Buggin' Out

The farm saw little action. So it was time to do a quick change out. I found these bugs at Oriental Trading Co. for like $3 bucks I think. I literally walked outside and gathered up some leaves and palm tree fronds from our back yard. I threw in some rocks that I found outside.

I'm pretty sure my neighbors think I'm nuts. Wandering around in pj's and slippers, looking around the ground in the dark, picking up rocks and putting them in my shirt while humming Walking on Sunshine ... yeh I'd probably think I wasn't functioning with a full deck either.

However, my point is - free activity, again ... okay minus the bugs.

I have bugs on rocks. Bugs hiding under the leaves to be found. Under the fronds.

The little tongs cost me .69 cents for 6 from OTC. I also picked up the bug tongs (the round ones) for a couple bucks for 5 in a pack. And the little magnifying glasses were a couple bucks as well for 12. The beauty is if they break or get lost, I don't really care. And we have quit a few replacements, so they should last us awhile.

I also discovered something awesome at Michael's tonight. The clearance-out paint bin. When a bottle opens accidentally, or gets opened or they use it on a project in store, you can get it for pennies. I know $3 bucks for a thing of paint isn't exactly breaking the bank, but I scored two large containers for .75 (neon orange) and .50 cents (red). I love a bargain! I also found neat paint rollers with shapes for a $1.49. So for $2 bucks and some change we'll definitely be finding something fun to roller paint tomorrow!

You're magnetic!

These awesome magnets are one of the things I purchased from Lakeshore Learning Materials for $10 bucks I think. They come with 10 different colored round magnets and 40 different match cards. There is a pole that you place the magnets on and depending if they are placed on their positive or negative sides, they will stick together or repel and float/hover. Its pretty cool!
You can tell by his face that he thought so too.
He was so excited about what the magnets were actually doing that we didn't focus as much on the actual matching part of it (as you can tell). But I did give him a magnet wand to play with as well and it kept this crazy little guy busy and quiet for almost an hour.
That's a record folks.
My only complaint is that I would love for them to have plus or minus sides on each side of the magnet to tell which sides are which. I think I'll just end up doing it myself with a sharpie.

We did some gluing for art too. I literally used scrap pieces of construction paper that we had drew on marked on that would have just got tossed. I ripped them up into pieces, gave him some glue watered down with a paint brush and a piece of cardboard. Easy. Recycling. Free. (The little Cars glue cup is an old Easter egg cup that you buy when you dye the eggs. I save ours because they make awesome paint/glue cups!)

Playing IS learning! What we learned today:

Magnets have positive and negative sides

Magnets can attract or repel each other depending what side we use

Following directions (okay so we're working on that one!)

That we can reuse paper for other purposes (Recycling art paper)

Fine motor skills (Holding a paint brush, gluing paper)

No cost science activity

I have a cupboard full of plastic containers, empty spray bottles, empty dish washing bottles, egg cartons and card board boxes that I keep on hand. They make great paint trays, sorting trays, art bases, small part toy containers and water toys.

I asked Sully what color he was interested in learning how to make ...

"Green!", he shouted back to me.

So I pulled out an old soap dish bottle and filled it with water and blue food coloring. I filled a plastic tub 1/4 full with yellow food coloring and water. I threw in a couple sponges and the little baby lizards that now needed a bath from playing in rice the past week.

In hindsight, it kind of looked at first like Rex took a leak in the kiddie pool. But after awhile the water started to turn green as he pumped more blue water into it. We talked about how and why it was changing. From there we got into things that sink and float because he noticed the cars and lizards were falling to the bottom, but the sponges stayed on top.

While rummaging through the utensil drawer I found a crazy straw and opened my big fat mouth to announce that it would make an awesome device to blow bubbles into the water with.

Yeh, needless to say we ended up with one extremely wet kitchen/child/science experiment.

