ABC Clothes Pin Activity

I'm in love with clothes pins......They're just so cute and can be used for so many different things...fun colorful things! I saw this cute ABC matching game over at Sun Scholars. I was very inspired to create something similar to it for my kids.

I couldn't exactly match her idea, so I just used the resources I had. I used these little wooden letters, clothes pins, and a glue gun. Oh, and brightly colored paint, of course.

I hot glued the letters to the top of the clothes pin before I painted them. Much easier!!

Then, I took out some photo matte board, but poster board would work just as well. Anything sturdy would probably do just fine. I cut a long rectangular piece off and drew the lower case letters on it in the matching uppercase color. I did one side uppercase and one side lowercase. That way they can change it up when they want to. Also, I made one so that the letters were not in alphabetical order to give a bit of a challenge. I did keep the colors matching though.

One thing I want to mention is that I put only 13 letters on each piece. I did not want to have a really long piece that was cumbersome to work with. So, I just split it down the middle to make it easier to work with.

Remember the geography dry erase board?

Well, I had my hubby drill holes into the ends of the matte board. Then, he drilled holes into the  map's frame and screwed in little hooks. We measured the length of the board (from hole to hole) so we knew where to drill the holes into the frame. We put four hooks into the frame so they could hang the entire alphabet up at the same time.

 Now the kids can change out the ABC boards when ever they want. It works well for me because I don't need to find a place to store them. They can either leave them hanging there, or put them neatly on their lookshelf.

The ABC boards fit perfectly in the top part of their lookshelf. Also, their ABC clothes pins fit into the center, little cubby space. They are easily accessible so learning can happen any time they want!!

Galileo's Telescope

 The kids received a telescope for Christmas this past year and it could not have come at a better time. We were able to star gaze quite a few times when the sky was really clear. We read, Galileo's Telescope by Gerry Bailey, Karen Foster and Leighton Noyes and used the telescope to get a close up of the moon. We were able to stick the camera right up to the lens and capture this photo....

It's a tad bit blurry, but really not that bad...

Lookshelf Activity Center

We posted about our Geography Dry Erase Board last week. That little idea created a need for a place to hold the markers, erasers, of course geography books and any other material that relates to geography!

We searched the house, garage, and basement for anything that we could use to get the job done. I found this shelf, covered in dust, in the basement, in a dark corner. Perfect!

It is very outdated....not sure what year it's from. We'll give it a new purpose.

I needed the shelf to hold things and not roll off, so we put a wooden edge along the top front shelf, the bottom two cubby spaces on the left and in the middle. We left the two little spaces (up and down) on the right open.

We sanded it down, primed it, and then painted it. Oh, I forgot to mention we cut of the rounded parts in the front, on the sides, so it has a flat edge.

We hung it right next to the map. Every thing fits perfectly and it's the perfect size!
I love having the geographical books with in reach. It's also nice to know the markers aren't floating around the house!!! Cost: $0.00! Love that!

One Lovely Blog Award

Just wanted to say "Thank you!" to Jean over at Dogwood Academy for awarding our blog with the One Lovely Blog Award!

Here are the One Lovely Blog Award rules:

1. Link back to the one who gave you this award.

2. Pass the award on to 15 other lovely bloggers.

3. Follow the person who sent it to you.

Below is a list of the blogs that we will be passing on this lovely award too!

I will be updating it until we have awarded 15 blogs!

1.Libbie Grove

2.Kitchen Fun With My 3 Sons

3.We Love Being Mom's

4.My Simple Country Living

Keep checking back!

Homemade Mango Italian Ice

We are very excited to share this Italian Ice recipe. It is sooo easy and really, really, really good! We couldn't study Italy and not make Italian Ice. Honestly, I think I may have maybe even made more of a sorbet with this recipe than Italian Ice. I think it may be because I added the fruit to it. That may have made it cross over into sorbet territory. It doesn't really matter though because it's sooo good.

You will need:
2 cups of water
1 cup of sugar (I used raw sugar, but granulated will work just as well.)
1 cup of juice ( I used one juice pouch, 6 oz. of Honest Kids Tropical Tango flavor. Any tropical or mango juice will work though.)
1/2 pint of mango jam ( I used my homemade jam.)
Mason jars for storing. Between 8-10, 4 oz. jars should work. Depending on if you fill them to the very top and of course it depends on if you eat any before it's finished! :)

If you do not have any way to get mango jam or fruit spread, go for a tropical one. It should work just as well. You could also buy mango, fresh or frozen. Cook a cup or two of the mango down on the stove in a sauce pan with a little bit of sugar to sweeten it. Mash it with a potato masher or throw in a blender once you've cooked it down.
You should get the same effect as if you had jam. A little more work, but worth every minute!
You can always skip the jam entirely too. It's not necessary, just extra yummy!

