babycake. Buddyboy was only about 3 months old so we had been lacking in our learning time and I wanted an easy fix to that. As I've shared in other posts, Babycake LOVED these books. She thought it was so cool to do "school work" like big kids and would be happy to complete 20 pages a day if I let her.

Unfortunately for Babycake we never seemed to have a rhythm or schedule that lasted for a significant period of time during Buddyboy's first year so her education was sporadic at best. For a while we focused on learning a lot of safety topics- safety near water, safety around town, safety at home, where do we go when there's a fire?, where's the safe spot for a tornado?, etc. Babycake learned her whole name and address. Another span of time we were reading one Magic Tree House book per month and creating lessons to go with it. (this actually lasted 4.5 months) Thankfully she's such a curious child that we could turn anything into a lesson when there's no routine or schedule.

Our workbooks were the lessons I'd turn to after realizing we'd done nothing for a week or two. Thankfully Babycake's daddy was happy to help his little girl perfect her Pre-K maths and language arts if all he had to do was sit next to her and read directions. So.... After a year of on and off  working, we've finished! Babycake knows all her letters by sight, upper and lower case, as well as the sounds they make. She can count to 30 on her own and can continue to 100 with occasional assistance. She loves patterns, learning how to spell and write words, and enjoys walking around the house with a notebook and pencil "taking notes" on everything.














Babycake was so excited to finish one book that we had to immediately go to the next and get through the 10 pages that were left. Then she declared that she's ready for Kindergarten and I needed to get a Kindergarten workbook for us to start on. Most of Babycake's friends are 5 and started Kindergarten this year so she has been pretty bummed she didn't get to start school like them. The fact that she now has a Kindergarten book and is "learning the same things as all my friends" has helped ease that bit of resentment she had. (thank goodness! :D )

Rainy Day Learning

Rain rain go away! It seems to be monsoon season here in the Midwest. With all the rain, we have been stuck in doors and I'm finding it harder and harder to come up with distractions for the kids to keep them from driving each other, and me, crazy. When it's not raining, it's crazy hot and humid, and we only last about an hour before we're all drenched in sweat and happy to return indoors to air conditioning.

With this weather we have been getting plenty of time to work on Babycake's learning to read. Babycake has been doing really well. She has already progressed to reading Book 7, Jig and Mag, in our Bob Books. Like I've said multiple times, she is a self driven learner. She gets so excited after reading a whole book and it's so fun to celebrate her accomplishment with her. The downside to this self determination however is that she is easily flustered and frustrated if she can't read a word on the first or second try. I have to remind her that she is learning and that means you don't know everything right away and that means practice which means you have to go over it again and again and that's OK. I let her know that I am not frustrated that she doesn't know everything and that we have to practice. I will admit that there are days when we sit down to read and she goofs off, doesn't read, and I get frustrated. We are not perfect by any means in our learning system.

For more indoor activities, we pulled out her workbooks which I had honestly forgotten about. Babycake flew through about 10 pages in her Letters workbook. It was so fun to see how well she knows her letters, can write them, and spout off the sound each makes.

To keep Buddyboy occupied while I assisted Babycake with her workbook, I got out a scrap paper and some old stickers. Only in the last month has Buddyboy not instantly put everything he touches into his mouth so I figured this would be safe to do now. It was a great way for him to work on some motor skills picking up the stickers, unsticking them from his fingers, and getting them onto the paper. What a hit! He really enjoyed it and was happily occupied for about 20 mins.

Another School Year, Another Learning Curve

Well, another school year has begun. Social media is being flooded with "First Day" pictures. I know next year we'll be doing the same. This year though, Babycake is four, old enough to head to preschool or pre-K, but, I'm not going to pay for my child's "pre-education" when I can sit down for 20 min a day with her and go over English, Maths, Music, and Art.

Last August I found a little calendar set and that was our big learning goal- learn the days of the week and how a calendar works, if we were really lucky we'd master months. Well one year later, Babycake can tell you the days of the week off the top of her head, look at a calendar and tell you what day it is, and what day tomorrow will be. She hasn't quite figured out "yesterday" but hey, she's four. ;-) She can pick out what the weather is today and what it will be tomorrow. She can also count all the numbers up to 31 without messing up and tell you the date. We have not mastered months. By the end of each month she can tell you what month it is, but she does not know what month comes next, or which month was previous. For example, being August, she recently said last month was May. This year I will try to make more of an effort to clarify the months and when they are.

