DIY Pee-Proof Fitted Sheet

You can make your own Pee-Proof Fitted Sheet for your Toddler Bed with this easy tutorial.

We're done with potty training around here except for the occasional night-time accident, so I thought we'd celebrate with making our little guys a super soft sheet that will also protect his mattress.  I've teamed up with Fairfield World and Shannon Fabrics to bring you this project.  This post contains affiliate links.

B is for Beanbag - Preschool Uppercase and Lowercase Sorting Game

This year several other moms and I have decided to do a preschool coop.  We had "B" at our house last week, so I decided to make some B Beanbags to help kids sort out their upper and lower case B's and because bean bags are so fun.  We used them during both of our B days as a sorting activity and then each child got to choose 2 to take home.  (And thanks to Fairfield for providing me with the Poly Pellets® and Oly*Fun used in this fun game and for compensating me for writing this post.  All ideas and opinions are 100% my own.

If you've followed my blog for a while, you'll know that we're kind of addicted to I-Spy, and I still have thousands of I-Sky fabric squares just waiting to be sewn into something cool.

So I sorted through them and found as many different objects that started with B as I could.  If you don't have I-Spy squares available, you could go to the fabric store and just choose one or two fabrics with B objects on it, and make lots of identical beanbags.

Ways to Play:

• Have kids toss the beanbag at the matching target.
• Name the B object on the beanbag
• Yell "bah...bah...bah..." as they throw the beanbag
• Sort colors
• Count the beanbags.

Supplies
Here's what you'll need to make your own:

• Various 4" cotton fabric squares or 2 Fat-Quarters with B pictures on them.
• Fat quarter or scraps of black or other high contrast fabric
• Poly Pellets® Weighted Stuffing Beads – 6 Ounce Bag or larger
• Paper-backed Fusible Interfacing
• B and b Template
• Oly-Fun™ Craft Sheets in Sky Blue (or any color).  You could also use construction paper.
• Thread
• Sewing Machine
• Scissors
• Pins

Instructions:  (Picture shows the steps.)

Scarecrow Sculpture - Book and Children's Art

It's been a while since I did a children's book/craft post...mostly because I haven't been that good about doing children's book/craft activities with Becca...but this is one we did recently and really enjoyed.

I discovered this book last year and fell in love with it, so we brought it home from the library again this year.  It's called the Scarecrow's Dance by Jane Yolen.  It's got everything a children's book should have...amazing illustrations, a fun meter and rhyme for reading aloud, and such and uplifting story.  The scarecrow decided to leave his post and dance around in the autumn night.  Then he finds the little farm boy knealing beside his bed saying his bedtime prayer...praying and thanking God for all the things you'd expect a boy to pray for and ending with the boy praying a blessing on the scarecrow.  After that the scarecrow knows how much he's needed a loved and heads back to his post after offering a prayer of his own.  I just found the book quietly uplifting while not being at all preachy.  I perfect read for fall and Thanksgiving.

After reading it, Becca and I decided to make our own Scarecrow.  We kind of made it up while we went along.  Here's how we did it...

10+ Fun Fall Activities for Kids

I'll admit...I highlighted a lot of these projects last year, but I wanted to update it with some additional crafts we've done over the last year.

Buttons and Numbers

Becca was super anxious to have her first day of preschool after we dropped Seth off for his first day of kindergarten.  We'd had runny noses and things so I didn't have anything big planned.

Remember our fabric number squares?

We pulled them out for some fun with buttons and numbers.  Becca LOVES to play with buttons.  In fact afterward, she grabbed all the buttons the first chance she got and tried to take them off to her room.  First we put the appropriate number of buttons on each number.  Then when Becca got tired of that, she matched the color of the buttons.

Dinosaur Fossil Cookies and Favorite Dinosaur Books

A little while ago, I saw an idea for making some dinosaur fossil cookies and it looked like fun, so I thought we'd give it a try.

The kids LOVED making them.  I'm sure you could use a lot of different cookie recipes for this, but I pulled out my favorite unshaped Sugar Cookie Recipe from Little Page Turners.  We did everything the same as her recipe, except this time we skipped rolling them in sugar since we were turning them into fossils.  We also made the balls of dough about twice as big as usual, so they'd be big enough to stamp the whole dinosaur.

My 2 Favorite Educational Websites for Kids

Some of the greatest moments as a parent come when your child learns something new they're REALLY excited about.  Over the last few days, Sweet Pea has learned to use a computer mouse.

