Kool Aid Playdough

It is a rainy nasty day out.  So I decided the kids and I would make some playdough.  BUT not your normal playdough.  No, not in our house!  ;)  Today we made Kool Aid Playdough.  I found this recipe online and wrote it down quickly.  It is good that I did because the power went out minutes after and now I cannot fiind the recipe anywhere.  The playdough turned out great.  I want to share with you how we made it.  I hate that I cannot credit the original source, though.

Kool Aid Playdough


1 1/4 C. All Purpose Flour
1/4 C. Salt
1 Pkg any flavor Kool Aid
1 Tbs. Cream of Tartar
1 C. Boiling Water

Mix first 4 ingredients in bowl with fork.  Stir in boiling water.  Mix until it forms a ball.  Kneed with hands until pliable. 

**We had to add a bit of extra flour to ours after we kneaded it so it was easier to work with.  All in all it was a great recipe.  It makes a lot.  I let each child stir the dry ingredients and then I poured in the water and let them stir away.  I did the first few minutes of kneading and then it was cool enough for them to take over.  They played with this for about an hour!  I love projects like that.**

Pizza Dippers

The kids had been begging me for weeks to let them make their own lunch.  I found a recipe on Pinterest that looked interesting and easy enough but wasn't as kid friendly as I needed.  So I adapted the recipe to suit our needs.

Pizza Dippers
1 Can (8oz) Crescent Rolls
1 C. Shredded Mozzarella Cheese
1 Pkg. Pepperoni
1 Small Jar of Pizza Sauce - for dipping

Preheat oven to the temp listed on can of rolls. Lay one triangle down on a plate with the long side toward the child.  Place 3 slices of pepperoni down the triangle.  Sprinkle with cheese.  Roll up starting at the end toward you (the big end).  Mash the smaller tip end into the dough and lay seam side down on baking sheet.  Bake per directions on can of rolls.  Dip in your favorite pizza sauce.  (We used the Walmart brand.  It was $1 and it tasted yummy)

We doubled this recipe to share with their papaw who liked the rolls better without the sauce.  The were very tasty and are sure to be made again very soon.

Enjoy!

Last week was a FLOP!  F-L-O-P, flop.  It is my fault.  I didn't do my regular planning.  You know the old adage, fail to plan = plan to fail?  It is very true in my life.  I made a decision the end of the week that was NOT going to happen this coming week.  On Friday I planned out the next 2 weeks.  I will work on getting art stuff together through the week as I decide what art projects we will do per day.  I am trying to soak up as much outside time as we can before it gets too cold.  We were able to get in a few neat and new art projects along with our curriculum just to get the wiggles and boredom out.  I will post pics and links to the projects this week.

The weekend has proved to be much colder and I am thinking that fall is really about to set it.  YAY!  I love fall.  It is my favorite time of the year.  (I probably say that at each season change)  This week we are doing a leaf theme.  We will go out and do a search for leaves and one day this week we will investigate them and find out which leaf belongs to which tree.  I also want to do some projects with the leaves.  I am excited!

I hope life finds you and your family well.

We Went On Safari

That is right!  We went on safari last week!  It was a blast and we didn't even have to leave the state.  We went to a local farm that features some safari animals and 3 endangered species.  We got to drive through 3 times and walk through the petting zoo.  They even opened the gift shop just for us (we were the only ones there) YAY!  We all had a blast and plan to return in the spring.  Here is a look at what you would see on safari...

National Chocolate Day 9/13/11

We celebrated National Chocolate Day in style!  Even though we were taking the week off from our formal school work I couldn't let a day like National Chocolate day pass me by.  We celebrated with some of our great friends.  We had a chocolate tasting.  I melted white, dark and milk chocolate and then we dipped all kinds of goodies into the different flavors.  The favorite was white chocolate on pretzel rods.  YUM!  I, personally, love chocolate on anything!  We all made a great chocolate lapbook by Homeschool Bits.  That was loads of fun and very educational.  Here is a sneak of our chocolate fun...

Week in review - The Birthday Party!

So N turned 4 over the weekend!!!  Last week we had a BIRTHDAY week for him and had a "classroom party" with his 2 bestfriends and sister.  SO MUCH FUN!!!  I love my  kids and love doing things for and with them to make them feel special.  Here are some of the things we did...

I hung a banner while he was sleeping and surprised him with it the next morning.

This was his birthday hat of choice!!!

He wanted BLUE cupcakes...He got BLUE cupcakes! ;)

Each kid made their own pizza.  We made our own crust and added favorite toppings.  They were tasty!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY (well, almost!)

See, they really were blue.

What did you do last week?

