Rush Hour Jr: A fun Workout for young Minds!

If you're a parent, you know there are times where need something to keep your kids quietly occupied. For me, it's often when I need to make a phone call or help my oldest out with her schoolwork. It can be easy rely on technology. Coloring books and simple crafts sometimes work for our preschooler but it depends on the day. Thankfully I now have a new way to keep her busy and learning...and it requires no screens or electricity!

Recently Thinkfun sent us the kids version of the Traffic Jam Logic Game Rush Hour® to see what we thought of it.

Just like the classic version Rush Hour Jr. you need to shift 3D cars and trucks around on 'streets' in the correct sequence in order to help your ice cream truck escape the gridlock.

It's easier said than done!

Included in the game are 40 challenge cards, 15 vehicles, and the grid. 

To begin the player selects a card at the level of play they are working at (there are four levels from beginner to expert). 

The card will show how the vehicles need to be initially arranged on the grid. From here the player can begin sliding the vehicles forward or backwards to try and get the ice cream our of the traffic jam.  If you get stuck you can always refer to the solution on the other side of the card.

Both kids really enjoyed this game. To begin with I played it with our 4 year old as she had a little trouble setting up the board. As far as the game play, she really took off with it. It held her attention and was content to sit quietly and figure it out several cards at a time.

When our 8 year old managed to get a turn she thought it was 'pretty cool'. This is definitely not just a preschool game. The upper level cards are challenging for her and I think this Jr version of game will be fine for both of them for a good while. As for Grown-ups it gave my brain a good workout too. I would seriously look into adding the adult version to our board game collection as a family christmas gift too this year! I especially liked that is sturdy and the vehicles chunky enough for little hands to hold. The size of the base makes it extremely portable. A little cloth bag is included to carry the fun with you to pull out at restaurants or at the Doctor's waiting room.

You can find  Rush Hour Jr. at  Thinkfun's Online store! It would make a great gift for birthdays and other special occasions. Grandparents and Aunts might like to get one to keep at their place for when the little ones visit too! 

I received one or more of the products mentioned above for free using Tomoson.com. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers.

Charlie the Ranch Dog goes to School by Ree Drumond

This post contains affiliate links; I was not compensated for the following review. All opinions expressed are my own.

It is almost the end of the month, and that means we have a new book to share for the Poppins Book Nook!

The theme for September is School!

At the end of this post be sure to enter the giveaway and visit all the other fun ideas the Poppins Book Nook bloggers have for you! 

Ree Drummond has written a series of books featuring her lovable Basset Hound Charlie. The kids and I love them all!

The latest one Charlie Goes to School  is our new favorite.
Why?
Because not only does Charlie's family have a Basset Hound as we do, they also homeschool. Charlie the Ranch dog sees all the fun and learning that is going on and decides he should start his own school for farm animals. It is a funny story full of illustrations which make you want to go join Charlie on his ranch.

We read it at bedtime and then the next day the kids treated our Basset, Butter, to a very comfy Story time.

We decided it would be a great idea to write to the real Charlie the Ranch Dog and his mama Ms. Drummond to tell them how much we loved the new book. Miss K wanted to let them know all about Butter and how much he loves chicken and playing with our kitty Perry. We have them all ready to post, I just need to track down a good address.

Some online resources you might like to use if you want to hear about the adventures of Charlie the Ranch Dog and write him a letter too!

• Listen to Ms. Drummond read Charlie the Ranch dog at Barnes and Nobles Online story time (Free)
• We have a previous post about teaching letter writing skills.

Thanks to Enchanted Homeschooling Mom the Poppins book Nook bloggers are co-hosting a giveaway for It's Back To School We Go!: First Day Stories from Around The World .

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Here are the participating bloggers this month!

Enchanted Homeschooling Mom - 3 Dinosaurs - Monsters Ed - Chestnut Grove Academy - Growing in God's Grace - Royal Little Lambs - Life with Moore Babies - Teach Beside Me - The Usual Mayhem - Mum Central - Fantastic Fun and Learning - Kathys Cluttered Mind - Toddler Approved - Growing Book by Book - Adventures in Mommydom - B-Inspired Mama - The Fairy and The Frog - Edventures with Kids - Learning & Growing the Piwi way - A Gluten Free Journey - Preschool Powol Packets - To The Moon and Back - Our Craft ~N~ Things - Fresh Farm Adventures - Are We There Yet? - Afterschool for Smarty Pants

6 different ways to explore Feelings with Preschoolers



The week before Mini Piwi did this unit, she had mastered the potty. While we were hanging out in the bathroom (while she did what she was there for) we had a lot of time to talk about how proud she was feeling. I remembered pinning a Feeling tot book from 1+1+1=1 and realized that this would be the perfect time to print it out.

The tot book is sooo cute and Mini Piwi really enjoyed adding the correct 'feelings' face to the characters as I read out the pretend scenarios.

While we waited for Big Sis to finish her math we made an impromptu paper plate face. The mouth was attached with a metal brad so it could be happy or sad. It seemed to bother Mini Piwi a bit and eventually she glued it so it could only look happy.

Mini Piwi loves making and supervising me making her snacks. Here is her smiley face yogurt....

...And a Heart smiley chocolate peanut butter bread....the mouth she decided should be made out of nori after we had  'sushi'' for lunch. Her version of sushi is seaweed wrappers and rice.

Mini Piwi praticised her cutting skills with this simple matching craft. The shapes are pre printed on the contruction paper we bought. I just drew some feelings faces and made some label to describe how the feelings they showed. Mini Piwi taped them to the different shapes and then added the correct labels.

