A Week of "I"

Spring is finally here! So we can now start doing activities outside which will be wonderful. I would love to hear about your preschool adventures so please let me know by commenting below. Like my other posts, here is the preschool lesson template and my filled out lesson "I" preschool template.

Monday - Reading

Because Monkey was so excited to read My "i" Book, we ended up reading the book first. I just have to say that these books are so wonderful! I'm glad my mom held onto them because Monkey loves reading them. I will catch him sitting in his bedroom flipping through the pages and "reading the words".

After we read the book twice, I convinced Monkey to do the letter of the week project. I didn't see any letter of the week crafts that really stuck out to me so I invented my own (I decided to be brave)! Monkey loves to paint so I decided to do "I is for Icicle". I simply cut out the letter "I" and some icicle like shapes. It doesn't matter if its perfect because your kiddo will understand what the shapes are. Monkey glued the icicles and then he got to paint with white and silver glue. I had some fabric paint squeeze bottles which worked out so well because he could squeeze out the paint and decorate the page. Monkey wanted me to paint too so I made the snowflakes. It was a fun project!

I ended the day by showing Monkey how the letter "I" is made using 2 different methods. The first method was one that I have used many times. We made the letter "I" using the play dough letter cards from the website, makinglearningfun.com. The second method was having Monkey write the letter "I" using crayons. Monkey attempted this for a few minutes, but quickly decided that he would much rather scribble and draw. I figure the constant exposure of writing/making the alphabet will help him to learn the alphabet. And, I am not extremely worried since he will just turn 3 in a few weeks.

Tuesday - Science

Homemade ice cream!! I really wished the weather would have been nice today because I wanted to do this activity outside (I didn't want a huge mess). Oh well. It still worked inside . I used this ice cream recipe for the mixture. I would recommend cutting back on the cream and using more milk. I used 1% milk with the cream and it was way too rich. If I do this again, I will cut the cream in half and replace with milk. But, it still was delicious.

Monkey shook the bags for awhile but got bored and ran off to play with his toys. He did come back to try some of the ice cream. Doing this homemade ice cream yields soft served ice cream.

It was fun to talk to Monkey about how the ice cream was made. I tried to explain that we added rock salt to the ice cubes to make the mixture "colder". Monkey is a little young to understand the concept of lowering the freezing temperature and colligative properties. But, with older kids you can have a lot of fun taking temperature measurements and comparing how long it takes to get the ice cream to set with different amounts of rock salt.

Wednesday - Math

I thought it would be fun to continue the ice cream theme by making felt ice cream cones to teach about shapes, colors, and numbers. I got my inspiration for the felt ice cream game from The Iowa Farmer's Wife.  I loved this blog's ice cream game idea because you can teach about shapes, colors, and numbers all in one project.I made 3 sets of ice cream cones: 1) capital I, 2) lower case i, and 3) Let's count.

You will need: a black permanent marker, various colors of felt, and scissors. Using a cookie cutter, I traced circles on the pieces of felt and then proceeded to cut them out. I then cut out triangles of the cones. I then drew a capital I and a lower case i on one cone and on one set of ice cream circle scoops. I decided to make 9 scoops for the letters and 9 scoops for the numbers (I wanted to focus counting from 1 to 9).

Monkey had a blast playing this game. At first, he just placed the ice cream scoops wherever he wanted to. But, then he started to match the ice cream scoops with the correct lower case i and the upper case I.

I helped him count the ice cream scoops.He can say the numbers, but putting the numbers in the correct order is something he hasn't mastered yet. At least we have a fun game that will help us count numbers now!

Thursday - Art

Monkey had a blast painting with ice cubes and kool-aid powder. This fun idea came from Tippytoe Crafts. I was so happy it turned out well! I made ice cubes with tooth picks in the middle of them (make sure to use sturdy tooth picks since it will make the painting easier).

I recommend letting the ice cubes to start to melt first because it makes the painting easier. I placed a small amount of water in the ice cube bowl because Monkey didn't want to wait.

I bought various kool-aid powders (I bought the cheapest ones) so I would have lots of colors. I poured about half of the powder into some Styrofoam bowls and just let Monkey do what he wanted to do. He had fun picking out the colors he wanted and using an ice cube to paint over the powder.

