Unplug your Kids.....Garden
This weeks theme for Unplug Your kids was....Garden. That could mean alot of different things. Well we live in an apartment so there is no land to have a garden. We do have a bunch of potted plants, but I decided not take pictures for fear you might get scared at how bad I garden. LOL. Knowing that all gardens need sun. I had the boys make sun catchers in the shape of flowers.

First I cut out the outlines of the flowers. Then we put them on the clear contact paper. The kids filled in the flowers with colored tissue paper. When they finished I covered it with a second piece of contact paper.
Gabe decided to see if his was turning into the best suncatcher. Silly Boy. Gotta Love him.
The Finished projects. What I Like to call the attack of the Giant Flowers. They had a lot of fun doing this. Make sure to check out what everyone else did at Unplug your Kids. Also check back and see what next weeks theme is.

OCEAN PAINTINGS.......
Lately I have been realizing that things have been getting crazy around here and time with the boys has been getting away from me. To help remedy that I am trying to do a lot more activities with them. Before I was always cosumed with the cleaning beacuse I was not getting much help. The boys have started to help more now, so I can actually relax and do some other things. It is really nice.
One of the projects we did recently was Ocean Paintings.. The boys had a really good time with this. To start off, I crumpled up some Tin Foil and then smoothed it out to the best that I could over cardboard.

Then the boys painted the Tin Foil blue. It gave a nice wavy, watery feel to it.

Here is Gabe's Picture.. He looks so happy don't you think. LOL. He really wanted to hang it up and go play with something else. Gabe named his final project Turtle Bay. Sam on the other hand was very happy to have his picture taken. He named his final project Coral Cave.

The boys ended up hanging them next to there beds. Gabe said his protects him from the ghosts. LOL

Tonight is Gabe's Big night. I thought that you guys might like to see one of his dances from rehersal last night. He enjoyed himself so much. Incase any one is wondering, he is the only boy up there. Hope you enjoy it.

Spoon Puppets.....
Around here we have been busy making a bunch of new things for the upcoming school year. We have taken time to make some fun things for the boys to, not the school stuff is boring. They do need things for play though. So we made some spoon puppets for them. You will notice in each of the pictures that there is four of each type. That is because when the boys play things, they involve the whole family. We decided to accomidate them and just make four of each.

First group up was made by me. Can you guess what they are.....Pandas. Surprised, my kids were. They admitted that they only guessed that because he were black and white. Guess I should be pleased that they did not guess Zebras. LOL.
Next up, the real talent, my DH. Didn't he make the most adorable frogs. They are so cute. The funny thing is, he does not think that he is creative. Silly man.
And Our final group I did. I had fun with these, my beautiful butterflies. hahaha. The only thing that kept stressing me was that it seemed no matter where I put them they kept getting covered with stuff. Not usually a problem but the paint on the wings were still wet. Oh well everything is done and the boys are having fun playing with them.

I wanted to share a great Link with everyone that I heard about. Some one in on of the online groups that I am in shared about Postcrossing.com It is a really neat site that you can get postcards from all over the world. When you sign up you can request up to five addresses. When you have them, mail them a postcard. Once they recieve it they register it on the site. As soon as they register it your name goes to the top of the list for the next person that request an address. Really a lot of fun. And a really fun way to learn about geography.

Two new stations...
All of the new organizing we have made two new stations.. The first is the reading station. We got this new bench at target for $15. The boys love the new bench. During their down time Gabe brings it into his room because he wants Sam to read stories to him on it. very cute.

This second Center is complements of Gabe. It is our new Magnet station. Really what it is, the washer and drier. It sets right off the kitchen. It holds magnets alot better than the fridge. It is a really nice center. Good Job Gabe!

When looking through the unplug your kids projects I found this project that was absolutly perfect for us. We plan on working money with Gabe this year so I had to make this project. We started by making the bank for him. To make it all we did was take a box and cover it with laminate and the Bank O' Gabe is made.
For the coins we took plastic covers and covered them in foam. On one side I wrote the number amount of the coin. The other side I wrote the word of each coin. This way he can learn the words and value's.
The bank has been a huge hit so far. Hopefully it will be a really fun math lesson for him this year.

Books, Books, and more books......
Ok we are getting so close to end it is bit exciting. Oh I know that I am a dork. I am trying to figure out something to do in honor of it for the boys. Any ideas. I mean this is a big goal that they have reached. (well soon to reach) Lol. Sam's idea is to go to the Library for the entire day. Crazy kid. Oh well. Enjoy your reading!!!

