Halloween 2015

Halloween is one of my favorite holidays! I love the cool air and all the fun things to do with my boys.

 

We had lots of fun carving pumpkins!

 

My most favorite thing about pumpkin carving is the seeds! I coat them in oil and Lawry's seasoning salt and roast them at 300 degrees for around 45 minutes. So yummy and they make great counters for math too!

 

 

This guy loved bobbing for (or just taking a bite of each) apples!

 

This Halloween, my sweet husband found himself entered in a babywearing costume contest. I took a small boys' t-shirt and drew the dollar sign with a permanent marker. I found the play money at the dollar store and used hot glue to attach it at the top. The size small t-shirt fit the Tula perfectly and they became the cutest bank robbers I've ever seen.

Adventures in Preschool: Arrrgh! It's Pirate Day!

We have been so busy this summer, I haven't posted any of our fun-ness lately, but I couldn't resist sharing our pirate morning adventure! I knew today was going to be a rainy, boring day, so I thought I would create a little pirate magic. 

When he first woke up, I had a pirate ship and a pirate cup sitting beside the potty, along with his pirate clothes.

 

We had a pirate sword and hat in the dress up box, but no telescope, so we made one! I just let him color a piece of construction paper (he chose to draw a pirate ship), rolled it up and wrapped it with tape. I know this is so simple, but he seriously has carried this thing around all day looking at stuff.

 

 

He was then greeted in the dining room by pirate books. This was a great opportunity to read and learn, not only about pirates, but also about the ocean they sailed. We talked about what pirates did and what they ate- which was a great segway to pirate lunch!

 

This happy little cutie loved his skull and crossbones and pirate hat sandwich. I used cookie cutters purchased for a pirate birthday party a couple years ago and he thought it was awesome.

We ended our pirate morning with a treasure hunt. Since we are working on letters, I just had him find all the things he could that started with C. 

 

 This was such a fun morning, doing thing we normally do, but with a pirate twist. And did I mention that it didn't cost anything? Arrgh! Now, that's a good adventure, mateys.

Adventures in Preschool: Earth Day

I love to use Earth Day as an opportunity to teach my little ones about the world around us and ways we can take care of it. We actually made a week of Earth Day and did Reduce, Reuse, Recycle and Repurpose projects.

Reduce: We are committed to reducing our environmental impact by growing some of our own food. I will have more gardening posts throughout the summer, but we got gardening season started by planting some seeds. This planter from the Lowe's Build and Grow clinic came at a perfect time.

Reuse: We reused pine cones from our yard to make bird feeders. This was a fun project and was age-appropriate for my three year old with a little help. I gave them plastic knives and a plastic cup of peanut butter and I attached a string to the top of the pine cones for hanging. They used the knife to spread the peanut butter on the pine cone. I then poured birdseed onto newspaper and they rolled their pinecones in it.

 

Recycle: I save our newspapers and cardboard to take to our local recycling center and my preschooler loves to help me. He really enjoys tossing our items into the appropriate bins and he understands that we take our used items there so people can make them into something new.

Repurpose: I save lids from Coca-Cola products for My Coke Rewards to get fun prizes for my boys and me, but those lids sometimes seem to take over my house! I am always trying to think of something to do with them and for our Earth Day (week) celebration, I thought it would be fun to use them to make caterpillars. I had my husband drill a hole in each of the lids. I then let the little ones decorate them with paint and string them together. If we did this again, I would probably use markers and glitter glue instead of the paint, but it made a fun little project and saved a few of those lids from going into a landfill.

Always remember, "We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children."  -Native American Proverb

Happy Earth Day!