Product review

Shannon at Letters Numbers and Books, oh my! passed the product review meme along to me back in April and I am finally ready to follow through! I struggled with figuring out what to review until this morning when I started thinking about what we will do this weekend.


We love family movie night in our house and what is movie night without popcorn? I love making popcorn on the stove with our Whirly-Pop Stovetop Popcorn Popper. It is really easy to use and only requires a tiny bit of oil to make 6 quarts of delicious popcorn. Clean up is easy too, and because we use ours weekly, I only wipe out the inside with a paper towel. Also, almost all of the kernels pop!



Making popcorn on the stove is a family activity for us. The kids wear really long oven mitts and help stir the kernels. This is a great opportunity to talk about our five senses too. What better way to explore all five senses than popping popcorn?



I should add that the Whirly-Pop is made out of aluminum. I know that some people do not like to use aluminum pans.



Now for my final order of business here, I am passing this product review meme along to:

Life of a Dairy Queen

Adventures in Mommydom

Spinner's End Nursery School

A cup of pasta

We measured out one cup of Barilla brand penne pasta and made one long straight (as straight as possible anyway) line. Can you guess how long that line was?

Our line of penne was fourteen feet long! Sorry about the picture quality.

Then we measured one cup of store brand rigatoni pasta. C immediately noticed that we could not fit as many pieces of pasta in the measuring cup. We talked about whether our line would be shorter or longer. Any guesses? 40 inches long - the same length as C.

C and R had a lot of fun measuring the pasta. They were both surprised by the results of our measurement experiment.

V is for vegetables

I cut out pictures of fruits and vegetables from a grocery circular. C and R each had an opportunity to separate the fruits from the vegetables. I did this separately because C tends to do things for R or give her the answers and I really wanted her to do this on her own. We then glued all of the vegetables onto the letter V. It was simple, didn't cost me any money (I drew the V on the back of a cereal box), and provided a few quick lessons.

Massachusetts

We are celebrating our home state of Massachusetts as part of our book tour of the United States. We started by reading one of our favorite books, Make Way for Ducklings by Robert McCloskey. Last summer we spent a few days in Boston and enjoyed visiting the Make Way for Ducklings statues and riding on the swan boats in the public garden so this book has become part of a memory of a great trip.

We also read Good Night Boston by Adam Gamble.

Crayola has great coloring pages for all of the states. We colored the Massachusetts page and talked about the facts noted on the page.

We also found Massachusetts on several different maps of the United States, added our Massachusetts quarter to our state quarters map, and enjoyed Boston Baked Beans!

Our next stop is New York because we will be visiting New York City in a few weeks.

We will be visiting all fifty states via children's literature so if you have any good book recommendations, I would love to hear them!

Tot school

R will be 38 months on the 20th

This week R imagined what the sky would look like if birds wings left color behind, and she painted with a feather after reading Birds by Kevin Henkes.

She enjoyed playing Open & Shut.



Sink or float was a lot of fun too!

Thanks to Jennifer at My Two Happy Homeschoolers, we played a mystery bag game. R loved trying to find the correct shape to fit in the puzzle.

R was so proud of herself after she put these little board books in alphabetical order. I almost didn't let her do this because it was time for bed but how could I say no to learning?

My little barista made wonderful drinks for me when we played coffee shop with coffee grinds and cocoa powder.

Thank you for visiting. Have a great week!

Sisterhood Award

I am long overdue in passing along this award. It was given to me by Jennifer at My Two Happy Homeschoolers. She is amazing; every time I read her blog I am impressed with her creativity. So, in the rare chance that you have not read her blog, you must go there now.

I knew right away that I would pass this award along to Shannon at Letters Numbers and Books Oh My! because I honestly feel like she has become a friend to me. She is an amazing blogger and a nice person. Shannon has always been quick to respond to my questions and kind enough to acknowledge me in her blogs. She made me realize that there is more to this blogging world than just putting a post out there. I am truly grateful.

I also want to pass this along to Marietta (the Bookworm) at The Bookworm's Booklist. She was one of the first people to comment on my very first post when I had no idea what I was doing (not that I have much of a clue at this point)! She also comments with great regularity and I LOVE comments! I am always amazed that people are actually reading this blog and the comments really make my day. Also, I love her blog and all of the wonderful information she has to offer. Thank you!

Coffee shop

We love playing coffee shop but this time (after seeing a similar activity on No Time for Flashcards) we made it a sensory experience. We had coffee grinds with plenty of different scoops and measuring spoons, cocoa powder, and miniature marshmallows. We took turns: one of us made drinks, one made sandwiches, and one worked the cash register. Our customers were pretend and they ordered the fanciest drinks and sandwiches.

This delicous looking sandwich was made with Haba bread, meats, and cheese. I love Haba toys.

I was surprised that C and R enjoyed this so much because when I was saving the coffee grinds, they were both bothered by the smell. Speaking of saving the coffee grinds, my husband and father both thought I was crazy! My father thinks this activity was promoted by the coffee industry to encourage future coffee drinkers!