St. Patrick's Day fun (for school and home)

Anyone who teaches elementary school knows how mischievous Leprechauns can be and so in my class the children LOVE being creative and thinking about how THEY could catch a Leprechaun. It's always fun to read their ideas.  This year we also made leprechauns using their orange hand prints for beards.  Usually I come back to school and see a mess in my classroom and some green water in the sink.  Who knows what I'll find in Room 119 this year...

I get my kids thinking about leprechaun traps by sharing a video of a leprechaun trap my son made last year.  My students were captivated and I can't wait to hear if they set their own traps this year.  As for my son, he made another trap but again the Leprechaun got away... Here are some pictures of what he did!

This is my son's trap, complete with gold coin (really it's a quarter) and a trap door that you can't really see from this angle.  A friend thought this was perfect since Leprechauns love Amazon

There were trails of shamrocks all around our house.

Thankfully for the Leprechaun, my kids always have dirty clothes that they use to mess up their rooms!

Found on Joey's Trap

Left on my son Joey's trap was the above letter.  If you can't read it, it says:

You almost had me with that trap door

but alas, I broke free now there's trouble in store!

I messed up your rooms and I took your gold

but if you're clever, there's treasure to behold.

If you're smart and really think, boy

you can solve my riddles, you'll find some joy.

But to find my treasure, you'll need some friends.

So grab Ali, Zach and Sean, they'll help you get to the end.

Solve my clues, one by one

And you'll be happy when you're done!

Clue #1: I stopped in the bathroom look up and underneath

While I was there, I brushed my teeth...

Found in the kids' toothbrush drawer in the bathroom.

Clue #2: This isn't the only bathroom I was in, 

go downstairs and lift the lid!

This was taped (with green messages and footprints) to the under seat lid of the toilet downstairs.

Clue #3: You're doing well, don't waste more time.

Go to the clock that makes a chime.

On the grandfather clock...

Clue #4: All this work, my thirst was out of sight.

So I went to your fridge and drank something that was white.

Milk turned GREEN!

Clue #5: So I decided to turn your milk green!

Go find some cushions! Look in between!

Under some couch cushions

Clue #6: It's almost time to end this rhyme biz.

Go find where Sean's lunch box is.

Look inside and don't be shy.

In there is some treasure for you to divide!

In Sean's lunch box!

YOU FOUND IT!

I knew you could find it! I'm proud of you.

Today you wear green instead of blue.

I'll see you next year, what more can I say?

I wish you all a Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

~L

Loving Laundry (when my kids can do it)

 I sometimes feel quite passionate about things I like and was recently thinking about how thankful I am for these Tide Pods. They are just little pods filled with detergent.  I know it sounds silly... it's just laundry detergent, but it truly has made my life so much easier.
I know that there are great ways to save money on detergents (and make your own), and I'm usually 'that girl', but these little lovelies have changed the way laundry is done in my house... in that it's done by MY KIDS!

 My 7 and 9 year olds are able to wash their own clothes and that has been wonderful. We had tried having them do it with detergent but things became messy and I felt I should still oversee the whole process...  Now, they bring their own clothes down, throw the clothes in the washing machine, throw in a pod, start 'er up and voila!  One less load for us to do.
Of course we were still doing laundry for the Littles and then we realized our 5 year old wanted in on the game (he will probably regret this later). Sure enough he was able to start and do a load all by himself (probably from watching the Bigs).  The only problem is that he sometimes wants to wash just one item (at a time!) which isn't too great if you have a septic (not to mention water bills).
I think anyone with kids needs to get these pods! It will make your life easier trust me!

Painting Windows (FUN!)

When I was young, my mom used to always paint this wonderful Christmas Tree on our large dining room window.  I loved it.  I didn't actually paint on a window though until I got my own house.  We have a Christmas tree in our front window, so I had to come up with another holiday to break out the paints~ and what better holiday than Halloween?

This is an activity your kids can do too.  Our (almost) three year old even painted a bit this year but he didn't have the attention span to finish.

All you need is:

Washable tempera poster paints

Brushes 

and something to put paint in.

(I used paper bowls, not very green... but...)

If you're doing this with little kids, I highly recommend YOU do the outline of the pumpkins.  I let my kids decide if the pumpkins would be scary, happy, etc... but I didn't let them paint the outline.  Partly because I'm a control freak.  Next year I may let my Bigs do this part (after I have a glass of wine or two).

Let the black (or whatever color you paint with) dry FULLY before you unleash the kids on the pumpkins.  If it's wet, it will smear really bad when more paint goes on.

While we were waiting for the pumpkins to dry, I painted a witch on our front door.  She was fun!

She also looks really cool from the inside of the door too... like she's waiting for us to come out.

When the outline is fully dry, it's time to unleash the kids!  I would definitely give them their own bowl (or whatever) to hold the paint.  This can get messy and if they can keep their bowl near where they are working it will be happier for everyone!

I told you this can get messy... I do love WASHABLE paints though!