This year our big learning goal is reading! Crazy!!! Babycake has been reading and writing her name for a year now. She has learned how to read and write Buddyboy's name, as well as Mom and Dad. She loves to go everywhere with a pencil and note pad taking "notes" on everything. The pages are filled with letters, and the occasional number. I credit this love of note taking to our reading of The Magic Tree House series. She loves to explore like Jack and Annie. Since she has shown such a love of writing and has initiated reading I figured I might as well go along with it.

When looking up different early reading books and plans, I came across LOTS of different ideas and opinions. I really didn't know what we would do. We have a lot of Dr. Suess books so I thought maybe we would just go through those. One day however, when our family took a little trip to Half Price Books I came across the First Collection Set of Bob Books. I had seen this mentioned many times in my search of beginning reading ideas. Some people Love them, some very much dislike them. I figured getting this set for 1/2 price couldn't be beaten and we might as well give it a try.

So far it's been great! Babycake is doing really well. In one week she has consistently read the first three books. We have tried the fourth book a couple times and it is much trickier for her. Babycake is a self driven learner, but also LOVES rewards. So the stickers she gets after completely reading a book really helps her to settle down and read through a book or two.

I'm so proud of her. She's so smart and driven. Updates with our progress will be shared.

    

   

Me and My Simple Life

(An updated version of an old-lost post)

If you look just over to the right of this post you'll see the very basic answer to who I am in the column "About Me." If we were to meet and start a conversation, that's about all you'd get out of me, maybe a bit more even. I'm not a big sharer. (Weird that I'm blogging right?) I moved a lot growing up and found that it was easier to have a lot of good acquaintances than a few good friends. Now when I say we moved a lot, I mean that by the time I was in 7th grade I had been to seven different schools. Granted some of the school changes were in the same city/town due to graduating to middle school, or quitting private school, but still.

I find it hard to be intimate with people. I don't like to get too close b/c in the back of my mind "I'm moving in a few months so don't bother and don't get hurt." As weird as this sounds I love conversing with people. I'll ask you all about your life and adventures and I'll really listen b/c I'm actually interested- why ask if you don't care right? However, I won't share anything of myself in our conversation. I remember one of my Psych professors discussing how conversations need to be a two-way street. People like to talk about themselves, so when you talk with someone don't just talk about yourself, ask them some questions and really listen. I was like "done! I got that!" My version probably isn't really what he was looking for. Oh well.

So here I am... sharing. This is a lot easier b/c it's like a journal. I'm just writing this out, not talking to anyone, and you're just reading it after I've put it out there.

Me. I am 29 years old. I am the first born of three girls; my family likes to say my dad is blessed. I am stubborn as a mule. My favorite season is spring.I married my high school sweetheart; how he stuck around is beyond me. I am the only daughter-in-law. I have a brown speckle in my right eye; my father-in-law, an optometrist, once told me what it's called but I forgot so I still call it a speckle. My favorite color is green. I graduated from Purdue University in four years, which is a rare feat these days. I have a 4 year old little girl (I'll call her Babycake in the blog) and 14 month baby boy (who we call Buddyboy), they are the light of my life. Finally, I am continually learning how to be a better person in all my relationships be it with a friend, child, spouse, parent, or sibling.

My Simple Life is just that, simple. We're a small lower-middle class family in the Midwest. Not many sentences could describe a more simple setting. My days typically consist of waking up to my own personal alarm clock "Momma!.. Momma!.. Mom!.. Mom! Mom!" This is followed by a day set by the kids' moods and naps. At the moment we'll usually get out of the house at some point in the day; either to run errands (exciting right?), hang at the library at story time, or we go to the child watch of our local YMCA for me to work. I'm looking forward to when our family schedule will sync up with the workout classes so we can go to the Y other than to work.

Yep. I think that about sums it up. We don't usually have anything exciting happening in our lives, but when we do, it's pretty exciting.

So, why would I bother blogging about this simple life? Well for the last 10 years (uhlg I feel old!) I've been on Facebook and I've found that when I have an opinion about something, and I'm willing to share that opinion, I write a nice long post that takes up all of my friend's homepages. With this blog I'll be able to share my rantings, ravings, and ramblings without intruding on anyone's space. I simply assume that if you're reading this you want to hear what I've got to say. So thanks for reading and I'd love to hear about you and your life!

The Best DIY Dishwasher Detergant

Like many families, we are on a tight budget. When we first came to this life style, we had to look at what we could keep doing, and what had to go. In attempts to save as much money as possible, I began looking up DYIs. I tried many different DIY laundry detergents, some worked, some didn't. To be honest brand name laundry detergents have worked the best for us. We live in a VERY hard water area and don't have a water softener, so unless I used a ton of the homemade detergent, it didn't really clean our kids clothes.

