Flat Stanley

10 Mar

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My first six years teaching I taught first grade.  As part of our geography unit we read the story of Flat Stanley.  Stanley is a little boy who gets squished by a bulletin board and is so flat he can fit in an envelop and travel :).  Sounds dreamy, right :).  Each student would then decorate a Flat _______ (insert your child’s name here) and send it to someone in another state, country etc..  That person would then take a picture of Flat Stanley in that respective location and send it back to our classroom.  We would then map out all the different places “Flat” had visited.  My most famous visit was with Brett Farve who happened to play for the Packers at that time.  It was cool to have Brett on our bulletin board holding Flat :).  SO ANY WAYS, Fast forward 12 years and we received “Flat Jensen” in the mail.  F.J. as we lovingly called him spent some time in the mountains doing some pretty fun things… Here’s what FJ did while in the Vail Valley…  I think this is a great project to do with your kids and I’m a little sad neither of my boys have done this yet.  Maybe we’ll make a bunch of Flat S’Brothers and send them out this summer and chart his travels on our own!  I actually just found a flatstanley.com site with lots of fun activities.  There is even a flat stanley app!

jensen2-1 jensen1-1 jensen5 jensen6-1 jensen5-1Now we hope REAL JENSEN comes to visit us!  Thanks for including us in your project Jensen, we had a great time with F.J.

 

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Bunny Bags….

4 Mar

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Supplies:

Paper Bags- Any color

Construction Paper or Pipe Cleaners for Whiskers

Fuzzy Pom Poms for nose

Cotton Ball for a tail

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Fun Treats to fill your bags 🙂

DIRECTIONS:

Keep the bag folded and cut out the ear shape….  Decorate your bag to look like a sweet little bunny rabbit… Don’t forget to add a tail on the back side 🙂

 

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Rainbows, Rainbows, and more Rainbows!

23 Feb

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We made these “Salt Paintings” this week and it surely was a hit with my team…  You can either use liquid water color paints (these are different than traditional watercolor paints and are available at most craft stores…)  We didn’t have liquid water color paints so I just added a little food coloring to some water and we used that…  You’ll also need school glue and thick paper/canvas along with table salt…

1.  Have your child draw a rainbow with glue…

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2.  Sprinkle the glue rainbow with a pretty good amount of salt…  be ready for a bit of a mess 🙂

3.  Use your water paints to paint the rainbow… It’s fun to see the color spread…

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Let your rainbow dry and you’ll end up with a fun & textured piece of art!

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If salt isn’t your favorite medium maybe you’d prefer a little shaving cream instead :).  These bath paints are loads of fun!

 

 

 

 

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Rainbow Bath Paints…  Mix unscented shaving cream with food coloring to make a fun bath time activity.  They also make “washable” liquid watercolor paints that would work, as well…

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A fruit rainbow is always a fun way to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day or any day for that matter…  YUMMY!

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Fruitloop Rainbow… Lots of glue, lots of fun!

 

 

 

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St. Patrick’s Day Leprechaun Craft

18 Feb

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I hear that Leprechauns attract other Leprechauns… If that’s true then these cuties will surely help your little ones catch a lucky fellow who can lead you to his pot of gold…  To make these I traced some shapes for my kids to cut out…  Black triangle shoes, white rectangle legs, green rectangle bloomers, yellow rectangle shirt with black rectangle belts, yellow rectangle sleeves, white rectangle arms, white face, green hat.  I let them cut out all their pieces, draw their faces and socks, we used ripped paper to make the beard, and they drew their own flowers for the hats…  They were very easy to make and the kids had a lot of fun making them!  Maybe we’ll see you at that pot of gold!

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I Love You the MOOSED!

13 Feb

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Valentine, YOU ROCK!

13 Feb

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Here is a sneak peak of Sutton’s Valentines, he of course wanted Valentine Guitars… He’s still working on writing his friends names and his “catch phrase” – YOU ROCK!  Just wanted to give you a peak incase you’re looking for a last minute idea :).  I’ll post Shaeffer’s soon too!

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Happy Heart Day Hubby…

13 Feb

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Ben and I do not make a huge deal out of Valentine’s Day, but to say it’s just like any other day would just not be accurate either… You see, even though I want it to be just like every other day, it is not.  It’s Valentine’s Day…  It means something to a lot of people and if you really think about it, what is wrong with celebrating LOVE????  When I was single I could probably tell you a bunch of things that were wrong with Valentine’s Day, but alas I’ve been married for nearly 10 years now so things have changed.  My friend Telicia and I once deemed Valentines Day “SAD” Day…  We said it stood for “Single Awareness Day”  We even wanted to make cards etc.. (and probably should have, T is much more an entrepreneur then I am)  but then Carson Daly or Ryan Seacrest or someone started calling it that and alas here T and I are without a card company :(.

OK Back to Valentine’s Day…  Once your children are older, it means a lot to them too, and I take this opportunity not only to show them how much I love them, but to show them how much I love their Daddy too!