Here is what the window looks like from the outside. I did have to help my littlest one's pumpkin out a bit.  He painted pretty hard so his pumpkin lost an eye.  It was OK, because I just turned him into a pirate.

CLEAN UP???

I knew that was going to be your next question... Super easy~  Just some dawn soap, warm water and a good scrub with a sponge.  Keep towels by though because it will get wet when it's clean up time!  Still I promise you, it comes out easy.

Keeping My Mornings Sane!

I am NOT a morning person!  My husband is, but he is long gone (to work) before the four kids and I wake from our slumber.  He and I have a good thing going.  He does lunches and I do clothes.  Still I felt like I was always scrambling in the mornings... matching socks... steaming out wrinkles... praying my Bigs (who chose their own outfits) were matching! Getting them dressed, teeth brushed, fed, shoes on (you get the idea), left most of my mornings feeling frantic and rushed.

I was shopping in Ikea a few weeks ago and found these canvas-type shelves that hang from closets.  They had five shelves, perfect for Monday through Friday!  My kids don't have traditional rods in their closets, so I had to hang them using hangers.  I made little signs with the days of the week and we lay out all their clothes on Sunday night.

This has made my mornings HEAVENLY!  I know in the mornings that the kids will have wrinkle free clothes (because I take care of that on Sunday) and clean underwear.  I check the weather and let the Bigs pick out their own clothes.  Zach (my five year old) has even begun doing his own clothes (he had been just doing underwear and socks). I do the two year old's clothes (obviously) and put a diaper for each day too (one stop and I'm DONE).

My Big kids have deodorant now and they put it on to the new shelf each day after putting it on (which also makes me feel good knowing that they will smell fresh and lovely). I think this is a wonderful thing for people (like me) who hate mornings (and have a lot of little people to get out the door every morning).

What I really need now is to get this organized for myself...

Orphan Crayons Find a Home

As a teacher, I am always finding orphan crayons. I found that most of my students didn't like coloring with broken crayons (or even well-worn long crayons) so were throwing them out.  Instead of throwing them out, I had them put them in an old tub.  You can see that the orphan crayons got kind of out of control.  I thought I should melt them down and make new crayons but then I thought of some other kids that I didn't think would mind the orphans.

 My kids (and especially my oldest son) LOVE to color and draw.  My Joe has colored pictures with crayons that really SHOULD be thrown out (less than an inch long).
I have mentioned before that my kids are the messiest in the world so often they lost their crayons.  There may be some in Joe's room, a few in the car, some in an old backpack... (you get the idea). And so I got an idea.  Time to organize the old crayons and give my kids an OBVIOUS place where the crayons should go.  So I bought these cute little drawers at Bed, Bath and Beyond and put my kids to work.

 I had them sort the colors (which was also a fun activity for my little kids~ age 5 and almost 3). They did a great job and sorting them took no time at all.  Soon they were working on projects with the 'new' crayons and they loved that they had all the colors that they need right at their fingertips (and no fighting over colors because there are so many).

I was going to make some cute labels for the drawers (because that's just how I do things), but they didn't need them.  You can see the colors right through the drawers.  I thought this was a great idea and plan to pick up more drawers for the future orphans that will no doubt again grace my classroom this year.

I have the World's Messiest Kids!

I am the first to admit that cleaning often goes on the back burner in my house. I do have to go to bed with a clean kitchen, but other than that... well... If we aren't going out of town you will certainly find things out of place.

I have recently joined the wonderful world of Pinterest and found this wonderful idea there.  The person I stole this idea from had a bin and this saying with "Mom", but... since I have to admit my husband is a wonderful partner in the battle war of keeping our place clean, I changed the "Mom" to "WE", added a cute font and some clip art and here it is!

Instead of a bin, I chose a trash can because... well... I have a lot of kids and they have a lot of stuff! I also like that it has a lid on it to hopefully keep all that kid junk hidden!

The fun part was coming up with different chores for them to do.  Because my kids are fairly young (8 and under), I kept things simple, vacuum stairs, clean baseboards (you choose the room), things like that.  I did include laundry on the chore list but because we have recently taught all our children how to do their own laundry (except for the 2 year old). They can wash towels or sheets (whichever is due to be cleaned first) and of course fold and put them away. I'll admit I'm a little nervous to see what our linen closet will look like but then again, that has a door to hide it!  

I did this all after everyone had gone to bed (I work best at night) and it took no time.  I fastened everything on the trash can with clear contact paper and I used an envelope to hold the chores.  I think the contact paper is a great choice because it repositions easily.  I may put the chores on Popsicle sticks to help them last longer but I haven't gotten that far yet (though I did get far enough to find some things that got to go into the trash!).

So again, for this I used:

A trash can

My computer and printer

An Envelope

& clear Contact Paper

Steal it!

Tweak it!

Make it your own!

(I did.)

Let me know how it goes!

*** 8-27-12 This is still going great.  I did fix all my 'chores' on to big Popsicle sticks with Mod Podge and they are holding up a lot better!

If you would like the PDF files that I made for this project you can click HERE and HERE.