Activity Packs – Keeping the Kids Busy and Learning at the Same Time.

My 4-year-old is a very busy boy. He likes to be on the go all the time.  To avoid him getting into mischief if boredom hits, I have always carried a variety of activities and toys with us.

As school is fast approaching for him, I thought it would be good to create a few educational activity packs to play with.  I got the inspiration for the content from a visit to his new school.  So many great activities were going on in the prep classes.

Here is what I have created:

Sight Words

This activity helps children not only recognise letters but become familiar with sight words.

You can find printable lists and flash cards with sight words all over the net.  I used these ones from our state government website as they are written in the cursive font taught in Queensland schools. I printed each sight word onto coloured A5 paper and laminated them to create flash cards.  As there are 100 sight words, I have started with only printing 20.

I then purchased a heap of cheap wooden pegs and using a marker, printed the letters from each sight word onto the pegs.

I broke these 2o sight words up into 4 activities and placed them into large ziplock bags.

To play, Master O must peg the correct letter to each sight word flash card until he has created each word. The action of pegging the letter to the flash card helps develop his fine motor skills.

Colour Matching and Fine Motor Training

This activity helps children learn colours, their spelling, as well as develop their fine motor skills.

I cut out various coloured card and laminated them to create flash cards.  I printed each colour’s name on the card in permanent pen.

I picked up a bag of coloured match sticks, a container to hold them in and a pair of small  tongs from a variety store.

To play, Master O must pick up the matchsticks from the container and place them on the correct coloured flash card.  If I want to make things more difficult for him, I set up a stopwatch so he has to race the clock.  If he is feeling nimble, Master O can also use the tongs to place the matchsticks in patterns.

Master O thinks these activities are lots of fun and I love that they keep both his mind and body active. I have put together a few other activity packs, including some for my 18 month old that I will share with you soon.

Have a great day.

Documenting the Rhythm of My Children’s Day

My youngest is in a Kindermusik class.  We both love it.

Our unit is called ‘The Rhythm of My Day’ and so it was suggested that each parent put together a little book illustrating the Rhythm of our child’s day. What a great idea!  Not only is it a great book for them to read and look at now, it will be a great book to look back on as they grow older, to see how the rhythm of their day has changed.

So over the last week or so, I have been photographing the common place activities in my 18 month old’s day….the nap times, play times, teeth brushing, lunch, dinner etcetera.  I have also started to compile them in a scrapbook album I picked up for just a few dollars at Kmart. Even without my planned embellishments (I can’t help myself), it already looks great.

My 4 year old has also been interested in this project too.  Really, I shouldn’t be surprised.  Before he began Kindergarten, the centre gave him a picture book that outlined the ‘rhythm’ of a Kindergarten day.  He loved it and often recites the book as we drive to Kindergarten. When I suggested we make a ‘Rhythm of Oliver’s Day’ scrapbook, including pictures of him doing the activities, he was all for it.

Such a simple, yet fun, activity and keepsake.  I promise to share the completed books with you as soon as they are done.

Enjoy your day.

Making the Most of Departing Warmth

I must apologise as I haven’t been around the blog much lately.  The days are getting shorter and nights more chilly Down Under, so most of us are trying to wring the last out of the sunny, warm days that remain in early Autumn/Fall.

Our little family has been hitting the outdoor activities pretty hard.  I have been snapping pics left, right and centre to get some good ones to put in my Project Life album (see post here).  Today I thought I would show you some of the activities we have been up to in this glorious weather.

Feeding the ducks and afternoon bike rides….. I thought I was being such a fun mum, whisking the boys off on an adventure after kindergarten.  All was going well until jealousy erupted over the choice of transport I brought for our bike ride.  Nothing says ‘fun’ like a crying 18 month old at the park!

 

Fishing….We all love throwing in a line and the thrill of winding in a fish.

Bush walks….This walking area had a playground and an education centre.  Many an hours could be spent here.

Picnics and playing at the beach….This wasn’t one of the white sandy beaches I like going to.  This was a mud flat, mangrove beach the kids love to go to.  Lots of sticky mud and messy fun to be had.

Long drives and country shows…..we went to the Marburg show the other weekend.  It was great to see the horses and cattle, check out the ute muster and flower, cooking and art competitions.

Winery lunch….We have a lovely winery with a greatcellar door restaurant not too far from us.  You get to sit under shady trees, looking out over green, grassy hills.  completely relaxing.

As soon as the weather cools down completely, I know I will be about the blog a lot more, but for the moment I want to savour this joyous weather. I hope wherever you are, you too are enjoying wonderful weather.

