Thankful Thursday (Vol. 4): Family Visits and Car Activity Bags

Today, I am thankful for a blessed visit to see Nana, Papa and family in western PA. Though the trip was long, both there and back – and plagued by bouts of first (second, third, fourth and fifth – but who was counting?) car sickness and a belly bug to boot – it was worth it. Time with family is such a wonderful gift. Plus, recognizing the importance of family – plus taking time and making the effort to get together with folks – is a value I grew up with and want to instill in my children. So, praise God for a blessed visit! (Pics from it can be seen here. )

And, while I am at the praising – praise God for simple things like Zip-loc bags, too! When the kids were not vomiting nor making potty stops, along with a full canvas bag of books-with-CD’s from the library and kids’ songs CD’s of our own, activities in Zip-loc bags made our trip a lot more fun – both in the car and at Nana and Papa’s, too!

Yes, with up to 13 hours drive each way (due to traffic and rest stops), I thought we should be prepared. So, Luke, Nina and I made up 26 or so different bags the day before we left. Mind you, most of these were thrown together in less than a minute each by just popping items we had on hand into Zip-locs, while others were dug out of storage bins upon the kids’ requests (they remembered some of the great activity bags from Kim and from our OLQOS exchange that we used on our last trip), while still others were easily from Internet print outs and raiding our art and crafts drawers.

Here’s what we ended up with:

Montessori Inspired Bags
These Dino Lace-and-Trace Cards were ones we picked up at a consignment shop early in Luke’s dino-craze phase. He remembered them from our last trip and asked me to dig them out.

These Lacing Cards were from Kim, also remembered from our last trip and requested by the kids as “The gingerbread lacing”. They went through a huge Gingerbread Man phase in December and January.

Nina requested this Buckle Book, which we had not had out in a while, made by craft Kim.

These Bug Stacking Rattles, great for stacking as well as shaking along to the rhythm of kids songs, were not only a hit in the car, but also lots of fun for the kids to play with with their second cousin Baby Rowan.

We also included the Mini Geo Board, which I posted about here, which Luke, especially, loves!

Sensory Diet Inspired Bags
Luke needs a lot of activity, among other things, as part of his Sensory Diet. So, thinking movement, I made up these simple Car Exercise Cards, which were a big hit in the car, as well a fun Simon Says type activity at Nana and Papa’s.

These body part cards that I found online made for another fun seated (or standing at Nana and Papa’s) action game : Point to Your ~. Nina enjoyed using them as command cards for her dollies, too, pretending to give the dollies the commands and then making the dolls point to their respective body parts.

And, these ones worked similarly, but were used as Move Your ~ Cards. The kids laughed and giggled as they discovered different ways they could move and shake each of the body parts even while strapped into car seats. And, they enjoyed playing the game with Auntie Kathy at Papa’s, too – making Auntie giggle over their wiggles and body part dances.

Thinking fine motor and the kids love for constructing, I also put together a Foam Magnet Shapes Construction bag, which the kids used with cookie sheets in the car and on Nana’s cookie and treat tins at Nana and Papa’s.

Imagination and Language Arts Inspired Bags
We have not been focusing much on letters lately, so since I already had the cookie sheets packed as car-friendly magnet-and-drawing boards, I tucked in Leap Frog Letters. Nina, especially, liked these.

I also out in the Word Whammer, which Luke is starting to explore

And, by Luke’s request from Kim's activity bags that we used on a prior trip, we grabbed our Circus Fun Cloth Book and Puppets bag, which Luke enjoyed.

Plus, as both kids love pretending with creatures and figurines, I tucked in a Sea Animals Finger Puppets bag and a Jungle Creatures Finger Puppets bag. Listening to the kids give voices to these puppets and make up stories with them is so much fun. I cannot express the amazement and joy their imaginations bring Mike and me as they play with such things.

And, we made a variety of Magnet Story and Poem bags, using printouts from the Internet, which I “laminated” with contact paper, cut out and taped pieces of recycled calendar advertising magnets to. After creating all these with the kids’ “help”, I failed to take pictures of each set. (Could that be because the kids knicked some as quickly as I could make them in order to test them out?) But, above, are pictures of some. The frogs, the monkeys (both jumping on a bed – not pictured – and teasing Mr. Alligator) and the Gingerbread Man (not pictured) were the kids’ favorites in the car. at Nana’s and Papa’s they enjoyed using all of them, mixing and matching to create their own stories at times.

Sketching and Drawing Inspired Bags
Upon Nina’s request, we included a Doodle Pro Board.  How our little girl loves to "write".

And, on both the kids’ requests, remembering them from our last road trip, we included some Magic Slates.

