Menu Plan Monday~ June 1st

Welcome to my very first OFFICIAL Menu Plan Monday! Thanks to Org Junkie for hosting!

This is going to be a crazy week but hopefully we can stick to the menu anyway. It is my son Josh's 5th Birthday on Wednesday and we are expecting grandparents for the weekend but do not know what days they will arrive and depart.

• Breakfast~ Choice of Toast, Cereal, Waffle or Peanut butter roll ups with Fruit and Milk.
• Lunches~ Cheese and Crackers, Leftovers, Fish sticks, noodles, or Grilled Cheese with Fruit and Milk
• Dinners~

Monday~ I have been dying to try this lemon pepper chicken cheesy melty goodness and finally picked up the Lemon Pepper seasoning this weekend. Salad leftovers, too!

Tuesday~ Ground Turkey tacos or nachos.

Wednesday~ Joshua's (Birthday Boy) Choice of restaurant!

Thursday~ Ultimate Chicken Fingers and oven fries! Never did get around to making this last week but finally got to the store to buy more Bisquick! Will serve with Our Favorite Spicy Garlic Sauce!

Friday~ Pink Pasta and Meatballs for the boys! (This is flexible enough that I can just make more if we do have guests!)

Saturday~ Birthday Party at Craig's Cruisers, so I guess Pizza buffet?!

Sunday~ We are never hungry Sunday evening and Guests should be gone...so probably sandwiches or leftovers!

New School Supplies

I have a list of all the items I "need" for Josh's afterschooling for Fall. It is probably a bit longer than is necessary for a child who is going to school! But, well, I guess I am not quite as on board as I am pretending to be...

So anyway, I had a 20% off coupon for my favorite local toy store! We stopped in Wednesday in the midst of our very long day of super boring errands (blood tests, DR appts, pharmacy, etc...) to give Josh a break.

I had no real plan for the coupon but I brought it along just in case...wink,wink! And look what I got Magnetic Poetry: Kid's Kit!

I am so glad I finally bought it! We have been having a ball making sentences with this kit! I threw the magnets on a LARGE cookie sheet (there are a ton of words!) and we have spent hours writing and playing games with the words.

Wednesday's Website

Many amazing Montessori ideas...great for a bit of inspiration! http://www.absorbentminds.co.uk/acatalog/ideasbank.html

Menu on a Monday

I always make up a menu every week but I do not think I have ever posted it. Thought I might give it a try!

• Monday~ Leftovers...seems like we ate WAY too good this weekend!
• Tuesday~ Cinnamon French Toast but hold the syrup please! Sausage for the boys!
• Wednesday~ Chicken Fingers with Spicy Garlic Sauce from Buffalo Wild Wings (we buy a bottle from the restaurant!) and oven fries.
• Thursday~ Chicken Enchiladas and Salad
• Friday~ Pepperoni Rolls! ...extra sauce to dunk & probably leftover salad.
• Saturday~ Probably some sort of pasta with ground turkey.
• Sunday~ Andrew requests grilled cheese. Which most likely means I will eat a grilled cheese and he will have a tuna melt. Josh may eat a grilled cheese but tends to prefer everything separate, so will have a scoop of tuna, some cheese, and crackers.

Butterfly Study

Josh received a Live Butterfly Garden for his 4th Birthday and somehow I am just now, about a week before his 5th, getting around to ordering the caterpillars!

So I want to be ready for their arrival! I plan to just drop everything and totally do everything Butterfly as soon as we get the package.

General Information, Lapbooks and Activities

• Insect Lore
• Kid's Butterfly
• Kinderteacher Butterfly activities
• Monarch Information and activities
• The Very Hungry Caterpillar Tots lapbook VERY COOL!
• Butterfly Lapbook LOTS HERE!
• Butterfly wings info.

ART/Craft Ideas

• Watercolor Caterpillar!!!
• Tissuepaper butterfly
• Dryer sheet butterflies
• Handprint butterflies TOO CUTE!
• Caterpillar crafts
• Butterfly craft ideas
• Clothespin butterfly with beads!
• Hungry caterpillar Ideas
• Butterfly ideas

Lifecycle/Science

• Lifecycle
• Lifecycle
• Lifecycle Cards!!!! YIPPPEEEE!
• Feeding butterflies!

Practical Life/Fine Motor

• How to draw butterflies! Loving these right now!
• Maze
• Butterfly recipe
• Button Caterpillar
• Do a dot butterfly stamping
• Eric Carle Color Page

Culture

• Days of the Week activity

Math

• Roll a caterpillar game
• Butterfly Math Ideas
• Butterfly symmetry painting

Language Arts

• Butterfly Language Ideas
• Felt Board Idea
• Sequencing activity
  

Book Basket Suggestion

We just found a great level reader series that we all really enjoyed! It is by Crosby Bonsall and are little detective stories. The one we read is The Case of the Hungry Stranger and you can find them here! They are "An I Can Read Book" Level 2 Grade 1-3. Sweet books, wholesome and silly...right up Josh's alley!

