Always Growing

Family Fun Friday- Minute to Win it!

mochellysue — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 03:10:08 +0000

Okay so I’ve never actually seen the show but I’ve seen some fabulously fun games on Pinterest that I knew we’d love. Here is what you do in case you’re like me and out of touch with this show. Each person has one minute to try to complete the task. Here is our line up.

* Oreo from head to mouth: start with a cookie on your head, and using only the muscles in your face, move it to your mouth…we’ll give it a try!

* Noodling Around: Using an uncooked piece of spaghetti, try to get a piece of pasta (tube) hooked onto it while the spaghetti is in our mouth and the pasta is on the edge of the table.

* Balancing Fruit Loops: Using a popsicle stick, try to balance 5 fruit loops on the edge of it.

* Slimy Nose Relay: Put vaseline on the end of kids noses and have them transfer a cottonball from one paper plate to another plate. See who can get the most.

* Cups: Stack 15 plastic cups. Using the air from a blown up balloon try to knock all the cups over, refill air as needed!

* Scrambled Breakfast: Assemble a cereal box that has been cut into 16 pieces.

* Toilet Paper: Unwrap 2 rolls of TP using both hands.

Looking forward to some fun!

Easy Birdfeeder

mochellysue — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 02:47:42 +0000

My daughter is such an animal lover! Today we decided to make bird feeders. It was quite simple and loads of fun! We poured water into muffin tins. Added bird seed and a piece of string. We set them outside to turn to ice, and hung them in the tree! Very fast and easy, she got to do the whole thing. She got a bird book and binoculars for Christmas so this is a great opportunity to wait for birds to come and see what kinds our feeders attract!

Family Fun Friday- Popcorn

mochellysue — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 20:34:22 +0000

January 19th was national popcorn day, who knew? I LOVE popcorn! I am so thankful I have passed my love for this along to my kids. Tonight we will be doing many activities involving this yummy snack! Here is a look.

* We are going to make popcorn in a bag, saw it on pinterest and love the idea. Here is the link http://www.squawkfox.com/2010/07/27/popcorn-recipe-gourmet-popcorn/.

I actually wouldn't do this again. About half the popcorn popped, some burned, and no oil so it was really dry!

* We are going to use that popcorn to make a popcorn cake, another pinterest idea. Here is the link http://cookiesandcups.com/popcorn-cake/

* We are going to sample popcorn with different toppings. Carmel, butter, plain, salt, cheese, etc. (Shocker we prefer butter and salt!)

* We are going to be popcorn, think jumping and moving…getting lots of energy out!

* We will use a straw and race popcorn off the table by blowing them to the finish line.

This was really fun, both my kids loved getting to blow it across the table!

* We will use it for art. I am planning on letting them self direct this one. I will put out string, paper, glue, glitter, etc, and let them make popcorn art.

We made a popcorn tree by drawing it and then colorig the popcorn like apple blossoms!

* We will also make Kool Aid popcorn here is the link http://tastykitchen.com/recipes/desserts/kool-aid-popcorn/

* We will end with movie and popcorn! Yum!

What do you like to do with your family on the weekends?

Love Notes

mochellysue — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 15:14:58 +0000

I confess I miss my kids when they are at school. I started thinking/praying about ways I could impress upon them how blessed I am to have them and just bring some encouragement and joy to them. I decided to start doing love post it notes for my kids. After they are asleep I go into their rooms and stick a post it on the wall of their bed with something I love about them or just an encouraging word or scripture. This is a great way to practice reading and seeing print once again. It takes just a few minutes but they are delighted!

Eggs to Remember Martin Luther King

mochellysue — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 17:43:17 +0000

I love how our kids do not see people as different. Living where we do, they been exposed to people of different races, ages, and socioeconomic status so to them they don’t see much of a difference. As my daughter says, “God made everyone!” Today I showed my kids a brown and a white egg and asked what was different about them. The colors are different. What about the same, both eggs, same shape, you can scramble both, both are tasty, etc. I asked if they thought they’d be different on the inside. They weren’t sure so we cracked them open and saw how they look exactly the same. We talked about how God created all people, there is not one who is better if they have blonde hair, brown skin, or live in a certain part of the world.

Family Fun Friday- Marbles

mochellysue — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 16:10:18 +0000

I look so forward to our family fun Fridays! My kids and I even sing a song about them we get so excited! Love it! So we are going to be doing some fun family games and activities involving marbles. Here are some things we will be up to.

* We are going to bake them in the oven at 500 for 20 minutes and then put them immediately into cold water to see them become cracked and very pretty!

* We are going to paint with marbles. Put a piece of paper the size of a shoe box flat into a shoe box. Then squirt a bit of paint onto the paper and roll the marble around in it!

* We will make a circle out of tape on the carpet and each put in 5 marbles. Then we will take turns being the shooter and trying to get the other people’s marbles out of the circle.

* We will also use an egg carton and try to roll the marble into the cracks. Each crack will be worth a certain amount of points. The player with the most points wins!

