A Successful Summer with the kids!

SuccessfulSummer I take my job as a stay at home mom very seriously. You gotta be kinda like a teacher! My dad always told me that I should have been a teacher, and in a way I think I did become one.  Aren’t we all our children’s first teacher? In order for a teacher to have a successful year he/she needs to have a curriculum, a plan, more than just an idea about what they will be doing with their class for an entire 9 months. Any plan for success requires lots of advanced preparation. Preparation for anything you do in life is always the most important step. After the preparation is done, everything else goes smoothly, maybe a little bumpy but at least you know where you are going and you don’t have to waste time figuring it out last minute. Since the girls were babies I always had a plan, I think working part time with the older girls helped me stick to a morning routine of having everyone dressed and ready to go in the early morning. I’ve stuck to that routine soon after I had my third and retired (as my husband would put it) to be a stay at home mom. Part of my job is being ready for it every single day! My girls are used to our morning routine and they too have had an easy time getting ready for school, early outings, etc. So above all things, I believe encouraging everyone to be ready by a certain time each day will make life so, so, so much easier and I’d say stick to that during the summer too. It’s KEY for enjoying every single day of the short summer months! Below I’ve listed three more helpful tips to having a successful summer with your kids. This helps to organize part of the days and you can fill the rest with whatever your heart desires!

1.WORKBOOKS: The summer time is not just for lazy days in the sun and floating around in the pool! We want our children to remember the skills they worked so hard to learn all year long. We want to feed their brains and challenge them so that when September comes around again they are ready! Here’s an incredibly simple way to keep our children’s mind stimulated every morning and it doesn’t take more that 10-20 minutes each day. If you start preparing now, I promise it will be something you and your kids will follow through on all summer long. First, think about what you would like for each child to practice or review. Is it reading comprehension, telling time, learning money, math or is it a little bit of everything?  You can keep it simple and purchase a workbook geared for each child’s level. Or you can spend some time online searching different activities, dittos that you can print out. There are so many FREE resources out there and I will list some of my favorites at the end of this post. After you’ve collected your dittos for morning work, separate them for each child. I keep a binder divided into three for each child, hole punch each ditto and that first morning of summer vacation after breakfast and a little morning TV they all get one sheet to work on. That’s all! If they ask for more go ahead and go into your prepared dittos and give them more work! I keep a pencil case in each binder with pencils, dry erase markers, etc. so they have everything they need. Below is a glimpse of what you’d find in their binders. I’m also going to add dittos into their binders from work books. For my youngest entering Kindergarten I purchased scholastic 100 words kids need to read by 1st grade. For my two eldest I ordered a level 2 and level 4 scholastic success with grammar.

morning workmorning workmorning workmorning workmorning workmorning workmorning workmorning workmorning work

If the kids do 50 Minutes of work or more a week, you can reward them with a little treat, trinket or special outing!

2. PROJECTS: I have created a list of projects/crafts I’d like to actually do with the girls this summer. So, if I want that to happen I need to start planning them now. My goal is to have one to two projects prepared each week. Of course aside from these projects they can always paint, play with play-dough, make a collage etc. You can also find more ideas here. And links to fun projects below. You can come up with a list of your own as well, the sooner you make the list the better. This will help you to gather all the materials you will need for each project.

  • Paint and wrap a twig Do you know any kid that doesn’t look for the perfect twig to use as a walking stick or treasure finder? Let them take that perfect twig or stick home and have them decorate it to keep as a walking stick for your next hike!
  • Create a Sailboat I have an idea for my own sail0boat but this one over at www.creativejewishmom.com is definitely one that we are going to make too!
  • Popsicle Stick Tents  This is a cute and simple little Popsicle project I can see the kids enjoying and then playing with it with their little nature center.
  • Vacation Souvenir Jars  All kids are natural collectors, so I’m positive your kids are also shell and rock collectors! This is a great little way to turn those special ones into a keepsake.
  • Fairy Bells I love this project because there are several aspects to it. First the kids can go out and look for the perfect twigs, then they get to wrap the twigs with embroidery string and add beads. I can see putting on some classical music in the background or soundscapes while doing this one!
  • Nature Journal The girls love writing and drawing and have so many journals already but I figured it would be nice to keep a nature journal for the summer. We spend many days outdoors so it can be something they carry around with them for the whole summer. This might be a fun project to start on their first week off. You can make your own or use a simple composition book or sketch book and have the kids decorate it with duct tape and magazine cut outs. Inside the journal, the kids can draw, write poems, tape or glue in leaves or flowers that they find around them. The possibilities are endless.
  • Bird Feeder I love this bird feeder! I have an idea to make a different one with the girls and will post when we make it, but we’re definitely making this one too! I love love our bird visits!
  • A treasure Box The kids made treasure boxes a few years ago and they are still using them to store any little treasures that they find! They can definitely use another one!
  • Shell Art I have a feeling we’ll be doing this throughout the summer