Dabbling in Freezer Cooking

After a visit to my favourite butcher who sells bulk meat, I dreaded the prospect of breaking the meat up into batches and vacuum sealing  it to be frozen.  I did however, feel slightly more enthusiastic about cooking.  So I set out to make some freezer meals.

I have at various times dabbled in freezer cooking.  I certainly loved the convenience of having ready-made meals when I was busy at work or when I was a new mum.  I didn’t hate the cooking days, in fact I quite liked them. So I wondered why I never really stuck to it and made an art of it.

I think in my case it came down to not having enough of a freezer meal catalogue.  In the old days I made the same things ….spaghetti sauce, lasagne, cottage pie, a curry or two and soups. Boring. If only I had looked to the internet for inspiration!

There are hundred of sites and bloggers out there praising freezer cooking.  Many have it down to a fine art – menu plans, recipes, shopping lists, cooking days, even providing sticker templates to print and  attach to your made meal.  There are thousands of amazing recipes out there to suit every taste and even cooking preference.  It really is an eye opener.

As it is coming into winter here in the Southern hemisphere, I am keen to get the slow cooker working.  I found whole sites devoted to creating frozen baggies of ingredients, that you defrost and pop into the crock pot to cook.  Really, who thought you could make crock pot cooking even easier than it already was?

The more I traversed the sites, the more I was beginning to be sold on the idea of freezer cooking.  I don’t know that I would have the majority of meals out of the freezer as I like to eat a fresh, clean and raw as possible, but it definitely has benefits.  It undoubtably saves money as you can shop the sale items and use seasonal produce.  You are less likely to resort to expensive take out on the days when you don’t feel like cooking.  I can see there would be less washing up and probably less food waste.

So if you are keen to dabble in freezer cooking like me, here are some sites that are worth a visit.

Money Saving Mom - Huge recipe selection and some great printables for those organising freaks, like me.

One a Month Mom – Everything you need to be a freezer cooking genius.  Menu plans for all sorts of dietary needs including paleo, vegetarian and baby. Heaps available for free on the site or become a member to receive ongoing menus and recipes.

Who Needs a Cape? – Make 40 meals in 4 hours! Lots of crock pot freezer recipes here.

Life as Mom – Lots of tips on how to freezer cook and every month a new cooking plan to follow.

I have also started to pin some of my favourite freezer meals.  You are welcome to follow along here.

So what did I cook and freeze the other day, you ask?

Healthy Butter Chicken – I used a fantastic spice mix from this company

lasagne

Chicken enchiladas

Slow cooker braised lamb

Pear and raspberry coconut bread.  Yummo! I will share this recipe with you soon.

If you are interested in freezer cooking, be sure to follow along.  I intend to do a lot more freezer cooking and I will share what I make on here.

Have a great day.

 

Know Your Feel Good Clean

The weekend has left the Crooked Household….well…..crooked. Today is one of those days, where you can see there are a million things that need to be cleaned, done and fixed, but you just don’t know where to start.  You know there is no chance that you will get everything done and the whole thing is making  you annoyed.

It’s on days like this you need to do your Feel Good Clean before you tackle anything else.  You know what I mean, the cleaning tasks that take little effort but show big gains.  The tasks that instantly make your house feel lighter, cleaner and less cluttered.  The tasks that make you feel better about your home.

Everyone’s Feel Good Clean is different.  If you haven’t really thought about what those cleaning tasks are for you, they are most probably the ones you rush to when you get a last minute house guest.

Today I thought I would share with you my Feel Good Cleaning tasks.

1. Vacuum. Since having children and all the floor mess that comes along with them, I have perfected the art of the quick vacuum clean. Heaven help the toy or child that gets in the way of Mum with the Dyson.

2. Mop. Again I have perfected the quick mop.  When I want fast results I use a microfibre mop head with just a spritz of water.  The floor is cleaned really well and it is dry and ready to walk on in a minute.

3. Make the beds.  Don’t worry, we always make the beds, but it is on my Feel Good Clean list as it instantly makes the bedrooms look neater.

4. Tidy the kitchen benchtops.  We have an open plan house so the kitchen is visible from the living areas.  By removing the everyday clutter – books, loaves of bread, dishes and appliances,  I feel the house is less cluttered.

5. Polish the dining room table.  Again, as we have an open plan house and a glass dining table, the sticky little finger marks from meal times are visible to one and all.