Handwriting

You probably know that we use Handwriting Without Tears. I have been a BIG fan for years! Well, to be honest, it has not worked out for us...

That is, until now!

Josh has issues with anything sticky, dirty, wet...well you get the picture! The whole Wet, Dry, Try lesson was a big mistake to use with him. And he immediately was frustrated and disliked the whole thing. And, unfortunately, I was too persistent since I knew it was such a good program. Well, eventually, I backed off and put everything but the wooden pieces away. These I left on our writing shelf, but still, he ignored them.

Finally, this week, it occured to me to start over but instead of using the Wet, Dry, Try, I grabbed the sand tray (which he loves???) and used that instead. So our Handwriting time looked like this...

• Build letter with wooden pieces (talking about lines and curves as we go).



• I write the letter in the sand tray then he writes the letter in the sand tray.



• Finally he writes the letter on the wipe board. (could use paper but he likes the Yoda Wipe board!)
  

This worked really well and we did a-f! (Hmmm, but Shannon those are lowercase letters and HWT does not have lowercase???) Check here ~ Lowercase wooden pieces and letter cards! This guy makes these in a warehouse here in town! He also has a teacher store with some cool finds!

So anyway, I am thrilled and he was happy to be so successful writing the letters correctly.

*******Here is a picture of the lowercase wooden pieces...being used to make a treehouse...well, you know....

What a great day!

We went to a flea market/craft sale...bought a few books(.10-.25)!

Visited a neighborhood sale...bought a few books(.25) , Lincoln Logs Happy Valley Farm - 211 Real Wood Pieces ($3) and 2 movies($1ea)!

Ate at our brand new Sonic and did not have to wait in line! (last time we attempted, the line was super long wrapped around and around with no way to get out once you were in...we drove on by!)

Visited another neighborhood sale...bought a few books(.50)!

Hmm, sounds like I should add a bookshelf to our garage saling list!

And now the boys are resting and I am watching HGTV and catching up with email etc...

Hope you are having a great weekend as well!

Embracing Opportunities!

Josh got into the Young 5's class and we decided that it is a good fit for him. We are super excited about what the next 2 years and beyond will bring.

Thanks for all the emails and comments! I appreciate all the support.

Shannon

LuSa's Baby Wipe Juice Contest!

Hey all you Mamas with babies! Go check out this giveaway! What a cool opportunity to give a different product a try!

Mother's Day Mania

We generally make gifts for the Grandmother's for Mother's day and just buy them a little something to go with it. This year we made them little trinket boxes. They are just wooden jewelry boxes that we bought at the dollar store.


We painted them (with acrylic paint) and glued on painted popsicle sticks to look like fences. They turned out pretty cute!

This was a nice project to do with Josh because he could actually paint it and it still turned out "as planned!"


The second picture is really blurry (sorry...) but you can kind of see the clouds Josh sponge painted on the lid.


Well, I have a cake to frost and a house to "spruce up!" Hope you all have a wonderful Mother's Day!
Shannon

Just Josh...

Today while painting Mother's Day gifts for the Grandmothers, Josh says, "so...it does not really matter how I paint, just as long as I do not get any paint on the real table..."

Yep, that about sums it up...

Sassy little bugger!

Thrifty Thursday

Woohooo! Had a mostly successful morning! We stopped at 2 yard sales and one new to us thrift store!

Josh bought an action hero and a stuffed animal...junk but he was happy!

I bought...
a sweet summer weight nightgown for me~ $1
Jammies with tags still on them for Josh~ $4
a 3 drawer paper organizer~ $2
and of course books.... $2

• The Boxcar Children (The Boxcar Children, No. 1)
• The Tree House Mystery
• A Wind in the Door by Madeleine L'Engle (for me!)
• And some Spy Kids book that Josh wanted...

All told, I spent about $10!

Wednesday's Website

Newish Montessori website....FILLED with everything Montessori. That includes Albums and videos etc...

http://www.wikisori.org/index.php/Main_Page

Check this out!

CurrClick is having a HUGE recession sale! Click here to see the 196 pages of reduced products. I grabbed several useful things for free!

My budget is pretty much nonexistant so...free is good. And everyone else, there are some GREAT deals.

More Kindergarten Drama

The new school's recommendation for Josh????

Young Fives

Hmmm

We knew that by the schools age policy he qualified but...

Apparently, at the screening today, he excelled at all the academic sections but in the sections that tested maturity....

not so much!

They actually have some really valid points and we are definitely going to have to think about what we think is best for him.

>>>AND, they may not even have a spot in the young 5's for him...so....

WHO KNOWS! More waiting!

(SHHH...don't tell...but my secret first thought? that would mean 2 years of half day K. Two year of me having him with ME for half a day! Selfish? Yep! He is my baby and I do not think I am ready for K yet...ya know?)