Friday - Physical Exercise

The weather today was just so beautiful that I knew today would be a fun day to go outside and get some fresh air. I decided to play "I spy" with Monkey as we went out on a walk. It was fun saying I spy and asking Monkey if he spies the object that I was describing. He loved pointing out the objects I was talking about.

Of course, our fun "I spy" game ended being "I spy a park" so we ended up enjoying this beautiful day playing on the swings, slides, and other playground equipment. Monkey had a blast!

Saturday - Music

I wanted to teach about instruments to Monkey, but I knew this topic is so huge to cover. So I decided to focus on one instrument which was a harp. I thought it would good to work on some fine motor skills so the harp became a lacing project. My inspiration came from the harp lacing project came from b3ok-crafts.blogspot.com (it can also be used for St. Patrick's Day and that it how I discovered the activity when I was trying to find ways to celebrate the holiday). Anyways, the blog provides a template for you to use! Monkey had fun lacing the harp. He didn't lace it "properly", but I liked the idea where I could teach him about a harp through an interactive way.

The one thing I would recommend is using cardboard! I first used card stock and it just isn't strong enough to withstand the pulling of the yarn. Then we took a break and watched StoryBots. Monkey just loves these videos so we watch them every week.

Sunday - Religion

Because we were gone most of the day visiting family, I did a really simple lesson. Because we have a globe at the house, I thought it would be fun to teach Monkey about Israel. He hears a lot about Israel from our scriptures so I thought I would show me where Israel can be found. I first showed him where we lived before I showed him Israel. I know he probably won't remember where Israel is located, but the exposure to maps was worth the effort!

I then got a map of Israel and showed him where Jerusalem and the Dead sea were located. He seemed interested. I think I will try to do more maps so he can start seeing the big picture of what he is learning about.


Want more ideas on teaching the alphabet? Then check out these fantastic and exciting posts:

Letter A   Letter B   Letter C   Letter D   Letter E   Letter F    Letter G   Letter H

Busy Book Part 2

One of my very first posts on Howling Horn involved building a snowman. BooBoo STILL loves that thing.He'll build it over and over and over again. In that post I mentioned that I was going to turn that activity into a busy book; and now, 2 months later, I finally have page 2!

I had such a hard time thinking about what I should do with it. I knew I wanted it to be felt because it's hard to destroy and would match the material already on the first page. I also knew I needed to work with BooBoo on his motor skills more. Poor kid is as clumsy as I am (cue all of my coworkers who had the privilege of both hearing and seeing my many disasters involving 25 pound bag of  flour running for cover). I want to help him hone his skills early. The first thing I thought of was pompoms. I cut out felt in shapes of flower pots and sewed them onto the felt so that BooBoo can 'plant' seeds. Eventually, I'll make some flowers for them to grow in to and make a post about it. I have some silly/crazy ideas for them.

The second idea was a skill every kid struggles with- buttons. I cut out a rectangle and then cut a slit the size of one of the buttons I had. Then I stitched around the hole the best I could, and then sewed the pocket onto the felt. You'll notice I sewed the top up in this picture, but I'll be removing those stitches to make it easier to use. To be honest, I'm not sure what I was thinking...

The last idea was an open pocket. Right now, we'll be storing some collectible stickers from a certain popular TV show that my friend sent me, but eventually I'll turn this into another post and make a fun friend to live inside of it.

All in all, this was so fun to make! I'm excited for BooBoo to play with this and see how it works out. I love making busy pages for him. Oh, and if you see the empty spot in the corner, that's where I'll be stitching BooBoo's real name. I left it open for the post, but I'll be adding it soon.

Always Going Review

Disclosure: I got this product as part of an advertorial.  

About the book

Always Going is a memoir by Gwen Campbell (1933 - 2011) that spans her life from the age of four to thirteen. In this book, Gwen reflects about her life in the 1930's and the 1940's where she constantly moved around in the states of Texas, Oklahoma, California, and New Mexico.

Gwen shares how she traveled around to many small towns while her mother searched for employment. She reveals life lessons from her childhood experiences through her account of her sad, boring, and happy moments. Gwen, a resourceful and resilient child, also explains how she started to think of people, not places, as her home.

About the author

During her 80 years, Gwen was an avid reader, who by the age of nine realized that she was going to be an author. Later in her adult life she went on to write twenty fictional books, a book of short stories and poems, several children's books, and two dozen genealogical books.

