hammering

Recently a box arrived at our place that contained some very cool things.... Thick foam :)


Whatever else that was in it wasnt as exciting (well for me anyway, Tims eye lit up like Christmas at the shiny new xbox that was in the bottom on the box) for me, but the foam presented itself with LOTS of ideas and potential.


I found some nails in the garage and daddys real hammer and I set it up. Jared was totally wide eyed at being allowed to use real nails and a hammer and was up at the table very fast. He spent quite alot of time hammering the nails in, but then struggled to get the out to do it again.
Back into the garage I found some great pliers that he got straight to work pulling all the nails out.

This whole activity lasted on and off all day. Between him and Amahli, they must have hammered enough nails to build a house. It takes a huge amount of concentration to hold a full sized hammer and a nail,as well as hand eye coordination to strike the nail and not yourself ( we had a couple of incidents of this, but it did make them more aware that they had to be careful) but it was something they thoroughly enjoyed.

sight word: fly

After an absolutely MAMMOTH weekend I have been hit with the mother of all head colds. I think all the stress and build up to the big day and the little things that didnt quite go my way has all hit me in one big thump. Added to that were three little people that really wanted to spend the day with me....

So Jumeirah had a mental health day, with the promise she was going to help me ( and she totally did too).
I found about 10am they wanted something to do so I decided to contiure my sight word idea and introduced the word "fly".
Activities that were to be included were butterfly punching ( not as violent as it sounds though), painting something with the theme "fly", and a home made dot to dot picture. As I wanted Jumeirah to feel involved I had to work to stretch some of the activities to accomodate her too. I was kinda thrilled that my fuzzy head was able to pull all this cool stuff out :)

I set up the table and it worked in a round robin kind of way where one child did an activity and then the next one passed it on...

Jared started with a simple dot to dot. The idea behind it is to follow the number progression, as well as staying in a reasonably straight line. Its pretty tricky! I drew this one myself.

Amahli started with painting.. these are butterflies. I changed from the classic red,blue,green and yellow and gave them brown, yellow, grey and black. It encourages them to think differently when the colours are different from the "norm".

Jumeirah started with butterfly punching which she loved. Picking papers, choosing colours is totally up her alley. To make it more age appropriate and to challenge her a bit, I suggested she glue them in a formation of 3 rows of 4. This meant she had to measure out on a rule at 5cm intervals to make sure they were going to be straight and even. ( Encouraged the development of counting by 5's and using a ruler).

They all moved on, Jumeirah to drawing, Amahli to punching, and Jared to painting. He seems to really struggle with finding things in his head to paint and I have been getting worried about how lacking in creativity he is ( only because hes going to school next year, I really dont want him to be too far behind). But with only a bit of encourgement, I was presented with this spectacular bee :) He was so proud of himself.

Our "fly" display :)

GOOD morning

Its amazing what an early start to the day makes when the view is like this......

sight words

I set up an activity that I really want to do every week with some simple variations but something that will encourage Jared with some simple sight words.

I had no rhyme or reason behind the sight word I used this week which was "boat", I just thought it might capture his attention.

So I set up the table with the sight word in the middle with three different activities related to that word that he had to work through.

We had:( and the skills it works on)

Cutting shapes out to make a boat: ( fine motor, concentration, hand eye co ordination)

writing the word "boat": (word recognition/letter recognition, hand/ eye coordination, pencil grip)

painting a picture either of a boat or with a boat in it: ( imagination, hand/eye coordination)

hes getting better at coming and joining in at these activities which is what I was REALLY working on. Hes going to school  next year and he has a very sweet way of saying " oh no thanks" to craft and arty stuff at preschool and getting away with it so I want him to learn to enjoy it so school wont be such a push.
He was happy to sit and start with me which was a good sign :) Having a few different things to do meant that he wasnt overly worried I was only going to make him paint.


These are the results of our very productive morning :)

a moment captured

We spent the weekend in the way I love the most.... together. No commitments of work ( well, other than one shoot I had on Sunday arvo) and a dark and stormy day meant that I had three eager beavers wanting to go explore...

So we headed off to our locallest ( yup its a word) of beaches and spent the morning chasing seagulls, hunting for crabs, discovering starfish, and time together.
I didnt take my camera, I get tired of sometimes being so attached to it, but I did take my phone and shot all these with it :)

of course I kicked myself later for not taking the real thing but it was not too bad for an iPhone!


Later in the day, it began to pour. But not to be thwarted, we bought umbrellas and headed off for a coastal walk.
Something about spending time with just us really lifted all of us to completely enjoy the day. Leeches, a fall, and a slip in the mud could not dampen the fun a simple day out can bring :) And it created a whole heap of wonderful family memories that will last a lifetime ( I hope!) and traditions of rain walking that will also be enjoyed for an age to come :)

What do you guys do as a family? What new memories have you made lately??

ink printing

Ive had  fun with these littles and their card creating antics.. not alot of actual completion but ALOT of production :)

Today I added inks to the table. I had the idea that they could use my stamp kits but then stumbled on an old book of mine that contained fingerprint pictures so thats what we decided to do.