Plus, from the activity bags we made for our last Activity Swap, which I have yet to post my descriptions and pictures of, we included Flower Coloring. Our neighbors had just given us some scented crayons, which we included with this. the kids got a kick out of all the scents – from roses to dirt to new car smells. (And I thought it was cool how the crayons themselves had no scent, but, once you colored on paper with them, if you sniffed the paper, you could smell the scents.) The kids loved these crayons and used them at Nana’s nursing home to make her pictures, too.

And, because the kids love stickers (and I love the fine motor skills used to peel the stickers from their backings), we put together a Letters and Animals Sticker Art bag, which the kids enjoyed.

Travel Games Inspired Bags
Finally, we included a number of car Bingo Games that I found online on sites like Crayola and Moms Minivan, About, Kaboose. Some of these were ones the kids could color in themselves and others were simply find and cross off ones, which I tucked into page protectors and included markers for crossing things off and old socks for wiping off the marker with for reusability. To be honest, I didn’t need to do this, as we never used the Bingo Games en route this trip. (Luke did find them in the bag at Nana and Papa’s and did some creative coloring and crossing or, plus circling and sketching over, with them there, though.) .

Almost every one of the bags was enjoyed en route or during our stay with Nana and Papa. And, even the ones that were not, I think, will be in the future. So, they were well worth the partial day it took to put them together. Along with music, stories, naps and simple chatting, they helped an otherwise long – and admittedly stinky with all the sickness – trip more manageable.

Hopefully, in sharing the Car Activity Bags pictures and descriptions, I might inspire some folks to create their own travel bags. Should you to try similar ones, I would love to hear about how they work. And, if you have ideas for other car friendly activities, please share! We love comments and are sure to be making another long road trip a few months after baby Jack arrives!

If you want other activity bag ideas for home or travel, be sure to click on the “Activity Bags” category in the right column, where you’ll find posts with pictures and descriptions of other ones we’ve made and received. Also, stay tuned:  By early next week, I hope to post full descriptions of the recent Sensory and Skills with a Bit of Montessori Bags we made, like the Montessori in a Bag activities I described in a previous post..





Finally, of course, if you would like to be inspired by what others are thankful for today, please visit the links at Spiritually Unequal Marriage.

Works for Me Wednesday (Vol. 4): The Gift of Reading Bags

One night, quite a while back, I had the idea of “A Gift of Reading” bags pop into my head. The thought was simple – instead of donating or Paperback Swapping some of our extra books, the kids and I would put them in a gift bag and offer them to whoever wanted them with the promise that the receiver would later pass an equal or greater amount of books onto someone else. A sort of pay-it-forward joy-of-reading endeavor, offered in thanksgiving for the plethora of wonderful books we so enjoy each day.

Why I didn’t act on this idea the following day, I am not sure! But, since my bedside scribble about it just resurfaced yesterday, the kdis and I began acting on it.. We picked out six duplicate copies of Christian/Catholic children’s books and put them into a gift bag. Then, we tucked in a card in as well with instructions for the recipient. (I put thumbnails of the card below in case anyone is interested in it.  You can click on them to enlarge them.)  We will offer this bag to the first local person who shows an interest in it, praying it is received well and passed along, providing us some fun geography lessons as it makes it way into new hands and brings others the Gift of Reading.

Within the next few weeks, we hope to make some other themed and general Gift of Reading bags as we continue our Order in the Home quest. So, if anyone local wants one, just ask! And, if those afar want to borrow our idea, go for it! We’d love to see pay-it-forward Gift of Reading Bags moving all over the world, and would be ever grateful if you would send us an email, post a link or write a comment if you start one. It will be exciting to see not only where our Gift of Reading Bags end up, but also to see if and how this idea – whispered to me one night when I couldn’t sleep -- takes off.

Enjoy reading and sharing today. It certainly works for us!

UPDATE:  I was just thinking about how we never made any more of these bags, as we had intended to do, and how I want to start again this fall as we continue to declutter our home.  I was also realizing that, in terms of getting any response, the Gift of Reading Bag described above turned out to be a flop.  But, I know from words spoken to me by its recipient, it was appreciated.  And, that our offered gift was enjoyed is all that matters.

As I think about Gift of Reading Bags, and have just heard about a fun, new Blog Hop, I wanted to update this post to share at Give Back Thursday:



And, of course, if you want to hear what works for other folks, check out the links at We are THAT Family with everthing from Mommy Management tips to getting eyedrops in a child's eye.  The ideas and tips are in abundance again this week.

(Almost) Wordless Wedneday: We Were oh So Happy (and Humbled!) When We Received Our Latest Actvity Bags from the Savino Clan This Week!

