Landmark matching game

Target had these awesome cards in their dollar section this week. They are beautiful full color photos of famous landmarks on one side, and information about them on the reverse side.

I picked up two sets for a matching activity. My almost 5 year old child loves these cards. I don’t know why, but I think because she’s very interested in the world around her, and she’s very visually oriented. These cards are very appealing.

I was so pleased to find these this week. It’s great to be able to expand the children’s world a little bit without breaking the bank.

Notecard art…

The blogworld is a wonderful place to find some fun and creative ideas for children. On a recent browsing trip to The Crafty Crow (a children’s craft collective), I stumbled across two great (and easy) art ideas from Scrumdilly-Do! involving index cards.

The first is a modern art design. The tutorial is here.

I helped my 6 year old by drawing the design, then she filled it in using markers.

Here is the before:

And here is the after:

This is a keeper. We used 4×6 index cards, though you could actually use cardstock and create your own modern art cards to send to friends and relatives.

The other art idea is Crazy Creatures. Using three or four index cards, you can create interchangeable creature/people. It’s easy, fun, and silly.

Here’s our examples:

The first one is my 6 year old’s attempt to imitate the one on Scrumdilly-Do!, and the other two are mine. We did these yesterday, but my 6 year old enjoyed them so much she’s making more today. It’s a fabulous rainy day project (and it’s rainy today).

(Shh, yeah, I know I forgot arms on the last guy).

Happy Birthday to Me :)

Birthday cake my husband and daughters made for me (I think they did an awesome job!):

38 years ago today I blessed the world with my presence.

10 things you may not know about me:

10. I like funny, offbeat satirical shows like the Simpsons, Family Guy, the Office, and The Big Bang Theory.

9. My favorite actor is Steve Martin. Yeah, even though he’s had white hair since his twenties, I’ve always found him very funny and attractive. I have had a crush on him, and a crush on Rainn Wilson, and John Krasinski (both of those two were on The Office [the American version anyway]). Oh, yeah, and Kevin Smith. Yeah, I know, not even close to being your standard definition of hot. But really, smart is $exy. Really.

8. I am smart: S-M-R-T. And funny.

7. I never thought marriage, parenting (and definitely not stay at home parenting) was something I cared to do when I grew up, and now it’s the only thing that lets me really work on the things that are important to me. My mom divorced when I was 2, remarried when I was 5, and there was many, many years of dysfunction all around growing up. It was painful to simply exist for an awful long time. I was really anti-marriage and anti-family. Until I fell in love with the man who changed all that (that would be you, dear husband).

6. I could never have started valuing my abilities or my self-worth without a few key people who have saved me from destroying myself. They may never know how much they changed my life. I can’t pay it back, I can only pay it forward. (And who knows, you might be next).

5. I dream about people I really like or who I was very attached to. Recently I dreamt about the mother of the friend of one of my daughter’s and her husband (yes, very strange, I’ve never dreamt about a woman or a married couple before - what could that possibly mean?).

4. I’ve lived in both the Midwest and the Southwest (New Mexico). I used to watch lizards in my backyard all the time. I recently found my childhood home on the satellite maps of Google. It was strange to see it look similar but different in the 20+ years since I’ve been there.

3. While I can’t take credit for the way my girls are, I really think the things we do at home are shaping them into very thoughtful, caring individuals (even though they do have their share of sibling squabbles). Maybe they’d be this way if I let them watch Han-nah Mont-ana (broken like that because I don’t like random search engines referencing my blog) like every other parent around here lets their 5 and 6 year olds, but it’s doubtful.

2. I really have the best husband in the world. Truly. I could list off a million little things, but it all comes down to the fact that he thinks of my needs and our girls’ needs as he does his own.

1. I truly am blessed with more than I could ever need with my husband and children and friends, which does a lot to make up for the first 27 years of dysfunctional family life.

My very first bird house (more like a bird condo! The rent would be outrageous on a place like that) that my husband let my girls pick out for my birthday. Leave it up to my husband to find one with technology in a birdhouse. Those black rectangles are solar cells to be used to light up the birdhouse at night.

Thrift store treasure makes good practical life material.

I found a very sturdy and large glass citrus juicer from the consignment store today. I didn’t realize until today how very practical having one of these on hand is. This one is large enough to accommodate a grapefruit, yet sturdy enough not to tip when being used (that is a grapefruit in the picture, for comparison).

I’ve been wanting a glass one for forever (the stores only seem to carry plastic ones these days) and had gotten the idea for a glass juicer from Montessori Services, but have been trying to find one locally.

It’s a great addition to our Montessori practical life materials, and think I can safely get rid of my electric juicer now, since I use the blender more often for fruit smoothies, and eat my veggies raw. But it is still nice to have fresh squeezed orange and grapefruit juice.

We’ve already made grapefruit juice twice today. It cleans up so easily as opposed to the electric juicer, which was a pain and a half to clean, made juices too frothy, and removed all the pulp (and pulp is good for you). In addition, it takes up much less space in my cabinets.

I’m so happy.

