Pegboards

We found a container of these activity beads at Goodwill 11,000 for $2.99 and could not pass it up! We made one at Stay 'n Play at school and Cameron wanted to keep them when we got home. We spent about an hour and 15 minutes making more of them. This is a great hand-eye coordination and patience activity. You have to be careful you don't knock off the ones you already put on. You can see the look of concentration! (:

Here are the ones we made so far!

Cameron is really working!

Cameron is really into learning his letters and numbers right now! Mostly his letters! We got the Letter Factory movie (which I LOVE!!); I don't like Cam to watch tv but this is something I don't mind him watching! We've been working on letters a lot at school too and I think that has made a huge difference too! We wrote uppercase letters, lowercase letters and numbers on separate sheets of paper and Cameron wants me to point to the different letters and he says them. If he knows them, he gets to put a sticker on it. He asks to do this all the time which makes me smile!! I try not to go in order because I want him to be able to recognize them on their own. It's nice to see which ones he knows and which we need to work on.

Homemade pizzas

We made homemade pizza tonight! Cameron had a great time. He REALLY liked putting on the cheese!!

Magic Nuddles

I've been wanting to buy these but I wasn't sure if Cameron would like them. Finally I broke and decided to buy them. Cameron really enjoys them!! I'm really happy we got them. We even used them at church to make crosses. They are starch-based packing peanuts. You just wet them and they stick together. You can build anything. It showed that you could make a hat so I think we'll try that next.

The picture above is suppose to be a robot with a blaster ( I don't like him to use the word "gun") but Chris thinks it looks like a penis! Oh brother!! (:

Spiders

We made spiders for snack today! We are working on Nursery Rhymes at school so we made spiders for "Little Miss Muffet".

I've been so busy with the Sunshine Mountain blog and registration at Sunshine Mountain that I haven't been able to post much here. I feel bad but I only have so much time in the day! (:

Crackin' Coconuts

Cameron and I had to run to the grocery store after school today and Cameron wanted to buy a coconut. I love coconut but it is so hard to find one that isn't rotten! We had to try!! We waited until Anthony got home and he helped us crack it open.

First the boys used a screwdriver to pound into the "eyes" of the coconut and pour the milk out! Cameron kept sticking his finger under the running milk and licking it saying "MMMMM!!!!" Both boys tried the milk! They like coconut milk.

They got to pound the coconut until it cracked open. This is the BEST part! They both love hitting it with the hammer! Unfortunately the coconut wasn't good and Chris is going to take it back and we'll try another one! ): Hopefully the next one will be better! (: We had fun though!!

Dinosaurs!!

We are talking about dinosaurs at school for the next two weeks and I am so excited about it! We are on letter B, if I would have thought about it better I would have done the letter D this week. I'm still learning (:

Cameron is having a great time looking at my dinosaur stuff while I am getting ready for our dinosaur unit. He got out his dinosaur sticker book and worked on it for a good 1 hour and 15 minutes today. It was great because I could get my work ready for Tuesday.

Cameron wanted to work on his sticker book again after dinner and ran in by Chris waving it in the air shouting, "Dinosaurio!!! Dinosaurio!!! That means dinosaur in spanish DAD!!!!" I can't wait to teach the rest of the kids!! I love teaching!!!

SERIOUSLY!!! I don't think this is what it's suppose to look like! It is suppose to be a dinosaur egg and it has a dinosaur inside. Anthony and Chris have been saying that it looks like elephant poop and told Cameron that it is dinosaur poop!! Now Cameron is running around saying, "Yuck, dinosaur poop!!" I had to scold Anthony and Chris because when we are at school this week I can guarantee Cameron will be calling it dinosaur poop! We are suppose to be paleontogist and dig up our dinosaur eggs and break them open to reveal a baby dinosaur. I'm not sure what I'm going to do now. I'll let you know what happens!

Snowman craft

Sunshine Mountain's blog has been taking a lot more time so I haven't had time here. Today at Stay 'n Play we made snowman pictures with snowman marshmallows. I drew the snowman shape and the kids got to use glue and put the glue over my circle. After they did that they put the snowman shaped marshmallows over the glue. Cameron hasn't really wanted to do crafts lately so it was nice to be at Stay 'n Play today and have fun on a craft. ENJOY!!

Mall of America

I can't believe I let Cameron go on this ride. It's sort of like The Giant Drop at Great America but not as tall (but it's pretty tall). Once he got on it, I wanted to pull him off but I didn't want to scare him from trying new things.

If you can see the first picture, Cameron wanted to talk to the boy next to him(he was probably 14 or 15) but the kid was scared SHITLESS! It was pretty funny to see Cameron looking at him and trying to talk to him but the kid wanted no part of it.

Cameron looks so little in the seat!!! I was getting a little nervous that he really wasn't really big enough for this. I thought they might have had the height sign wrong.

Good ol' Kaity took Cameron on some of the little kiddie rides and they both had a good time! (: The first picture isn't the clearest (I NEED to take a camera class!) but it shows how much fun they had. Here is Cammie having fun on the kid's bumper cars! The first couple times he got hit he was REALLY surprised!!! It was hilarous to watch his face when he got hit!
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What we did today

Chris was out snowplowing tonight and Cameron just wanted to hang on the couch and watch tv and there was NO WAY that I was having that. He really didn't want to make anything or bake anything but he got really excited when I accidentally spilled styrofoam peanuts all over the floor. He asked if he could rip them apart and I had to get dinner started so I told him he could as long as he cleaned them up afterwards. After a little while, he asked if he could make a "creation" out of them and so I got some toothpicks and let him link them together and make his "creation". He had a really fun time and I think we'll be doing this again.Here's something we made for school! I can't believe how hard it was to find mini wheel pasta. I really wanted the ones that look like little flowers to look more like snowflakes but this will have to work! I put little black dots on the back for kids that don't know their numbers yet for self-correcting. These go all the way to 20 but I think we'll just put up to 10 out in a basket and 10-20 in another basket.

