All New Book List.......

Now that I finished the Book Goal list. I thought that I would change up our style of post some. The other way was good. It was just time consuming. So with out further ramblings here is this weeks books....
First up is I Love you, Little Monkey by Alan Durant. This book was probably my favorite. It reminded me so much of my relationship with my little monkey, Gabe. It starts out with the little monkey asking the big monkey to play with him. Big monkey has to much to do though, so he tells little monkey to go do some other things and he will play with him later. Well little monkey's that play by themselves tend to get into a little trouble. Make sure to grab this one to read with your little monkey.

Ok if you liked the original Little Red Hen will like this one. We got the Little Red Hen Makes a Pizza by Philemon Sturges for our Pajama Pizza night. The boys loved it.
Monkey Trouble by John A Rowe was another one that I got because of Gabe. Thankfully it is not completly like him this time, still a cute book though. It is about a little monkey that never listens and because of that he ends up far from home. He tries to make it home realizing the whole time that he should have been listening and this would have never happend. You need to read it and see if he learned his lesson.
Then of course we had to have a story with a school lesson. Amanda Bean's Amazing Dream by Cindy Neuschwander is all about multiplying and how it is just a faster way to add up things. Amanda Bean loves to count but does not want to multiply until she has this amazing dream.
Kisses by Nanda Roep and Marijke ten Cate is a super sweet bedtime story. It is about a little girl that is being put to bed by her dad and ask for a kiss. Her dad wants to know what kind she wants. The pictures through out the book are so wonderful, bright and happy feeling. A must read.

Hope you all enjoy the new style and I will see you back next week with a new list. Make sure to check back though to see what we are up to in our daily lives.

Unplug your Kids project....Hot

With the new school year starting for us I made some changes to our daily schedule. One of the things that I changed is when we do the Unplug Your Kids project. We use to save it until monday to do but then trying to get it posted to was a little hard. So we changed it to friday art class. It all works easier. I have a few days to think what we are going to do, then a few days to get it posted.
Ok enough with all of that talk about scheduling. On to the project, it is Hot!!!! LOL. Sorry could not resist. It was the theme though so we did have a hot project. With the Olympics starting up and the boys studying Henry Matisse, we decided to make collage torches. After all fire is hot right?!?!

Here are the boys working on the design of their torch. I love the concentration on both of their faces. It is serious business creating a master piece. hehehehe

I know that this picture of a Gabe is blurry but how cute is that face. He wanted his picture to be scary. To funny.
Sam said he let his hands decide how the flames were going to go. I think that it so pretty.
And of course not to be out done my biggest guy participated. He wanted to make sure that every knew the one that he did by cutting out his name. LOL. They all make me smile so much. I love the fact that all three are so very different.

Make sure to check back for next weeks project. Until then check over here and look at what everyone else did.

A Few Extra Pictures......

A Kids Say for you....
This little bit of knowledge was donated by Gabe...
"All people walk except babies. They crawl like ants."
You have just got to love this kid. He is so funny.

I thought that I would share a few of the extra photos I had left over from the week. This first one is of Gabe doing one of his math lessons. He was working on counting by 10. Gabe loves his cars so much, that we had him group them by tens and count up how much he had. 120 and that is just matchbox, he has bigger trucks to. Oh well, at least the all have a place to store.
The other day when I walking by the boys room, they were supposed to be cleaning but this is what I found instead. How cute are they, snuggling and reading.
Sam and his dad started working on a salt dough map of china this week. I will make sure to post a picture when it is finished. They will paint it this week. With that Our first week of school has finished. For the most part it was good and the kids had a lot of fun. I did have a few hard times though. With Gabe it is a constant battle to get him to focus and not play all the time. Then Sam is giving us a hard time with his writing. It is a constant battle with the kid. He hates it so much that it can take him a whole day to write out a half a page. I am not kidding on this. Any ideas on how to make it more fun for him so he does not fight it so much. Now I have to go set up the lessons for the rest of the week. Have a good day. :)

Bubble Mania

The other day for Gabe's Sensory Activity, he blew bubbles. I took a big bowl of water and added in some dish soap. Just give him a straw and let the fun begin.
Here he was trying to get the bubbles all nice and big.
Then he blew them at me while I blew them back at him.
As you see he thought that was fantastic. Look at that smile. He was having so much fun that Daddy and Sam had to join in to. I grabbed a quick video if you want to see it. Hope you enjoy it.

Horton Hears A Who...