Put your 2 cups of water and 1 cup of sugar in  a sauce pan on the stove on low to med. heat. Dissolve the sugar. Remove the sugar mixture from the heat and add the juice and jam. Whisk it together in the pot or a bowl.

Pour mixture into a 9 x 13 baking dish. Put it in the freezer for 2 hours or so.
Check on it. If it's not firming up leave it for a little longer. You don't want it to be frozen, just firming up.
It should look like this when it is ready to be moved to mason jars......
I can rest my spoon on the top. It's not totally frozen, but would make a good slushie.

Take your spoon and mix up the mango mixture.

It'll look like this......

Now scoop it into 4 oz. mason jars.

Screw the lids on them and throw them back in the freezer.

Use them when ever you are ready.

The mason jars make this so easy to store in the freezer and serve to guests.

Yummy!!!

Tan-Grahams

A little while back we posted about tangrams. The kids always enjoy playing with them and challenging themselves using Tangramables as their inspriation.

I thought making tangrams out of graham crackers might be a fun little project and change things up a bit.

I used my graham cracker recipe to make the graham cracker dough. I rolled it out and placed our tangram puzzle on to the dough and cut them out with a butter knife.

We baked them.....

......and then played with them!

The fun thing about this is if do not have enough tangram puzzles for each child you can just make as many as you need! Once I made as many puzzles as I needed I took a star cookie cutter rerolled the left over dough and made stars. The stars prevented them from eating their tan-grahams!

This was a fun math project and great for all ages!

Geography Dry Erase Board

I was over at the homeschool mom website and read this great article on submersing your kids in geography in a very natural way. I was very inspired!
This homeschool mom thought it was a great idea to hang a world map up in her kitchen so the kids, young and old, would be submersed in it. She let them write and draw with dry erase markers all over it. They were learning so much about the geographical locations of continents, islands and so on. Wonderful idea!!
Well, I happen to have two, 48 x 30 maps kicking around that I had absolutely no place to put. Not a fan of the "school room" look but, I was willing to give this idea a go. I had the perfect empty wall in my kitchen hallway where a map of this size wouldn't look strange and out of place, or to school-y (Is that a word? I don't think so.) looking.

Before I took this project a step further I tested my maps with a dry erase marker to see if it was made for that sort of thing. It was! Oh, honey??!!!
Her article did not state if her map was in a frame or just pinned up on the wall.
I chose to go with a frame. Isn't my husband lucky?! Since the map was so large and I didn't want to spend a dime, my hubby had to make it from scratch. And if that wasn't enough I wanted it so I could change out the maps. Oh, I forgot to mention, one map is a world map and the other a United States map.
My husband found some wood that he wasn't using. It worked perfectly. So he made me a very simple frame in less than an hour. Anything for the kids and education!

Didn't he do a great job? I will apologize now for the lighting in the pictures. As I mentioned before it's in a hallway with not much natural light.

Although the wood looked nice it reminded me too much of a bulletin board. Yuk.
I wanted to keep it homey and fun feeling and of course try to make it blend in with the rest of the house.

I painted it Lemon Edge (Valspar). I also put a child sized barn red colored bench underneath it. (Ignore the white "thing" on the wall and the white "thing" hanging off the frame...can't tell ya yet what that is! I forgot to take a pic with out the extra "things" in it! :) )

The kids got right to work making this space their own! They did exactly what I'd hoped they'd do! They immersed themselves in geography! Yeah!!

Okay, the younger one got a little exited about the dry erase marker.....but he was just as excited about the eraser....

They started circling special places of interest, drawing pictures to mark where historical events took place, and of course a little scribbling just for fun.....

That's what it's all about right? Having fun while learning!

Homemade Mozzarella Sticks

In continuing with all things Italian we wanted to share our homemade mozzarella sticks recipe with you. It's very simple and doesn't take long at all.

You will need:
15 Mozzarella sticks ( or as many as you want)
1 egg
1 c. bread crumbs
oil for frying


Okay, get all of your mozzarella sticks unwrapped. Beat your egg and pour into a dish. Pour your bread crumbs into a separate dish.

