box books - Friday finds

Talking to noni this week about how we and our children love boxes and the pure joy and imagination playing with a simple cardboard box can bring we ended up talking about the books we like with boxes in them.

It's Not a Box by Antoinette Portis is a classic. (also author of it's not a stick!)



My Cat Likes to Hide in Boxes written by Eve Sutton and illustrated by Lynley Dodd (hairy maclary)


Clancy and Millie and the Very Fine House written by Libby Gleeson and illustrated by Freya Blackwood



happy reading

Sweet Apps - friday finds

I recently got a new phone, and so now I'm on the look out for great apps. We also have a ipad that my boy 4 is allowed to play on, so i like collecting great games for that too. After a few conversations about apps with friends i realise that apps can really befit mums. Id would love to know what apps y'all recommend.

so on my phone I'm loving (and my phone is a samsung but iphone have all the same sort of thing)

• the flashlight app
• retro camera (pinhole camers and more love love love this one)
• picsart (photo editor)
• lightbox photos (photo editing)
• movies (this tells me whats at the box office and whats coming up)
• the supermarkets have apps that let me input my shopping lists and then tell me where to find it in my local store
• Shazam (identifies what songs are playing, by taking a sound bite very clever)
• word search (game)
• Tetris
• Pinball (omg in old school)
• p tracker ( this tracks my period, i know not totally necessary but very helpful when your a scatterbrain like me. This also tells you when your ovulating ladies who are wanting babies)
• Remember the milk. This one is great for my post baby brain its never been the same
• Most major banks have apps too.
• smart tools, i don't have this one but its one for my dh, it measures everything, + compass

there are lots of different fitness apps depending on your style of exercise
lots of budget apps
there's one called baby bump that will track your pregnancy. I don't know about you guys but second time around was no where near as good at knowing what week i was up to.

you can also get scientific calculators (free) which would be great for school kids and mums helping with homework, or nerds :)

And i discovered through a friend that there's an app to help you keep track of feeding your baby, where was that when i was breast feeding!!!

Ok onto the game world of the ipad and my son and i love

• Angry birds, Angry birds reo, Angry birds seasons
• bugged (squash the bugs even eli 1 can do this one)
• the machine (the increadible machine) daddy & flynn fave
• clicky sticky
• sprinkle (fight the fires so fun)
• shrek carting
• playschool art maker
• animalia
• star wars
• i hear ewe ( for the 1 year old)
• create a car
• farm flip
• sonic

we also have puzzles and spot the difference and lots of interactive stories

ok hope you all have a fantastic time app-ing
love sassy

Fun - Friday Finds

These are Fun! go out and have some fun too!

things we forget

improv everywhere

.random acts of kindness

the fun theory

what to do with toilet rolls - friday finds

I have been collecting toilet rolls for a bit and was wondering what to do with them, i went browsing online and these are just some of the awesome ideas i found. I think I'm going to need even more toilet rolls, perhaps its just as well Flynn is extremely generous with paper when hes going to the loo.

wiggly dragon 

Christmas lanterns

owls

chritmas decoration

home for tiny seeds

diy bonbons

pillow box

rockets

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

friday finds

Today I'm sharing a link noni found for her bub, its printouts for infants to stimulate vision. Apparently babies prefer to look at high contrast black and white images. I am thinking i might print some for eli to scribble on as he may respond better to that than the more complex colouring in images that his brother likes. I think putting some of these around a change table is a great idea as we all know babies hate nappy changes and any distraction is a good thing. Another idea would be to place some on the ceiling of bubs room as its important that babies turn there heads when they are in the cot, its also great for babies eyes to have to focus on things at different distances. Ok im off to the pool with the kids i hope you have a good Friday.

Link today is baby zorger and print out there baby vision stimuli