This is HUGE for her because she LOVES doing the activities on the Starfall.com website...but she always had to talk her brother or sister into doing it with her to work the mouse...which also meant THEY usually got to choose exactly which activities to do.

Well she's gotten enough coordination to work the mouse, and did some Starfall last night ALL BY HERSELF!  Can't you just see how happy she is about it?!?

Me:  Do you like Starfall?
Sweet Pea:  YES!  I do it ALL BY MYSELF!  No, grown-up help ME!

Snow Day! - Snow Activities to do Indoors

I know a lot of us are getting snow this week, so I thought I'd share some fun activities to keep your kiddos busy.

We've just had our first real snowfall of the year.  Yesterday was a snow day and we just got the phone call that today is too!  (A perk of having a husband for a teacher is getting a personal early morning phone call informing us of schedule changes.)

We spent most of the day yesterday getting caught up on some house work and just relaxing in general.  I also got some "final" pictures of several new projects I'm excited to share with you over the next few weeks.

Firecracker went and played outside for a little while, but was driven in by the cold fairly quickly.  Little Brother and Sweet Pea never did make it outside into the snow...but there will be plenty left for today.

Last year I shared how to make Best Ever Snowflakes using coffee filters.  I've still got some coffee filters left over from last year, so I think we'll be making more of these today.

A few days ago (when I thought we might not be getting snow this year...HA!) we tried an idea from Christianne at Little Page Turners to use marshmallows to have fun with "snow."  You've really got to check out her post to see the igloo her daughter made...and Christianne has a lot of other fun winter activities and books that are work check ing out.

I knew my kids would have fun, but was impressed with just how into it they got.

Firecracker made the most detailed figures...

...a snowman...

A Frog Prince: Favorite Fairy Tale

Yesterday I shared how to make an easy little Valentine Tree with twigs and felt scraps as well as sharing the rest of the mantel...

Which also included our melted crayon LOVE tiles.

Fun with Flashcards

The other day, I was up on Firecracker's loft bed, trying to get her bed made up nicely with her new quilt, so I could take some pictures of it...which I'll share with you next week.  (Anyone else notice what a pain it is to make up a loft/bunk bed?!?)  The whole time I was up there wrestling with the sheets and quilt, Sweet Pea was down in her bed babbling away and practicing her letters.

My mom gave us several sets of flashcards for a Christmas gift, and Sweet Pea especially LOVES them.   She especially loves to find R's...

YEAH!!  I found an R!!!!

5 Minute Pudding Spider Webs and Favorite Spider Books

If you're looking for something fun and festive to do with your kids for Halloween, this is it.  It takes about 5 minutes to whip up some of these Easy Pudding Spider Webs.  (Well if you're like me and using instant pudding mix and Cool Whip...if you're Martha and make pudding from scratch and whip up real whipped cream it might take a little longer.)

Apple (and Pumpkin) Stamped Shirts

I do a little preschool swap with a friend two days a week (once a week at my house and once a week at her house).  It's a great motivation to actually do some preschool activities with the kids and to get out of the house and hang with friends.  Last week the house was a disaster, I was trying to get it slightly more presentable, and I didn't have anything planned.

So I checked my plain T-shirt stash, and was happy to see I had enough random shirts, so that all five kids could make one.

I pulled out one of my favorite apple books...I am an Apple by Jean Marazollo.  (She has a whole series of super simple science books...LOVE them.)

Fun with Tire Tracks

A friend and I have been getting together roughly twice a week to do some pre-school activities with our kids since neither of us enrolled our kids in preschool.  It's been a fun excuse to play with friends and some needed motivation to actually pull out some fun preschool activities.  (I've been long on ideas and short on motivation lately.)  Between us there are four of our own kids, plus another little boy who she babysits.

Since both boys LOVE cars, I decided to dust off some car books.  I'd seen an idea several months ago for using wheels from toy cars to make tracks, and been wanting to try it.

We started out reading What Do Wheels Do All Day? by April Jones Prince and My Big Truck Book by Roger Priddy.  They're both fun books and ones we already had on our shelf.  Any similar books would work just fine too.  I pulled out a bunch of our kids toy vehicles and we talked about the jobs each one would do if they were real.

Fabric Post Cards

You've got mail!

Announcing Summer Writing Camp

I know a lot of you are out of school, but we still have the rest of the week...with our last day of school coming up on Saturday.  Yeah, you read that right...Saturday.  We had an extra snow day to make up and the district voted to have it on Saturday rather than the following Monday.