Laundry detergent wasn't the only thing I tried doing myself. I tried making a couple dishwasher detergents too. The one that I found and liked the best can be found on the Eco-Friendly Family blog. I used this recipe for years. However, it wasn't quit perfect. Being the hard water area we live in, I had to do a vinegar rinse after every wash to rid the calcium clouds left behind. A vinegar rinse takes a while to dry. So, I had a clean and safe wash, but not perfect.

About two years ago I was in the grocery buying more Lemi Shine for my dishwasher detergent; I saw that Oxi Clean made a dish detergent too. I liked what Oxi Clean had done for my laundry, so I wanted to see what it could do for my dishes. Wow! What a difference! I no longer need to do a rinse after every load. I might need to do a rinse once a week, or every other week. The Oxi Clean detergent is made to be a detergent on its own, but with my recipe the number of washes you get TRIPLES and cleans just as well. (hooray for tight budgets!)

I like to keep my Super Washing Soda in an air tight zip lock
to keep it from clumping and hardening.

Dishwasher Detergent Recipe

1 12.7 oz container Oxi Clean Dishwasher Detergent

1 1/2  Cups Super Washing Soda

1/2  Cup Pure Baking Soda (cleaning, not baking kind)

1/2  Cup Sea Salt (any brand should do)

Positively Past Pirates

As you know we've been reading the Magic Tree House series. The fourth book is Pirates Past Noon. Babycake did not want to finish the book once we were about half way. She did not like how mean the pirates were to Jack and Annie. She has such a gental heart she can't handle the pirates that would be considered "light" in conparison to most any other chapter book with pirates. I love her so much.

Anyway, Babycake was past pirates before we were done, but I managed to convince her to finish the book, that Jack and Annie would make it home safe, and once we were done we could move on the the next story. So I didn't put too much effort into coming up with crafts and activities for this theme.


Babycake has been facinated with maps for over a year now, so she did enjoy learning that pirates use maps to find treasure. We made our own maps of the backyard and pretended to hunt for treasures like wild strawberries, pinecones, and acorns. We also made a little treasure chest by painting a strawberry container. Then I drew some amazing pictures of places around our house and hid them around the house. I gave her the first picture leading her to a location where she would find the nect picture clue. Once she found all the places she would discover the treasure chest with either a snack inside, or one of her toys. Buddyboy has a stacking tower that looks like a telescope so Babycake also had fun playing with that while "sailing" in a large delivery box we had gotten earlier that week.

Though Babycake did not enjoy Pirates Past Noon, nor was she really that interested in the Fact Tracker Magic Tree House companion book, she did enjoy all the other pirate books we read. These were much more tame stories that make pirates seem friendly. I've included images of some of her favorites. I have nothing against fun and friendly stories about pirates, but I think it was a bit disapointing for her to read these stories after having learned that pirates were/are not nice, that they are thieves who steal people's belongings, or even kidnap people.

Although I think it's important that Babycake learn the truth about all things, I want to protect her gental heart and keep her innocent as long as possible. Having always worked with children I knew there was a balance to this task, however I guess I didn't realize this tricky balance would be expanding so quickly.

Ancient Egypt, Mummies, & Pyramids

Well we've moved from dinosaurs, knights, and castles to ancient Egypt. I wasn't sure how Babycake would do with learning about mummies. So I decided to start our hands-on learning with some fun.

The other week we had a lot of fun excavating a dinosaur, so I went ahead and got more excavation kits that went with our ancient Egypt theme. This was again a great hit. Our first excavation was on a pyramid and the second was a mummy case. 

Again I tried to make a point that we were like explorers looking for treasure. We were like archaeologists excavating ancient pyramids hoping to find something new to learn about. Babycake thought it was great pretending to be these people. I doubt she could tell you what archaeologists and excavating means. 

The jewel that was discovered in our pyramid was later displayed on Babycake's Egyptian necklace we created. Sadly her bird that was excavated from the mummy case was "lost" before also being added to the masterpiece of jewelry. 

                                                                               

  From the books we've read, Egyptians had a good view of death and after life. The funeral procession and burial of the mummy (dead person) in the tombs or pyramids were both fascinating and a bit unnerving for Babycake.

Since she started making it clear she didn't want any of us in the family to die (a perfectly understandable statement when faced with death) I tried to quickly turn our lessons and discussions from death, to the lives of Egyptians and what they did and built.

