Colored Gems on the Light Table

Several years ago we got a light table for free by posting through a local email list group. Our light table is an old, homemade, wooden photographer's box, and it's perfect for the type of play we do. I'm always on the lookout for cheap or free objects we can use on the light table, so I was excited last month when I spotted these colored gems.

I found these gems by chance in the pet section of Walmart. These colorful gems are actually made of plastic and they are a great size and weight. There are some specific color sets, or you can buy one set with several mixed colors. For our play I bought two multi-colored bags. 

Leprechaun's Letters: An Alphabet Sensory Tub

This week has been a little funny as Little Brother came down with a stomach bug early on. And although it only lasted 24 hours, it still threw off our routines a little for the whole week. It also meant a stay home day with just mommy for Little Brother, which he always enjoys.

In order to create something fun for us to do one on one, I put together a new sensory tub: Leprechaun's Letters, an Alphabet Sensory Tub.

Lately Little Brother has really become interested in letters, especially as he's watched Big Brother take off in reading. Little Brother's been working hard to identify letters on his own and asking questions about letters. So why not combine the upcoming holiday with some fun, letter explorations? And of course a Leprechaun would have golden letters in with their treasure! 

Kid-Made St. Patrick's Day Wreath

It's hard to believe that we're already jumping into March and thinking about the two holidays that are coming up this month: St. Patrick's Day and Easter. But, I have to say with these dreary, stalled-out, winter days going on I'm loving the bright greens and spring colors that come with these two holidays.

This project was a quick and easy way to make a kid-made St. Patrick's Day decoration. We were able to tackle it in two short project times after school (each part took less than 10 minutes) and the boys love the results.

March 2016 Goal: Fit in More Exercise

This year our monthly goals have been focusing on specific tasks rather than multiple goals each month. In January we tackled more decluttering throughout the house and in February we worked on using our slow cooker more to help offset busy nights. We found several recipes to enjoy this past month, and even started tweaking several to create our own recipes. (You can look forward to seeing those sometime in the near future.)

This month we're moving on to something that is definitely more personal to me individually: Get more exercise.

Since college exercising has been one way I de-stress during the week and clear my head. Not to mention all the other pivotal health benefits that come from exercising by staying fit and active. And although the intensity decreased, for many years after having kiddos I still found ways to exercise regularly.

Graphing with Easter Candy

One of our favorite things to do with seasonal candy is use it as a math manipulative. In the past we've used candy hearts for math games, counted with pumpkins, and done math play with jelly beans.

So when I saw these SweetTart Easter Candies at the grocery store I knew they would be perfect for math play.

Since the candies were both colorful and different shapes, we decided to graph them! I made up two graphs: a color graph and an animal graph. We want you to be able to play too, so at the end of the post you'll find the link for the graphs!

Playdough Invitation to Build a Rainbow

The other day we had a friend over and I decided to set up an easy and colorful playdough invitation. Although the boys all created their own versions of a rainbow, because of the high energy they had that day, it wasn't quite as peaceful as imagined when I set it out. (There was a lot of monster and smashing talk while they built the rainbows . . .) But, there creations were colorful! And we were a little bit calmer afterwards.

Earlier this winter we adapted our basic cooked playdough recipe to make a white sparkly snow playdough for our snowmen at work playdough invitation. This white playdough has been a great base for other playdough invitations, including this one.