3. TRIPS: Of course lazy days and floating around in the pool are a big part of summer, I like to plan at least two outing a week. My girls are home bodies, they love playing at home and they never run out of things to do, but I like going on adventures and seeing new things so we compromise. Some days at home and some days out and about! If you’re a long island local or are visiting for the summer I’ve listed some of our favorite places to visit (in no particular order). There’s so much to discover here, tons of hiking trails, old estates, I wish I could list them all! You could spend the whole summer discovering Sound Ave (Take the LIE to Exit 68N to WIlliam FLoyd Parkway. Go North about seven miles to Route 25A. Go right (east) on 25A for about three miles to the beginning of Sound Avenue. This road continues for about 17 miles before becoming Main Road in Mattituck.) There’s so much to discover along this route. Farms, Museums, Fruit stands, Wineries, beautiful scenery, winding roads, and so much more!

Long Island Childrens Museum Quogue Wildlife Refuge IMG_7678 lighthouserMothers Day Weekend 194 Yaphank Farm Martha Clara Martha CLara Atlantis Marine

 

Martha Clara’s Vinyard (Wine for adults and little fury animals for the kids) there’s a whole bunch of wineries, you can’t go wrong with whichever one you choose.

  • Atlantis Marine World
  • Old Westbury Gardens
  • Harbes Farm
  • White Post Farm
  • Kalers Pond
  • Yaphank Farm This place is FREE!!!! So many animals, you can feed and pet some. There’s a cute little nature park, and a wooden Train that my kids love to play on and lots of room to run around and be a kid!
  • Holtsville Ecology Center Another FREE awesome place to bring the kids. Lamas, horses and bears OH MY! There’s also a huge park and a place to walk or ride your bike and plenty of bathrooms!
  • Centereach Pool
  • Ronkonkoma Park
  • Vanderbilt Museum
  • Glover’s Farm Great place for strawberry picking and other seasonal picking throughout the year. Has a playground and little gated animal farm.
  • Longisland Museum History After your visit at the museum, there are beautiful grounds and tables for a perfect picnic! That’s the girls favorite part!
  • Belmont Park My dad loved watching a good horse race! It was definitely very exciting as a child wishing and hoping the horse you picked in your mind would win! Our oldest was very young the last time we were at Belmont Park. I think all three girls are old enough to enjoy it now.

Visit back as I will continue to add more places to visit and FREE activity resources as well.

My favorite resources for kids Activities and printouts

  • Firstpalette.com Tons of craft ideas and printouts!
  • Education.com Worksheets and activities for grades preschool thru high school. You can pay for a membership and have access to any workbook for the entire year. They also have FREE worksheet available to print.
  • Teacherspayteachers.com I love this site! I find FREE stuff on here all of the time! I’ve had an account with them for several years now and have never had to pay for anything! The FREE stuff is very helpful!
  • janbrett.com If your kids love the Jan Brett books, this is a great site for projects and printouts associated with her fabulous books!

Summer Fun: Shimmering Ice Cubes

glitter iceSpring is right around the corner, and summer is not too far behind. If you’re like me, you’re starting now to collect some fun spring/summer activities to do with your kids. My kids loved making glittery, shimmery ice. We did this last summer for my daughters’ Frozen birthday party but, it’s fun to do anytime. The girls had just as much fun making the as they did playing with it. After our cubes were finished the kids used shaving cream to play along with the ice cubes. You can even do this in the winter and have the kids play with it in the snow. It will definitely last longer in the cold!

All you need is empty ice trays, the more the better!Several bowls to make different colored water. Food coloring, glitter ( They make edible glitter if you want to use the ice cubes for drinks, but we used regular craft glitter) and Ziploc bags to store the ice that is ready so that you can make more.We filled several bowls with water and added a a few drops of food coloring to each bowl to get the shade that we wanted. Then we sprinkled some glitter into the bowl, mixed it all up and using a turkey baster we filled up the ice trays and popped them into the freezer. That’s it! I let them sit in the freezer over night and ,when they were ready, the kids popped them out and into a ziploc bag and we placed them back into the freezer and used the empty ice trays to make some more.

