Saturday Sale-ing

Due to some budget cuts here in the VanDusen house we haven't been able to go yard sale-ing for a while. So River and I were super excited to be able to go today! Graisan had an early Signs of the Spirit performance so she was able to come too. I let River drive for a good portion of the morning which slowed us down a bit, but he needs the experience. Anyways, let me get to the loot....

Here we have 2 origami box sets, 2 charcoal pencils, a plant hanger, and a pair of oven mitts each for fifty cents.

River was super excited to find another currency collector. The guy had a ton of stuff at pretty good deals but this is what he got. A 1963 red seal $2, a 1928 red seal $5, a 1934 blue seal $5 silver certificate, a 1935 $1 blue seal silver certificate, and a 1935 funnyback $1 certificate. He bought this as a package deal for $30. When we got home he looked them up and they are currently worth about $80, although he never plans to sell them. 

I got all these books for a whopping total of fifty cents!

Below we have a tub of lego type blocks but different than any I have seen, some cool transparent shape things I plan to use with the light table, a funky hat, and a pair of reindeer ears. These were a quarter each. I am most excited for the tub of shapes for only a quarter. And yes I will wear the hat and ears (not at the same time), Im a preschool teacher what do you expect?

Ever since my McBestie bought banana split bowls and has been posting pics on facebook with delicious banana splits, I have been wanting my own. Well check that off my list because I found this set for $3. 

And last but not least, I bought the tv and stand for $2. A pair of headphones...$2, and a lamp for the girls room $2. 

Not a giant haul today, but it satisfied our picking urge. I still have to work on the unfinished projects from my previous hauls, or I might get turned in to that Hoarders show. 

The Tot Lot - Blueberries for Sal

This week's book was Blueberries for Sal. It was the longest book so far but super cute and held her attention. 

We made a lapbook from worksheets found at Homeschool Share. Below she is matching up baby animals with their Mammas.

On Daddy's day off, he helped her put her bear puzzle together. He is SO much more patient then me :). Oh and dont judge me on her hair this week. It was one of those weeks.

She played a counting blueberry game with her sister. It is such a blessing to have older siblings that like to help out!

Then she made blueberry biscuits with Graisan.

There wasn't much to this week's lapbook so I let her cut out some pictures and glue it in her book. I have no idea why this pic is black and white.

This was a Lower and Upper case blueberry alphabet. I laminated the pages and had her match them up. At first she was mad because she didn't understand the concept, but she had fun once she figured it out.

Our BFIAR group didn't meet for a field trip this week. We started our home school group co-op today  and she and Nick both had a blast. Sorry I didn't take any pics of that, it would be another blogpost anyway. I actually felt like I didn't do that much with her this week, however looking back she did a lot. That's is the nice things about prepping ahead of time. I highly recommend atleast printing out the worksheets well in advance. Then when you have a lazy week, you can still be productive. 

The Tot Lot - The Little Rabbit

 This week we "rowed" The Little Rabbit. It was quite a different book than the last two we did. The first couple of days it was harder for me to hold her attention but towards the end she was enjoying it. 

We always start the week off by working on the lapbook from Homeschool Share. She just loves cutting! 

 Tuesday she had her first gymnastics class. She loved it and did pretty good, only frustrating the teacher a few times because she didn't exactly follow his directions :). Sorry the pics are so blurry, I had to take them behind the glass.

Wednesday we were back to work on bunny stuff. Below she is making a bunny mask I found Here. I told you she loves to cut!

I found a Mommy & Baby animal matching game here. I laminated the pages so I can keep and use again. These turned out to be the biggest hit of the week, she requested this activity the most!

We ended our week with a field trip to the Springs Preserve. She got to see a couple real life bunnies just like the wild rabbit in the story. 

The Tot Lot - Caps for Sale

 We just finished our second week of preschool and Im still loving it! This week we "rowed" Caps for Sale. Reanna loved this story! I am loving how it kept her attention. This week we used Homeschool Share for their lapbook printables and Homeschool Creations for extra printable activities.

Here she is stacking caps. This is from the lapbook, I laminated it ahead of time and put velcro on the back of each hat. She played with this a little bit each day. 

The caps in the story are 50 cents a cap, so I found these piggy banks in the dollar section at Target. I gave her a baggie of quarters so she could put her money in the bank. I was actually surprised at how long she sat their doing this. She put it all in then took it all out, over and over and over. 

Even Nicky got in on the action!

This is a counting mat also from the lapbook. I laminated it ahead of time too. She loved this activity! I would put a number on the mat and she had to place that many monkeys in the tree. 

This week she was really into doing paperwork so the extra printables from Homeschool creations came in handy! Here she is trying to write her name. 

Our big finale of the week was meeting with our BFIAR co-op group and re-enacting the story. Great idea from one of our mom's and it was so much fun! Here she is taking her turn as the Peddler. 

And here are the monkeys stealing her hats. :)

Another great week at the Tot Lot!

The Tot Lot - Jesse Bear What will you wear?