For example, many Egyptians were farmers which was amazing since most of Egypt is desert, but thanks to the flood seasons of the Nile the soil of the banks were rich and plentiful. It was during the off seasons that the farmers would assist building the pyramids. (which were for anyone who could afford building one) The farmers were paid for their labor but also did this for spiritual security in the after life. I found this to be so interesting since I had been one of the many people who believed the pyramids were built by slaves for the pharaohs.










We had fun building pyramids out of legos. We made our pyramids to look like the step pyramids  we learned about in one of our books. (smooth sided pyramids were just not going to happen) Then of course Babycake remembered that the mummies were inside the pyramids, so we made some mummies out of paper people and strips of toilet paper. (sometimes I just can't fool miss smarty pants)

Diggin' more Dinosaurs!

Although we've moved past rereading Dinosaurs at Dawn for the 300th time, Babycake is still interested in anything dinosaur related she might come across. As I mentioned in my original post on dinosaurs, our children's museum has an AMAZING dinosaur exhibit. We recently went to the museum with the whole family and made sure to attend two events focused on dinosaurs. The first was "Dinosaurs Upclose." Here kids got to touch fossil casts of a Duckbill Dinosaur and learn about one of the Duckbill Dinos on exhibit. When it the Duckbill Dinosaur session was over Babycake enjoyed the dino dig site. A little later we went to the Tyrannosaurus Rex Talk. Again there was a speaker on the T-Rex and more fossils to touch while learning about the dinosaur and pretending to be a T-Rex.

 The next day we had our own dig for dinosaurs. Earlier in the week I'd found a great little excavation kit in the Target $1 section. Inside the clay dino skull was a dinosaur Babycake would get to dig out.

Babycake had a great time with this. We first started out simply using the little tools provided, but we quickly discovered we were getting no where, so we broke out the hammer. This was exciting (and terrifying).


We repeatedly discussed how we were explorers looking for a fossil. To find this treasure we needed to excavate. To excavate our fossil we needed to chip, scrape, and brush away the clay.

After chipping away at the clay Babycake exclaimed with so much excitement that she saw something. We paused from picking at the clay to brush off the exposed part of our little discovery.

We continued to chip away and soon a little green dinosaur fell out. Babycake was so excited and loved brushing off the dinosaur. Although she had a great time excavating her dinosaur I'm not sure if she will remember the terms we used. Oh well. It was fun.

Knights & Castles

Our second book in our MTH learning series was The Knight at Dawn. I'm enjoying the pace we've been able to take with this. We read one chapter before nap, and one at bedtime each day. This gives us the ability to read the book twice in one week. The books we began reading after finishing The Knight at Dawn were again helpful and interesting for Babycake (who will be 4 this week!)

Our first craft we did after reading Knights and Castles was to create our own coat of arms on shields. Babycake loves coloring, so this was easy, simple, and fun. The second activity we did was building castle, after castle, after castle with Babycake's legos. I was proud of Babycake because I had planned on doing this as an activity in relation to our lesson, but she was the one who suggested it first. Many mornings the last couple weeks, I've woken to her quietly building a castle in her room. Love this girl!

The last set of crafts we made were a horse, jousting stick/lance, and sword. Babycake had a blast making her jousting stick and horse. She thought it was great and galloped around the house fighting off bad guys all day. Buddyboy also thought it was amazing, and now that he can crawl after his sister, he chased her as best he could. This was not to the joy of Babycake, so we made him a little sword in hopes that he would be happy to play with that instead of Babycake's horse and lance (of course the distraction didn't work)













As you can see these amazing crafts exist thanks to toilet paper rolls and duct tape. The horse's head however was made of a paper plate cut in half.

Now that we've exhausted Babycake's interest in knights and castles, we're ready to move on to Mummies in the Morning.

Diggin' Dinosaurs

Once we finished our tentative lesson plan of Letter of the Week, I didn't have a new plan or any ideas of what we could do as far as new subjects to learn about. We still have our workbooks and dive into those every once in a while, but to be honest our days are still centered around Buddyboy's naps and not on lessons or crafts. So when a friend of mine shared that she was reading the Magic Tree House series to her 3 & 4 year olds, and then another friend said the books had great history, science, and everyday lessons written into the stories I decided Babycake and I would give the books a try and see where that led us.