Playing IS Learning! What we learned:

How two primary colors make a secondary color

Denser objects sink while lighter, porous objects float (mass vs. weight and displacement)

Dramatic play of washing the baby lizards

Fine motor skills - using our fingers to pump the water

Air pressure & the exertion of force through a straw to make bubbles!

Leave a message ...

Life has been hectic lately.

My mom is still in the hospital.

I worry he's getting lost in the shuffle right now.

I worry its effecting him more than we realize.

Trying to remember to take time outs with everything going on.

Trying to remember to breathe.

To have patience.

Understanding.

And even though it feels like I'm getting it wrong more than right lately -

He's the perfect reminder -

to keep trying.

We're all stressed,

wound up too tight.

My little booger included.

Sometimes you need a reason

to take a time out.

To turn the phone off,

take a walk to clear your heads,

and get your street hockey on.

Even if you make yourself look like a jackass

hunched over, playing with a foot tall child's hockey stick,

smack talking a two year old

screaming out things like

"I owned you!"

and him screaming back

"You 'wanna fight?!"

Leave a message, I'm busy.

McDonald's Farm

This week we're learning about Farms and Farm animals!

Bucket of farm animals from Christmas last year

.19 cent Easter grass picked up on clearance last year after the holidays from my craft closet

Big Red Barn and Skip to My Lou from our ridiculously large collection of kid's books

Wooden farm set stolen from the train table center

Activity cost: Free!

Wordless Wednesday

Following through - Sensory table and art

The weekend that I posted my new resolution was to start incorporating more preschool inspired activities around our house - I dusted off Sully's Ikea table that was shoved under a mountain of crap, and promptly placed it in its new home - our kitchen.

That little blue table has been a wonderful daily reminder of what I hope to achieve each week for my son, and for myself.

Not wanting to spend $60 bucks on a standing sensory table, I headed to target and found a storage bin for $2 bucks that fits perfectly on his little table. The first week I put some old fish gravel we still had in the bucket and filled it up with water tinted with blue and green food coloring. I went and hunted out the plastic sea animals from last Christmas and threw them in. He really loved it and was there at his table all afternoon. It led into so much actual conversation about marine life and mammals and what do different sea creature eat - what plankton is, what the difference is between a seal and a sea lion and on and on and on. He even pulled out some Sea Creature books he had to read later that afternoon.

The following week I found two bags of pinto beans I never got around to using for soup, so I dumped the beans in the bucket with some measuring cups and funnels - and again, throughout the week he would go to the table and play in the bucket instead of asking for the computer.

This week in the table is rice (again that I had just sitting in my cupboard for the LONGEST time) and little mini lizards he convinced me months ago to buy him from Target's dollar bins. We've spent the past two days counting the lizards, talking about their colors, what other habitats lizards live in etc. He has been really interested in what food they eat. Since he's also been equally interested in reading words and the phonetic sounds of letters, we combined the two. I wrote on a piece of paper taped above the table "The lizards are eating ..." Underneath that sentence on a different piece of colored construction paper I wrote down all his ideas and put them under the sentence. "Bugs" "Rice" "Food" "The Dinosaur" and "Grass" are some of the words that made it up.

He even has recognized that the plural of lizards is different than the singular lizard by asking why the "S" was on lizards, and why it wasn't just "lizard". He's now been playing baby lizards and daddy Dinosaur with Rex from A Toy Story. Last night Shaun even made the comment "I forget sometimes how simple stuff can actually be to keep him so busy."

So true, so true.

This week for art I busted out some black poster board from the garage (don't ask, I use to be a teacher. I have the oddest stuff on hand.) I found some cars and trucks that would make different tracks and gave him some paint. Painting with the trucks turned into painting the truck, which turned into painting with our hands, then washing the trucks. The previous week we worked on cutting construction paper with kid scissors and using stickers. The two things Sully ALWAYS has access to at his level are books, and his crayon/marker/scissor bucket and paper. But we made a point to work on using the dexterity in his fingers and fine motor skills with cutting lines, tracing and the stickers.

