April 2010

Happy Arbor Day!

Arbor Day seems like a good day to share a tree identification book with you that we love! Published by the Arbor Day Foundation, What Tree Is That? offers a step-by-step question approach to identifying common North American trees. It reminds me of those Choose-Your-Own-Adventure books I read when I was young! As you answer [...]

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Playful Picks (April 26, 2010)

Quote of the Week I’ve been absolutely terrified every moment of my life – and I’ve never let it keep me from doing a single thing I wanted to do. -Georgia O’Keeffe Fun Activities & Projects I have so many great posts starred in my blog reader right now! My girls are always asking to [...]

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Happy Earth Day!

Keep close to Nature’s heart… and break clear away, once in awhile, and climb a mountain or spend a week in the woods. Wash your spirit clean. (John Muir)

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Spring Audio Books for Kids

We love listening to audio books, especially in the car. Luckily, our library has a pretty good selection of picture book/CD sets and audio chapter books. I also like purchasing audio stories and making themed audio story playlists for the girls. We can listen to them on our iPod or burn a CD for the [...]

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Balloon Swat

I like to keep a few bags of balloons around the house — they are usually great boredom-busters! This weekend, I gave the girls new butterfly-shaped flyswatters and balloons. There was swatting, putting, bouncing, balancing, chasing and all kinds of busy, active play! Balancing the balloon on the flyswatter was super tricky! There was lots [...]

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Family Mail

{Originally posted November 2009 at Early Bird Homeschool} I like to provide my girls with lots of “real-life” writing opportunities – helping with the grocery list, writing letters, making signs, etc. They draw pictures, scribble-write, use invented/phonetic spelling, or copy words from a variety of sources. I have been wanting to set-up a family mail [...]

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Playful Picks (April 12, 2010)

Today is author Beverly Cleary’s birthday and National D.E.A.R. Day, which stands for Drop Everything and Read! We already spend lots of family time reading every day, as I’m sure most of you do as well. I’m planning to make our family reading time extra-special tonight – we’ll be snuggling in bed to read with [...]

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Kids in the Kitchen: Apple Dip

Happy Friday Night! The girls and I wanted to share a sweet and yummy dip to serve with sliced apples. We love making this apple dip for parties or playdates – or Friday afternoons! Apple Dip 8-oz package of cream cheese, softened 2/3 cup brown sugar 1 teaspoon almond extract 2 teaspoons vanilla extract Mix [...]

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Playful Picks (April 5, 2010)

It’s technically still Monday here… better late than never for this week’s Playful Picks. Hope your week is full of play! Quote of the Week Don’t go with the flow, you are the flow. ~Sugi Tanaka Fun Activities & Projects With the nice, springtime weather on its way, we are getting ready to move our [...]

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Marshmallow Bunnies

The girls made these sweet and simple marshmallow bunnies this morning – the making was just as fun as the tasting! Way back in December, I saw a post at Planning With Kids showing how to make cute Christmas trees with mini marshmallows and white chocolate. We never got around to making the trees, and [...]

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