6. Straighten couch cushions and floor rug.  Nothing entertains my boys more than messing with the couch cushions and sliding about on the rug.  Straightening them will most likely last about 20 minutes,  but for those 20 minutes, my lounge room looks good.

7. Clean the windows. The rear of our house, the living area, is almost entirely made up of glass.  When I do a Feel Good Clean I choose one or two sections of glass and give them a polish.  You can read how I have made cleaning window’s easier here. Nothing makes me happier than looking out of my freshly cleaned windows.  Weird, huh?

I did all of these jobs in just over 30 minutes this morning.  I was a whirlwind, but at the end of it the house looked neater and I felt a whole heap better.

I also scored some bonus cleaning in that time by warning the kids I was about to vacuum and mop.  They instantly jumped into protection mode, packing away toys and parking them on their play mat. Score!

What are your Feel Good Cleaning jobs?

Cute Bedroom Art

I was lucky enough to have some kid-free time today to have a browse of the shops.  One store I love to have a look in when I am unhindered by children is Typo. It has great stationery and homewares and is very well priced.

After picking up some great pens on sale to do my Project Life journaling, I was drawn to their range of freestanding letters and letter canvases.  It is ridiculous how much I love typography.

I couldn’t leave without picking up these cute little canvases to pop into the master bedroom, which is getting a little bit of a revamp at the moment.

The letters and symbols are printed on burlap and strung on a canvas frame.

I picked these three up for $10.  I probably couldn’t make them for this price.  However, what a fun project it would be to make your own if you had leftover materials and supplies on hand.  Print or stencil your letters or symbols on your fabric and staple it to canvases or frames.

Until I find the perfect home for these, they will sit on the low boy in the bedroom.  Cute.

 

Starting Project Life

A few years back I tried, desperately, to scrapbook.  I love taking photos, I love making things look pretty but I just couldn’t find the time or patience to really get into it.  I then stumbled across Project Life – an easy but still creative way to memory keep.   I ummed and ahhed at committing and decided to first see if I could just keep a hard copy album with just a few favourite photos from each week of 2012.  Unfortunately, I sailed through to mid February and then the rest of the year’s photos are sitting in a folder on a printing website.  

It was a persuasive friend, who had just stumbled on Project Life last week that convinced me to commit and really give it a go.  She too was worried about whether the enthusiasm would last but together we have vowed to keep each other on track.  

So I have jumped in headfirst.  I have bought an album, some page protectors and a Project Life Cherry Core Kit.  I promptly uploaded my chosen photos from this year to a printing website and I am waiting for them to be delivered.  I downloaded Adobe Photoshop Elements and taught myself, painfully, how to do a few simple edits of my photos. And today I am starting my journaling.

I have out my pretty pens, my planner, family calendar and phone calendar, ready to piece together the year thus far.  I worry that it will be a big job, but I hope the enthusiasm I have now will motivate me to get up to date.  Then the hope is that with just a little time each week or so, I will be able to see the year out with a complete Project Life album.  The ultimate dream is to be so motivated as to go back and complete a Project Life album for last year.  We will see.

If you scrapbook or use Project Life and write about it, I would love to read your blog.  Leave me a link to your blog in the comments.

Have a great day.

 

Time for a Change

The other week I was just not feeling the ‘vibe’ in my lounge room.   The room needed a change.  I needed a change.

Before I had a chance to spiral into a lounge room funk, grab the credit card and hit the shops for a new look, I pulled out the sewing machine.

One of the easiest decorating changes that can be made in a lounge room is to add new throw cushions.  They can change the whole feel of the room on the smallest of budgets.

I had bought some great material some time back in red and aqua.  I loved the patterns and the colours were perfect for the lounge room.  The red was already the highlighted colour in the room, but the blue could help tie in the tones of the photo canvas collage hung on the wall.

Before I really had time to think about it, I had run up 5 envelope cushions.  You can read my tutorial on how to make these easy pillow slips here.

I like the two patterns and colours together. The aqua and white has really given the lounge a lift.

A few days after I threw together the new cushions, I was at Ikea and picked up this warm aqua throw for next to nothing.  It should help to keep us cozy as the cooler weather sets in.

So on a little budget, with just a bit of time invested, I was able to give the lounge room (and myself) a lift.

 

 

A Bedroom for a Dinosaur Loving Boy

It occurred to me the other day, as I was giving Master O’s room a quick tidy, that I hadn’t shown you all the changes we made in his room.