I've been using stuff solely from my house the past 3 weeks, but I finally cracked and bought some stuff from the Oriental Trading Company and Lakeshore today (magnifying glasses, tongs, translucent blocks, tempura liquid water colors, magnetic wands, work station trays, magnet rings, a wood shape set, modge podge, translucent color paddles, dinosaur skeletons and sun ray art paper - all to incorporate with stuff I already have. )I'm so stoked and geeked to use the stuff! And it makes me even happier that he's having such a great time too.

I'm hoping this weekend I'll have some time to turn one of our shelve units in the garage into a preschool supply area, so stuff can stopped being shoved in every free space around my house.

Overall, its been so much fun. I'm having such a great time just listening to him and observing his little wheels turn. Hopefully this weekend I'll get to the DIY light box!

Spoiled

Thank you Great Aunt Jeanie

for my new jeans, cool shoes -

but especially for my new Kings hockey jersey!

My little hockey star

He got a hold of Daddy's new skating helmet and almost done blew his mind when he saw it and put it on. He's obsessed, and I say that in the nicest way possible.

This kid dreams of hockey, literally.

He plays hockey at the park.

At home with his mini NHL net set.

On the xbox with his dad.

On his Papa's phone.

Wears any shirt that has anything to do with hockey on it.

Owns 4 jerseys, 7 sticks, two goalie sticks and 3 nets.

He chooses hockey on TV over cartoons, every time.

What kid do you know at 2 who asks to watch the sports station to catch recaps? Seriously.

He screams at the NHL channel like a pro.

His dream is to own a real mouth guard like the pros.

He requests to take trips down to the ice rink to watch the big boys play.

He constantly talks about when he gets to take skating lessons when he turns 3.

He knows the King players and numbers.

He pretends his rain boots are ice skates.

His favorite position to play is goalie.

He owns a mini air hockey table.

Gatorade drink is the shizz now. I've actually kept the mini Gatorade bottles to fill with water because he insists he drink "hockey water".

He puts himself in the penalty box for fighting. (Our couch.)

Its the first thing he asks to do when he wakes up, and is the last thing we're peeling him away from kicking and screaming at night.

He's even requested a hockey birthday party.

I love this kid, like seriously. Now practice so you can score yourself a hockey scholarship!

Backing it up - Christmas

I've tried to start this post only to hit backspace more times than I care to count. For the most part, I just kind of want to forget Christmas 2011. But its part of our family history now, and regardless of how any of us feel about it, it feels wrong to not document it for Sully either.

It wasn't the same, this was painfully obviously. But we still did what we could to make the best of it. We spent New years Eve with Shaun's mom celebrating "Christmas Eve" at dinner and later at her house to exchange gifts.

We headed home and set up goodies for Santa and left out carrots for his reindeer. The following morning my family headed over for Christmas breakfast and gifts. We did our annual Christmas funny gift exchange. This year Dad got a Jesus Barbie (from Sam), Brandon pulled a Twilight board game (from Shaun), Shaun received a Armadillo Can Holder (from Dad), Mom got a shattered glass ball for her car (from Brandon who lost his original "Chair in a Pocket" gift), Sam picked a calendar of bearded men (from me) and I got a Snuggie (from my mom - jokes on you, I love it). Sully, as usual, was spoiled beyond and above what he needed. Sully's favorite gift though was a Buzz Lightyear life size action figure.

By the end of the morning my living room looked like somebody had come in a slaughtered Santa's workshop! (The gifts below under the tree were just OUR gifts for everyone. My parents brought over THREE TUBS of gifts. I know, they're insane.)

(The night before Shaun was to leave for Texas, we let Sully pick one gift from under the tree to open. He was so happy to get his Bumbalebee Transformer from Mommy & Daddy. It helped to keep him distracted while Daddy was gone for a week.)