County Fair Projects

The Venango County Fair was something new to me when I was a kid, but since that is where Gary & I met, and we believe in the family friendly atmosphere it is now a given to our family that we will be going and participating in the fair events and friendly competition. With Robert being a 4-H'er he has several projects that he will be exhibiting for 4-H. Along with the projects come the books. These are a great way to keep Robert writing and reading and calculating the costs of his projects. Plus he will learn something new too!
Now Garrett will have his projects too. The fair offers open classes for everyone. There are youth classes for those 8 and under, 8-18, and adults. These projects are what keep the boys busy all summer. Actually it started the planning in January or February because the seed catalogs came out then and they were looking for sunflower seeds. They both enter sunflowers that they have taken care of throughout the summer.
But some simple ideas are: collages, fabric painting, flowers (plant and let the kids water and weed and then select the best looking bloom as needed for each type of flower) farm displays, models,etc. there are lots of things to choose from and they are great ways to use up some of that extra time that you might have this summer!
Gary & I even enter some of the things that we have made throughout the year, just for the fun of it. If anyone is interested I have extra fairbooks with the classes! Venango County does ask for preregistration by July 16th.

Vacation Bible School

As a co-director for Vacation Bible School, I am always excited about what is coming for the kids. For some reason this year I was more worried than excited, but our church had the "Backstage with the Bible" from the Go Fish Guys. If you have never heard of the Go Fish Guys, they are a great music group that started in adult Christian music and moved into kids music and the kids (and adults) love the music. Well, the VBS was very exciting - we had 104 registered kids attend VBS and over 40 volunteers. But the most exciting was how the kids took to the music and they really knew the words. Their favorite song _"The 10 Commandment Boogie" How awesome to have a song with God's rules be the kids' favorite song.

Now my boys were very very excited because we do like the Go Fish Guys' music so that made their day all by its' self. But it is so cool when Garrett came home each day and could tell myself or Gary ALL about VBS. The snack, the story, the games, the music, the craft (which he usually had to show us) and even the things he got to buy at the store. Robert had to miss one day because of cap, but he was always ready to put in anything that Garrett maybe missed about the day.

I was a VBS kid meaning that I attended several VBS's each summer and now my boys are doing the same. If you are interested Emlenton Area Church's will be having a "Family VBS" Starting June 21-25 from 6-8:30 each evening. The are presenting "Egypt - Joseph's Journey from Prison to Palace" All are welcome to come and join in on more summer fun!

Tents are great

Yesterday Robert asked if he could get out his tent. It is a small 2 person tent (if they are small people) but it was a nice day so he was allowed to get it out, but he had to set it up himself or with the help of his brother. A little while later both boys came to get legos - they could play outside and not loose the legos. The boys spent most of the afternoon playing in the tent. Then last night when I came home from a meeting there is a note saying that Robert was sleeping in the tent by himself. At age 9 I thought this would be an interesting evening. But he made it all night in the tent by himself and he enjoyed it. The tent stayed up today too and they continued to play in it. Aren't new play things in the backyard great? Sometimes something as simple as a tent or when inside a sheet over a table can entertain children for hours. And it seems my boys still like to have close, small space rather than wide open spaces. HAve a great summer weekend and remember tents are for more than camping!

Summer Reading Project

When Robert was younger he tracked the books he read through the summer by adding a body part to a dragon on our upstairs bulletin board. HE really enjoyed the activity that followed reading a book. Well after a lot of looking through bulletin board ideas, the boys and I have talked about having our "Reading Farm"." This week we will draw and color the barn which is the base for our farm then in order to have farm animals, they will have to read a book. For each book read, they will get a farm animal to write the name of the story on and them color the rest of the animal. So by the end of the summer, they are hoping to have an entire farm (maybe I'll even include tractors and equipment - we'll have to wait and see) But this is just an idea that has encouraged my boys to keep reading especially during the summer!

Alphabet Train

Garrett is learning his alphabet and we have tried a couple different things but they haven't clicked for him yet, but on Friday I started "Garrett's Alphabet Train" I found a blank train engine picture and a blank train car for in a classroom or bulletin board. I added Garrett's name right to the train and then printed it off for him. Now Garrett hasn't proved to be much for coloring, but twice now with the Frog Life Cycle and now with the train he has done a wonderful job. He also asked for colored pencils, so don't be afraid to give kids different tools to color with. We have the start of our train ready and on the wall. I took a photo of him and cut it out so there wasn't any background and it is just his head and put it in the engineer's spot on the train. I am planning to have each train car have a different letter and he can either find that letter in a magazine or paper or he can add pictures from the magazines of hings that start with each letter. But if nothing else he is very excited about it. We'll see how it goes.