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DIY Table for two

Doll TableMy kids definitely all caught the creative bug from me and building and putting things together bug from my husband. They are constantly creating something and I love it! They are little problem solvers, always thinking of ways to make something out of nothing. The other day, my daughter Melina came to me and expressed that she needed a table for her dolls. She brought me a cardboard box and said “mom can you wrap this in fabric and turn it into a table for me?” I thought it was such a great idea and I honestly wouldn’t have thought of wrapping it with fabric myself. I probably would have suggested painting it or using wrapping paper! But using fabric is definitely going to make the table last much longer. We went through our scraps of fabric and Melina picked out the pattern she liked. I simply took a glue gun and used the fabric like wrapping paper and wrapped up the box, hot gluing as I wrapped. She wanted a trim of green at the bottom so I folded the edges of the fabric in an inch and glued it around the bottom onto the box. My oldest daughter suggested that I use old blocks as legs for the table. What a brilliant idea I thought! So we picked out 4 old blocks and hot glued that to the bottom of the box and wah-la, a table for two!

wrapboxblocks

hotglue Doll TableAll you need is an empty box, I used a cracker box from BJ’s (you can used any size box that’s perfect for your dolls), a glue gun, glue sticks, old wooden blocks and fabric. This was so easy to make and it’s so cute!

DIY So Simple Knit Hair Clips

hairclipsHaving three little girls, it’s hard for me not to turn everything into a hair clip! If you know how to knit up little square swatches, then these little bows are so easy to make. My moms a knitter, so I commissioned her to make me several knitted squares. I simply pinched the center to create a bow, cut up a few strips of felt long enough to wrap around the bow and hot glued it to the bow. I took an alligator hair clip and hot glued it to the back of the bow and ta-dah! A lovely little hair clip! If you’re not a knitter you can simply make these with felt. Just cut them into sqaure and assemble with hot glue and clip. Cut big squares for big bow and little sqaures for little bows.

IMG_3743 knithairbowandscarf IMG_3574 knitbows knitted hair clips

What to do with a couple of fabric swatches

swatchold pillownew pillow

pillow8 pillow3 pillow1I have finally learned to use a sewing machine! I can’t believe it! All I’ve learned so far is a straight stitch but that’s enough to make me happy! I haven’t had a chance to make anything yet other than fabrics of squares and a little purse for my daughter’s doll ( I wanted to take a picture of it, but I can’t find it!). I am planning on attempting to make the girls some simple clothing for their dolls! I do have lots of fabric swatches that I’ve had stashed away for the day when I do have time to sew something up. My mom is a seamstress and anytime I get an idea of what to do with my swatches I bring the idea straight to her and she executes it right away. I had a couple of old and boring throw pillows laying around and never wanted to spend the money on new ones because they tend to be a bit expensive! So I bought a bundle of fabric swatches at Walmart for about $10 to $13 dollars and had my mom sew up a couple of new pillow cases to cover my old pillows! It was like paying $10 for two new pillows! The swatch bundle usually comes with five, 18×21 inch fabric swatches. Somehow I ended up gravitating towards patterns that the kids would like! Everything I gravitate to these days have something to do with the kids! Now that I know how to sew a straight stitch I’m sure I can sew a new cover myself for the next old pillow laying around the house.

I unfortunately do things the same way my mom does…by eye! Good for me but not for you! I’m terrible at giving directions but If you know how to use a sewing machine I’m sure you know better than I do how to make these  simple pillow cases. Here is a tutorial I found if you’d like step by step instructions!

I asked my four year old if she could hold the pillow for me for a picture and as you will see below, all she wanted to do was throw it at me! As you can see while Lia is throwing the pillow, that I used two different swatches to create one pillow. Thanks Lia!

pleaseLia

throwpillow  pillow toss

Simple Felt Hair Clips

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heartclip IMG_3740These hair clips are so fun and simple to make. I got the cute and simple idea from mycakies.com. All you need is some felt, thread, a sewing needle and some hair clips. You can even use hot glue if you don’t know how to sew or just don’t feel like sewing! I also made some hair clips for the girls to wear on St. Patricks Day. I found some clover patterns here. I cut out the pattern and used it to cut out the green felt. Cut two pieces, sew or hot glue together and hot glue a clip and you’re done!