My kids actually enjoyed this game and did really well at it!

* We are going to reach into a bag to pull out a marble and depending on the color we will have to do certain things. Each color is assigned to a person in my family. So if you pull out a yellow marble, that is my color. I might have you sing the ABC song or run up and down the stairs 5 times!

We got pretty creative and it was a great way to burn off excess energy! My son had to climb our stairs 30 times!

* We will also do a marble roll tunnel. Make a tunnel out of cardboard and cut slots to allow the marble to roll through it. See who can get the most through the slots.

* We will also make a marble run out of cereal boxes and cardboard tubes!

* We will race our marbles down a cut up pool noodle!

Some of these ideas came from pinterest on a mom blog. Here is the link http://dillydallykids.ca/blog/marblegames/

Pictures coming soon!

Foil Drawings

mochellysue — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 18:21:09 +0000

Oh how my kids love to draw! So much fun for them to create. We have checked out drawing books from the library, and drawn on many different types of surfaces. Today we decided to draw on foil using sharpies (an idea I used from pinterest). I tore squares for my kids and let them free draw. The only advice I have would be to put newspaper underneath so that none ends up on your table since the foil can be a little thin! It might also be fun to create a theme like make Christmas pictures, family members, animals, etc.

Family Fun Friday- Balloons

mochellysue — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 03:11:12 +0000

We did our family fun night on Sunday this week due to our schedule, but here is a look at our theme.

* Balancing them on a fly swatter. See who can balance and bounce the longest.

* Volleyball with balloons! We will move our furniture out of the way, put up a rope as a net and play some fun volleyball.

Tried to teach my son the rules for volleyball and that bikefired! He totally was the rule police after that:)

* Decorate them with permanent markers, make silly faces! We might use stickers too.

* It is bath night so we might put balloons in the tub (first time for this). My daughter loved this! I did have to say no throwing water balloons at the ceiling as she was trying to use the ceiling to pop them!

* Tie a string around the balloon and use a thumb tack to hold it to the ceiling and let the kids battle the balloon.

* Put different items in the balloons and have the kids shake them and guess what they are.

I stumped my daughter when I put a crayon in it. She couldn't figure out the sound. I put rice and a bell in them too, those were the easier ones!

* Glow sticks in the balloons would be fun too. Saw this on Pinterest and thought we’d give it a try!

* I will hide small treasures in the balloons for my kids to find when they pop them (like a piece of gum, a tattoo, a coupon for a no clean up pass, etc.)

My son sat and bounced on it over and over again! This was one of our favorite things!

* We will try to stomp each others balloons. Tie a string (1 1/2 to 2 feet) around the balloon and then around the persons ankle. One per person. Then try to stomp and pop the other persons balloon. This could get crazy!!!

* We will also play can’t touch the ground but put a small marble in the balloon. I’ve heard it will make it move around..we’ll see!

* To finish things off we are going to use our balloons to make chocolate pudding cups. I found this idea on pinterest as well. Here is the link http://www.bakerella.com/pudding-cups/

Happy playing!

Practicing Sight Words

mochellysue — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 21:47:20 +0000

I’ve been doing a few things to help my daughter learn her sight words. Here are some things you can do around the house as well, they work for colors, numbers, letters, etc. Here are some of our favorites.

* I put them on the bathroom mirror with sticky notes and she reads them to me every morning and evening while brushing her teeth. It makes it super easy to switch them as well.

* We did a scavenger hunt for them. I wrote them on some fancy paper and had her hunt our house for them and read them to me.

* Make a homemade die by covering an old one (or use a box as jumbo die) with sight words. Have her roll, then read and make it into a sentence.

* You can make sight word tattoos out of ABC stamps!

* I also like to point them out when we are reading books together.

* Pretend the carpet is a sea of worms and she has to cross on the sight word rocks, stepping only on words she knows… preparing this for this week.

* We keep a little notebook in her cup holder of her car seat so anytime we have a couple extra minutes in the car she can read them to me. Just not while driving, since she gets car sick!

* Shaving cream writing is always fun.

* Write them in a secret message. Write on white paper the words in white crayon. Have her use water colors to see the words and read them.

I love making learning fun!

Family Fun Friday- Marshmallows

mochellysue — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 14:30:05 +0000

We have an abundance of these at our house so I decided to build some activities for our Friday around these yummy treats! Here are some of our ideas.

* Paint them with food coloring and milk mixture.

* Make snowmen with them along with pretzel sticks and M&M’s.

* Write and draw on them with sharpies and put them in the microwave for 20 seconds…they grow!

We drew on them

We watched them grow! The kids were amazed:)

* Use marshmallows and toothpicks (or pretzels) for building

* Who can build the biggest tower using mini marshmallows?

* Use a spoon as a catapult to fling marshmallows into a large container. Who can get the most in in one minute?

This was harder than it looks!

* Marshmallow milkshakes. I saw this on pinterest and I am really excited to try it!

Have fun playing with your family!