Go Play!

One of my very favorite photos of M
playing in the leaves. :)

Fall really is a great time to get outside and enjoy our world.  Something about the change in seasons makes us want to warm up our homes and let our bodies soak up the last of the year’s warm sunny weather.  It’s a great time for being outside and enjoying the beautiful displays of nature.  

I recently participated in the Shout Go Play initiative, set up to stress the value of play in childhood.

Message from Shout:

”Shout knows play is so much more than fun and games.  Studies show that unstructured play helps kids build fundamental skills like problem solving, coping, and conflict resolution.  In other words; play is how kids become happy, healthy adults.  Fall has arrived with crisp, cool air and new reasons to go out and play.  So, let your kids take that rewarding jump into a pile of leaves.  Take a trip to the park and watch their imaginations run free.  The one thing you won’t do is worry about their clothes; play should get messy and Shout can help.”

I received a package of 3 laundry products from Shout (these were sent to me for free in return for writing a review.  All opinions in this review are entirely mine.) – Shout Trigger, a spray stain treatment; Shout Advanced Ultra Gel, a gel stain treatment with a scrubber brush attached; and Shout Color Catcher, sheets that absorb and trap colors in your wash water.
With two messy boys in our home, and one messy mama, we were able to test two of these babies out right away. :)  All of the products seem to work well.  

M had chocolate stains on a white and blue striped shirt.  The spray bottle says stains can be treated up to a week prior to washing.  Since this was  an old shirt that he won’t be wearing much anymore I decided to use it as our first guinea pig.  I waited 3 days after spraying the stains before washing it.  All but the very worst of them came out in the first wash.  I then used the “Advanced Ultra Gel” on the remaining couple of stains and washed them right away.  His shirt came out looking perfect!  

I have a pretty good laundry system set up so I wasn’t sure I’d get to test the color catcher since I never wash colors and whites together.  However, I did a test with my husband’s newest dress shirt that had never been washed.  I washed it along with some other, lighter fabrics (his shirt was dark blue), and the color catcher sheet really did capture the color and left all the clothes looking great.  I’m not sure how often I’ll have use for this product, but I do think it’s good to have on hand when crises arise or we are sick and regular laundry doesn’t get done – it will be nice to be able to throw everything in the wash together without having to separate it into several different loads.

All in all, I think I appreciate the Advanced Ultra Gel the most, since it really works on stains that sprays just can’t get out.  The spray treatment  worked on par with other leading brands of sprays I’ve used.

I was also very pleased to receive this little pack of cards in our Shout package:



It has 52 cards, each with an outside activity described on it.  These are simple, fun, easy activities to spur on the creativity of children and their exploration of nature. 
 

Have a beautiful day! :)
 

Learning by Heart – Week 3

“The mother’s heart is the child’s schoolroom”

- Henry Ward Beecher

I don’t know if we just got off to a rotten start with school (sick the first week, funeral and lots of other activity the following two weeks), or what, but I can’t seem to get anything I’ve planned to do with M actually done.  

I’ve got to re-think our schedule a bit, I think.  I know I’d be more enthusiastic about it if our time was in the mornings; however, we are busy with other things 3 to 4 mornings a week.  And at least 2 (maybe all 4) of these are things neither one of us wants to give up.  But school in the afternoon when my level of fatigue is at its highest (my blog isn’t titled that just for fun!), just is. not. working.  Thank goodness we are only talking preschool here, but still.  Why is it every thing we want to participate in is held in the mornings?  It would be great if we could break up our afternoons with some of these outings instead.  It would be perfect, actually, and I guess that’s just asking too much.  ;)

Ah well, if nothing else, at least the shelf activities were not overlooked.  So on we go…

SHELF ACTIVITIES:

Craft punches (leaf and frog) with strips of paper.  Each paper has a number on it and M punched out that many shapes on each one.  Craft punches are always a hit around here:

Biggie fuse beads and patterns:

A sand art activity – fill small containers with a spoon and funnel:The results:  

A “rubber band-jo”, hee hee.  I thought of that myself, but I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one – it just begs to be called that, doesn’t it?I wish I would’ve gotten some action shots with this – M loved playing with it.  We talked about how the rubber bands vibrate over the space below to make music; you can actually see them vibrating, which was neat.  We also talked about “plucking” and “strumming”.  And we listened for low notes and high notes.  M commandeered this to go with his other instruments, so it looks like yours truly needs to buy a new bread pan. :)

 

Sensory activity with sandpaper cards.  I cut out 6 pieces of sandpaper - 2 each of a rough grade, a medium grade, and a fine grade – and we took turns trying to match the pairs by touch alone.  The matching pairs had the same sticker on the back as a control of error.  M really enjoyed this and I found him doing it on his own a few times throughout the week.

Leaf arranging – a wooden bowl, a small block of florist’s foam and some silk leaves.  I bought a couple of bunches on clearance at Michael’s and separated the stems with wire cutters. This was the big hit of the week.  M wanted to do this over and over.  Now, I don’t necessarily think leaf (or flower) arranging is a skill he absolutely must have, but the attention to detail, the fine motor workout, and the appreciation of something beautiful (and the work needed to make it beautiful) are all very, very good things!  And look how pretty it turned out! Well, it’s pretty in real life, not at all blurry like in the photo. ;)

Matching up numbers 1 to 15 with squirrels and acorns.  I think I found this printable here, but have had it now for a couple of years, so it may not be available any longer.  The acorns have magnets on the backs, hence the cookie sheet:

 

Lacing craft leaves onto a ribbon, from here.  I sewed a button on each end of the ribbon and cut slits in the leaves.  The clips are for hanging it on his art string.  I took a picture of it hanging, but it seems to have disappeared.

  

It was “C” week, so some C items for the phonic box – cow, car, camel, circle:

We’ve been doing simple crafts for each letter.  M is not much into mama-directed crafts, but he is really, really into looking at something and then re-creating it on his own.  So I make up a small copy of what it should look like and he goes for it.  :)  

C is for caterpillar (idea from here, although I just cut my own circles):

c is for cars:

We put these in our ABC Collage and Trace book, which he is absolutely loving.

Here’s a sample of how he “reads” it on his own.  He sat down one evening and did the entire book!  His voice is not very loud, so you have to listen closely.

Other than that, not much school has been going on.  Oh, except for a lot of this:

Because if you’ve already dragged the cushions to the floor you might as well jump on them until Mommy comes in.  So, he’s getting his exercise – that’s homeschooling, isn’t it? ;)  Homeschooling and regular life look a lot alike, come to think of it, don’t they?

I’m linking this post up to Preschool Corner and Weekly Wrap-Up; be sure to check them out!


Have a beautiful day! :)