Towards the end of last year, as Master O’s 4th birthday loomed, we struggled to find him a present.  We really didn’t want to buy him toys as we knew he would receive more than enough as gifts from the family.  I really had no inspiration until I found myself staring absent-mindedly into a store window while waiting for my sister.  As she arrived and I turned to leave, I realised what I had been staring at…..the cutest range of dinosaur linen and accessories on a fantastic sale.  There and then I decided his present would have to be a dinosaur room makeover.

The day before his birthday party, while he was a daycare, I set about transforming his room.  Previously it had sported a nautical/pirate theme which I shared in these posts here and here, but this is what it looked like on the morning I started the transformation.

After a good clean up and rearrange, followed by the addition of  the new duvet cover, matching cushions and bunting, the room looked a lot fresher.

I added a few other nick nacks that suited the theme, like these cute bookends.

I had already added a padded cushion to the Trofast toy storage units to make a reading seat, but now I could see how well my colour choice matched with the linen. You can read about how I made the seat  here.  A little rearranging of the Trofast tubs I already owned enabled me to bring the colour green into this area of the room as well.

I had tried to purchase some artwork for the walls in time for his birthday but I couldn’t find anything that matched the colour scheme. Master O didn’t mind, he was chuffed with the transformation.  The walls remained blank until about 3 months ago when I returned to the linen store and found a matching dinosaur canvas in stock.

So with one wall decorated,  I thought I might have to make something for the other wall – but what?  On holidays last month I came across a stall that sold all manner of dinosaur cutouts,  2D and 3D.  The were amazing and so well priced that I had to be restrained.  I purchased 2 x 2D cutouts and after a bit of spray paint, attached them each to a canvas.  It was a such a simple art solution and they really do pop with their shiny bright orange paint.

The other purchase I made was 3D pterodactyl.  After a couple of coats, also in the bright orange paint, I attached him to the ceiling.  I was concerned that he might be a bit scary for a 4-year-old, woken in the middle of the night, but Master O has entrusted the pterodactyl with the task of keeping him safe.

So after stalling for nearly 4 months with the artwork, the room is pretty much complete now.  Master O received a couple a big dinosaur figurines for his birthday and Christmas that fit in perfectly with the colour scheme so they now reside on top of his Trofast unit and look very much at home.  We also picked up a hat stand shaped like a tree on sale at Target.  It is the perfect place to hang his Kindergarten and library bags when it is not some how involved in some imaginative dinosaur play.

This really has evolved into the perfect room for our dinosaur loving boy.  What are you favourite themes for little boy’s rooms?

Weekend Cooking

It is not often that we are about the house on the weekend so I don’t do a lot of cooking.  However, this weekend I made a bit of an effort and ended up making some lovely things.  When I say ‘effort’, it wasn’t that great as most of the recipes were done in the Thermomix. I really can’t explain just how much of a marvel the Thermomix is.  If you don’t have one, don’t let that put you off clicking on the links to the recipes as most could be done without it, or perhaps completed with another appliance that you have.

Have a look at my creations, I am more than a little proud of some of them…..

Apple Porridge made in the Thermomix while I got ready for the morning.  It can’t get much easier than that!  The boys LOVED it.  Recipe is here.

Banana and Coconut Bread.  We all loved this.  The recipe is one for the Thermomix but easy and well worth adapting if you don’t have one.  I also had my first attempt at scrolls.  These were spinach and feta.  Yummo. A fantastic brunch or lunchbox food.  You can find the recipe here.

Healthy Banana Ice Cream.  This is made with just a little sugar (or in our case dextrose), frozen skim milk and frozen banana.  It is just like soft serve ice cream without the guilt. I will post more about easy ice creams made in the Thermomix soon.

Mexican Hot Chocolate Mocha.  This recipe calls for cocoa, but I have been right into using raw cacao and I am convinced of  the health benefits.  Hubby and I love this rich drink.

Mango, Banana and Apple Green Smoothie.  This was my own concoction but you can read about my green smoothies here. This one was demolished by my boys in seconds, despite them watching two big handfuls of spinach going into the mix.

Chinese Combination Short Long Soup.  I did freestyle with this recipe and added things I knew we would like.  It was a hit all round.  Master C loved the dumplings.

Another dish that I stupidly didn’t photograph, despite the fact it was the stand out dish of the weekend, was Singapore Noodles.  Oh. So. Yummy. Instead of making it with vermicelli noodles, I used angel hair slim noodles which have less than 7 calories per serve.  The meal had next to no calories and was so filling.  I can see this appearing regularly on my meal plans.

I’d love to hear whether you get up to cooking or baking on the weekends or is that your ‘time off’?  Have a great week.