My oldest son has taken a liking to photography and I couldn’t be happier! He has been taking a photography class and he has loved it. We visited an Italian Festival a couple of weeks ago and we let him loose with the camera. It wasn’t until this week that I looked at the pictures. He did a fantastic job. He snapped handcrafted goods, people and food. I thoroughly enjoyed seeing the festival through his eyes.
My boys definitely do not take after me, they LOVE math, love it. They do times tables for fun! Crazy, I know. Since they do love it so much I have been trying to come up with some math games to help satisfy their appetite for math. I have a 3rd grader, 1st grader, preschooler and my nephew who is in K. I wanted some math games that they could all play together.
I came up with a couple of different ones and they seem to enjoy them. I used Jenga blocks to write numbers on them, my kids play Memory with them and we use them to solve math problems too.
My oldest loves to use a calculator to figure out some super long ones Daddy puts on paper for fun. I decided to make some printables for him to have to play some more math games on.
You can download it here.
Money Math Games are a great way to get all the kids involved in a fun way and there are many things you can do like play store. Playing store allows them to learn all about buying, selling and giving change which helps them learn real-world money exchanging and how it works.
Pinterest is another great resource for all things math.
I am thrilled that my boys are so eager for Math, admittedly, it was my worst subject. But one great thing about teaching kids is that sometimes they can teach you and they have given me a new perspective on math.
One of my favorite blogs, one of the blogs that was a huge help early in my homeschool journey is 1+1+1=1. I was at her site this morning and I just came across a link-up that sounds fantastic.
Here is the description:
“Moments to Remember was developed as a simple way to look back on our week as homeschoolers and find photos that encompass the memories we want to remember.
The week may have been tough, there may have been more bumps than smiles, but in the end these are the moments that keep us going, the ones we need to remember.”
I love this idea. Especially since I know this blog is basically my journal, something I can look back on in the years to come. This is my first Moments to Remember post. These really are moments of a wonderful week with my kids and nephew.
We took a trip to Downtown Denver!
We ate hot dogs, played at playgrounds and went to the “big” library.
Reading is fun, we love the library, especially the main Downtown Denver branch.
Enjoying delicious hot dogs downtown
My almost 4 year took this pic of me at the playground. He had come and sat with me to draw while I worked on our calendar. He was so talkative and sweet, it was a precious moment. To the right – reading his Marvel Hero Magazine on the tramp. I found him out there all by himself, it was sweet. And yes, he is in his underwear and they are on backwards 🙂
That was a glimpse into our week and for me, some of the best moments wrapped up into 1.
Thank you Carisa for all the inspiration you provide!
Related: Moments to Remember Link-up
Birthday parties are what you do when you become a parent. Who knew? It can be daunting with so many details, so much money. For the first few years I had always felt obligated to reserve a “place” to go for my kids birthday parties. These last 2 years, though, have changed my mind and scope. I decided to start doing backyard birthday parties. Nothing beats them, I promise. Homemade games and activities with a relaxed environment, you don’t have to leave at a certain time and when the party is over – you’re already home!
My nephews birthday was the most recent in our family and my sister approved his request for a Super Mario Birthday party. She headed to Pinterest, of course, and was thoroughly inspired.
Mario and Luigi mustache provided.
Cloud Balloons, Mystery Boxes hanging – one for each guest which they soon found out had each birthday guests name on them! Each Mystery Box was a gift bag.
Homemade Pinterest inspired Super Mario Brothers cupcakes.
The children loved getting to make their own personal pizza, rolling the dough and all!
Each guest took home a Guess box with a Mario Brothers Water Bottle and a Cupcake.
Living in Colorado, we are never lacking a place to spend the outdoors! We especially love the mountains. So many trails, parks, rivers, it is a dream living so close to it all.
One place we love to go is hiking in Waterton Canyon in the foothills of the Rockies. My husband took the boys there recently and they spent 4 hours, hiking, fishing, climbing and exploring.
The best classroom ever!
I had to enlarge this first picture for you …
my boys!
Now that we have the luxury of a backyard I am always looking for fun stuff to do or setup for the boys back there. Our latest venture was inspired by Pinterest, of course. It is little town setup for the boys to drive their Hotwheels and Matchbox cars around in. I used to love to play with my brothers cars out in the yard, I would literally spend hours out there. When i saw the ideas for creating a place for cars to cruise, I was pumped.
My oldest was the most excited, he jumped right on board. He went to the room to gather supplies like buildings and roads from his Thomas the Train set. I went to the recycle bin looking for boxes. We met out in a spot in the yard. It was a great spot because the grass didn’t grow there so it is dirt.
I had so much fun setting this up with Preston. Once we were done we invited the little brothers to come play with it. They were amazed by it!
It’s the simple things. What a fun day!
We love celebrating Daddy in our house, so Father’s Day is just another opportunity to show him how much he means to us.
This Father’s Day we got him something that the boys have been asking for and so has Daddy. A good old-fashioned BB Gun. I didn’t just get any gun either, I bought him a Classic Daisy Red Rider BB Gun! I was excited just buying it. Of course we could have chosen from any number of semi-automatics, ones with scopes but I just had to get the classic. Plus I did read how it is unbeatable for kids just learning, since I knew our 8 year would be using it a lot. It sure is pretty.