Before she wrote her first fictional book in 1983, she had spent twenty years as an accomplished weaver, spinner, and quilter. Her daughter Alexis Campbell Jansky and her son-in-law Richard Jansky are responsible for editing and publishing all her written works.

Thoughts

I love reading about history because I find it fascinating learning about the past. Gwen Campbell did an excellent job describing her childhood memories and revealing life lessons that she learned from her experiences. I loved her account of learning to read and why she didn't care to be rich when she got older. I loved her two goals in life: 1) to be a mom, and 2) be a writer.

Through her stories, I gained a big appreciation of how society is today. We are so blessed to have electricity, modern medicine, running water, and cars. It is so easy to forget how much people had to work back then. I really have no need to complain about my life.

One thing I would like to point out is that the author does use swear words in her memoir. I didn't feel like it was necessary, and I would have loved the book more if they were left out. But, other than that, this autobiography was an interesting read.

I didn't know a lot about the Midwest because I have no family there. So it was fun to learn about the environment and how people survived during the Great Depression and World War II. This is how Campbell described the small town of Junction, Texas:

"There was no hurry, no violence, and no worry in Junction. Voice were not raised except at mules and dogs. Whatever anger, illness or sadness that resided below the surface only jumped out now and then, like a fish cleaving the surface of a smooth running river. One jump, one splash and it was gone into the deep once more. I used Junction like medicine..."

I do have to agree with Campbell about small towns. There is such a peace to them that really does heal the soul. Even though there were several sad accounts in the autobiography, the author was able to lift you by giving you some words of wisdom.

My favorite quote in the autobiography was:

"Home became my people, not places. No house, no town, no part of the country could every lay claim to me. I carry my home with me, inside my memory, which is nice because I can live anywhere, feel at ease, be at home wherever I happen to be - like a turtle."

You can buy a copy Always Going at Amazon. For more information about this book and other books by Gwen Campbell, please visit SoloPress II.


I hope you enjoy this autobiography by Gwen Campbell!

I received one or more of the products mentioned above for free using Tomoson.com. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers.

Corned Beef & Cabbage

The first time my husband and I planned on having corned beef and cabbage on St. Patrick's Day didn't go as planned. We got everything ready for a fun festive feast on this fabolous holiday, but ended up not getting a chance to taste it until 2 days later! Monkey decided to enter the world on St. Patrick's Day. So corned beef and cabbage is always a special meal for me because it reminds me of the birth of my first kiddo.

I love this recipe because it tastes SO good and it is so simple to do. I use a crock pot to do the entire meal. I know you can get fancy and saute the cabbage or make fancy spice mixes for the corned beef, but I don't. St. Patrick's Day is a busy day for me so I want an easy but delicious meal for dinner.  And, of course, you can't forget to make some Irish soda bread to serve with the meal! Now, I will share these recipes so you can have a little bit of magic on St. Patrick's Day.

Note: those who like to see pictures of the step by step process can find them at the end of the post

Corned Beef & Cabbage
*I like to cook my corned beef all day (~8 hours) so it is super tender

Ingredients:

• 1 package of corned beef
• 1 head of green cabbage, chopped
• water

Steps:

1. Place corned beef into the crock pot. Open the provided spice packet (comes with the corned beef) and sprinkle over the meat. 
2. Pour enough water to cover most of the corned beef (you can cover it if you want).
3. Allow the corned beef to cook for 5 -6 hours on high. You can check the tenderness of the meat by piercing it with a fork.
4. Two hours before you want to eat the corned beef, place the chopped cabbage into the crockpot. You can chop the cabbage as big or as small as you want.
5. Serve with Irish soda bread and enjoy!

Irish Soda Bread
*Recipe from Liz the Chef (this is a REALLY good recipe)

Ingredients:

• ½ teaspoon unsalted butter and 1-2 tablespoons flour for preparing pan
• 4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1¾ cup buttermilk

Steps:

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
2. Lightly butter and flour a round cake pan.
3. Using a large bowl, combine the flour, soda, salt and buttermilk. Turn out onto a floured surface and lightly knead, just for a minute or two.
4. Shape the dough into a round, flat shape, place in prepared pan and cut a cross into the top of the dough.
5. Cover the pan of dough with another round cake pan.
6. Bake for 30 minutes covered, then remove top pan and bake for an additional 15 minutes.
7. Enjoy warm, toasted or at room temperature with some good Irish butter.