809.) The Berenstain Bears and The Big Road Race by Jan and Stan Berenstain
810.) The Great Texas Hamster Drive by Eric A Kimmel
811.) The Racecar Alphabet by Brian Floca
812.) The Legend Of Saint Nicholas by Demi
813.) City Chicken by Arthur Dorros
814.) On the Farm by David Elliot
815.) The Magic Hat by Mem Fox
816.) The Emperor’s New Clothes by Marcus Sedgwick
817.) Babar’s Museum of Art by Laurent de Brunhoff
818.) The Price of Victory by Stewart Ross and Inklink
819.) Curse of the Crocodile God by Stewart Ross and Inklink
820.) Max’s Dragon by Kate Banks
821.) Daisy Comes Home by Jan Brett
822.) The Voice of the People by Betsy Maestro
823.) Hercules; The Twelve Labors by Paul Storrie
824.) Thor & Loki In the Land of Giants by Jeff Limke
825.) Wake Up, Henry Rooster! By Margriet Ruurs
826.) The Berenstain Bears and the Double Dare by Stan and Jan Berenstain
827.) The Berenstain Bears Forget their Manners by Stan and Jan Berenstain
828.) The Travels of Babar by Jean de Brunhoff
829.) Cloud Weavers; Ancient Chinese Legends by Rena Krasno
830.) Bear’s Picture by Daniel Pinkwater
831.) Billy Tibbles Moves Out! By Jan Fearnley
832.) Catalina Magdalena by Tedd Arnold
833.) Amos Camps Out by Susan Seligson
834.) Adventures in Ancient China by Linda Bailey
835.) Adventures in Ancient Greece by Linda Bailey
836.) Adventures with the Vikings by Linda Bailey
837.) Adventures in the Ice Age by Linda Bailey

Unplug your kids......OLD!


Ok some of you might be wondering about this first picture since the theme is old. Well it is about a little sister giving her big brother a hard time. You see today is his birthday and he thinks that he is so old. (only 34). So of course when this theme happened on his birthday I just had to share a picture of him as my project. LOL. I know, I know I am being mean. I do want to say happy birthday to him. You are a great brother and an amazing uncle. Have a great birthday. Now on to the boys projects. They had Fossil digs.

My dh mixed up some plaster of paris. He added in some treasures for the boys to find. Then poured it into some Jello containers to harden.

I got a couple of shots of my guys chisseling (sp) away at them. Dh finished his up pretty quickly. Gabe was having some challenges so it is actually sitting in water trying to dissolve right now. Sam got a later start on his, but loved it and wants to do more. He actually decided that he wants to be an archeologists when he grows up, so this is right up his alley.

Gabe was playing in the water with his a little to much. He got water everywhere so we had to take it away, since we were in the living room. At least he had fun. The kid is like a fish to the water. Below is a shot of one of them all chisled out. It was definetly some interesting finds. Like beads made out of salt dough dissolve in plaster. If they are painted though, they leave a nice colorful spot. Oh and dried pasta softens.. Fun discoveries.
Make sure to check back next week for a new project. Until then check out all of the other great projects over here at Unplug your kids.

Super Gabe---
My Little cutie pie Gabe decided to play superhero the other day, complete with cape. The cape is actually a tunnel I made for him. I had a ton of mismatch fabric so I sewed it all together to make the tunnel. I guess that I should have just made a cape. LOL. He does use it as a tunnel though so that is good.. I wonder how many other uses he can up with.

I just had to share this precious moment with you. How sweet :) I love my guys!

Kids Say the Darndest things.....
Ok Normally my kids say is entries are about Gabe because lets face it, he says lots of interesting things. This time though it is about my big guy. The other day we had this conversation with him that was to funny. I was talking to my dad on Fathers day and of course Sam got on the phone with him. They told him that they had a present to send to him. Well that is really sweet but like mst people they do not get to the post office as often as they want. Sam though gets very excited about this type of news and checks the mail everyday for it. I tryed to keep that from happening this time by telling him that it very kind that they thought of him but it may not get here that quick. This is were it turned funny. He looks at us and ask if it is ok to say the "F" word. My Dh and I just look at each other a little confused. We asked him what the "F" word was and he replies forgetful. So ok everyone the new "F" word is forgetful. Here I was thinking it was something else. Have a great day everyone.