Anyway, I'm starting to think ahead to our summer and how to put the time to good use, so I thought I'd introduce:

Firecracker has been doing super awesome at reading over this past year, but they haven't done a whole lot of writing with her in kindergarten.  Hubby and I thought encouraging Firecracker to write more would keep her challenged and work some of those higher order thinking skills.  We've thought up some ideas, so that Firecracker hardly notices we're making her think, because it's so much fun, and I wanted to invite you to play along.

This isn't going to be nearly as structured as Reading Month in March was, but I'm going to commit to sharing one fun writing idea for the kindergarten...oh my goodness she's almost in 1st grade crowd each week.  Don't worry though, most of these ideas can be easily adapted to older and younger kids.  It won't necessarily be on a particular day of the week, but I'll be sure to fit one in.

You can look forward to the first Summer Writing Camp post tomorrow...

Who wants to join me?

The Real Hole

We've been reading a lot of Beverly Cleary around here.  As I was looking up some of her books, I noticed the library had some of her picture books.  I didn't even know that Beverly Cleary wrote picture books.

We brought home The Real Hole by Beverly Cleary.  I have to say that as far as children's book...I'd say its about average...cute, but not amazing like her chapter books.  The kids loved it though, and it's inspired them.  The boy in the book likes "real" things and asks his dad for a "real" shovel so he can dig a "real" hole.  In the end he excedes everyone's expectations for how deep he can dig it.

Impromptu Caterpillar Lesson for Mom

This morning the kids got up on the early side and found a caterpillar somewhere in the house.  Firecracker was super excited because they're studying caterpillars and butterflies right now in kindergarten.

After we looked at the caterpillar for a while, and played with it...

Two Cents

I thought for the last day of our Read-Along I'd do a few more general posts about preschool and reading...besides...a few days ago, I promised to tell you my advice for doing some home pre-schooling the way we do home pre-schooling.  For those of you that may have missed that post, an email got me thinking I should write this.  A mom, trained in Montessori, of a 12-18 month old girl emailed to ask me for advice in using Montessori methods with a child that young.  She'd been frustrated that her daughter didn't seem interested in many of the activities.  Even though I was super flattered she was asking me, I had to tell her that I really don't know much at all about Montessori...but I did give her what advice I could in how I've taught my kids.   So...let me remind you, that I am NOT an early childhood education expert and really have no training in this whatsoever...except the training that my own kids have given me.  And as any parent of more than one child will tell you...kids are DIFFERENT, so what works for me and my kids, may or may not work in your family.  Feel free to contribute your own suggestions and ideas in the comments.

This is just my two cents...

For really young kids (before 2 years especially if they're your first)...

• My main advice is to get your child and you out of the house.  While I believe there is a lot your child is learning at this stage, they don't have much of an attention span for structured activities. 

(Little Farm, Berkeley, CA {free activity})
• We bought the premium membership to one children's museum and the local zoo so that we could always invite a friend and their children to come with us for free.  By buying a membership, you'll go more because you want to get your money's worth...and if you buy one that allows you to bring a friend it's a lot more fun for mom, which means you'll want to go more.  This gives your child rich, age appropriate experiences and gives you a chance to get out of the house and chat with a friend.  (Where we live now, we're a lot farther away from these sorts of resources, but we take advantage of them when we can.)

(Bay Area Discovery Museum and the Oakland Zoo)
• Find a couple of other young moms with kids your kids' age and just hang out.  When your child is driving you nuts, just give them a call and say, "Hey...want to come over {or can I come over}?  My kid is driving me CRAZY!"  Chances are their kid is driving them crazy too.  The kids will entertain each other and the moms can chat.
• Go for lots of walks.  It's good exercise, and every young child I know loves to be outside.  A walk can turn a cranky morning into a pleasant one.  It's even better if you call up a friend and go together.

(Me and my friend Lisa taking our kids for a walk...5 years ago...she's taking the pic.)
• If you have an older child, let your younger one participate in their pre-school activities when they show an interest.  They'll love some of the things you do with your older child...and sometimes they just won't be interested.

For older toddlers/preschool age (2-3 years)

• Find one or two basic pre-school type materials that you think will work for you.  Don't go crazy trying out every program.  Get recommendations from friends with kids 1-2 years older than yours.  We've mostly stuck with the Bob Books and Happy Phonics and been happy with them.
• Choose a picture book...any picture book...it doesn't always have to be one of the great works of children's literature, and then do an activity that goes with the book.  The activity doesn't need to be anything fancy.  In fact it's better if it's not a fancy activity, because you need to be...

