moon dough - thinking cap thursday

I'm stealing a friends recipe its fantastic, Its called moon dough, although it reminds me more of sand, or scone mixture when your rubbing in the butter. Check out the post on Alicia's 365 moments of Gratitude. We made this today with plain flour and baby oil and a bit of green glitter, it smells really nice! First Flynn popped some stones in it, and then stomped his dino through it, then drove his cars in it. I clumped together a mountain and he smashed his cars into it, He crumbled some through a cardboard tube. Then after a food interval, called Flynn into my flower garden and we picked a few things, we then made a garden in the moon dough with a road for the cars to drive down, a bridge for the dinosaurs to cross so they could eat the flowers. All in all its great stuff, i put it into an ice cream container and we will play with it again tomorrow. Cheap and fun, my kinda play.

So what is he learning when he plays with moon dough? Its all the same sorts of skills as play dough, they learn about touch, this dough is crumbly and yet it moulds together. Like play dough its a tranquil and soothing activity, where they tend to concentrate really well. Admittedly Flynn really wanted company to play with it today but i can see that just the age hes at. Its a great medium for story telling too. So thanks Alicia we really like it x x love sassy

linked on its playtime & tgif linky party &
 

10 things - only human on humpday

10 things about me  - you might not know

1. I refuse to drive an automatic car. I enjoy driving, it took me a long time to bother getting my licence, i was 25, i had a patient partner who was a good taxi driver. I was great at public transport, but when we moved back to our home town driving is really the only option. I like manual cars because i am a control freak and they make twisty road so much more fun, we have a few of them in these parts.

2. My birthday falls on the longest night of the year. (in Australia anyway)

3. I confess i am a ranter, i have this invisible button and once pushed i will explode a load of rant.
my children and hubby love pushing this button and seeing mummy go into nuclear overdrive. Kaboom, "oh my god if you don't blah blah then mummy's going to have an aneurysm, i swear I'm just asking for a little bit of help with blah, focus on what I'm saying here, are you listening, oh whats the point no ones every listening I'm just talking to myself again, like a crazy mad woman, man i hope the neighbours are out because the way you lot are making me today, if there listening they are never going to have babies. have you done blah yet, no, are you for real, here just give it to me ill do it...again, its like you all think I'm super woman" kinda the gist of it.
So please stand back and pop on your safety vests when the rant button is pushed or you may get caught in the cross fire as I'm bringing up little ranters who are starting to rant back. You should know too that my ranting doesn't bother them most of the time they really just tune out, put up their invisible umbrellas and repel the flying rants.

4. I don't eat meat, yes I'm a veggie, i like eating vegetables, there are a lot more foods out in the world besides meat. Sadly when people discover I'm a veggie they like to interrogate my choice of being a non meat eater and they like to know exactly what i will and wont eat. I don't get why people are that interested in my diet but i guess they are fascinated in my reasoning. It is fairly simple i couldn't kill animals to eat them & most importantly it made me very sick when younger so i gave it up. I have never looked back, i don't miss meat at all. It is no longer trendy to be a vegetarian thankfully so at least people have stopped thinking I'm doing it to be cool. I get a lot of people ask how do i live with someone who eats meat, my husband  is lucky i can cook meat and whilst i use more frying pans than most people, no one pot wonders in this house. It works fine, my kids eat meat with gusto and as yet they haven't noticed that I'm eating something slightly different. A friend who is also a veggie told her kids that not everyone likes to eat tomatoes, mummy doesn't like to eat meat, and they are cool with that. If you discover someone you know is a vegetarian, what ever you do, don't try to convert them back to eating meat, its rude and its nothing we haven't herd a thousand times.

5. I can roll my tongue, this is a genetic thing you either can or you cant.

6. I re-read books that i love again and again and again, some of my fave books have been read 5 or 6 times. My Hubby thinks this is a bit odd but i love reading, and even if i know the ending i still enjoy the ride. Mostly its the classics but there is a few modern books in this mix too. Once i find an author i like i search out every book they have written and read until i overdose and need to give them a break for a while, but generally a year or two later i re-visit the favourite one. I even read some of my childhood books, like Anne of green gables and some of Roald Dahl stuff. Bookworm i am!