Luke enjoys the Marble Magnet Run

Number Matching

Color Egg and Ring Matching

Marble Maze

Story Blocks

Sight Words Spelling and Practice

Pattern Repeating

Green Thumb

Nature Matching and Sequencing Cards

Monkey Memory and Sequencing

Lucky Letters, Numbers and Shapes

Irish Flag Puzzle

Domino Parking Lot

Tooth Pick Words and Shapes

Bug Race

I Spy Bag

Paper Plate Bull Frog

Exerecise ABC's File Folder Game

Shapes with Shamrocks

Nina having fun with the Color Eggs and Rings

To read descriptions of the bags they sent us in a prior exchange, go to this post.  And to read about the ones we went them before, see our Montessori in a Bag post.  And check back later this week or early next week (depending on how life allows me to post) for full descriptions and pictures of the Sensory adn Montessori-focused bags we sent the Savinos, as well as for pictures of bags we made up for our recent long road trip to see Nana and Papa.

To see others' Wordless Wednesday posts, check out the links at Wordless Wednesday.

Gratituesday: Gee, God, Geoboards?

 First, a confession: As a mom - particularly a homeschooling one - sometimes I feel like banging my head against the wall in frustration.  Then, when I am thinking at least a little bit clearly, I pause, pray and become far more pleased with my calling.  And, sometimes, find new things to bang.

So, today, I am grateful for the ways God whispers to (and sometimes yells at!) me to change my attitude and my actions, reminding me to maintain an attitude of gratitude and a posture of proactive prayer and choices.

 

Recently, while preparing for an activity bag exchange, I thought I would take a few moments to make mini geo-boards for my children as well as the children we were exchanging with.  Why I decided to do this when I had chores galore, two busy body kids and a head full of need-and-want-to-do's, I don't know.  But my random focus and inability to prioritize sometimes is a sharing for another day.

 

So, there I was, pausing in the chaos of a day to pound push pins into an old block in some convoluted effort to let off some steam while checking something off "my list".  Of course, as soon as Luke and Nina heard the hammering, they came running and, when they saw the push pins, they were all grabs!  So, I started getting frustrated with them, batting their hands away and telling them they needed to wait.  Then, a whisper inside my head - or was it my heart - told me, "Gee, Martianne, you are doing this for the kids.  Why not with the kids?"  So, frustration made way for fun as we took the activity outside, with the kids ejoying making their own versions of geoboards.

Thus, with much thanks to the guiding voice of the Holy Spirit, a potential bang-my-head against the wall moment transformed into a pleasing, productive one: I made another activity for the swap and the kids enjoyed some industrious, focused heavy work and motor skill fun. 

Gee, God, whoever knew Pushpin Geoboards could be a simple solution to mounting mommy frustrations?  Praise God for quiet whisperings...

To read what others are thankful for today, please visit the links at Heavenly Homemakers.

Thankful Thursday (Vol. 3): The Gift of Not Reinventing the Wheel – The Tutor’s Toolkit: M and N Discrimination Cards

Today, as I think about things I am thankful for, I cannot help but to continue to be grateful for the inspiration of others, adapted and expanded upon to suit needs of my family at particular moments. And, since I have been thinking a lot about activity bags this week, I find myself grateful that I can adapt others’ ideas from such bags to activities that are suitable not just for my own children, but for those I tutor, too. Truly, the exchange and adaptation of ideas is a gift that I find myself grateful for countless times a week as both a homeschooling mom and a tutor.

And since gifts given are as much fun as gifts received, as I promised I would in yesterday’s post, I wanted to share an idea that I used with one of my tutoring students this year:  M and N Discrimination Cards.

One first grader I worked with had trouble saying and recognizing his ABC’s when I first started working with him. A very hands-on, kinesthetic learner, he enjoyed mastering his alphabet and phonetic sounds through using the foam letters and a dry-erase placemat we had received in one our Fun and Learning in a Bag activities from Kim and the Alpha-Spoons and the B and D cards (used as intended and in other ways) from the official ActvityBags.com exchange we did with the Our Lady Queen of Saints group, along with other ideas and activities I presented to him. His success with such activities inspired me to make a small set of M and N Discrimination cards for him, which he thoroughly enjoyed.

As a thank you for ideas shared with me, I want to share these cards back.. Just click on the thumbnails throughout this post for large versions of the cards that you can print. And, of course, continue reading for ideas on how to use them.

Obviously, the first step to using the cards is to print and cut them. Then, play any and all of the games below with them:

M or N?
Using just the picture cards with no letters on them, challenge the student to separate them into two groups, one for one starting with an “m” sound and the other for words starting with an “n” sound. For extra fun and challenge, do not reveal what the two group categories (“m” sounds and “n” sounds) are unless the student needs you to.

Easy M and N Phonetic Words Slap Game
Using just the “man” through “nap” word cards, have the student lay all the cards face up. Call out one word and have the student slap the corresponding card.

