Family Job Charts

May 29, 2012

This is our Pinterest inspired new Family Job Chart System! It was a lot of work, but so fun to make, and now I feel really inspired to do my housework and all the other jobs I have). Hopefully the boys feel the same way. If this mornings excitement over “flipping” their job is any indication – then this is a sure hit to no more fuss over room cleaning!

I used some scrapbooking paper to create 3”x3” cards and then stuck on a job to each card. Then I laminated and hole punched them. I got cork and hooks and…TA-DA:

When someone has completed their job, they flip the card over. This way mom and dad know the work is done – and it offers a little fun for chores!

I had originally planned to use push pins to put up the jobs, but the cork was too thin and the pins wouldn’t stay in well enough for me to not worry about them being all over the floor at some point. But I love the look of the cork background, so it all worked out in the end! A set of little clear 3M Hooks comes in 24 – the perfect amount for this little project. Unless you have more than 4 charts…lol.

For the boys I hang morning jobs (feed Samson, brush teeth, make bed, etc.), and then later I put up their evening jobs (setting the table, feed Samson, clean bedroom, etc.). And of course if I have other things for them I hang those too (help with laundry, fold towel, clean up outside toys, dust, Mom’s Choice, etc). I made a zillion cards, I was having WAY too much fun cutting paper – it must be therapeutic! I cut a 3” x 6” piece and folded it in half so I could have design on the back too. (So, a 12”x12” paper gets you 8 cards, if you were wondering).

I even did them for me and The Geek as well. I am keeping all of ours on the hooks , all the time. Just moving the ones for the day to the top. (I keep the boys’ cards in a old wipes container, sorted by type/boy in envelopes, on top of the fridge so they have only one card on each hook…less confusion for them.)

Now I feel so organized! It feels good to turn around a job I’ve completed – it really does! I am sure I have more than 6 jobs a day…but this helps me feel good about doing them all!

And now I can go turn around “Blog” for today – go me.

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M2M: Bird Feeders & Fun

May 29, 2012

We are REALLY enjoying our break. Well, I am – even if the boys are driving me nuts without the routine of school to fill up our morning.

We made some nifty bird feeders from 2 Liter Bottles. I found a kit at Joann’s in the “Kids Camp” isle. It came with paint and stickers and a screw-on contraption of plug the bottle filled with seed and let just enough come out for the birds to eat.

Only problem is I keep having to chase the darn squirrels away from them! I have no idea how to keep them from eating all our bird seed. So, suggestions welcome in this area, please!

The boys, and even The Geek, love Samson….but I think Thing Two is a little jealous…or Samson is jealous of Thing Two? Every time he is on Daddy’s lap Samson comes up and tries to crowd him off! It is pretty funny.

Samson thinks he is Spiderman…surprisingly STRONG screening in these apartments, lol.

We got a water bottle, the vet said to spray him if he is doing something we don’t want him to do) but he seems not to heed the water bottle. The Geek has suggested a Super Soaker, lol. I think that might boarder on abuse.

The boys having a good time dancing to some music. I love when they are getting along. Shortly after this photo the “hand holding” became more like squeezing until there was screaming, but hey, at least it started off sweetly.

We’ll be back to school on Monday. I have gotten SO MUCH done – and that feels good. Lots of prep work and organization. I even completed a Pinterest-inspired project (more on that later). Breaking and resting is important!

Thing Two Tot Adventures

May 21, 2012

{Thing Two is currently 30 months old.}

Thing Two loves his Baby Animals stuff from 1+1+1=1. Rather than do the whole “unit” at once I have been introducing him to new parts from this pack each week. This helps keep his interest and excitement up. This way if he is getting bored with something I brought out before, there is something new he can try with his “animal friends.”

He LOVES anything to do with animals. We recently added a new family member, Samson the Cat (we had named it Jezebel…until we got to the vet, but that’s another story – let’s just say it was an interesting talk about boys and girls, and how even though we can’t se Samson’s “boy parts,” he is still a boy, lol).