7.  I have been a donkey voter, have you?

8. I like to mimic voices, as in different accents. If i listen to a particular accent for any length of time with not too much practise I'm able to sound a lot like it. This is a family thing and most of my family members are great mimics. Very useful when learning languages.

9. I had my baby boys via c section. and one day i will probably write a post on why, but not today.

pink hair was really fun, lots of strangers would comment on it for good and bad.
People even crossed the street to avoid me a few times! Its amazing how looks influence people.

10. I have an extremely low boredom threshold when it comes to my hair, i have been many many colours, chopped it very very short, grown it so many times only to chop again, streaked, foiled, straightened as its naturally curly. Fringe, no fringe, currently with fringe. Thankfully my husband seems to enjoy the different versions of me so that's ok. I've never had blue hair, maybe i could get some little clip in streaks for my Christmas stocking, must buy myself a stocking for that matter!

now you all know too much about me ill say see you soon, love sassy

christmas paper - tuesday treasure (a day late)

Its time for us to post some overseas Christmas goodies and we need some paper, so Flynn and i got busy today with some rollers and blue paint. I know that chrissy paper is cheap, but i think presents to loved ones wrapped in home made paper is a more thoughtful way to give gifts. Also it gives Flynn and opportunity to paint on really big bits of paper and that's always fun. It also makes the lead up to christmas that much more exciting for kids if they are involved in all the steps of gift giving. Flynn has been subjected to many christmas shopping trips lately as i madly try to get it done before the shops get to catastrophic. So he has helped choose presents, now he gets to make the paper, he will also be making cards and i may even employ his elfish little hands to manage the sticky tape at wrapping time. He will have a good understanding this way of the joy of gift giving, and i hope too that he will see christmas is about giving to loved ones not just about what hes getting.

ok so how did we make our christmas paper? We had some paper from flynn's daddy that he no longer needed, we got some silver paint and some blue paint, some little sponge rollers and i cut out some stencils. very basic stencils. I cut out a snowman and a snowflake and this was ok, but i cut them out of paper, big mistake they started to break and rip after the 3rd rollering. I then cut some stars out of a empty cat bikkie box and this worked fantastic. I cut one really big star, flynn really liked this one, and a few small stars. The biggest difference i noticed was he struggled with the first stencils because he was rollering around them, needed lots of help. But with the star stencils he was rollering the inside shape the star itself and this clicked with him so much better, interesting that the negative positive aspect would make a difference but at nearly four i can understand its easier to see what your doing. We quickly filled up two big pieces of paper, the silver paint was not bold enough so we combined the blue with it to get a shiny blue paint. I think the paper has worked out rather pretty, i think the key to stencil paper is to keep the stencils simple.

If your having trouble with the drawing up of a stencil you can always print a basic star from the computer, or just let loose and remember that your kids are very forgiving and will love whatever you do! my stars are a bit wonky x x

sassy

linked on mommy club wednesday linky & Its Playtime & tgif linky party & fun stuff fridays

moments

did you know alpaca's could wink?

the young peacocks were a bit confused and displayed hopefully  to the guinea fowl

christmas is approaching this is whats flowering in the tropics, very festive, makes up for lack of snow

linked on wordless wednesday

learn to read - friday finds

Useful things for teaching to read are my finds today. My big boy is very interested in reading, and i point the words when i'm reading, i have also tried to increase the number of books we read a day. I have always read 2 books at bedtime, but now im trying to read some during the heat of the day here. He just about knows his alphabet, and ive moved on to trying to making the alphabet sounds. I thought it would be great to have some resources for helping him to read so ive been digging around on the web and this is what i have found.

Noni likes reading eggs for dylan, you can free trial this one, im about to sign up for the free trial and see if Flynn responds to it as well as Dylan has.


There is also storylineonline, where a screen actors guild actor reads your kids a book, nice and a great way to discover new books.