My Heart is Smiling

I LOVE being a mommy!  I am so happy that God chose for me to be the one to stay home with them and teach them the things that they are learning.  This past week I was a bit anxious about the new things we were going to be covering.  We were delving into consonant digraphs - ch, th, sh, wh - and counting by 10's.  S just grasped how to count to 100 in the past few weeks and we had not really done much in the way of skip counting.  She had just learned CVC words and a few bigger ones but I wasn't sure she was ready to start making the longer sounds.  Boy was I WRONG!  She dove in head first with both concepts and is doing so well with each one.  I give all the glory to God!  He is helping me find ways to teach her the things I was not sure I could teach.  He gives me the words I need to speak to show her how things work together.  In other words, she is learning.... A LOT and it makes my heart smile!

N is doing very well too.  In the past few weeks he has learned how to hold a pencil correctly and has started copying most anything I write down for him to write.  He has been working in his workbooks regularly (by his insistence) and is catching on to so much so fast!  I cannot believe how quickly a child's mind absorbs such things.  They truly are like little sponges.  It really does make my heart smile!

On Wednesday's we are joined by 2 of the greatest kids I know.  We have a blast together.  We do our book work together and then work on some Bible, science and other FUN things!  This past week we made our own pets.  These pets are perfect pets. They don't poop, pee, bark, whine, yelp or do any of the other things some find annoying about pets.  These are Pet Rocks!  I first had the kids paint the rocks white.  Since most children are not patient I used my blow drier and sped up the drying process.  After that they each used markers and colored them up.  They got to chose the googly eyes they wanted to use and glued those on and named them.  Here they are...

Tot School

The tot in the house insists on doing "school" each day with his sister.  I have been semi successful at finding things for him to do but he got bored and wanted "MORE mommy!"  I saw in last weeks paper that Walgreens had their workbooks 2/$4 so I went straight over and picked some up.  They are a HIT!  First thing I sit S down and ask her to color or draw quietly while her brother and I do his school work.  He does 1-3 sheets per book depending on his mood.  He is learning from the books very quickly and I couldn't be happier.  He had learned to write his name all own his own and I am finding random N's all over the house (not so happy about that).  Here are some shots of Tot School...

In addition to the work books we also have manipulatives for him to play with, a large collection of puzzles, flashcards and LOADS of coloring books.  He seems to really enjoy his Tot School-ing.  *sorry about the quality of the photo's

2 Weeks Wrap Up

What a fun week we had with rain and the Ark a few weeks ago.  After we finished that unit we moved onto bees.  I didn't get as in depth with either of them as I had planned due to some health issues but we will redo them son so we can get more involved with the lessons. Here are some highlights of the last 2 weeks.

I didn't realize that I didn't get any real photo's of the rain unit in action.  BUMMER. But I did get some great shots of our home made crayons.  I plan to do this again soon.  It was loads of fun.

The pics above were from our "BEE-ing who God created you to be." Unit.  It was loads of fun.  They created self portraits and shined pennies.  We made jello and painted.  So many fun activities but I didn't get shots of any of them.  I must do better about that!

Honestly...

Honestly, I never intended to ever homeschool my children.  I didn't think I could do it.  I thought I would have to get up at 6am each day, sit them down at a desk and hover over them for hours on end.  I knew that was not at all something I wanted to do.  What I do want to do is be with my children.  Enjoy them everyday.  I want to watch them discover new things and learn how things work.  I want to see their eyes light up when they realize they "CAN" do whatever it may be that they "thought" they could never achieve.  God put homeschooling on my heart, HEAVY on my heart.  I resisted.  I almost pleaded with him to help me send them to public school.  The more reasons why to send them to public school, the more reasons to homeschool them showed up.  I mentioned it to my husband who was 100% on board even when I was still riding the fence.  So I prayed.  I prayed a LOT!  With each day my fears turned to excitement.  I started surfing the web for blogs that other homeschool moms write.  I found a wealth of information.  Some fun and educational things that I could do with my kids.  I started seeing that homeschooling my children did NOT mean that we were to be stuck in the house 8 hours a day behind a desk drudging through school work. On the contrary we only spend about 2 hours doing "school work" during the day.  The rest of the day we learn through doing.  Granted we are only about 6 weeks into our first year but this has been an amazing experiance so far.  It has proven to be exactly what the kids and I needed.  I get to be Mom first and teacher second.  I get to love on my babies all day long and show them the world.  I love this journey and plan to be on it so long as God sees fit.  If you are struggling with the idea of homeschooling ask yourself one question... Why not?  If you can't, God can.  If you wont, God will.  You have all the support you need in God.  Lean on him and he will show you the path you need to take!