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hairclips

Cutest Reindeer Family

reindeer jan2015 124 jan2015 116 jan2015 122 jan2015 123The holidays are gone and I’m finally getting around to posting the results of our holiday party! I can’t believe I didn’t get many pictures of my little reindeer family! We had so much fun dressing up though, and the party was lots of fun! I did my best with the makeup! Some thought we looked like little mice but definitely very cute little mice! The girls loved the reindeer ears and wore them throughout the holiday! We definitely celebrated the holidays for the entire month of December. Between 5 birthdays, Chanukah and Christmas by the time January came we were pooped and ready to start a new year!

Recycled Reindeer Tags

reindeer tagsWe are invited to a holiday party at my sisters house and were asked to dress up for the occasion. Our family is going as santa’s reindeer. To keep things at a low cost, I bought the kids these cute pajamas from kohls instead of buying costumes.reindeer pjs

and these cute antlers from Oriental Trading. They came in a pack of 12 which was cheaper than buying them separately. I keep the extras in a basket and whoever comes during the holiday season can wear them!  I even brought one to my dads. He wore it for the entire evening! So cute!

reindeer antlers IMG_0304To complete the reindeer outfits I made these tags from the extra cardboard sitting in our garage. I used permanent markers to write the name of each reindeer and used glue and glitter to embellish the tags. I bought the cute little bells from the dollar store and hot glued them at the bottom. Then I hot glued some thick string I found in my craft box and ta da! Reindeer Tags!!! Now everyone will know who is who! I cannot wait to see my little reindeer all dressed up!

reindeer tags

reindeer tags

A Little Love Grows A Long Way

Teachers GiftTeachers GiftThanks Teacher! It seems as the school year comes to an end, my girls realize how much they love and will miss their teachers. My daughter Melina asked me the other night, “Mom?, can I take Miss. Christine and all my teachers to Kindergarten with me?” The fact that they get so close to these teachers only to have to say goodbye to them breaks their hearts and mine too! My girls take a while to warm up to someone, so by the time they have warmed up it’s time to say goodbye! They both really love their teachers and are very sad about the change that will come. I told them, “In life, there are going to be lots of wonderful people that will come into your lives, sometimes they stay for a while and sometimes they leave sooner than we are prepared for, so treasure them while they are in your life and know that they will always have a special place in your heart.”

I will never forget the wonderful teachers who taught me. Miss Ladhie, Miss Murphy, Miss Lane, Miss Thornton and so many more. I loved them all so much. Everyone of them helped to create the person I have become. I wish I could say thank you to them today!

Now that school is about to end I wanted my girls to have a special way to thank their own teachers. I couldn’t think of anything special enough so I asked a friend who happens to be a teacher and she said she loves getting a plant especially a plant that’s in a pot decorated by the child. I instantly loved the idea and so did the girls!! I went out the next day and bought some inexpensive pots from Target and Family Dollar and had the girls pick out flowers at a local nursery. I was going to have them paint the pots but instead decided to have them use permanent markers. This made decorating them much easier and allowed them to work on the pots throughout the week without making a big mess and I don’t have to worry about their drawings getting washed off by the rain! They had a good 2 weeks to work on the pots before we planted the flowers. This also makes a great Get Well gift, Mothers Day gift or any kind of occasion gift!june 543 june 536 june 527 june 523 Thank You Teacher

Planting Fun

Planting FunThis was a fun way to celebrate Earth Day especially after a long winter of snow. I could not wait to start doing some planting and Earth Day was the perfect excuse. I went to our local nursery and bought these cute little plastic planting pots. The girls and I picked out some seeds we wanted to grow. My daughter Melina loves watermelon and picked watermelon seeds to plant. I honestly do not think I have enough space to grow one but I made her happy and we bought a pack of watermelon seeds. We will see what happens! After we got home I took out our craft box which always has some sort of foam stickers and they decorated 3 pots each.

2014 Misc 1174 2014 Misc 1171After we finished decorating the pots we put them aside and waited for a sunny day to plant them so that we can make the mess outside. I provided the girls with a tray of dirt, little Dixie cups so they can scoop the dirt and tiny little containers to put their seeds in so that if we had any left over we could just save them in the containers. We made sure to label each container and each pot so that we could keep track of the seeds and what we were planting. The girls really had a great time with this project and they can’t wait to see what sprouts!05.10.14 Mothers Day Weekend 00205.10.14 Mothers Day Weekend 01505.10.14 Mothers Day Weekend 01305.10.14 Mothers Day Weekend 019

Don’t forget to water your seeds and plant your new sprouts into your garden! We can’t wait to see what grows!