Last Day of School

I try to make the first and last days of each school year special. We usually have something to give to the teacher for a Thank You for a good year and we usually try to have something for the bus driver too as they did make sure that Robert was safe to and from school each day throughout the year.
But I also have a few things that I do for Robert - first is that there will be pictures as he gets on and off the bus tomorrow. But I also have purchased Crayola's window crayons and Window Markers. SO there will be a little message on the door as he leaves and a new one when he gets home. Something as simple as "The LAST DAY of SCHOOL" or "Good-Bye 3rd Grade" then when he comes home it might say "Look out 4th Grade here comes Robert" Or "Welcome Summer!"
I usually have some type of small gift for the first day of summer too. This might come on the last day of school or it sometimes waits til the first day after school is out. This is usually something that the boys will spend time with this summer. New sports equipment or a few new books to read throughout the summer. What ever it is I do try to go overboard and celebrate each year completed in school! So try something special for your kids!

math games

Robert is to the point that he is learning his multiplication tables, but there have been a few nights that just going through the flash cards is just a bit more than what he can handle. So I got out a deck of regular playing cards and we divided them in half. And we both flipped over 1 card. He had to multiply the 2 cards together. IF he got the answer correct he got the cards, if the answer was wrong, I got the cards. The object of the game is for him to end up with all of the cards. Now we used the jack as 11, the queen as 12 and the King as 1 and the Ace was the Wild card which means that the person who laid it down gets to choose a value for the card. This proved to be a nice way to practice his math facts and was more of a game than a flashcard practice time.

After we had played several times (at his request) I got to thinking that this would work for almost any math. Addition they could easily add. Subtraction they would have to remember to start with the largest card and multiplication as we played it. So maybe throw in a few math games this summer while hanging out outside and the kids won't even realize that they are practicing their math facts.

Teaching Opposites

Garrett and I have been playing a game for a while that he reminded me of the other day as we waited for an appointment. When I was in high school there was a cheer that the cheerleaders did during football that one line was " We say fight, you say Win -fight, win, fight, win" and it continued with other lines. Well I have taken that line and have made it a fun opposites game. I will look at Garrett and say" I say stop, you say go - stop, go, stop, go" We then continue with as many opposites as we can. Sometimes I will start with "I say on, you say- what do you say?" This is where Garrett will tell me off and then we finish the game. This has become a fun little rhyme that we can do anywhere, from in the car, to waiting in line at the store, to waiting for an appointment. And it doesn't take anything but a mind fast enough to remember opposite groups plus it helps the kids remember their opposites.

Memorial Day Events

Okay, for my family Memorial Day usually means that Gary works and that there is farming to be done, but first there is the Service in Salem. I have been attending (for what seems like )Forever. But I have taken on a few new roles since I was a kid and I know go along with the Legion to each cemetery and play "Taps" for them.

I was talking to a friend the other day, who said that she had never been to a military funeral until recently and that it was very moving. That really got me thinking because I think that I have exposed my boys to not really the military funereal, but to a military salute. They know what a 21 gun salute looks and sounds like, they know that usually following the 21 gun salute there is the playing of "Taps" and it is a quiet solemn time to remember those who have passed on.

I hope that you take time this Memorial Day to share with your family and your children what Memorial Day is all about. It is for those who fought and gave their lives for our freedom. The freedom to have our picnics, to play our games, to go camping, whatever it is that you might be doing on this long weekend. I hope that you take time to remember and share that with those around you what the day really means. Maybe take time to attend a service somewhere near you to show your appreciation for those who gave their lives. They gave their lives, can you give a little bit of time to show them the honor that they deserve?

Have a safe and Happy Memorial Day Weekend and Take time to Remember

S'Mores Children's Sermon/activity

Okay, We had a very cool Children's sermon at church this morning that works so well with the official start of summer that it was too much fun not to share. Thanks Andrea!