I got a book about kindergarten activities from the library and found this really fun activity that I thought the boys would enjoy. We tried it for gym class. First we read the story of Horton Hears a Who. Then the boys built an obstacle course to run. They had to transport eggs to saftey and give them to "Horton" at the end. They had so much fun doing it I had to share a little video of them doing it. Hope you enjoy!

Matisse and Pirates....

Our Wednesday...
Today the boys started learning about Henry Matisse.. I read a story to Gabe about him. Sam used a different book, more of a biography about him. Then choose a style that Matisse worked in. Using that style Sam Created his own work, called the Swan. Also we started studying chinese holidays. I got a great book from the library about chinese holidays. We started off learning about the Chinese New year and some of the traditions that go along with. Today was about the Kitchen god. Then we worked on English. Sam had a couple of work sheets to do on Nouns. Gabe was working on the phonics tiles. He seemed to rather play though. He even tried to be a pirate. Like his patch! LOL! I also put on a documentry about China, called Wild China. I taped them off the Travel Channel. Check out their site for more things on China. Well over all it was a really easy and nice day. Lots more fun to go. Thanks for checking in on us.

Back To School Time......

Well we choose to start back to school this week. It is going to be a lot of fun with Gabe being in kindergarten and Sam in the third grade. The year already started off with me having to rearange the schedule because of my little guy. I had a lot of active physical activities to do with him but he started of the new year being in a cast. Well I am always up for a challenge. This year we are starting off studying China for our around the world lessons. So on monday I had Chinese Art schedule. I found on Crayola.com about using model magic to make a buddha. It sounded like fun, but Gabe would have a hard time with his cast on. So I had Sam make a buddha and Gabe just make anything. I just wanted him work his hand.
The boys decided to get in the spirit of Buddha's though. Here are a couple pictures of them taking turns being a sculpture and the Buddha. They are so cute playing together.

Here are their sculptures. The top one, with that beautiful smiling face, is Gabe's Snail. The beauty on the bottom is Sam's smiling buddha. Those are my cutie pies creations.

We moved on to learning skills. Sam worked with our new dressing boards and Gabe did the tong transfer.

We also did some sensory work with Gabe by letting him play in his ball pool. Well Sam loves to be there to and was doing science by watching a video on the ocean. So he climbed in with him, and how cute are they.
We also started working on Gabe learning to read. I pulled out some of the books that we started Sam out on. Gabe read the first book in the series to me and got so excited that he has declared that he is now ready to read Harry Potter like his big brother. LOL. He settled for being able to read the book to all of us.
Gabe finished up his day with science. Since His dad is working on an ocean theme with them right now, he was playing with his ocean animals. Of course he had to play with them in his ocean. Also on Monday we played the planet earth geography game with Sam. Then the boys also did some Math. Sam played beach ball math. I threw a beach ball to him, that had numbers written on it, that he had to catch. Then the two places his hands landed was the math equation. He loved it. Gabe watched Math circus and played his own version of the flying quidgets. So that was monday, on to tuesday.

Now we started out with math class for the boys. They had a special guest for class this morning, Daddy. He was feelingunder the weather a little bit so he thought he would take it slow. So my three guys were building different structures. They had lots of fun with this.
Then for Geography Sam worked on his land forms. Gabe worked on a map puzzle with his Dad.

This afternoon We worked on sewing for our life skill class. Gabe and I worked on a very simple teddy bear that he could easily make on his own, if their was no cast on his arm that is. Then since we are studying China, Sam made the chinese flag.

So those are the adventures that we have had over just the last two days. So much more to come up this year. I hope that you will join us for all the fun adventures that we have.

The Final Book List.....We reached the Goal!!!!