I went to Amazon, which I love. They were selling a fun kit that included targets, bb’s and safety glasses. It arrived 2 days later, then the next day we gave it to Daddy. He had the biggest grin. They all went out and shot for 2 hours! I think they used about 400 bb’s.
My goal, is to have my boys learn safety above all. Of course we all know that if you have a BB gun “you’ll shoot your eye”, hee hee. Here’s to being safe!
4 Days at the Lake – that is what we did this past weekend. The boys ran, explored, fished, and played at the beach. They loved every minute. Preston says his favorite part was the s’mores, lol. There is really nothing like the taste of a perfectly browned marshmallow. We ate delicious food like hot dogs, cheeseburgers, cherries, grapes, cheese and of course, s’mores.
We learned that Preston is a natural fisherman.
We stayed in a cabin by the lake.
Dinner: Rib-Eye, Hot Dogs and Corn
Oliver roasting marshmallows
The boys enjoying a ride on the lake with my cousin and his totally cool boat.
Cousins creating art with markers and paper, the perfect afternoon break activity.
My middle son Oliver recently turned six. I don’t throw the boys a “friends” party every year but this was one of those years for him. At Christmas time the boys got Spy Gear and loved it; then while looking at party ideas I came across a laser maze idea, I was inspired. I then googled “Spy Party” and came up with plenty of sites of Mom’s who had done it, yay!
I sent the invites out via Evite, not my first choice, but it’s so fast and convenient I caved. Here is what the invite said:
Your mission should you choose to accept it:
You have been selected to attend STA – Spy Training Academy. You will complete the steps necessary to become a Level 007 SuperSpy.
Hot Dogs, Hamburgers and Cake are necessary parts of this training.Hope you Accept this Mission!
For the spy party we decided to have the kids start off with training at our Spy Training Academy. Training started with distribution of essential spy gear: sunglasses and ID badges with their own pictures on them. On their ID I also assigned everyone a code name using colors and animals (black panther, pink dragonfly, silver cheetah, etc.).
Next we had set up an obstacle course. We set up cones for them to ride a big wheel through, then off to the army crawl mats, laser under the trampoline, through a mystery black curtain, finishing with a crawl under/jump over the bar. Each trainee received a gold medal to wear around their neck.
Spencer cruises through the course.
Adam sports his new ID Badge and Glasses, MR starts the obstacle course in the background.
Then while they were training, someone stole the CAKE! They were to immediately start their mission. We brought them into the living room for a short video we made. After that they received their first clue verbally which lead to the next clue and so on.
We attached one clue to a helium filled balloon in the front yard, then one in the gate, one in a backyard tree, then back gate, finally ended up in the alley to search for a pink box. This was filled with the thief’s stash of money and a clue where the cake was. (click here to download the Clue template and Spy Training sign)
R was thrilled to find the package in the alley!
Another game we played was a huge hit with the kids and parents. We went to google map images and printed up satellite aerial shots of each party guests house. We laid them out on a table and read a clue, as they all were looking at them… they started to realize that these were their neighborhoods and homes. Each guest took home their image. They all really loved that.
We had a pinata, at the boys request, it was jammed packed with candy (thanks Grandma Peanuts).
MR takes a swing.
We served the “Juiciest Hamburgers Ever” a recipe from allrecipes.com, Undercover Hot Dogs from Pinterest, the world’s most delicious Macaroni Salad (thanks Grandma Tootsie), chips and lemonade. I was thinking of making a dynamite cake or a briefcase. I wimped out and bought a chocolate cake from my grocers bakery, it was good, just not “cool”.
Each child took home a file folder stamped TOP SECRET, inside they each received a mustache, an eye patch, a laser pointer that attached to their finger, money and coins from the thief’s stash box, their own ID badge, neon sunglasses, a satellite picture of their house and a Superman ring.
It lasted 2 hours and we had a wonderful time!
You might call it a Swap Meet, Rummage Sale, Outdoor Market, those are all other names for Flea Markets. I noticed our Flea Market changed their named to Mile High Marketplace, sounds better but we all still call it “the flea market”. We took a trip 1 early Saturday morning. We woke the kids up, we all got ready and got in the car. We arrived at the Market at 8:30 AM. No line to get in, plenty of great parking!
We left without eating and figured we would play it by ear. What a good idea, there were fresh fruits everywhere. Since we could not wash anything we played it safe with bananas. They were perfectly ripe, fresh and a hit with the kids. Yummy!
This turned out to be an excellent educational opportunity. We talked about bartering and trading. We had learned of this concept when we were studying the pioneers. Now they get to see how that can play out.
More learning fun:
Learning about the hard and hot work that goes into delicious kettle corn. How does it pop? What do they flavor it with?
Hot and Fresh Kettle Corn
Seeing tons of fresh produce, learning names and sampling them
What are these? How are they cooked? What do we use them in?
Did you know there are hundreds of cheeses in the world? This store has a good variety of Mexican and other cheeses.
We talked about how all cheese melts differently, some are hard, some soft and why it’s good to have variety because of all we use cheese for. We took turns naming dishes with cheese.
The best part, in my opinion, was teaching the boys how to spend their money wisely. When we first got there, they ran to every booth, wanted something from each. Once they realized that they each had a budget and there was hundreds of booths, they learned to be conservative and more picky about what they chose.
Preston counts his money at a vendor booth.
Paying the seller
The boys showing off their first finds!
This was a great experience and the kids were thanking us over and over for bringing them. We will be back!