(Seeing Red Preschool Activity)
• Prepared for some of your activities to flop.  Even some of the activities you're most excited about and "just know they'll LOVE" will flop.  With a 2 year old, be prepared for only 50% or so of your activities to really engage them.  (Although sometimes they don't seem to show interest, but then will talk about the activity the next day when they see the book.)  The closer they get to 3 years and beyond, the more likely your activities will meet with the kind of success you've envisioned.

(Counting Cockatoos - Sweet Pea was not interested...but she loved the bird I helped her make and the book after the fact.)
• When you're not feeling particularly inspired, head to the library and look through the children's books.  You'll find at least a few that you can easily think of activities for.  Take your kids with you.  They like choosing out some of their own books.
• The more you get into a book-activity routine with your child, the more they'll ask for it and the easier it will be for you to think of activities.
• Do it as often as you can.  For us that is usually about 3 times a week.   Sometimes we really get on a roll and do one everyday...and sometimes we have a really busy week, and we don't do it at all.
• Some of my best activities didn't come to me until we were already reading the book.

(Colorful Chameleons - This was a favorite...and completely easy and last minute idea.)
• Work with your child's strengths.  I've been lucky that my kids seem to have been ready to pick up reading early, but some kids just develop that ability later.

For older preschoolers (3-5 years)

• When your child has progressed enough that they can sound out words, have some books at a very easy level, like the Bob Books, and have them read for 5-10 minutes a day. 

• Have them work on reading 1-3 books (so they have a little choice) until they can read them without stumbling over the words.  Once they've "passed off" one book, then add another book so that they always have a couple of books to choose from.
• We've had great success using reading rewards charts.  Each time our kids read a book, they get to mark off a square and after every 5 squares or so, there's some kind of reward.  If it's an extra hard book or something, you can let them cross out extra squares.

The Pay-Offs

• My kids love books...they've gotten used to the idea that they're fun.

• My kids ask to "do preschool" all the time.  Sometimes I feel guilty if I have to tell them that I'm too busy.  This one is a huge pay-off for me, and I try to remember it on the days when my activity doesn't go as well as I'd like.
• Firecracker and now Little Brother are both early readers, and it gives them something to be proud of. 

• My kids start thinking of their own activities to do with books they read.
• It's just plain great "quality time" with my kids. 

• I enjoy reading the children's books and look forward to going to the library as much as they do.

Now, I know of parents who put a lot more effort than we have into teaching their children to read, but their kids had dyslexia or other learning disabilities.  If your child has learning disabilities, you're not likely to know that when they're pre-school age.  It may make some pre-school activities more difficult, but it's all the more important to engage them with books in whatever way you can.  By helping them enjoy books at a very young age will give them an attitude that books are something they want in their lives. 

Reality

A few conversations and emails I've had lately got me thinking I should write up this post. 

(Just a cute randome picture of my kiddos...that TOTALLY shows their personalities.)

I was chatting a month or so ago with my friend Lisa.  (Lisa has a new blog at Lily and Oak, but we were real-life friends first...as in we lived within a block or two of each other for somewhere around 5 years and hung out all the time.)  Her oldest is about 2 years older than Firecracker, and being two years behind in the parenting department, I've been super impressed with the things Lisa did to get her son reading.  She had researched different early reading and preschool materials, and she helped organize a weekly preschool co-op.   Lisa is one of those friends who always seems to know the best place to go to get the best deal for everything, so when I wanted to start doing early reading things with Firecracker, I went to her for a list of recommendations...among them BOB books and Happy Phonics, both of which we've loved.  Fast forward 5 years to now.  While chatting online with Lisa about the upcoming Read-Along, she told me she'd never really felt successful at getting her oldest to read, and he hadn't REALLY caught on to reading until he got an amazing first grade teacher.

I'll be honest...I was REALLY surprised...shocked almost.  Not because it had taken a while for her son to really get good at reading, but because we'd hung out face-to-face almost everyday...for years...and I hadn't realized it was such a struggle with her son.  Maybe I'm just a terrible friend and listener...but I don't think I'm that bad.

So what this brings me to is that things aren't always what they appear, and we tend to compare ourselves to someone else's best.  If Lisa and I hung out everyday and I still didn't have a clear perspective of the struggles she had teaching her son to read...it's even harder to have a clear perspective of someone else's life you only know through a blog.  I'm not saying that blogs are fake, just that you have to take them for what they are.  For the most part, you see the best of my parenting, teaching, pre-schooling, crafting, creativity, etc on this blog. I tend not to post about my moments of failure (of which there are many) as a parent...not because I'm trying to hide them, but because they're not inspiring, and I like to focus on my successes to keep myself upbeat and hopefully inspire others. So while my blog is a REAL glimpse at my family, please know that it is a REAL glimpse of my family at it's BEST.