Easy M and N Phonetic Words Matching Challenge
Using the word and picture cards for “man” through “nap”, challenge the student to put all the cards into pairs of pictures with their corresponding words. Even a beginning phonetic reader should be able to do this.

Easy M and N Phonetic Words Concentration
Using the word and picture cards for “man” through “nap”, lay all cards face down and play “concentration” with them.

M and N Decoding Matching Challenge
Using the “monkey” through “money” and “nose” through “note” picture and word cards, challenge the student to put all the cards into pairs of pictures with their corresponding words. While none of these words are real exception words, many are more challenging for an early phonics-based reader as they are multi-syllabic and contain long vowels, etc.

Challenge M and N Phonetic Words Slap Game
Using the “monkey” through “money” and “nose” through “note” cards, have the student lay all the cards face up. Call out one word and have the student slap the corresponding card. Continue until all words are called. (You can also use the corresponding picture cards as cues. Or, have the student use the word cards as calling cues while you slap the corresponding picture cards and the student tells you if you are right.).

M and N Sound Concentration
Using all the picture cards for “monkey” through “money” and “nose” through “note”, as well as the picture cards with letters in the corners, lay all cards face down and play “concentration” with them. To reinforce the “m” and “n” sounds, when a card is turned over have the student say something akin to” monkey... “m” (the sound) “M” (the letter) before turning the next card over.

Similarly, adapt any of the Card Crazy games I mentioned in this post or create your own. The more practice and exposure through games and activities that the student enjoys, the better the learning experience will be and the longer retention of longer goals should last.

I hope you are able to use these cards in some way for your own activity bags, home teaching, classroom teaching or tutoring.  If so, I’d love to hear about it, as well as about similar activities you and your students enjoy.  Please leave a comment, and links if you have them.

Also, if you'd like to see more of what other folks are thankful for this week, please visit the links at Spiriutally Unequal Marriage.  May we each count our blessings -- great and small!

Works for Me Wednesday (Vol. 3): Activity Bag Exchange II: Our Official ActivityBags.com Exchange

Too often I find myself too busy and distracted to follow up on great ideas I have for learning and exploration with the kids, and, sometimes even to prepare impromptu activities. (Although the kids have a way of creating such activities themselves, getting me back on track, whether I like it or not!) That’s why activities in a bag work for me!

Since this week I have been thinking a lot about activity bags while preparing for a current exchange and looking back at old ones, I thought I would post about the second exchange we participated in this past year. It was organized by an incredible homeschooling mom of eight who helps run a local Catholic homeschooling group we are a part of – the Our Lady Queen of Saints group .

The exchange was based on official materials from ActivityBags.com  with each mom choosing to make one or two types of bags from a given list as instructed. I ended up making the 123 Trail and Number and Shape Puzzle, which was somewhat tedious with all the contact papering and cutting en masse, but still worthwhile, as we thoroughly enjoyed the exchange day and came away with two bags full of activities for both Luke and Nina to enjoy.

Unfortunately, I did not take pictures of all the activities that we received during this eschange and have disassembled some to repurpose their contents for activities which appeal more to Luke and Nina’s ages and interests,while storing away others away in my tutoring supplies as well as in the recesses of our basement until we complete our Order in the Home quest, so I can’t post pictures here. But, I can list some of the activity titles so you can check out descriptions of them in the sample pages at Activity Bags. They were:

• 123 Trail
• B or D?
• Alpha Spoons
• Boredom Busters
• Can You Remember 
• Fabric Pattern Cards 
• Hidden Treasure 
• Number-N-Shape Puzzles 
• Ring Toss 
• Sewing Board

Of these, my children’s favorite by far was “Hidden Treasure”. The bottles of rice with small objects to find in them have become an almost permanent fixture in our car as the kids so love shaking them up to discover things during long car rides. And, although Luke and Nina weren’t too keen on them, some of my tutoring students loved the Alpha Spoons and the B or D activities. (I will try to post more about this and about an extension M or N activity I did later in the week.)

 Finally, I would like to say what really worked for me with this particular activity bag exchange was the exchange day itself! The mom who organized the exchange hosted a tea which we all brought our bags to. Then, moms chatted while kids played. What a nice break from our regular activities! The tea was a much-appreciated afternoon of Moms-with-Moms conversation and kids-of-many-ages fun! If I ever host a local exchange, I definitely want to include a special time like this as part of the fun and sharing.

So, yep, activity bags and afternoon tea-talk-n-play times certainly work for me!  I would love to hear about any you have been a part of. What activities were your kids’ biggest hits? What did you find most beneficial about the exchange? Please leave me a comment or a link below. And, if you want to see more about our past exchanges, please check out our Montessori in a Bag pictures and descriptions here and our Fun and Learning in a Bag post here.

 Also, of course, to read about what works for other folks, please go to We Are THAT Family and click on the links.