Ok now time for some of the books that we will be using this year. One of the subjects that we have had a hard time with making sure that the kids are learning with is Science. We can come up with plenty of experiments to do. To continue on and explain it , is another whole issue. To back us up this year we got the boys some science books. See here and here for some examples of what we got. If you scroll down to the bottom of the pages when you are there you will be able to see all of them in each of the series that we got. The great thing is that the books cover a few different years so they will last us a while.
The site that we bought those books off from let us get a free book since we spent enough money. I choose this one because of Sam's love of geography.
For over all learning, to make sure that we are staying on the right track. I went to Amazon and bought a book for each Sam and Gabe about their grade level. Hopefully these will help through out the year when I have the brain power loss, and I have no clue what they should be doing.
We do have a ton of reference books around that the boys can look things up at any time that they want to. One of my new favorite place to get learning books from is BJ's. They have such great bargins on books. I got workbooks that normally go for 20 dollars for 8. :) We will still go to the Library of course. Sam would never forgive us if we stopped. He really wants to move in to a library. LOL Silly boy.
I do have a Question though. We are looking for a really good Art book. I want something that will teach them all about the different styles of art and artist. It would be a bonus if had some project for them to do to. Any body have suggestions, it would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

I thought that I would share some of the new fun things that we will be using to learn with this year. As most everyone knows I have to active boys that I need to teach. They are at different levels of learning so it makes it hard to keep things interesting. They both hate sitting and doing worksheets. Even though worksheets are the only way to go sometimes I am trying to go more toward games this year. So I thought that I would share a few with you guys now.
These two pictures are of some of the games that I have made over the past couple of days. I got the idea for the both of them from this book. The first one is a Target Game. I made it all from supplies that I found in my home. So I think that is probably the best of the game, it was free. I took some balls from the kids room and covered them with strips of velcro. Then I made the board from an old box and covered it in felt. The boys work on their eye hand cordination and math skills with this game.
This is also a math game that I got from the same book as the first game. It is called button math. The way that this game works is first shake the dice. The number that you get is the amount of buttons you take from the bowl. Once you get five buttons you trade it in for a popsicle stick (has five buttons on it). You keep doing this until you get five popsicle sticks with buttons. Once you have reached five popsicle sticks you trade it in for a rack with 25 buttons on it. You need to set a limit that you want to reach of buttons before the game starts. We choose 50, so that means if you get 2 racks first you win. really fun.

This is another item that I felt really important for Gabe. He seems to still have a hard time working his hands around to lace up items. I loved this set because it asked them what they baby animal is called then they had to match it up and lace them on. Very cute.
This game was given to Sam by my mother for his birthday. It is a wonderful game that we will be using alot to work on science. If you saw and enjoyed the Planet Earth Series on the Discovery channel. You will love this Game. It basically quizzes you over everything you saw in the series.
This game, Sunken Suffixes, is a really easy yet really fun game to use for english. Sam actually choose this game himself for his birthday. I mean what kid does not want to race and see who can get to the sunken pirate ship and get all of the gold first. He learned alot about suffixes on this.
Another Game that we will use for math is the Iguana Factor. It is a game that same can essentially use all by himself because it is self checking for him. Although we all have fun as a family playing it.

So these are some of the Games that we will be using this year. I will be making more and getting others that I will be happy to share with you when I have them. I would love to know of the types of games that you will use this year. I will try to post some of the books that we will use this year to, hopefully on a post tommorrow.

Surprise another book list.....
Ok so we are over 800 books now and I am very happy to see people still reading. I had a question from last week that I thought I would answer. It was asked if I read all of the books. The answer is no. I did try reading all of them personally to the boys when I started but that became way to much. We actually go the library every week so it is hard for me to get all of them read. I promise though all of them have been read by individuals in the family. My dh and I read bedtime stories to the boys everynight. Then Gabe brings random books to me through out the week asking for a reading, and of course I have to oblige that request. I mean come on wash dishes or curl up on the couch and read to that cutie pie. Then of course we have Sam. Everyday we have down time and he brings in a huge stack of book to read to him and Gabe. So that covers all of the books for us. Because of Sam reading them during down time, we usually have a hard time reading one to him after 2 days of having the books that he has not heard. In other words the books get reread alot during the week. Sam is the main reason that we go through so many books. He always craves knowledge and he believes that he can get it from any book he reads. He tries to learn something from every book he reads. He makes me so proud.