Montessori motor skills strengthening…

Here’s a montessori inspired opening and closing activity idea I got from Montessori services, only I put it together myself from items I found at Joann Fabrics (the glass containers), from around my house. I actually found the small wooden box and the cute blue chinese fabric envelope from my favorite consignment shop.

And my 3 year old is in the pictures, showing me how they work.

Creating a kid friendly kitchen…

As I’m working on decluttering, one of the tasks I’ve set myself to do is create a kid friendly kitchen.

Part of the Montessori philosophy is creating an environment for children that is conducive to self-help skills, and they can’t help themselves in the kitchen if all their things are up and off limits. Now, granted, my kids are aged 3, almost 5 and 6.5, so it may not be safe to keep certain things within reach of little bitty kids.

In the pantry, the kids have part of a shelf devoted to their cereals and their snacks. The containers for the cereal and snacks are easy open containers and they can help themselves quite easily.

And then I have a pullout shelf for their cups, bowls and plates. The cereal bowls and plates are Corelle’s Winter White collection. Corelle is fairly sturdy yet lightweight, and those little mugs are from walmart and they were originally meant to be salt and pepper shakers but I just removed the lid and they make nice mugs. There are two Curious George glasses that were jelly jars once upon a time. I really regret not getting more when I had the chance to.

Closeup of the glasses:

The little mugs are perfect for tiny hands. And they are rather thick glass. I have not had one break yet.

Here are a few of the snack sized bowls I have for the children. Yes, they are also glass, but I have taught them to use them only at the dining room table, and since they are a bit older, it seems to be working out well. If they want snacks outside, I have taken to using plastic snack bags because I’ve had a few of the clear glass ones break on the concrete outside.

The first was a small flower like bowl from Target, the clear glass can be found almost anywhere (Target has them, and even the dollar store has similar kinds, though not quite as thick as the ones from Target), and the small (about 3 inch, I think) ramekins I think I got from a discount store called Tuesday Morning. The small ramekins are excellent for little dips. And for color mixing with food coloring and water.

And this afternoon, I made a spot for them:

It worked out rather well. My almost 5 year old was able to get her own snack this afternoon because everything was in reach.

To get to the fruit and the two containers of nuts in the back, we have a little stool for them to pull up to it. They’ve been able to get their own fruit for a while now. I even have a little vegetable brush for them to use to wash their own fruit by the sink.

A space of your own…

My time of late has been on a huge decluttering binge. I have forced myself not to post much until I have gotten a good chunk of it done.

Do you have a space in your home that’s just for you? I have had various spots in the house, but only temporarily. My spaces tend to disappear as I move things around (I’m a chronic mover of furniture). I would tend to give up my space in order to create more storage room for my kids stuff.

But, in an effort to once again declutter, I made a very earnest effort to turn my bedroom back into a sanctuary for me and my husband, and to move furniture around in order to make space for a writing desk and chair. I need my space, I crave my little corner. Not having one makes me really out of sorts and disorganized. I like having a place to retreat to and write the old fashioned way - with pen and paper, not computer and keyboard. Even if it’s just writing my to do list, I tend to think better when I’m in a quiet spot (without a computer at it), at a desk where I can feel both at peace and feel kind of like I used to when I worked. I always had my own workspaces - albeit at a lab bench for part of the day, and at a modern sterile gray office desk for the other part of the day. But it was always my own to organize how I wish and keep my things the way I wanted.

I rewarded myself this weekend with this lovely writing desk and chair from a local consignment store - a gift to myself for the hard and let’s face it (boring) work of decluttering I’m engaging in.

Closeup of the desk:

Detail of the chair:

And the rest of the room:

The bed:

My dresser (why yes, that IS a barbie doll sitting on top of my jewelry box):

My husbands dresser:

I just love my bedroom and my new (yet old) desk. I now have a place I can come to when I need to center myself, to write, and to work on the progress of my goals. I was sitting at the desk earlier, listening to the sounds of my girls playing in their bedrooms. I am looking forward to using my new desk and having my own space again to think, to plan, and to dream at.

I’m very, very pleased.

Do you have a space of your own to share? I love seeing how other mothers make a place for themselves.

Serious creative block…

I have nothing new to report. I’m kind of at a serious loss of what cool thing to begin next.

My 6 year old daughter has been in a month long science camp - she’s gone 3 hours a day and it’s a mixed age class of K-4th grade. She’s really enjoyed learning all sorts of different things. She brought in her trilobyte fossil the day the topic was dinosaurs and fossils and they got to look at it under a scope. My 3 and almost 5 year old has been going to a pre-ballet class. They seem to enjoy it a lot.

I’m trying to declutter our small home. It’s very slow going.

I’m trying to focus on my needs a little bit. I’m trying to eat more fruits and vegetables and cut out the sweets and I’m trying to get back into walking. Fortunately, when my husband and I went for an overnighter in Chicago, we took the train and walked everywhere we wanted to go. I blogged about the trip on my other blog .

I’m reading more too. I don’t know about you, but I’m continually reading more than one book at a time.