Jared, not too pleased about getting his finger dirty but hes gradually getting better and will do it once hes sees that its not too messy. I made fish with my fingerprints, he made butterflies and was done :)

Amahli was happy to print and so I got something else out for her I thought she might like to print with something else. Last night I cooked with Bok Choi and whilst I was cutting off the end I noticed how cool the end piece looked and wondered if it would print as well.

I gave it to Amahli with some red paint, and hoped that it would turn out like the rose it looked like.
She had a great time printing with it and it printed pretty well! I made a whole stack of rose paper as note paper too :)

What else have you printed with??

Late last week I hosted a Stampin Up card making night at my place. Its totally my thing and it was just what I needed to relax and dismiss the week and allow my brain to stop for just a few moments... unfortunately we had a huge storm and lost all power so we card made by candlelight which was nothing short of romantic... sort of.


I left some things on the table overnight, only to find two eager beavers sitting up asking to have a turn of hole punching. So, I scooted them off to breakfast to set up and when they were done, I had paper, scissors, textas and a series of hole punches ready for them.

Hole punching is hard work! It really works those fine motor skills and muscles in fingers that is so important when pencil writing comes into play...

You can see how hard Amahli had to work to get it to punch through :) Check out that tongue working!

It also works on patience because it is tricky to line up and punch at the same time.
When they had punched a whole heap of paper, all punches were glued onto paper ( I didnt click that one but you get the idea) .


Im going to add to this all week and see how it goes!

funny little thing

Todays post is a video, one that totally shows the funny little creature I have the pleasure of mothering.

Watch her make Jelly :)

You Tube Video

beach treasure hunting

(warning: HIGHLY PHOTOGRAPHED DAY AHEAD)

So today marks day three of wet. AGAIN. Port Macquarie is becoming quite notorious for flooding lately and whilst it hasnt affected us too much, for the little people in my house, today was a sign to go nuts. With no chance to run outside ( our backyard resembles a permanent swamp) they were running around with sheets on their heads and giggling in that almost hysterical way. I had a mound of washing to do, 6 mounds of washing to put away, but I also knew that today would not be a pleasing day if I didnt do something productive for them.
So I grabbed a piece of paper and a pen, two little hypos, and headed for the car.
I had a great plan ( which was very handy seeing as my brain function has been off of late) and quickly drew them a simple idea of finding some treasures. They were just excited to be in the car and heading off on what I called an adventure :)


We headed to our favourite local beach, Shelley Beach, where I gave them the things they had to find and a basket. And they were off, squealing and laughing with absolute delight.

And this is our day :) 

Once all our treasures were found, they created a game where I was put in jail whilst they put on shows for me. ( I know, they are random but cute)

These two are seriously the best of friends.... The photo above would have been very amusing from the other side... Amahli wanted to sit up on the rocks but then panicked so she threw her arm around Jared. He, in his usual hug-a-lot way, hugged her back :)

Below, I have no idea what they are talking about but the conversation was deep and involved. The hand holding is one of those things they seem to always do :) I have no idea how long it will last but its so gorgeous to see.

Makes you want to jump for joy :)

marble counting

How the heck does a whole week go by without blogging?? Really?? I have no idea... except for the fact that I now only have two days in the week where I get to fulfill all my arty crafty ideas :( I know, I know, Im sad too. BUT! On the up side, Amahli and I have been thoroughly enjoying our music/dance lessons together ( oh we've got the moves baby!) and I have now graduated from Parent Stalker to Parent Helper on thursdays! Yes, instead of lurking and working under the cover of darkness to get information about school, I am now invited every week to come and join in. TOTALLY in my element :)


So this week Jared has been talking alot about numbers, identifying them on signs, or adding up things he can see, and so I created him a new way to work with numbers and adding stuff at home that I thought might hold an interest for awhile.


In zip loc bags I placed groups of marbles: 2 bags contained 2 marbles, 2 bags contained 3 marbles, 2 bags contained 4 marbles. I also added later some bags with only one marble in it.

On a sheet of paper I wrote out some simple addition sums to work out, and showed him what we were going to do. He and Amahli first sorted out the bags of marbles into groups and then he started to try and work out the sums on the paper.

To do it, he read the numbers and found the corresponding bag with marbles in it, laid them side by side and them added them up! It was a simple process but he was so proud that he actually understood what I was saying and getting them right.

Amahli enjoyed counting too so it will be something I do with her as well. I love when Maths is fun!