YAH!!!! We reached the final point. It feels so good to have reached the goal. Thank you to every one that kept reading it. So the title says the final book post. That is not really accurate. I am still going to be doing them but only of the books that we are really enjoying. This will be the final for this format though. It has just become so much work to do it, that I was not really enjoying the list anymore. We have a few choices of books to tell you about. First I loved the "Imagine a Day" one. It was a very simple read and the pictures were absolutly amazing. It is probably one of the best books I have seen in a long time. Sam really enjoyed the "Fisherman and the turtle". He actually did a review over at his blog. Oh and not to forget this weeks Pajama Pizza selection....Dragon Pizzeria. It was a very cute book that took place in fairy tale land.
973.) The Bugliest Bug by Carol Diggory Sheilds
974.) Where did Daddy's Hair Go? by Joe O'Connor
975.) Mary had a Little Lamp by Jack Lechner
976.) Bugtown Boogie by Warren Hanson
977.) The Fisherman and the Turtle by by Eric A Kimmel
978.) Wee and the Wright Brothers by Timothy R. Gaffney
979.) Goldie is Mad by Margie Palatini
980.) Katy No-Pocket by Emmy Payne
981.) The Berenstain Bears in No Girls Allowed by Jan and Stan Berenstain
982.) When an Elephant Comes to School by Jan Ormerod
983.) Scaredy Squirrel at the Beach by Melanie Watt
984.) So say the Little Monkeys by nancy Van Laan
985.) Tickle Tum! by Nancy Van Laan
986.) Pancakes, Pancakes! by Eric Carle
987.) Tuesday by David Wiesner
988.) The Ghost on the Hearth by Susan Milord
989.) Imagine a Day by Sarah L. Thomson
990.) Sheep in Wolves Clothing by Satoshi Kitamura
991.) Ella Sets Sail by Carmela and Steven D'amico
992.) Turk and Runt by Lisa Wheeler
993.) Grandma Lena's Big Ol' Turnip by Denia Lewis Hester
994.) Whatever Wanda Wanted by Jude Wisdom
995.) Tyrannosaurus Drip by Julia Donaldson
996.) Quack and Count by Keith Baker
997.) What Do You Do When a Monster Says Boo? by Hope Vestergaard
998.) Someday When My Cat Can Talk by Caroline Lazo
999.) A Frog In The Bog by Karma Wilson
1000.) Mammoths on The Move by Lisa Wheeler
1001.) Margaret Chase Smith .... A Women For President by Lynn Plourde
1002.) Lady Liberty a biography by Doreen Rapaport
1003.) Manfish A Story of Jacques Cousteau by Jennifer Berne
1004.) Dragon Pizzeria by Mary Morgan

So I did mention that I was working on another blog to have the entire list. Check it out over here.

Unplug Your Kids Project.......Rough

So this weeks theme for Unplug your Kids was rough. It took me a few days to come up with an idea. I finally decided to go the way if it is not smooth than it is rough. I found the idea for our project in in Family fun, a very yummy snack.

The only supplies that you need are mini rice cakes, Garden vegetable Cream Cheese, and a butter knife.
They are very simple to make. First you take one rice cake and spread cream cheese on it.
Then you put another rice cake on top. It is so easy to make the kids can make it all by themselves or with some team work. LOL.

Then of course eat and enjoy. Yummy.

Make sure to check back for next weeks project. Until then though look over here and check out everyone else's project.

I just wanted to leave a quick little note to let everyone know that I am going to be missing for a few days. I will be back on monday though with the usual unplug your kids project post. Things are just a little busy around here for the next few days. Then we plan on starting up with school on monday. So I have to get the things ready for then. I also have to revamp some of Gabe's lessons. The little guy is so active that I have to lean toward the active lessons for him. Well with his right arm in a cast, that makes things difficult. So with all of the stuff going on, it makes it hard to have time to blog. Hope that everyone has a great weekend.

A New Game

The other day when we went to the dollar store, I found these great set of flash cards. I have a pretty big collection of the Planet Earth products now, so of course I had to have these to. It does not hurt that I love flash cards. Don't know why just have to have them. Unfortunetly the kids do not feel as passionate about them as I do. LOL. They will look at them a couple of times then they get put into the bin to collect dust. This time I was determined to make sure that did not happen. So scroll down and see what I did......
The Kids love games so I made one. I took all the flash cards and made question cards from them. Then I took a file folder to make a game board for it. I even used stickers from our Planet Earth Sticker books (like I said BIG collection) to decorate the board.
My Dh has a ton more computer skills than I do so he designed the game board for it. I think he did a great job. We played it for the first time and it was so much fun. I only had one set of flash card questions done, so I have got to make others now. Now the cards will get use because Sam does not like to lose, so he plans on studying alot. HeHeHe my little plan is working.

