A is for Arctic Animals!

Hey Everybody! I wanted to really quickly jump on here and drop my post about our week! Tomorrow is Wednesday and its flying so quickly! On Monday, the boys and I did some jingle bell painting! It was so much fun! I used blue paint which is the color of the week, a cereal box that I grabbed from our recycle bin, paper I cut into circles (I used a pie tin for my template) and jingle bells I had around the house. I wanted to use marbles but I couldn't find them so I improvised! I first sent all of my little boys outside to play and brought them in one at a time to paint! Of course they ended up clustering but they really loved it! Basically, I put the paper in the box and the jingle bells and they told me where to drop the paint. A few key things to remember for next time I think I will water down the tempera paint and I will make sure to have something that rolls better than jingle bells however, they LOVED the music it made and they still ended up with very pretty pictures! We talked about the color of course, the shape of our paper and the motions we were doing while painting. Ps the bottom picture, I caught Magnus being so sweet and hugging our new friend M so I had to take a pic!

Early in the morning before our friends arrived Jay and I busted out a quick and I mean quick batch of healthy muffins! Its so easy! We call them Chocolate Pumpkin Muffins, and they are delish! They barely make it longer than 48 hours! All they are is a box of spice cake and a can of pumpkin and half a bag of chocolate chips! This week at Walgreens, I was able to get 3 cans of pumpkin on clearance for 14 cents a can! I bought the last 3 they had sorry ladies! I also like puree green vegetables and mix them in with the pumpkin and then into batter. I feel like its a sneaky way to do but whatever it gets my boys a full serving of vegetables! I pretty much puree a ton of vegetables and sneak them into every dish I make! I can get two pans of mini cupcakes out of one batch. If you are into couponing you can almost always get the boxes of spice cake for just a $1 during Dierbergs 10 for $10 and I stock up! I never know when I am not going to feel like busting out a big breakfast for the boys and these are such an awesome go to! Check out my adorable helper as well! 

I also must warn you I am big and I mean big into sensory boxes! I do one every day, I could do a whole blog on just sensory boxes. On Monday and Tuesday we did rice and cheerio's mainly because someone... dumped out the entire rice bucket from last week so we substituted with cheerios!  I dig through the cabinets and give them spoons and little cups and set it out on the patio and let them go to town! Anything they spill isn't such a big deal because the squirrels eat it and I buy the rice at the $1 store. We do work on keeping the materials inside the box though just because its important to start early with rule following. I LOVE sensory boxes because they encompass so many skills in one ten minute cycle of play! They encourage sensory of course touching different textiles, fine motor skills, gross motor skills and hand eye coordination. On Thursday we will be doing an ice sensory box, I have bought some arctic animals that I will set out for play on the little containers of ice I have made inside the sensory box. Ps Any plastic box will work AWESOME for a sensory box, you can often find something at the teacher recycle store or my favorite store The Upcycle Exchange which I so highly recommend you check out! They are a pay as you wish store on all kinds of materials they also have an awesome Facebook page! Other great items to put inside a sensory box are marshmellows, newspaper shreds, bottle caps (the plastic ones not the metal ones), pom poms... pretty much anything you can think of! 

During our in between times and things I did not get pictures of was reading books about arctic animals, coloring the letter a, doing our wooden Melissa and Doug puzzles that I totally recommend you invest in HERE is the link. I also keep all of our wooden puzzles up high in a closet not because I don't want them to be easily accessible but because I really don't want to lose any pieces and I have found when puzzles are in the play area the pieces magically get eaten by the couch!


Now that my little boys are starting to figure out my groove and I am getting caught up on all the great things I want to do with them we are going to start doing task boxes. You mama's will love them and I will explain what they are next week! 


Thanks for reading!