Mom & baby animal matching and some pre-write line tracing. He was VERY proud of himself. I am always asking his brother for a picture, and now he has caught on enough to ask me to take a picture of his work…every few seconds, lol!

He is very good with his number recognition to 10. I had his put the Elephant numbers in order, which he enjoyed! I am looking for new ways to make LOTW fun for him because he ended up doing a lot of it as Big Brother did PreK. So, I am trying to work on counting and learning to hold a pen correctly and actually TRACE a letter – for now he just colors his letters I give him for tracing.

He hasn’t been interested in playing with the magnet pages in a long while (guess the novelty wore off) but he is getting back into them now. Sometimes he even does patterns with the colors, which is awesome.

Thing Two wanted to “do math” just like his Big Brother, who is working through the Math-U-See Primer. He built a square all by himself and then traced it on the paper. Mathy enough to me. Mostly the blocks bother him because they don’t connect like Legos. They kind of connect, but not well (they are supposed to connect for building, but he /seems to think that is what they should do!).

He worked on positional words with a fun file folder game. He wanted to match up the dogs by color, and was confused when I told him this was not a color game – he really likes color matching and sorting!

If is really hard to find something tangible that begins with the letter E…that you can also glue onto paper! We raided a box of Mac & Cheese to use these Elbow noodles. Over all it was a fun time exploring many things. Thing Two is so interested in EVERYTHING we have just been having a lot of fun. He is having trouble understanding why Big Brother is no long doing all the same activities. Thing One is working on his K stuff, so Thing Two might sometimes feel a bit left out. Especially since I have to spend a lot of time working with his Bog Brother these days. But he is generally a good sport (and perhaps that is being generous…fits have been in abundance here lately)!

Kindergarten Week 2

May 4, 2012

Because there are different subjects and concepts to cover for Kindergarten, I haven’t themed our weeks as easily as I did for Preschool. Part of this is simply because I am not following whole curriculum for everything, so if anything is matched and themed, it requires lots of planning and work from me. I love planning and creating, but life is full right now (good full, but very full!)

This week we worked on our handwriting with A Reason for Handwriting. We worked on the lowercase letters: o, a, and c. I don’t know why, but this is REALLY a challenge for both of us. We are doing a lesson a day, but I don’t feel like his letters are very good (in these pics I have helped guide his hand quite a bit to help him get the feel of making the letters on the lines). I tried repeating the letter “o” two days in a row for more practice, which resulted in tears and complete disinterest! I guess we’ll go through the whole set one lesson a day – he’ll get better as we go, and we can always repeat before moving to the next level.

He did write his own name on these sheets with no or very little help.

Fun worksheets to go with the letters. He likes working on these, but they are really just coloring!

Thing One is really, really enjoying Math-U-See. It is his favorite box of the school day (if you’re curious, I’d say handwriting is his least favorite). I’ve even added some number building into our Calendar Time routine: he is building our days in school number.

Building with the Hundreds Place this week! Lots of fun “knocking on doors” to “see who’s home” in each Place Value’s “house.” Such a perfect way to introduce Place Value! Especially to my hands-on, easily distracted, boy!

Learning about the 7 Continents this week.

Playing “Inch Long Lizard” – A file folder game to introduce and practice measuring with inches.

Working on rhyming words with a file folder game. We are using The Ordinary Parent’s Guide to Teaching Reading for a phonics program, but I don’t often take pictures of that time because it is a very focused time.

Our Number of the Week was Two. So we learned about the parts of our bodies that we have 2 of – hands, arms, legs, feel, ears, eyes. You can get our Shape Person Printable Template here: Shape Person Craft. I printed the shapes page on construction paper (you’ll have to cut it to 8.5″ wide to fit in your printer) in different colors so the boys could mix and match their body parts in different colors!

We also made a letter Ee Poster to add to our ABC “wall” (it’s actually a closest door). We use elbow macaronis to decorate.