786.) King Arthur by Jeff Limke
787.) Chang and the Bamboo Flute by Elizabeth Starr Hill
788.) The Berenstain Bears and the Papa’s Day Surprise by Stan and Jan Berenstain
789.) Sail away, Little Boat by Janet Buell
790.) Chopsticks by Jon Berkeley
791.) The Berenstain Bears Help around the House by Jan and Stan Berenstain
792.) The Chinese Book Of Animal Powers by Al Chung-Liang Hung
793.) Peanut Butter and Jellyfishes by Brian P. Cleary
794.) Tub-boo-boo by Margie Palatini
795.) The Web Files by Margie Palatini
796.) Ellis Island by Steven Kroll
797.) SuperDog by Caralyn Buehner
798.) Beautiful Warrior by Emily Arnold McCully
799.)The Runaway Rice Cake by Ying Chang Compestine
800.)My Life With the Wave by Catherine Cowan
801.) Frogs Jump by Alan Brooks
802.) My Senator and Me by Edward Kennedy
803.) Paper Doorway by Dean Koontz
804.) Earthquack by Margie Palatini
805.) Robert E. Lee by Patricia Grabowski
806.) The Berenstain Bears Dollar$ and $en$e by Stan and Jan Berenstain
807.) Mooseltoe by Margie Palatini
808.) Three French Hens by Margie Palatini

As you can see from the list there are a few books about China on here. We are starting to gather up things to start the new school year and China is up first. Please check them out. They are really good stories and have stunning pictures on them. Hopefully I will have other china books next week.

Unplug your kids....Plastic
This weeks theme over at Unplug your Kids was plastic. Thinking about what the boys could do, use something from the recycled bin. Now what to make....Boats. It was a rainy, yucky morning out on saturday so I decided that would be a good time to do it.

Here they are getting thing together to make the boats. Gabe with Scissors could be dangerous, but I think Sam can handle him. LOL
Gabe's Finished boat. Complete with a driver and passenger.
Sam's Completed boat. He was very cute and put clay aroud the edge and said his boat had port holes. To funny.
Of course they had to test them out so we brought out the plastic bin. They made an ocean and got out their plastic sea animals. Then added colorful stones in the bottom. They played with this for a good hour. It was lots of fun.

Make sure to check out all of the other wonderful projects over here. Also don't forget to join back next week for the new theme.

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY TO ALL THE GREAT DADS!!!!

I found the ideas for these ice blocks here. They looked like such a fun idea I had to try it with the boys. I did the idea that was recommended by freezing layers so you can have little treasures through out and not just sunk to the bottom.

Well this what the kids saw and needless to say they were a little confused. That is until I told them what the idea was. They needed to melt the ice and get the items out of it. Let the cold wet fun begin.
Sam tried sliding it around to melt it. It worked a little. Not fast enough for them though.
Gabe decided to get his hammer. (I promise that it is just a plastic hammer) This started working better. He was actually chipping away it.
Sam decided that he better get a hammer to. LOL. These boys had tons of fun. It kept them busy for a good hour. They did use other things to melt it down. Both boys decided to keep to Gabe's tools.
When they finished, my crazy little monkey decided to try and drink some of the water. They finished off the whole project by taking a bath to warm up. Touching ice for so long made them a little cold.

This is such a fun idea for a summer activity. Just stick it out side and the kids can see how fast it melts in the sun. The boys are already asking for the next time to do it.

INTRODUCING THE NEWEST THIRD GRADER!!!!!!
My beautiful boy is growing up so fast. He had his evaluation today and passed with flying colors. A very proud day for him. Way to go my sweet boy.

Pop-Tarts.....
I found this link online the other day. It was to make homemade pop-tarts. They were really easy to make and very yummy.

I got this picture of Sam while he was making them. It was just to cute I had to share it. In my family it seems to be a trait that we all share, is the "concentrating tongue". Any time we do a project we seem to stick our tongue out. I guess it helps us to work better. As you see in the picture Sam has gotten the trait to. To Cute.

So I finally finished Gabe's goal list for the school year 2008-2009. It was a lot more difficult then I thought that it would be. I try to keep it age appropriate but my little guy is how do I say this, stubborn. That is putting it nicely I think. He loves to be smart but only when it is convenient to him. To make the long story short, he does not let us in on just how smart he really is. So that makes it difficult to measure just where he is on things.