Books I’m reading:
1. Anna Karenina. I bought this book a long time ago, but only now picked it up and seriously started reading it. It’s better than a modern romance.

2. The Last Child in the Woods. I’ve heard that this book is what inspired the National Wildlife Federation to start The Green Hour blog.

3. Kids, Parents and Power Struggles. I really like the book and how it addresses emotional intelligence and teaches not only how to recognize and deal with the emotions of the child, but also how to identify and deal with your own emotions. It really brings home a lot of the things I instinctively knew was important, but helps to really give concrete tools to bring down the intensity and connect with the child.

Anyway, that’s it for now. I hope to be inspired soon to do something creative.

Well, we had a good run while it lasted…

I’m sad to report that we lost a toad. I figured this may happen. When I saw the toad last night take a big mouthful of coconut husk fiber, I knew it couldn’t be a good thing. He seemed to be doing all right when I went to bed, but this morning, I awoke and saw on toad posed as if he was going to jump. I was going to get him out so I could try once again to put him in the feeding station, after I dug around and found really tiny ants. But when I moved him, he didn’t move his pose. Right then I knew it was over. He was stiff. He went on to toad heaven.

I felt really bad about it, and I pushed around the coconut husk to look for the other one, almost certain it met with the same fate. Fortunately, I found it alive and hopping around. After telling my oldest about the dead toad (and her wanting to see it dead), we decided it would be best to release the living toad and she decided she wanted to bury the dead one.

So, we went to a local park that had a pond, and we decided to release him there. We found a nice shady spot near the water to live. My daughter said she hoped he would be all right out there, and I told her it was better he be free than to be cooped up with us.

We have one tadpole left, and he’s in the middle of morphing right now. He has his back and front legs, but he hasn’t ventured out of the water yet. I don’t even feel like trying to keep this one going once he becomes fully toad. I don’t think I can handle another toad death. I’ll let nature take its course with him, instead of trying to keep him from ending up the same way.

One of my daughter’s classmates brought in a couple of toads, about twice the size of our little guys. I was a bit jealous, because I know if our toads had been that big, they wouldn’t have a problem eating the bugs we have. I asked him how long he had his toads and what he fed them to get them so big, thinking that this little kid knew something I didn’t. Apparently, he just got them from a swamp near his friends house. Yeah, that sealed it for me that these little guys would have done better if I just let them go a few days ago.

On a good note, though, when we did go to the park, someone decided to bring their pet tortoise. I talked with the mom of said tortoise, and I found out that she had gotten him after a toad of her daughter’s had died. He was a beautiful creature, about the size of a basketball (not including legs).
So of course the girls thought it was really neat to see a real tortoise, and forgot all about the toad we just released.

The woman got him off craigslist for free. And she thought that was such a bargain, until she researched African tortoise, and found out that they grew as much as 150 pounds and lived 50-80 years.

So I didn’t feel so bad thinking I was nuts for trying to keep toads. Apparently I’m not the only nut out there.

Feeding juvenile toads is nearly impossible…

To follow the story to date, read here, here, here, and here.

Here’s some updated pictures of the toads:

One that was losing it’s tail and wanting to leave the water.

And one climbing up the corner of his container:

They weren’t kidding when they said that feeding juvenile toads/frogs are very difficult. It’s impossible to get these guys to eat:

I’ve tried:

1. ants - nope. they crawled all over the toads, and the toads would get freaked out

2. 1/4 crickets - the smallest I could find at the pet store - nope. not small enough and the toads got freaked out. The pet store does not have pinhead crickets, which is small enough for them to eat.

3. flightless fruit flies - nope. not small enough.

Not even when I made them a fancy feeding station (just a Glad food container with holes poked in the top), hoping that less area would help.

They just ignored the fruit flies in there.

I’m almost about to give up. We may have to release them to the wild. I wasn’t even sure they were capable of opening their mouths. I have read that some toads are anorexic because they have too many parasites rendering them too ill to eat.

Except last night, I know for a fact that the toads DID, in fact, EAT something. They ate a mouthful of coconut husk fiber - something I threw in there container for their bedding and for them to hide in. That just about freaked ME out when I saw them eat it, but then I read online that coconut husk is probably the safest thing they could ingest.

Maybe my toads are vegetarians? Sigh.

But probably not. They seem to be American toads (not 100% positive), and if they are, they can eat as many as 1000 bugs in a day when they are adults (if they ever make it that far). And when they are adults, they don’t really care a whit what they eat - spiders, crickets, slugs, flies, fruit flies, you name it.

I have learned that they are nocturnal, so they probably have been ticked off that I attempted to feed them during the day, and didn’t give them any bedding to hunker down in while I tried to use the feeding station.

But still, I’m totally puzzled why they won’t eat what I have offered them (except for the fact that they are slightly too big). But come on! If you had a choice between starving and having a juicy bug in front of you, even if slightly too big, wouldn’t you at least try to eat it?

Arggggh.

I’m going to try harder to find some smaller bugs around here. These little guys have come so far, I can’t let them down now.