Sunshine Mountain Preschool

Yeah!!! I finally got our Sunshine Mountain blog set-up. Okay, almost all of it! I just need to figure out how to get the slideshow working! Now I need to get our first blog up! I'll try to get to it after naptime! (; I'm going to try to blog a couple times a week; let's hope I can keep up with both blogs!

Come and see what we've been up to at school! I'm going to try to use this as a way for parents to see what we are doing, new parents to see what we do and anyone else who wants to see some of our crafts and such! Here's the site: www.sunshinemountainpreschool.blogspot.com

ENJOY!!

Oh Christmas Tree!!!

Oh Christmas tree, oh Christmas tree, how you have kept Cameron busy!!!

We made these Christmas trees during Stay and Play at school on Tuesday but Cameron wanted to add more ornaments on today. He really likes the licky/sticky paper that they use in zoo class and we finally bought some. I just need to think of things to do with them besides Cameron just licking them and licking them and licking them!!

What I did was cut out 3 pieces: one triangle and two trapezoids. I could have just traced them and had the kids cut them out but I knew we wouldn't have time. I might have Cameron make another one of them and have him cut it out this time. The kids had to figure out how to put them from big to little to make a tree. They glued them on the red paper; this took a lot of glue!!! They had to color their star yellow and glue that on the top. After that, they got to glue ornaments and put stickers on their tree. I cut out circles and squares for the ornaments. I could also have let them cut out their own ornaments. Hmm, maybe the next one I do. This was a huge gluing project which some kids loved and others didn't like getting glue on their fingers.

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I LOVE how Cameron's turned out. It was totally made by him. I like letting the kids make their project how they want and never try to fix it. Sometimes, I really have to bite my tongue because I would like it to be perfect but then I remember it is perfect to him! (: Sorry the pictures are sideways! I haven't the time right now to figure out how to fix that! I'm sure it's something easy but I just need those couple minutes to figure it out!! Some day, some day!!

Christmas playdough

We made Christmas playdough today! We used Christmas green food coloring from Wilson's and it turned out a beautiful green! My green always turns out such a light green when I use regular food coloring. I LOVE IT! We are going to start using Wilson's when we make playdough from now on. This was one of our things we did for advent. I made 24 stockings and put a little tag in each with something fun to do each day! I will try to post tomorrow and show you what they look like.

Whole Wheat Banana Bread - YUMMMMOOO

WOW!! I haven't been on since April 09! SORRY!!! Here we go, we are gettting ready for Christmas and can't wait to share what we are doing!!

Today, Black Friday, we are making banana bread! Wait until you see this recipe!! It is awesome! There is 0 (yep, I said ZERO!!) sugar in it! You use honey!! Here's the recipe; ENJOY!!

Whole Wheat Banana Nut Bread

1/3 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup honey
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 eggs
1 cup mashed bananas
1 3/4 cups whole wheat flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 cup hot water
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
Directions
1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.
2. In a large bowl, beat oil and honey together. Add eggs, and mix well. Stir in bananas and vanilla. Stir in flour and salt. Add baking soda to hot water, stir to mix, and then add to batter. Blend in chopped nuts. Spread batter into a greased 9x5 inch loaf pan.
3. Bake for 55 to 60 minutes. Cool on wire rack for 1/2 hour before slicing.
We added 1/2 c. of dark chocolate chips too!

If you make this, let me know what you think!

Organizing my life (just kidding!) just by cupboards (:

I really need to be more organized! OKAY, I really want to be more organized! Well here's one way that we are trying to get organized. I was at Bunko last month and I'm not sure if this is exactly how she did it but one of the ladies organized her dinners on one of the insides of her cupboards. This is such a great idea and here's my interpretation of it. This is the second week and its working out great! I've been adding more choices as I think of them! Recipes that I haven't used in a while, I'll get rid of. I wrote where I can find the recipe on the post-it too!

Here's my other organization tool for the kitchen. It's a list of what I have in the kitchen cupboard. This is great because then I just have to look to see if I have it or if I need to buy it when I go grocery shopping. I'm hoping this will stop useless buying!!

YUMMY!!! Whole Grain Banana Bread

Yum!! We made the BEST Whole Grain Banana Bread! It was so good!! We had some bananas that were past their prime and I couldn't just throw them away so we decided to make banana bread with them. I've never found a recipe that I really liked because most recipes use 2 cups of sugar and NO ONE needs that much sugar!

Cameron had a great time cutting up the bananas to put in.

He even helped mix it.
Doesn't it look yummy!!??!!
Next time, I might add nuts! I'm not really crazy about using splenda but I did.

Here's the recipe:

Whole Grain Healthy Banana Bread

3/4 cup SPLENDA® Sugar Blend
3/4 cup flax seed meal
5 ripe bananas, mashed
1/4 cup skim milk
1/4 cup low-fat sour cream
2 teaspoons egg whites
2 cups whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
DIRECTIONS
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and a 9x5 inch loaf pan.
In a medium bowl, mix together the sugar blend, flax meal, bananas, milk, sour cream and egg whites until well blended. Combine the flour, baking soda and salt; stir into the banana mixture until moistened. Spoon into prepared loaf pan.
Bake for 1 hour and 10 minutes in the preheated oven, or until a toothpick inserted into the crown of the loaf comes out clean.