Book List.....
It looks like we should be able to reach our goal by the next list. That is actually a few weeks early. So cool. I am really proud of my boys that they stuck with it. We had a couple of books that were really popular this time. First is "Such a Silly Baby". This was one of Gabe's Favorites, he always wanted it read. It was really cute. Sam wanted "The Wackiest White House Pets" . This book was really well done, and boy did those presidents have some interesting pets. Also another cute one on here was "Hi, Pizza Man". This was our Pajama Pizza book this week. It was a really cute book about how a little girl would answer the door depending on what type of pizza person was there. Alright make sure to check in next week to see if we reach the goal. Until then go read a good book. Have a great day.
943.) Tissue Please by Lisa Kopelke
944.) Roar of a Snore by Marsha Diane Arnold
945.) It Could have been Worse by A. H. Benjamin
946.) "Hi, Pizza Man!" by Virginia Walter
947.) In the Days of The Pharaohs by Milton Meltzer
948.) Farfallina & Marcel by Holly Keller
949.) Cows Can't Fly by David Milgrim
950.) My Pup by Margret O'Hair
951.) The Story Of Noodles by Ying Chang Compestine
952.) The Berenstain Bears Get The Grouchies by Jan and Stan Berenstain
953.) Monkey Do! by Allan Ahlberg
954.) What's in aunt Mary's Room? by Elizabeth Fitgerald Howard
955.) Shelly by Margie Palatini
956.) Presidents are made of by Hanokh Piven
957.) King Long Shanks by Jane Yolen
958.) Nino's Mask by Jeanette Winter
959.) What Did I Look Like When I was a Baby? by Jeanne Willis
960.) The Story of Chopsticks by Ying Chang Compestine
961.) Grandfather Buffalo by Jim Arnosky
962.) Mary Had a Little Ham by Margie Palatini
963.) The Berenstain Bears and the Excuse Note by Jan and Stan Berenstain
964.) Curious George The Movie by Jasmine Jones
965.) The Scrubbly-Bubbly Car Wash by Irene O'Garden
966.) Curious George Visits a Toy Store by Margret & H.A. Rey's
967.) Curious George Goes to the Beach by Margret & H.A. Rey's
968.) The Bernstain Bears and The Mama's Day Surprise by Stan &Jan Berenstain
969.) Yoshi's Feast by Kimiko Kajikawa
970.) Curious George Goes Camping by Margret & H. A. Rey's
971.) Wackiest White House Pets by Gibbs Davis
972.) Such a Silly Baby by Steffanie and Richard Loring

Unplug your kids.....Flat.
This week the theme for unplug your kids was flat. Ok I was having the usual difficulty of what to come up with. Well then Gabe had to go and fracture his elbow. Ideas just became a little more difficult. I wanted to come up with something he could do to. After all he did not fracture it on purpose, all though he makes me wonder sometimes, just kidding. He actually did say the other day though that he wanted to break his other arm. That was until I told him that it hurts when he does that. His reply was ok I won't then. Silly kid. Alright enough of the side track, back to the project. I finally found a project when I saw this. I mean paintings are flat, so that works right.

Well Since Gabe has a cast on his arm I did want to det it all dirty so I though using his feet to paint would be perfect. This was the little area that I set up so they did get paint all over the rug. I even add in a couple of chairs so that they did not fall. (No need for more cast around here)
Sam was a little hesitant at first because the paint was cold on his feet. He enjoyed the feeling of it though.
Gabe loved the project and was trying to do it just like Sam. So Cute.
The boys got to this point and then decided they need to put there feet in it. And they sure did. Check out there finished products.
Sam's picture is on the top. Gabe's is on the bottom. I think it is cute how they came out so much a like. They alway try to be like each other.
Well the boys loved doing it so much they asked to it again. So it will be a definate project again this week. Make sure to check back for next weeks project. Until then check out everyone else's project over here.

Dh really loves baseball. He wants to share that love with the boys. Right now the boys are pretty much not interested because they do not understand the game. They do not know any rules or even the positions. Their dad decided that today he was going to teach them about the game. He got out the dry erase board and drew out the baseball diamond. He started teaching them all of the positions. They were interested, at least it looks that way to me. :) But how cute of a moment don't you think.

Update on Gabe......
I wanted to thank everyone for the well wishes for Gabe. I wanted to share some pictures of his day today so that you could see he is doing well. He is really loving life, I mean except for the busted elbow that is.
This first picture here is after he got his new clothes on. Sam set up the couch for him to be super comfy. Ahhh the life.
Because this is what happened after. Sam made and fed him lunch while he was all proped up.
Well next was Gabe's bad part of the day. He had to go get his cast put on. During that time Sam stayed home with me. He made some monkey bread for Gabe as a special snack when he got home. Unfortunetly Sam missed him really bad while he was gone. How cute is he. He sat outside watching for him to get home. They actually ran to each other when Gabe got home. I guess they both missed each other.
Well this is my baby boy with the new cast. It is a very pretty blue don't you think? The good news is that we are only going to be with the cast for about four weeks. Oh and of course we managed to turn part of this into a school thing. Well we at least got a new supply for it though. We got to keep his x-rays. I mean what a cool thing to help teach him about the bones. I know I am crazy but I have to find something positive in this, right?