If you ever get the feeling reading my blog (or someone else's) that "I could never be like that," just remember that I'm not as good as my blog makes me sound...certainly not every minute of every day (although it would be nice.)  I'll be honest, it's actually a little embarrassing to me that people I REALLY know read my blog, because they know what I'm really like.
 
So in the effort to keep it real...

I've never really come up with a good name for what I do with my kids involving books. We call it "pre-school" at our house...but it's nothing like the organized preschool that many of you do in your homes, and we don't follow any particular curriculum.

ANYBODY CAN DO THIS...once in a while...sometimes!

I "do pre-school" with my kids as much or more because I enjoy it as I do because I think it's good for them.

I have ambitions to focus on particular pre-school themes for a week or two.  I think this would be great because it would give my kids a deeper understanding of a topic...but that never seems to happen because:

1. The books come in at different times from our library.  Sometimes it takes a few weeks.
2. I see a book that is just SO awesome that we have to do it NOW.
3. I'm just not in the mood to do the activity I planned.
4. I don't have the materials I need yet...and it will be a week or two or three until I go shopping.  (We live in a tiny town.)
5. If I waited until I had all the "winter" books and supplies I needed to do a "winter" week...winter would probably be over.
6. I have a lot of other responsibilities that don't involve books, crafts, or blogs.

Okay, okay...so if I'm not going to put together a whole week with a theme...then I have ambitions to have get our book and activity ready the night before...but I usually don't because:

1. I'm worn out from the day.
2. I'll do it as soon as I'm done with __________...but I'm never done.
3. I'm busy blogging about something else.
4. The table or whatever work surface I need is too dirty...and I'm worn out.
5. I have NO CLUE what book I want to use for the next day, so how could I get an activity ready?!?
6. I'm working on some craft project which is not educational in any way for my kids, but I'm having fun and don't want to stop.
7. Did I mention I'm worn out from the day?

Okay, if I'm not going to get it ready the night before, then at least I can commit to doing a book and activity with my kids EVERYDAY...but I don't because:

1. By the time I get the house clean enough to do an activity, the kids are fried and need to take a nap.
2. We have too many errands to run and by the time we get home, the kids are fried and need to take a nap.
3. I have absolutely no idea what book we should read (even though there are tons on our shelves).
4. I'm really NOT in the mood to get the paints out.
5. I didn't get enough sleep last night, so I'm tired.

So there you have it, I don't have themes, I almost never get ready the night before, and while I do read to my kids everyday (it's part of bedtime), we don't "do preschool" (meaning a book with activity) everyday.

I know this post is forever long...but one more thing before I leave you hanging...I got an email a while ago from a mom trained in Montessori techniques asking for Montessori advice for her 12-18 month old daughter. She'd been getting discouraged that her daughter didn't seem interested, and she loved my blog and wanted some ideas.  Okay...this was super flattering to get, but I don't know anything about Montessori.  Everything I know about teaching my kids has come from word of mouth from other moms.  We emailed back and forth a bit.  I think I may have been able to help her a little...although I'm sure my advice was not what she was expecting, and she may have been a little disappointed with it. 

I think it was great advice though...and I'll give it to you in my next post...because I really should be doing housework instead of writing this this one is already too long and you probably haven't read this far.  But if you did read this far, go ahead and leave me a comment, so I'll know how many people are actually anticipating my awesome advice.


If you're just now joining us, be sure to visit our Read-Along Archives to see the books we've already read.

I Love You the Purplest (Fishing for Numbers)- Read Along with Me

We were first introduced to Barbara M. Joosse's books when Firecracker's birthmom gave her Mama, Do You Love Me? as a baby.  Since then we've fallen in love with many of her books and own 4 or 5 of them.

As much as we love Barbara Joosse's other books, I Love You the Purplest by Barbara M. Joosse is one of my all-time favorite children's picture books...EVER. 

It's the story of a mother who takes her two boys (either fraternal twins or similar in age...we're not told) fishing.  Throughout the story, they're competing for their mama's attention and  praise, but Mama cleverly chooses her words to help both boys feel accomplished and important.  At the end of the book as she's tucking them into bed, each boy whispers to ask who she loves the best.  To one she says she loves him the reddest and goes on to describe red things that remind her of his firey personality.