Gabe's Goal List 2008-2009
Art and Music
* Cutting
* Music/Art Styles of other Countries ( See Geography for countries)
* Styles Of Art
* Styles Of Music

English
* Work on Writing
* Dolch Word List
* Reading Comprehension
* Phonics Blends

Math
* Counts and Writes 1-50 (by 1s, 2s, 5s, 10s)
* Geometry
* Time Telling
* Money

Science
* Earth Science
* Animal Science
* Health Science
* More Experiments

Geography
* Map Skills
* Land Forms
* China, Japan, Greece, Egypt

History
* Timelines
* Days of Week/Months
* Holidays

So now both of the boys list are up and posted I am going to try and stick to there lists as much as possible. Of course as they reach each goal it can be replaced by other things. At the end of our school year I will post another list for each of them, telling what exactly we did accomplish. I hope that you keep coming back to join us along our journey thru the year and see all of the fun that we have.

Look at my beautiful dancing baby! Ok I have told you guys that Gabe is taking Dance lessons now. Well he has his first recital at the end of the month. This is his costume for it. He is so handsome. He is loving the dance class so much that he wants the recital now. LOL

Book List time again. Well it feels so good to be closing in on the end of this goal. The boys are loving it so much. They spend so much time reading every day. Well we are off to the Library again tonight, so I will have more books for you again soon. Until then happy reading.

752.)Where are you Going? To See My Friend! By Eric Carle & Kazuo Iwamura
753.) Berenstain Bears Go To The Doctor by Stan and Jan Berenstain
754.) My Father The Dog by Elizabeth Bluemle
755.) A New Flag For a New Country by June Behrens
756.) Black is Brown is Tan by Arnold Adoff
757.) Sir Cumference and The Isle of Immeter by Cindy Neuschwander
758.) Old MacDonald Had a Farm by Jane Cabrera
759.) Listen To The City by Rachel Isadora
760.) Belinda Begins Ballet by Amy Young
761.) Pompeii by Richard Platt
762.) Babar’s ABC by Laurent de Brunhoff
763.)Sammy by Alix Berenzy
764.) Berenstain Bears and Mama’s New Job by Stan and Jan Berenstain
765.) Today is Monday by Eric Carle
766.) Curious George Visits the Library by Margret and H.A. Rey’s
767.) Peter Pepper’s Pet Spectacular by Betty Paraskevas
768.) Vegetable Garden by Douglas Florian
769.) Never Trust a Squirrel by Patrick Cooper
770.) Bad Boys Get Cookie! By Margie Palatini
771.) Happy Dog! By Lisa Grubb
772.) Never Take a Shark To The Dentist by Judi Barrett
773.) Cool Ali by Nancy Poydar
774.) One Nation, Many Tribes by Kathleen Krull
775.) Hide and Snake by Keith Baker
776.) Loud and Quiet by Lisa Bullard
777.) The Flag Maker by Susan Campbell Bartoletti
778.) Cleopatra by Diane Stanley
779.) I’m a Manatee by John Lithgow
780.) Over in The Grasslands by Anna Wilson
781.) The Flag With Fifty-Six Stars by Susan Goldman Rubin
782.) Marsupial Sue by John Lithgow
783.) Tippintown by Calef Brown
784.) Lizard Walinsky by Roberta Baker
785.) Berentain Bears and the Trouble With Commercials by Stan and Jan Berenstain

Unplug your kids project......STICKY
This weeks theme for unplug your kids was sticky. I was trying to think up a project and struggling. My Dh thought about a project that we had done in the past. Sun Catchers.

First you pick out a picture that you want to make. Second you lay an overhead projector sheet on the picture. You then use some puffy paint to outline them.

Final step is to mix equal parts of paint with glue. Then you paint in your picture. When it dries hang in a window for the sun to shine through.
This Tiger was done by me. Dh says that he wants a bowl of cereal after looking at it. He is just so funny. So I guess his name is Tony. LOL
This big red spot is Gabe's Monkey. He just wanted to make him all red. Funny boy. The Koala was done by Sam. Very cute. He is actually eating eucalptus (sp?) leaves. Sam wanted to use his favorite color on them so he actually looks like he is eating carrots. funny.
This lovable little character was done by Dh. It is his own little Horton.

We had lots of fun doing the project. Please check out the others over at Unplug your kids. Also make sure to check back with us for next weeks project.