Recipe with Pictures

1.  Place corned beef into the crock pot. Open the provided spice packet (comes with the corned beef) and sprinkle over the meat.
2. Pour enough water to cover most of the corned beef (you can cover it if you want).
 

3.  Allow the corned beef to cook for 5 -6 hours on high. You can check the tenderness of the meat by piercing it with a fork.

4. Two hours before you want to eat the corned beef, place the chopped cabbage into the crock pot.

5.  Serve with Irish soda bread and enjoy!

Peppa Pig Giveaway!

Welcome to coasahmom.com’s Peppa Pig Giveaway event! Peppa is on a new adventure and he wants to share it with all of you! “My Birthday Party” is set to release on March 18th 2014, head on over to Confessions of a stay at home mom for more details on the release.

                                                     

This cute show features Peppa, a little pig. She has lots of adventures with her family and animal friends. This is a great family show that will make you smile and laugh. It is suitable for children of the ages 2-7. Peppa Pig is aired on Nick Jr. Daily so tune in to see if this is a show that your children will love.

Enter below for your chance to win the New DVD and a Peppa Plush toy! Giveaway ends 3/26/14.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Disclaimer: Coasahmom.com nor the bloggers promoting this event will not be responsible for prize and/or shipment of prize. Giveaway is limited to the Continental US. For questions or other inquiries please email Sandra@coasahmom.com .

Two Little Spoons Review & Giveaway

I'm way excited to introduce you to this cute business, Two Little Spoons. Haven't heard of them? Well, then you are missing out. They are a business that can provide things like customized drinkware such as tumblers, cosmetic bags, key chains, and holiday decor items.

Here is the description from the Two Little Spoons Facebook page:

Two Little Spoons was started by two sisters Stevie and Saundra. They grew up with a wonderful creative mother who taught them how fun it is to craft and decorate your home with beautiful homemade items. After years of crafting and creating, they took their passion and opened up Two Little Spoons. You might also see some of their mother's work here along with work of their sisters and friends!

Two Little Spoons are able to customize anything you have in mind so just ask and we will come up with something you will love!

I had the pleasure of communicating and working with Stevie. She sent me a sample box of some of the products they make. I couldn't wait to get the box because she said she was going to make something special for my son, Monkey. (I told her a few of his obsessions such as trains).

When I got the box, I was pleased to see that it was packaged with care. It is comforting to see that because you know that your items won't get ruined during shipping. Plus, I love how the wipe case is wrapped up in ribbon because it shows how Two Little Spoons cares about the products they make!.

Tumbler

The tumbler is decorated with vinyl trains, train tracks, and a railroad crossing sign. What I really loved was the detail of the train smoke. The smoke coming from the train spelled Monkey's name in blue, his favorite color. Instructions were included on how to care for the item which was very helpful.

When Monkey saw the tumbler, he quickly grabbed it! He kept saying, "Trains. Train tracks. Trains." 

The tumbler is made of high grade acrylic and is BPA free. It holds 12 ounces and can be used for hot or cold liquids. It comes with a straw that is a soft hard plastic (polypropylene) that can't be bitten off (good news for those kids who like to chew on everything). Depending on the customization you want done to this clear tumbler, the price ranges from $10-14. You can also get a larger acrylic cup (16 oz)  with an acrylic straw that comes in many different colors. Price ranges from $12 -16.

Key Chain

All I have to say is how this key chain is so adorable. I love the colors, and I love how I can take a little bit of my personality around with me on my keys. This key chain is a 2" acrylic square. The key chains also come in 2" acrylic circles.

The key chain is just the right size because it is big enough to be seen, but not big enough to be obnoxious.

This is a great item to get or to give because it can be personalized and doesn't take up a lot of room! Depending on the design you want, the price ranges from $6-8.

Cosmetic Bag

I LOVE cosmetic bags because they are so nice to organize my items at home, and they are so handy to take when traveling out of town. This cosmetic bag has been personalized with my name in glitter. I'm normally not a glittery girl, but I have to say that I love the design of it.