The S'Mores lesson

After discussing that this was Memorial Day and that we are to remember those who have fought for our freedom, came the discussion that this usually meant picnics and campfires. And she asked the kids if they knew what the trinity was or who was in the trinity. When they didn't know she explained that it had 3 parts, The Father, The Son & The Holy Spirit. 3 parts just like a Smore! So the next time that you make a S'more remember that there are 3 parts the crackers, the chocolate and the marshmellow. The marshmellow is white like purity and when it is warmed becomes the glue that holds everything else together just like God holds everything together. And the best part about S'Mores is eating them and getting them inside of us, just like the best part about the Trinity is having them inside of each one of us!

So I hope that you have fun at your next campfire, but maybe you can use it as a learning opportunity that has a sweet treat in the end!

Tadpoles

The other afternoon, my mom stopped in with a bucket for the boys - in the bottom of the bucket were a large amount of Tadpoles. Well, we found a container to put them in and currently they appear to all be living. But I decided that if we were going to have them around that this was a great time to learn about them a little bit more. Garrett has been checking on them 2 & 3 times a day do I got online and checked on of my favorite websites for kids activities http://www.dltk-kids.com/ and searched frog life cycle. and up poped these adorable pictures and great ideas on how to make them. One of the neat ideas from this was that packing bubbles work great to appear like frog eggs.

So I printed off the life cycle in the large format and sent Garrett to check what color his tadpoles were. He came back in and when I showed him the picture of the tadpole, he went right to work coloring his picture. Now this is quite the accomplishment since Garrett doesn't like to color. But he worked at this for a while, coloring the tadpole and then the frog and all of the arrows to make our circle. Then he helped cut outsome of the pieces and he used the gluestick to stick them(with help for the proper order) onto the construction paper.

He did a great job and was very diligent about it too. So I hope you enjoy his art work and maybe you too can find some tadpoles to try raising.

handy pudding

Garrett loves chocolate pudding. We had had some of the individual servings pudding here, but are currently fresh out. So Garrett and I made chocolate pudding which is a really easy thing for kids of all ages to handle and can be nearly mess free (except for the eating of it). I have a shaker Tupperware container, (I have found that recycled Kool-aid mix containers or something similar works too)that holds 2 cups of milk plus has room for the chocolate pudding mix. So he helped pour in the milk and the pudding mix. I got the lid snapped on and then Garrett gets to jump and shake the pudding for at least 1 minute, but I usually try for 2 minutes. Then it goes into the refrigerator until after lunch. After lunch , I decided that we would have a little fun with our dessert and I pulled out the ice cream cones. Instead of Ice Cream cones we had pudding cones. Kids really enjoy these and they are kind of fun. Garrett really like scooping the pudding into the cones. And then we were able to enjoy our pudding cones outside without a really big mess. I have seen these also with a small amount of whipped cream on top to make them look even better.

So grab the pudding and enjoy a Pudding Cone this summer! We did.

Friends dropping in

Sometimes those plans from the very last minute work out the best. Dawn, Jeff & Abby were able to come and visit this weekend at the last minute. This worked out for us since it was a rainy Saturday and our plans ended up being cancelled. IT is so nice to have friends visit and we really enjoyed their visit. If you haven't had a chance to visit distant friends, maybe last minute "oh we have a free weekend" would be the time to go for a visit.

revised Candyland

The other day I was trying to figure out how to help Garrett learn his alphabet by the shape of the letter, not just saying them. So I thought about how he learned his colors and some of his numbers. He had to match them in a fun way. With games like "Candyland" you learn your colors, and "shutes and ladders" teach the numbers, so I was thinking that there isn't a reason that we can't learn our letters the same way. So when I was at Goodwill, I picked up a used Candyland Game and brought it home to be spruced up. I took a Sharpie marker and started printing both upper and lower case letters per block. Then I took the cards and on the backs wrote the alphabet in both upper and lower case letters. I put doubles on the cards that were doubles and I put numbers on the spots like "Peppermint stick" &" Gumdrop grove." With these changes we played the game using the letters and Garrett had to say the letters on each spot between where he was and where he was going. It seems to help and we are progressing. But now we have a game that we can play colors, or letters and numbers or we can play all three if the cards get all mixed up, there won't have to be a right side up or down either.

Do any of you have games that you have changed the rules to or a revised game that has worked well? please let me know as I love to have games in the back of my head!

