farmers' market fun

I think farmers' markets are the perfect places for kids to do a little shopping. I gave Alfredo $14 and a little bag and told him he could buy whatever he liked. I added that I really hoped he would make healthy choices.

Here he is buying some cranberry orange apple bread...

 

Isn't he seriously adorable?

 

And here he is with all his market purchases...

 

 

The bread, blueberries, bologna, and 2 ears of corn.

 



 

We talked a lot about making choices and about how things add up quickly. I encouraged him to interact with the folks at the stands. He tasted samples and reflected on which items would make good purchases. He asked questions and made really wise decisions. He was really close to buying a chili pepper plant but then changed his mind since he doesn't eat spicy food. He picked the blueberries because he wants me to make him some blueberry ice cream. When we came home, he had a lunch with all his market finds....and he ate every bit of it.

Alfredo's Apps

Alfredo and I thought it would be fun to do a little feature every once and a while on some of our favorite apps.

First up is our friend Mary Engelbreit's Breitville, a delightful interactive  paper doll world. Alfredo loves to create characters but more than anything, he really loves to create houses. He made one for each of us. This is my living room:

Can you have too many televisions? Apparently not according to Alfredo. You can change wallpaper, add windows and toys. You can even decorate the garden and go to the beach! There's a recording studio where you can make your characters come to life. We are eagerly awaiting the addition of the store (forthcoming).

What I love about this sweet app is that it inspires Alfredo to think creatively. He's so proud of the little neighborhood he created for us and imagines what it would be like if we each had our own house. We often play this together, which I think is the very best way to play apps.

Breitville is simple yet engaging. We give it 5 Apples.

& the living is easy...

 

 

The challenge for this summer so far has been how to juggle fun time with this little guy and meet deadlines. I'm working like crazy to get stuff ready for my upcoming class over at Big Picture. It's a 12 week class so there's lots to do. At the same time, I don't want to neglect this little angel. Who could possibly resist that smile?

 

We're collecting great idea for summer fun...do you have any for us?

 

p.s. hoping to blog more regularly!

 

 



hello, first grade!

Aren't the just too adorable for words?

Congratulations! First Grade, here we come!

 

We'll miss our adorable Mrs. Marshall, the best kindergarten teacher ever!

classmate gift

 

For classmate gifts, I used an idea (and printable!) from Super Mom Moments. So cute! Who knew fruit roll ups made such great diplomas. 

I had these cards made a long time ago and thought they'd be great to pass out to classmates so we can stay in touch over the summer. I thought they were perfect since the class's mascot is an owl...

But Alfredo decided he didn't want to pass them out so they all came back with him. I think I'll pass them out to parents tomorrow at graduation.

class gift for our teachers

I worked with Alfredo's class to make this awesome gift for our teachers. The room mom and I worked with the class one afternoon on the sly (while their teacher worked on cleaning out the class closet).

 

 

We made a little "kit" for each child to make 2 owls...one for each teacher. The owls' bodies are 1" circle punches. The wings are an apple punch cut in half and the stem chopped off. The beak is made using tiny heart punch. We used glue dots for the googly eyes...which is actually a great way for children to use them. We kept the glue dots on the roll that they came on and just applied the eyes to the dots. Then we gave each child 4 eyes they could easily peel and stick to their owls. The completed owls went back into each baggie with the child's name on it which we used for the "kit".

  

We also had each child write their name on a piece of paper. I scanned them in and resized them to about 1". I printed them out on light green paper and cut a leaf shape around each. Each child's name is on a leaf under the owl that they made. Isn't that cute?

 

I happened to have a couple of stretched canvases on hand. I painted the background with a blue wash. I freehanded a tree shape with trunk and branches. I used two different leaf shape punches to punch a variety of green papers and glued those leaves to fill in the tree shape. 

 

I used a toothpick to "carve" the tree trunk. "KC" is the name of Alfredo's class. STS is abbreviation of the school name. 

 

Here's the one we made for the assistant teacher.

 

Isn't that a fun gift?

teacher gifts

 

I love these fat pens by Mary from the dollar section of Michael's. There's such a cute variety there now. We're giving one to each of Alfredo's "Specials" teachers...PE, Art, Music, Computer, Spanish, Library & Science. I packaged them simply with a band of paper lace and polka dotted ribbon in a perfectly-sized kraft gift box.