Dip the mozzarella stick into the egg and then into the bread crumbs.

Place them in a dish while you are finishing the rest of the sticks.

Prepare your oil. Get it nice and hot. You want the mozzarella sticks

 to start cooking as soon as they hit the oil.

This only takes like 5-10 seconds. Seriously, it's really fast.

the cheese will start melting and then they'll just be a cheesy glob.

So move quickly. In and out!

Serve them with some marinara and you are good to go!

Enjoy!

ABC Clothes Pin Picture Wreath

This little idea was born due to having a surplus of little wooden ABC's and clothes pins left over from another project I am working on. I will post about that as soon as I'm finished.

I love the idea of a clothes pin wreath. I have seen a few of them here and there and thought, simple and cute. But, I wanted the wreath to be functional and educational (because of the superfluous ABC's) and have a little more color to it than the color of a clothes pin. Don't get me wrong, I love the natural look but, I couldn't justify hanging perfectly good clothes pins on the wall with out them performing some kind of function. They're such a useful, little piece of wood.

So, I sat and stared at this............

........until I came up with a wreath that would be alphabet inspired and a place where my kids could display their photos in an alphabetical sort of way. I thought, perfect!! It reaches all levels.

The kids love using a camera so I couldn't wait to surprise them with this when I was finished. It encourages them to get out and get creative with their photography (art) (younger and older). It also gets them thinking about letter sounds and recognition (younger) (phonics). It's fun to send them on an alphabetical scavenger hunt, example "D" for dog, "F" for flower. This is good for all ages! Even the little one's. Their pictures are the funniest! They get a huge kick out it and really get into the hunt!

I also loved this wreath because it seemed to be a lot easier than me continually changing pictures out of a picture frame, or stuffing them into a photo album only to be viewed a few times a year. They can display 26 pictures at a time and change them as they please.  It is encouraging for them and of course melts my heart to see the world through their eyes.

Before I show you how I created and colored my wreath, I want you to know that this wreath could be done in any color that would suit your personal taste. I was thinking of one in all different shades of pink, or colors that would match a play room or baby nursery. What ever your little heart can dream up! I colored mine to match my kitchen.

Here's how I did it.....
First, I hot glued the letters to the clothes pin. I chose to stagger the letters. Top, bottom, middle, bottom, top. That's the pattern that I chose to use but, you could certainly choose what ever pleases your eye.

I then searched the house for the perfect circle, a size that would fit all the letters comfortably. I found this Christmas tin that was the perfect size.

Position your clothes pins around it to make sure you are happy with the placement.

Notice the red pattern on the edge of the tin. I copied that and made a stencil out of it for later use.

I needed to figure out how I was going to attach all of the clothes pins together and hang them. I used a photo matte board to achieve this.

I cut out the circle. I made sure it was the entire circumference of the clothespin circle, not the tin.

I put the tin in the middle of the circle and traced around it to give me a guide line to follow. I placed the clothes pins around the circle to make sure I was on target.

Remember the red pattern on the tin? Well, I made a stencil out of it, cut it out, and traced it all over the matte board. I wanted to see something colorful behind the pins.
I thought a chevron pattern might be really nice too! Anything you can dream up would be perfect.

When I finished tracing the pattern and had it the way I liked it, I cut out the center of the circle and painted the pattern red. I used acrylic paint.

Once the paint has dried it's time to place the clothes pin on. Make sure you have them the way you want them and then hot glue them down to the matte board.

Still needs some color!

I chose a brown, white, and a red (again) for just a little more interest. Tip: Paint the ABC's after you have hot glued them to the clothes pins. Sooo much easier than trying to hold that tiny letter and paint it.

I painted the letters and added some white polka dots to a few of the letters.

To hang the wreath you can either hang it on the wall as you would a picture or hang it from a ribbon that coordinates with your choice of colors. I chose a chocolate brown ribbon.

Here is what the finish product looks like......

Fun and educational! Get out your camera and have fun! Happy free ranging!

Here's an update:

I was thinking more about this wreath and how you could attach the clothes pins together if you didn't have something as sturdy as matte board laying around your house. How about an embroidery hoop? I don't have any laying around my house because I don't really sew, but you might! Just hot glue the clothes pins to that! It's already a circle too! Much less work! If you have smaller hoops just divide up the clothes pins amongst the hoops and hang a grouping!