Oh my goodness! She loves them! Book #1 of the series is Dinosaurs Before Dark. I found it cheap at a used bookstore and we read it about 4 times in the first week. After the first two times reading it I went to the library to see if there were any good dinosaur fact books for my 3 year old. What did I find, but that The Magic Tree House series has a Fact Tracker co-series which is a nonfiction guide to Magic Tree House stories. This book had a lot of information. About half of the book was presented in an interesting way for my 3 year old, so we did get some good information. I also found a great National Geographic dinosaur book. There were lots of colorful pictures and the information was simple and concise.

Babycake learned so much from all of these great resources. Our first lesson was simply to learn the names of some different dinosaurs. To help her remember what dinosaur was what, we crafted them out of paper plates. I couldn't miss the the opportunity to also show that the plate was in the shape of a "D," which stands for dinosaur. With each dinosaur, we discussed if it was a meat eater, carnivore, or a plant eater, an herbivore.

You can get the templates for the dinosaur parts at The Craft Train.

Recipe and directions atRainy Day Mum.

Our next lesson was focused on fossils. We are members of our local Children's Museum which has an amazing dinosaur exhibit so Babycake was able to really visualize dinosaur bones when we discussed this. It was a little more difficult for her to visualize the bones in the ground, so we made fossil prints of our own.





We made fossil prints of dinosaurs as well dinosaur tracks. We discussed how these kinds of dinosaurs are no longer around and so the only way we can learn about them is from their fossils. An interesting fact we learned from this is that birds are living dinosaurs. How cool is that?! You could have a pet dinosaur!





Our last lesson was about dinosaur babies. Babycake quickly got the concept that baby dinosaurs come from eggs and not mommy bellies. She also grasped the fact that dinosaurs are reptiles, but that doesn't mean she gets that a reptile is cold blooded. She also had a hard time remembering that dinosaurs didn't have fur.



Our little dino eggs were easy to make. I printed images of baby dinosaurs then cut construction paper in egg shapes. Then we cut zig zags through the eggs, glued the baby dino onto the bottom portion of the egg, and connected the two shell parts with a split pin so the egg could open and close.


Now that we've exhausted my dinosaur crafts and lessons, as well as my willingness to read Dinosaurs Before Dark for the hundredth time, we are ready to move onto the next book in the Magic Tree House series, The Knight at Dawn.

Finally! Xx, Yy, & Zz the last Letters of the Week

Well, it's almost been 2 years since we started doing Letter of the Week. Thanks to illness, pregnancy, and adjusting to 2 kids this little adventure has taken WAY longer than expected. However... We did it! We made it! We're done!

I finally got around to preparing crafts for our last letters Xx, Yy, & Zz. Now that Buddyboy is big enough to sit in the highchair entertaining himself with attempted self feeding, I was able to spare 20 mins a day focused on Babycake and our letter lessons.

For Xx we only talked about x-rays. Since Babycake is a big fan of Curious George, she was able to connect the dots, and we had a great discussion about the letter Xx, our X-ray craft, and what exactly an x-ray is and does in relation to George falling and breaking his leg in one of his adventures.

I know xylophone also begins with x, but explaining the sound each letter makes, getting a child to remember that sound, and then saying 'well, yeah it makes that sound, but here it says zzzz for this word it just so happens to begin,' seems a bit foolish. The point of the lesson is to help the child understand the special sound the letter makes (the majority of the time). I feel like "second" sounds a letter makes ie. X-zzzzz C-sssss, should be introduced after the child has a firm grasp of the alphabet and the sounds each letter mainly produces.

Yy was a fun day for Babycake since she had a friend over. She was so excited to show how we do crafts and sing our letter sound song. Our craft consisted of covering a Y in yarn, and coloring images of things that are typically yellow. We had fun discussing how yarn and yellow "start" with Yy, and then came up with other words like yo-yos, yawns, and yaks, to name a few.

For Zz Babycake made Zeke the zebra and sang a little rhythm song about him (how cute is she?!). I also had her cut out pieces of a Zz-zipper puzzle. She then had to figure out how the pieces fit together to make a Z and glue it down.

Xx, Yy, & Zz crafts

Babycake had a great time doing these crafts as well as all the other crafts we've done on our Letter of the Week venture. I think she learned a lot. She knows all her letters by sight and has even started writing them. She can spell and read her own name. She can tell you the sound each letter makes on her own, but when asked, she is prone to brain freezes. Our next big adventure is reading. 

I've always been grateful for her love of learning and am excited to begin this new phase with her. I'm so thankful for her initiative in self-education. I often do not come up with our topics or lessons. She finds something interesting, asks about it, and then experiments with it. My role has simply been to provide guidance and craft supplies.