We had great fun with this unit and it is something that we hope to expand on in the future! What are some of the ways you have explored feelings with your little ones?

Preschool Spring Bee and Butterfly Trays for Colors and Counting (Free Printables)

When we made Spring flowers from egg cartons I starting thinking about how else we could use them. Ultimately they ended up inspired 3 math and matching activities...

Butterfly and Flower Color Matching 

 We used this tray for two activities

I told a story about how each butterfly wanted to visit a flower that was the same color they were. Mini Piwi then 'helped the butterflies' by matching each card with their matching flower. Later on in the day I turned the cards and the flowers over and we played memory match with them.

 Buzzy Bee Pollen count and Clip

 This one was extra fun because Mini Piwi and I made the Bee clips together.

We made bee pegs 0-10 so the activity can grow along with Mini Piwi. Right now she is only starting out with recognizing numerals and counting objects so to begin with I only included 4 flowers. I placed the 'pollen grains' into the flowers and together we counted them and choose the correct bee peg to clip to visit the flower. Once she got the hand of the pegs Mini Piwi thought it was great fun!

Would you like to make your own version?

You are welcome to print the bees, pollen and butterflies I made for the above trays....Pre K Bees and Butterflies Match and Clip (free printable)

You will also need 10 flowers in colors to match the butterflies on the printable.
I explained how we made them in DIY Ballerina Hair Garland from Egg Cartons but you could use real flowers, silk flowers, paper flowers, the sky's (and your craft supply's) are the limit. I'd love to see what you come up with!
 If you don't have pegs then you can match the bee number cards to your flower the way we did with the butterflies. I just happen to have some pegs leftover from another project.

We read one of my favorites to go with our bee activity...I think you might recognize it :-)  

By chance I also found a new book at the Library: Butterfly colors and Counting  (by Jerry Pallotta, illustrated by Shennen Bersani).  I think Mini Piwi thought it had been written just for her and her butterflies and flowers!

What are your favorite Bee or Butterfly books?

A great Earth 'day' project: Save the Monarchs!

Source

We had been planning a unit on recycling to celebrate earth day this year. That, was until I recently I read an article about the decline in Monarch Butterfly numbers.

We love Butterflies and I couldn't imagine not seeing Monarch's in our gardens or at the park in the Summer!

Butterflies were also the reason we began this blog nearly two years ago. For Easter 2011 the Piwis received a butterfly garden. The blog was a way to show family how our painted lady caterpillars were growing. Each day Miss K would type a few words into the title of the post and I would add a picture. Eventually we released the butterflies in the Community gardens.

I showed Miss K the article about the Monarchs and she asked how we could help.

To get a better idea of the reasons for the decline we visited Monarch watch. MW is a group that  monitor the numbers of Monarch and their amazing Migration. They have also begun a program to help gardeners set up 'way stations' for the butterflies.

We have learnt so far that the Monarch Host plants (Milkweed) are less abundant. There are apparently multiple environmental and social reasons for this. Thankfully there is still hope: Chip Taylor (Monarch Watch Director) summarizes the situation:

"All in all, it was not a good year for monarchs. While some of the present decline can certainly be attributed to the seasonal conditions last summer, it is the decline of monarch habitats in the United States and Mexico that is the major concern. The good news is that we can do something about the habitats in the United States and Canada – we can plant milkweed. That said, in order to compensate for the continued loss of habitat we need to plant LOTS AND LOTS of milkweed. To assure a future for monarchs, conservation and restoration of milkweeds needs to become a national priority." (source).

With a bit of planning we came up with:

The Piwi Kids 'Save the Monarch Plan'

Research:

• Produce a Lap book that will outline everything we learn about:
• The Monarch lifecycle and Migration
• Native milkweed vs. Tropical Milkweed
• The causes of the decline in Monarch numbers
• The causes of decline in host plants.

Projects:

• Purchase fully grown Milkweed plants. These are on their way  have arrived from Educational Science.
• Look into the possibility of  hosting a way station and encourage people and public gardens in our community to also host them.
• Propagate Milkweed Plants from seeds to give to gardeners in our community. You can find these at Live monarch.com  for a small donation. We are waiting for ours to arrive.
• Make lots of Butterfly crafts!

Field trips: 

• Visit local community gardens to observe butterflies and identify host plants
• Visit a Butterfly sanctuary
• View 'Flight of the butterflies'

To date we have ordered our Milk weed plants and seeds. Next week we begin our research for the lap book. Should be a lot of fun and learning!

I will be pinning resources for this project on our Pinterest board:


What plans do you have for Earth day?

DIY 'Find it' style game for lil kids

Have you seen the 'Find it' games. It is basically a plastic tube filled with plastic rice and lots of tiny 'treasures' to find. The concept is great for older kids, DD7 spent ages playing with a friend's one. For letter X week I decided to try and make a Pre k version as one of our treasure hunts activities.

A bottle would be perfect but we only had glass ones -a scary option for a toy! We went in a differnet directions an made a find it 'box' from a 2lb berry container. The shape turned out to be great for little hands to hold, tilt and shake.

 

After a scavenger hunt to find little items to include,  I took a picture of the treasures and printed a copy. Mini Piwi could refer to the card to check what else she needed to find.

Mini Piwi used various scoops and cups to fill the plastic container 3/4 full with our well used sensory box beans. We stirred in the 'treasures' and sealed up the box with tape.

 Mini Piwi was pretty happy with her 'treasure chest'. It turned out to be pretty tricky to find everything but we all had fun trying!