There is this really awsome blog called The Book Chook, brilliant for ongoing reading ideas.



Reading worksheets from tls books and also kidzone i really like the itsy bitsy books

printable worksheet sight words from education

printable flashcards at kids-pages (now i need some colour ink for my printer)

Some fun games on starfall i really like the phonics learning on this!
And then there is scholastic i found this nice article on pretend to read and how it is helping them learn to really read :) love that.



I grabed a novel today, something i haven't done in a very long while and let my kids see me read for pleasure, the more of this you do the more they will see reading as an enjoyable and grown up passtime. Bonus i get some me time, happy reading love sassy x x pls share your great learn reading finds

chatterbox learning - thinking cap thursday

Chatterbox's make great play things, i remember my mum spelling out words with them and then she would write funny things on the inside. They make a great medium for learning.

I have made a few for Flynn, the first has got our names on the outside then numbers on the inside, then shapes under the lift up bit. The second has colours on the outside, sight words on the inside and then positive sentences under the lift up triangle along the lines of "your a star" and "my little champion". I think this helps to boost his confidence ans i hope it will reinforce that learning is a positive experience. The green one is all about the alphabet, i worked through the letters on the outer, inner and the under layers. The bottom layer also has some words begining with that letter.

So how do you use them? i hope this makes sense, you pop your fingers into the bottom triangle and move the chatterbox as if it is a mouth. You spell out the word your child has chosen, or run through the alphabet until you hit that letter. Then you let them choose from the inner part, and you spell count or run through alphabet, when you finish this time you lift the little triangle flap and read whats underneath.

So how do you make one? im hooking you up on ehow and a video on metacafe

ok have fun learning, sassy x  linked on playtime

Kindy Open Day - Only human on humpday

Flynn turns four soon, very soon, and next year he goes to kindy 3 days a week. Until now hes been mine, all the time, hes never been in daycare. I do have a relaxed kid swap with a mate, i take her boy one day a week and another day she has Flynn. But as i said its relaxed and its only for a couple of hours. So kindy seems like a big deal its a real step of Independence for him. I am super excited for him as i know hes a very sociable little fellow (chatterbox) and he need the stimulation for his active mind. I also have the very normal mummy feelings of loss when i think about him going off to kindy, and that from hear on in other people will have some influence over him and his thinking. My house will be eerily devoid of chatter when hes not around, Eli is fairly noisy but is not the questions and chit chat of Flynn. I look forward to giving Eli a bit more 1 on 1 time, but i think hes going to miss his brother too.

I console myself that the kindy I'm sending him too is lovely, really really lovely. It had an open week this week where we could go and hang out and Flynn could get a taste of kindy. He was concerned that i would be leaving him, battles i can see i will face next year, but after a few mins he was lit up inside by the possibilities. So many things to do, so many toys, so many children to play with and class pets too. He painted, played blocks, play dough, watched the fish and spent ages observing the two mice. He ran around the playground the two massive shade trees and took in as much as his little eyes could handle. He loved it, we were only there for 1 hour and a half perhaps 2 hours, he did not want to leave. The teachers are really nice very friendly and went out of their way to go over a few things with us about next year. I think Eli wants to go to kindy too, he was just as busy as Flynn while we were there.

I have a few thoughts jumping around my head about the start of kindy, again its just normal mum stuff...how will i get him there on time, I'm always late for everything these days....i hope we get enough work to pay kindy fees....I have no freaking idea how to handle the lunch box thing, what do i send for my somewhat fussy eater....must make a list of all the kindy supplies he will need....crap what is it going to be like when i have school lists to buy? ..... must get name labels that don't wash off, must ask mummy friends about general label of stuff advise....must go over all kindy info with hubby, must therefore sit down with hubby and talk ! that is very difficult at the moment..... I can't believe hes been here on this earth for four years, what will life bring in the next four year?

I would love to get any tips about how to handle drop offs, i know my son this will be tricky for first few weeks, also lunch box food ideas. and if anyone has starting school, daycare, kindy stories they want to shear I'm totally listening x x x sassy