Hugs from Washington

How on earth would you go about mailing a hug? :) This sweet book about a young pig mailing a hug to his grandmother really struck a cord with us. It would be so nice to think that it could actually happen the way it does in the book, with a hug getting passed all the way to his nice Grandma via the postal workers passing this hug from one person to another with it eventually making it's way to Grandma!

My kids loved this book and I really enjoyed the conversation we had about what other ways we could use to send a hug!

My youngest suggested we just go visit and give the hug ourselves....

My oldest thought we could draw or take a picture of ourselves and send it in a card....

When I asked if she had any other ideas she ask "You do don't you?". Little miss smarty pants... too funny!

Which of course I did have another idea! Why not get a large piece of paper (we happen to keep a huge roll of butcher paper on hand for such projects!) and trace out our bodies! That way we can mail "ourselves" to our grandparents! They thought this was great and instantly started talking about what they wanted to draw on for clothes and such.... Although I do have to warn you to speak in detail about this project with little ones. At one point I mentioned mailing my littlest one to her Grammy and Papa and she got almost an instant panic look on her face!!! She felt much better when I clearified that we would mail the paper one not the real one! :)

Want more ideas?

Another idea for mailing a hug woul be this card that we made at the library a few years ago!

And this banner was made for a birthday card for their Opa! We spelled out "Happy Birthday" in pictures.... I bet he felt like he'd been hugged, don't you? :)

How would you send a hug? :)

Penguins in WA!

I know I write about a lot of books and tell you how great they are, but this one really is great. Both of my girls begged me not to take it back to the library after having already renewed it TWICE! lol We also got to check out  "Oops" written by the same author and it was just as captivating! I was so bummed that our library doesn't carry the other books she wrote!

What do you do when you find something great? You share it! And thats exactly what I did! For our next library meet up with friends, I took this book to read. On our way out the door, I asked the girls to dig through their puppet bin and find a penguin. I couldn't believe it when we realized that we didn't have one!!!

So, I felt inspired and came up with this guy! Isn't he a cutie? I was so excited how he turned out! I have recently got my etsy store slowly up and running and I'm adding things as I get them done. I don't have him on there yet but will soon! :) And I make all sorts of other puppets too! Stop by and check them out on Facebook!

When I saw these penguin counters we just HAD to make them! I do have to admit, the rocks were not easy to find. I searched for the ones she used but couldn't find them ANYWHERE!!! I had finally given up hope when I happened on to these ones at Walmart for $3. (They were in the floral department!)

I thought that I would end up doing most of these but my daughter started on them and ran with it!!

When it was all said and done, we now have 100 little penguins to use for math counters! As soon as she had finished painting them, she started counting them until she got to 100 and as soon as she was done with that she started counting them by 2s! Then she asked "What else can I do with them?" and I pulled out the Add it! Math Game and Subtract it!Math Games that I printed out from Confessions of a Homeschooler. (Her site is a wealth of information and printables- seriously go check it out!)

Raggedy Anne up North!

I love the idea of sharing something vintage with the girls... They had gotten Raggedy Ann dolls for Christmas a couple years ago and they are still one of their very favorite babies. The idea that in a world of crying, walking and talking babies (you know those really freaky ones in Walmart that go off when you walk by) a rag doll still has her place... well that's just wonderful to me.... so of course we thoroughly enjoyed this book and will have to add it to our wish list of books! :)

For this book, you could do just about any craft relating to hearts and would go along just fine. The last week or so has consisted of me making anything I could in the form of a heart shape... instead of plain circle biscuits, they were hearts. Instead of boring ol' sandwiches, why not take a cookie cutter to it and make it a heart sandwich? Heart pancakes anyone? The list could, and has in our house, gone on and on....

For our craft tho, I made the girls each a heart necklace to wear and wear them they have! You'd have thought they were made of gold for as much as they have worn them! I'm glad that they can still be happy with the simple things, and hope that it never wears off!

If you'd like to make a heart necklaces too, head on over to SkipToMyLou and let her know I sent you! I just love her little garland and love adding her little crochet hearts to our Valentine necklaces! Enjoy!

I got this link from a fellow homeschooler and have been listening to old records ever since! Click on the picture and it will take you to the site, you can listen to and have all sorts of great old childrens albums!!

Writing good things in Washington!

In a world full of text messaging, emails and phone calls I fear that there is something being lost.... there is something to be said about the written word and something that makes a hand written note span the test of time. You can't bottled up a text to treasure many years down the road and unfortunately, many people don't even value the ability to write in cursive any more! I think that's why handwriting has always been a big deal in our house. I give the kids a week or so after a holiday or birthday before we start the painstaking process of writing thankyous... but you know what? I think that sort of thing is important. If they aren't thankful enough for the item received to write a short thankyou then they don't really deserve to have it! :) When I gently remind them of that they are more than happy to write that note expressing their gratitude! That being said tho, there are so many more ways that we use writing on a daily basic and this book gives us great examples to follow!






This book really struck a cord with me and just goes to show how many ways we are all learning to be better writers! While we only got to do a few of the things in this book, I plan on doing a few more before we have to return it to the library!

This week we finished up our Christmas thankyou cards (I never said it was a quick process!lol), wrote a story and started on Valentine's cards...

In amongst all the writing going on at our house, we also got a treasured letter in the mail from the girls' Great Grandparents.. there is always so much excitement when they find envelopes addressed to them! And I love that they will have these letters hidden away in a box to treasure for years to come... writing has power!

Now I must ask you... have you Written Anything Good lately? :)