We just finished our first week of official pre-school! I can honestly say I am so looking forward to the rest of the year. I chose to use Before five in a row curriculum. It's a perfect fit for us! Reanna and Nick both love to hear the story and Reanna has her own schoolwork to do while the older kids do theirs.

We start off every morning with calendar time. I go over the month, seasons, weather, days of the week (we even sing the days of the week song), and number of days we have been doing school. This month happens to be Reanna's birthday month so we countdown the days to her birthday, which happens to be her favorite thing. I bought our calendar from Lakeshore Learning. This is our set-up.

Next is storytime. This week we "rowed" Jesse Bear what will you wear. You can see by the smile she loved it! The story was obviously about what Jesse wears, so after we read it the first day, I had her help me clean out and organize her closet. We picked out her clothes for everyday of the week to make mornings go smoothly. 

The rest of the week she worked on her lapbook I printed from Homeschool Share. Here are some pics of her working on it.

I also found a cute blog on pinterest that had Jesse Bear printables. Click Here for the blog. I printed and laminated the bear and clothes and attached velcro to the back. She loves dressing her bear over and over again :)

Even Daddy got in on the fun during his day off. He played the laundry matching game with her, which is in the Homeschool share lapbook printables. She helped me color them, and I laminated them so she can use over and over. 

The best part of our week was ending with a field trip to Build a Bear! Reanna and Nick got to make their very own Jesse Bears. Our host was so awesome she even read the story to the kids. Below is a pic of Reanna listening to the story. 

Here is kinda a group pic :). All the kids didn't make it in this one, not even Nick, who by this time was walking around the mall with his sister. His attention span is about 3.2 seconds and he hadn't had a nap. 

I would say the first week of preschool was a Huge success! I cant wait for next week, we are doing Caps for Sale. 

Geography, Charlotte Mason style

Here at the VanDusen house, we aren't big fans of workbooks or text books. Which is one of the reasons we homeschool.  So for geography we do something a little different. I love it so much, I figured other people might too and I better share :)

I signed up each child with their own account on http://www.postcrossing.com/. It's totally FREE. Each child has their own profile. I put that we were homeschoolers, and using this as a way to learn about geography. You can send 5 postcards per account at first, and it will increase the more you send. So each child writes their own cards and mails them off. 

Once the other person receives and registers their card, your child's name gets given to someone else to send a card. So its not a straight swap (like penpals, or flat stanleys), which I liked because we have tried those in the past and it never seemed to work out. However, we have been doing postcrossing for  months and havent had any problems with the kids not receiving cards. 

Ok, so once they get the card in the mail they register it. Then they break out their geography binders. Each child has their own . They print out a map of the country where the card came from (unless they already have a map from that country in their binder), and find and mark the city on the map. On the back of the map they have a fun facts sheet where they write the cool things people tell them, and then they put the postcards in a page protector right behind that. 

Here is a pic from Graisan's binder

I really cant rave about this enough! People have been so awesome! We have received cards in the shape of countries and cards with maps. One person drew us out a map and wrote about each building in their city. One lady sent Graisan a pack of postcards and stickers because she used to home school her own daughter. My kids love learning about these places from actual people who live there as opposed to a boring workbook. Plus it's also good writing practice for my 11 yr old that hates to write, but knows she must write her cards neatly so others can read it. For sure one of my favorite things we do! So sign up your family and Happy Postcrossing!

Kefir cheese

I have been making my own Kefir for a while now. I am up to 3 quarts a day. We use one for smoothies so I had to figure out what to do with the rest. I decided to make cheese. First let me say, cheese is a term I use loosely because its really more like a sour cream. The cool thing is you can use the "cheese" many ways. I use it plain as a sour cream. I puree fruit and mix it in the cheese for a yogurt. I have put honey and fruit in it for a breakfast. I have also heard you can use herbs and spices and use it as a cream cheese. The last one I havent tried yet. Ok so let me show you how I make it.

First you need Kefir.
 Click here for my "How to make Kefir" blog. 

Here is my unstrained kefir.

You need a strainer and something to catch the whey. This is what I use,  my strainer just happens to fit nicely into this large measuring cup. 

This is a nut bag. I used to use cheese cloth before I found this. I make this too often to keep buying cheese cloth. I found this nut bag on Amazon for under $10. 

So I take my plastic strainer I bought at Walmart for $1.00, I wrap the bag around it and hold the handle tightly. Then I strain my kefir right into the bag just like I would in the blender for smoothies. Once I am left with just the grains, I start the kefir making process all over. 

I put this in the fridge overnight, or sometimes a couple nights to drain. 

The whey drains out and you are left with a soft cream cheese consistency.

It looks like this. I put it in a container and use it however I want.

The other cool thing about making this, is the whey thats left. Its full of nutrients and good stuff for you.  There are also many things to do with this but I choose to put it in my garden and dilute and water my houseplants. One of these days I will venture out and use it for other things but for now its helping me grow food :).