Fun garden craft

My boys had seen a cool craft in last year's "Family Fun" magazine that we decided to make for Mother's Day gifts. They were gazing balls. My mom really likes gazing balls and has them in all shapes and sizes in her yard, but a few of the smaller ones got broken last summer in some of the storms. These were really simple and fairly mess free. They use clear, plastic treasure balls (look like Christmas ornaments, but they open like an Easter Egg) any how, you put a few drops of metallic paint of 2 different colors in. Then close the ornament and slowly roll the ball around for the paint to cover the inside and mix together naturally. Then we opened the ornaments and let them dry. We found some square stakes that the boys then painted and we put everything together with copper wire wrapped around the ball and then wrapped around the top of the painted stake. These turned out really cool, they look like the expensive gazing balls and these ones shouldn't break as easily as the glass ones. For full directions check http://www.familyfun.com/ and then search for "high-stakes glazing ball"

Mother's Day Children's Sermon

I once again had Children's Sermon., now this was kind of fun since it was Mother's Day. So I started by asking the kids that if they had any of the following living at their home to raise their hand and then I went through the following list:
a transportation director
a personal dietitian or nutritionist
a fashion coordinator
a landscaper
an accounts manager
a pediatric physician
a domestic engineer
an interior designer
a family historian
an arbitrator
or a personal coach
TO almost all of these I got "no" or "huh?"
Then we went back through each one and explained what these jobs would be in simple language and who most likely in the homes of our kids performed these duties. I explained that Mom's tend to be the ones who arrange for rides to where we want to be. That Mom is the one who decides what we can or cannot have to eat. "Can I have 1 more oreo?" and that sometimes mom says no because it is good for us NOT to have 1 more cookie. Then the fashion coordinator is the person who buys, washes and let's us know if what we are wearing is appropriate for the occasion and if it matches.The landscaper is the one who might mow the lawn or plants the flowers or shrubs or adds decoration outside to make your home look nice. The accounts manager is someone who makes sure that the bills are paid that there is money for groceries and all the activities that kids would like to do. The Pediatric physician - this I had to explain was "a kid doctor" and who do we go to when we have a sore throat or a splinter? - MOM. A domestic engineer - is someone who makes sure the the home runs properly. The interior designer is the one who makes the inside of our houses look nice and helps keep it clean. The family historian - is the person who helps keep track of our lives, either in photos, or journals or scrapbooks. They are the ones that when asked "What was it like the day I was born?" will be the one that can remember that day and explain it in detail. The arbitrator is the one who breaks up fights or arguments with siblings or friends. And finally the personal coach - I hope that we all have personal coaches as those are the people who encourage us all the time, they are the ones who challenge us and teach us new skills that we need to get through life. But the amazing part of all of this is that all those big titles we sum up with 3 letters -MOM. But when we read Proverbs 31:29-31 we find that "...that a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised. Give her reward she has earned, and let her works be known at the city gates."

Now you knew that mom did all these things for you, but I challenge you to learn 1 new thing about your mom today. Find out what your mom's favorite color is, what is her favorite flower, or her favorite food. Take time and talk to your mom because she is a lot more than you think.

Coupons / Riverside Knox

I was at Riverside in Knox today and saw that they are NOT going to accept printed at home coupons because of counterfeits. Just thought I'd let you know before you head in and can't use those coupons

Salute to America

Robert on his recorder


Robert's class presented a "Salute to America" they performed on their recorders, and sang songs of America, but here is one that I know Aunt Caren, Aunt Catherine and I were taught, which they are still teaching because it has all 50 states in alphabetical order.

Robert is front and center but Mrs. Nesta does step in the way a few times. Enjoy

Pilated Woodpecker update

I was fascinated by the woodpecker at Salem. I have since been trying to get a picture of it. But after checking online, I found that the pilated woodpecker is the largest woodpecker in North America. This one appears to be nesting as it is inside the tree now. If you stop by and don't see the bird. Stop and listen carefully, you can hear him tapping inside the hole at the top of the tree, but if you talk a little bit sometimes he will stick his head out and then he flies away but it seems that he does come back. But for a bird he is beautiful and it is the male as I was able to see the red streak on the cheek.

baby geese

If you have little ones that would like to see the baby geese, we noticed that there are baby geese at the Beaver Ponds that have hatched. THis is a great time to explain to kids about how birds come from eggs and then hatch out. Geese are very interesting to watch as they raise their young. Check them out if you get a chance.