more spelling less talking...

We are still chugging along on our journey through the alphabet. We have been learning to spell new words with each letter of the day.

Today's letter is G. Gum and girl were the words learned through playdough fun and whiteboard teaching.

1.) Get out the playdough. Have the kids make the letter with dough.

2.) Make playdough figures of the words you want to teach. Write the word next to it.

3.) Practice spelling the words out loud with the kids.

4.) Ask the kids to write the words themselves.

5.) Make a fun activity to practice word recognition. The object of this game is draw a line from the word to its matching picture. I had Easton do this activity because it's like pulling teeth to get him to write anything. He would rather just draw pictures of race tracks and slides! BOYS!

Take ten!

Do something Christmasy...

Take ten to do something fun, Christmasy, and preferably that tastes good.

We made Christmas M & M cookies...Hint- Google this: Best M and M cookie recipe...

One cup of butter = yummy cookie mix.

And the M&M's...well they just make the cookie better tasting! Plus the Christmas colors are the best.

Let your kids help, they'll love you for it!

Take ten!

Long time...

When my husband notices that my blog has not been updated in a while, it means it has been quite a while since I've written. However, it does not mean we have stopped taking ten. In fact we've started a whole new series of take tens.

We have been going through each letter of the alphabet, writing it, and learning to spell words that start with that letter.

Here is our "B" day.  Coincidentally, and quite by accident, everything we were eating for breakfast started with b. Blueberries, bananas, and bread...

On this day we learned how to spell bug and Bible. We also sang the song "the B-i-b-l-e" (yes that's the book for me!)

So far, Melanie has memorized how to spell ant, apple, Bible, car, and carrot. (These are in addition to other words we had already worked on before this series)

As for Easton, he is a 3 year old boy, and I am happy to report that I have at least gotten him to pay attention long enough just to write the letter of the day on his magnadoodle. He'd rather scribble and make jokes. But I know he is learning something even if it is just bits and pieces..lol

With the holidays, family stuff, my own laziness, and schedules it has been difficult to keep up with this blog. But I plan on writing more often! So don't give up on reading it! :0)

Teaching the joy of chores...

Take a little ten to let your kids help with the chores you usually take care of in the house. My kids are at the age where they love to help with the things that they do not usually get to do. Yesterday I let them help vacuum.

The search for crumbs was the best part for them. It was a like a little treasure hunt...just a little. 

Easton pointed out some crumbs for Melanie to catch....

She was happy to help...

My philosophy is (and I'm not positive about this) if we take time to teach kids that chores are fun while they are little, they will not be so unhappy about doing them when they are bigger.

Train them up in the way they should go...right?

Take ten!!

Paint your cookies...

Do you know how to paint cookies? I just learned...it's pretty cool and REALLY easy. Try it with your kids.

Egg wash: One beaten egg, add one tsp. water and beat some more, mix in your choice of food coloring..we chose green.
Paint the cookie dough before baking and then bake as normal. I made East's name and a piston cup cut out to freeze and save to put on top of his birthday cake.

The kids cut out cookies..Mel chose a Christmas tree and Easton of course chose to make more piston cups.

Then they got to paint and sprinkle their cookies.

I decorated these. Some have the green egg wash and crushed candy cane sprinkles and others have melted chocolate chips topped with the candy canes. YUM!

Yesterday I asked the kids what they wanted to do tomorrow (which is today), and they said they wanted to make Thanksgiving cookies. We didn't have any turkey cutters so we started Christmas early!

Happy Holidays! Thanksgiving and Christmas!

Take Ten!

Extra candy corn..DIY experiment

I had candy corn and a bag of Costco size pretzels....the kids were getting tired of plain pretzels. What do you do when this kind of scenario happens? Well you melt the candy corn down of course and cover the pretzels with it...DUH! :)

Throw some candy corn and butter into a pot..I did not bother measuring...

Melt it down...

Add some marshmallows...again no measuring there either.

Melt it...looks good huh?

Toss in some pretzels and cover them up with the chewy gooey goodness...

Then toss the pretzels onto some parchment paper...but don't be like me and forget to spray the parchment paper or it will stick to the bottom pretzels.

These were delicious! Everyone liked them..and we used two things that were going to go to waste in our house!

After they cooled down they were not sticky to pick up and eat. Great post Halloween treat! Take ten to try it. It literally took ten minutes!

Family night!

Smile, sit down, and have a little family time. Make a happy little person like the one below.

Or, you can make a couple of snails like daddy and Easton made....

Our family play dough night kind of happened by accident. Melanie took out the play dough, Darrell sat down an joined her, and eventually all of us were sitting around the table making dough art. I stole away to take a quick pic of our happy family time.

These are the memories that will shape our children's personalities, their futures, and the way they view their childhood. 

It was so fun, just ten minutes of playing, but big keepsakes for all of our hearts.

Take ten for family memories.