The great thing about this bag is that it is big and will be able to hold a variety of items.As you can see from the picture below, I have put in many cosmetic items and the bag is barely half way full! Plus, this cosmetic bag is big enough to hold smaller cosmetic bags which is a huge plus for me. The cosmetic bags are available in pink, purple, blue, bright green, and black. They measure 8.5" wide x 6" tall x 3.5" deep. And, again, depending on the design you want the price ranges from $12-14.

 

Wipe Case

I was really excited to get this wipe case because I always wanted one. The front and back of the wipe case has been personalized with my last name and with red chevron vinyl. I was glad to see some red since it is my favorite color.

I wanted to test out to see how well the case would work with my cloth wipes. And, I am happy to say that the case works great for cloth and disposable wipes!

You can get the wipe cases decorated in almost any color/design and can even get them in a boy or girl theme. I think this would be a great baby shower gift! Price ranges from $8-10.

Giveaway

Since this is our week of St. Patrick's Day Celebrations, The Howling Horn decided to do a different sort of giveaway this week... a Pot'o'Gold hunt! Do the 2 mandatory options on the GiveawayTools form and then follow the directions for bonus entries. 3 of these entries will stay the same, but keep an eye out daily for the fourth Pot'o'Gold... it will be moving to a new spot! Tricky bugger anyways.

Stevie of Two Little Spoons was generous enough to offer a $20 credit good toward anything they make in their store. How cute would these be for Easter, Birthday, Mother's Day, or Anniversary gifts?

Entry-Form

Haunted, Howling, Halloween- Letter 'H'

I approached the letter ‘H’ with some trepidation. I was having a super hard time coming up with things that started with ‘H’… minus Halloween. That kept sticking out to me. But it’s March… and this is our St. Patrick’s Day week. I tried and tried to think of other activities, but then, at library day, BooBoo found a Halloween book and handed it to me; our Halloween Party was born. I’m blessed to have friends who have friends as crazy as I am, so they were more than willing to bring their kids to our party.

We had a blast. We started out with foam hats (from a local craft store) and decorating them with big and little ‘H’.

 I had some sticky-backed  foam left over from our Fruit activity, so I cut some letter ‘H’s’ out (tip: draw the outline of the shape you want on the back of the foam so that you don’t have to deal with marker lines on the finished product). 

The boys loved picking their own hats and had a lot of fun decorating.

Afterwards, we broke out our Haunted Houses.

I used this template, attached it with paperclips to some black felt, and then cut the shapes out. I then freehand drew some ghosts and pumpkins and added the letter ‘H’ to them. This activity didn’t go as well as I’d hoped it would- it only lasted about 5 minutes all told. 

Next time, I’d probably make a bigger house, and make more things to put on it. However, BooBoo has been playing with it ever since then, so it is an activity with lasting power.

Then we traced the letter.

 Since there were going to be so many kids and all different ages, I found some pre made handwriting sheets. Here’s the page I used.Everyone seemed to enjoy this part, though most of the youngsters colored instead of wrote. I made sure to at least point to what was on the page and having them recognize and repeat the letter (minus the 18 month old, I just made sure he didn’t eat the crayons…)

Then I read the book that BooBoo found. The boys loved it. Even Goofy Girl was transfixed.

After that we broke for lunch. I put on the Curious George Halloween special (which happens to focus on hats) and took the opportunity to set up the last activity.

Haunted Hunt time! I found some ‘H’ shaped post-it notes at our local craft store and wrote simple clues on them. Like- ‘HOP to the kitchen and find something ‘cool’’ (fridge), ‘HOWL your way to the living room and find something cushy’ (couch), etc. Each action started with the letter ‘H’ and it eventually led us to the oven where I’d hidden a caldron with boxes of homemade gummy bears that I’d made the night before. The kids had a blast! Unfortunately, my camera person (a good friend visiting from out of town) forgot to turn on the flash, so I don’t have a lot of photos from this activity, but it really was the highlight of the day.

All in all, don’t be afraid to follow your kooky ideas. Who cares if it’s not October?  If Halloween is what inspires you about the letter ‘H’, do it! It’s all about teaching the letter and having fun with your kids.

Keep an eye out for our other holiday themed posts this week and make sure you check out the other letters from our previous Calendar Timeposts.