I try to be creative in my Valentine’s Day surprises, but try not to spend a ton of money in doing so.  I try to work around a theme, but sometimes that doesn’t work out either :).  Here are a few of my favorites from the past…

1.  One year I gave Ben a “Red” themed Valentine’s gift.  I filled a big bowl with red skittles, lots and lots of red skittles.  I added Red Beer, Red Hots and Red Sox tickets (for when they were playing the Twins)…  I feel like there might have been something else Red in there too, but my memory is failing me :).

2.  I’ve done a “hot” themed gift… He got Hot Tamales, a Hot Thermometer for the grill, Hot Lava Soap, Hot Peppers etc..

3.  Our first dance was to “L is for the Way You Look at Me”  so I did an “L” themed gift one year…  He got licorice, lollipops, lingerie, lotion, lucky lottery tickets and a “LELIPHANT” picked out by our youngest son 🙂

4.  We’ve done fancy dinners in and fun dates out, we’ve done “love notes” to each other and hidden them around the house… We’ve done date coupons and family brunches…

5.   Just think of what is special to you and your handsome hubby and go with it!  You don’t even need to spend money!

**  I’ll share this years theme after he opens it :).  Again, nothing fancy, just fun and most of all LOVING 🙂

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Toddler Valentines…

9 Feb

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My 2 year old and I made a few little Valentine’s this week… It was a pretty easy project, but he keeps asking to “paint more-paint more” so it must have been fun…

We have that “roll” paper at our house, but really you could use any kind of paper you’d like.  I just taped a large piece of paper to the table (I tape it so he doesn’t have to worry about it sliding around and also so it doesn’t fall on the floor and make a huge mess 🙂 ).  I picked out some red paint and some white paint and put a little of each color on a paper plate.  I then let him have at it!  He did really love painting and the mixtures of his colors made for a fun Valentine-y mess :).

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I let his paper dry and then cut out some hearts…  TADA!

 

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Burger Joe’s

29 Jan

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Some dear friends of ours lost their mother to cancer two years ago.  Their mom started to create a cookbook for her daughters while she was battling cancer.  The cookbook did not get finished prior to her passing away, so her daughters are finishing it in her memory.  They are both super creative so of course their idea is AWESOME… They put out a plea on Facebook for anyone who might want to make some of their mom’s recipes, photograph the end product, and send it back to them.  This alleviates them having to make all of the food and also allows the rest of us to enjoy some of their mom’s meals… CREATIVE, right??  They put out a google doc with all of the recipes and we signed up for as many as we were able to make.   A great way to honor Ms. Denise-I’d say!  Tonight we made the first of Denise’s recipes for the cookbook.  They are called “Burger Joe’s”.  They are kind of like sloppy joe’s, but much less messy and much less tomato-eee…  They sound kind of crazy, but were actually really good.  Ben and I had a lot of fun making them together and of course being the photog that he is (www.bendodds.com) doing a little food styling while we were at it!  All THREE of my boys ate them and I didn’t have one complaint, that in and of itself makes for a good meal (and a miracle, really)!  I think these would be a hit at your Super Bowl Party too…  Here’s the scoop:

BURGER JOE’S (AKA CREAMY SLOPPY JOE’S)

Yield: 8 Hamburgers

1lb Ground Beef

1 Medium Onion- Chopped

1 Tbsp Mustard

2 Tbsp Tomato Paste

2 Tbsp Soy Sauce

½ tsp Garlic Powder

¼ tsp Pepper

1 tsp Horseradish

1-16oz Can Bean Sprouts, rinsed & drained (I did not add these)

½ C Sour Cream

 8 Hamburger Buns, toasted

Cook beef and onion in a skillet, cooking until meat is browned. Stir in mustard, tomato paste, soy sauce, garlic powder, pepper, horseradish and bean sprouts. Simmer stirring occasionally 10 minutes. Remove from heat stir; in sour cream. Spoon on buns.

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Valentine’s Day Snack

26 Jan

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One of my first years teaching first grade I had a student (Braelin) whose Mom made this snack for our Valentine’s Day party.  I obviously never forgot it being that Braelin is probably now focussed on finding an amazing college in some fantastic location…  (I age myself when I remember things from my first years of teaching).  Any ways, back to the snack… Super easy and so cute….  Here’s the scoop…

Valentine’s Day Cracker Snacks

**  Heart Shaped Crackers:  I found these crackers at our local grocery store, but you can also order them online via amazon or directly from the Valley Lahvosh company.  If you cannot find these crackers I also saw several recipes for heart shaped crackers online.

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** Strawberry Cream Cheese & powdered sugar…

**  Strawberries Cut into heart shapes (you just cut them in half and then kind of V cut the stem out)..

1.  Spread the cream cheese on the crackers and top with half of the strawberry that is cut into the heart shape.  Sprinkle the crackers with powdered sugar.

YUMMY!

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