If you don't have the little wooden letters just decorate the clothes pins! I love the look of these clothes pins at Libbie Grove! Can you just picture how beautiful that wreath would be!!!

I think I might have to make another one........

Homemade X's & O's Graham Crackers

Hugs and Kisses

We love smore's. We love marshmallows. So it only seemed natural to learn how to make graham crackers. Since we learned how to make marshmallows and now the graham crackers, I think we may be in trouble!

What I love about making your own graham crackers is that you can make any shape you want! The options for a whole new world of smore's has opened up!

I originally made these for the kids for Valentine's Day but didn't get a chance to post about it. I decided to share even though the day has past because every day is a good day to say, I Love You! So there you go....now you have an excuse to make these all the time!

These graham crackers are a honey, cinnamon grahams.

For the graham crackers-
You will need:
2 cups of flour plus 3/4 cup (for keeping the surface you're working on floured)
1 cup of dark brown sugar
1/2 tsp. of salt
4 TBS. of cold butter or margarine cut into pieces (you can also use a non dairy spread)
1/3 cup of honey
1/2 cup of canola oil or vegetable would be fine if that's all you had
2 tsp. of vanilla
1 and 1/2 TBS. of cinnamon

Directions:
First, in a mixing bowl combine your 2 cups of flour, sugar, salt, and cinnamon. Mix for a few seconds. Add cold chopped butter and continue to mix on medium speed till it looks like coarse meal, or crumbly. Then, add your honey, oil, and vanilla. Continue to mix until it forms a nice  crumbly dough. Turn off mixer and work the dough with your hands. Form a nice ball. This is going ot be like working with a pie crust.


If your dough is too soft put the dough in the frig for 15-30 min. to get it nice and cold again.
Once your dough is chilled, roll it out onto a floured surface. Sprinkle a little flour to the top of the dough so the rolling pin doesn't stick. Roll your dough out to at least 1/8 inch. Cut out your shapes. Place on an ungreased cookie sheet (I use Silpat) and bake at 375 degrees for 10 minutes.

Once your graham crackers are done you can either eat them as they are, or make smore's with them! We do both. We save some and make some into smore's pops because they're so fun plus we have homemade marshmallows to use up!

For the smore pops:
You will need some melted chocolate to spread on both of the undersides of the crackers.

You will need marshmallows the same shape as the cut outs. You can use mini's that are store bought or if you made your own marshmallows just use the same cookie cutter on the marshmallows that you used to make the crackers. Don't forget to grab your sucker sticks, or just leave them as sandwiches if you don't have any sticks.

Pair your crackers up. Coat both sides of the crackers, place a sucker stick onto the hot melted chocolate. This way it will harden with the stick in the chocolate for a nice secure fit.

Place the marshmallows onto the other side of the cracker into the melted chocolate.
Then sandwich them together. Let them sit till the chocolate has hardened.
I would recommend having all of your marshmallow's cut and ready to go if you are using the homemade kind. I would also only assemble one smore at a time. You don't want the chocolate drying before you get to it.

They are ready to go! And they are gone!! (Literally!)

Old Metal Chair Refinished

I love this old metal chair. I'm not a very tall person so it helps me out a lot in the kitchen when I need the extra height to get something out of the cupboards. It's also the perfect height for sitting at the counter.

You can't quite tell from the pictures how dirty and old the paint is. It's been calling out to me for a new coat of paint but I just couldn't decide what color to choose!

I scraped the old chipping paint and gave it a light sanding. Then, I primed it and painted it Lemon Edge (Valspar). It's a white. I know doesn't sound overly exciting, but I needed the white color so my little idea would pop! Oh, by the way, I love the seat on this chair. It reminds me of a tractor seat. Love it!

I wanted to paint something on the seat-this was my bright idea! Something simple, but eye catching. An exciting pop of color. I threw around a few ideas of what I should paint on the seat and I came up with this.....

A rooster! I drew this rooster on a piece of paper and cut it out. Then I placed it on the center of the seat and traced it lightly with a pencil. Then I painted it a bright, beautiful barn red!

After a few coats of the red it was the perfect shade!

I used paint that I already had around the house and the chair was a side of the road find, so this project cost me $0.00. I love affordable projects!

Okay, I had to update this post with a new picture.

I couldn't help myself and added some words above and below the rooster.

Now, I think it's perfect!

What do you think?