Got rain? Make rainbows! ~ 3 Rainy Day Activities for Kids

We wrapped up a unit on colors and rainbows a few weeks ago and I blogged about it in a Living the Lutz Life post yesterday. I wanted to expand on the activities a little more and give directions in case you wanted to do these fun projects with your own kiddos! Since today is rainy and much colder than the low 80s we had yesterday, I figured it was the perfect day to share some rainbow crafts!

These activities would be a great way to tie in the Bible story of Noah's Ark, where after 40 days and nights of rain...God sent a rainbow as a sign that the flood was over and of His faithful promise to Noah and his family.

Color Mixing
To show the kids how two primary colors can mix together to form secondary colors, I filled up several jars with water and red, blue and yellow food coloring. I used glass canning jars, but you could use any transparent container. I will warn you that I filled and refilled these jars at least 3 times, because they loved it and wanted to do it again and again.

We did this activity on the opened door of the dishwasher, to minimize the mess. I placed a couple towels under the door, for any splashes or spills and had them wear old paint shirts. You will want to provide a few large, empty jars or containers for them to mix the water and create new colors. We had fun trying to make a musical xylophone by varying the levels of water in the jar to make different "notes" and tapping the jars with a spoon.

When all your playing is done, pour out the jars of water onto the lid of the dishwasher and slowly close the door. Use the "drain" button on your dishwasher to empty out the colored water. You may want to pour a few jars of clean water onto the door and repeat the process to wash away all the colored water.

Paper Rainbows
To prepare this activity, cut one inch strips (lengthwise) from red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple construction paper. Give your preschooler or lower elementary child a ruler, scissors and a pencil. Measure the pieces and cut accordingly:

Red ~ 10 inches
Orange ~ 9 inches
Yellow ~ 8 inches
Green ~ 7 inches
Blue ~ 6 inches
Purple ~ 5 inches

After all of the pieces have been cut, stack them so that the red is on the top and the purple is on the bottom (rainbow order). Line the pieces up at one end and staple them. Take all of the loose ends and make them line up on the other side, forming an arc. Staple the second side. Voila! A free-standing rainbow AND a math lesson. Cool!

Recycled Rainbow Swirl Crayons
This is a perfect way to repurpose all those broken crayons you might have stashed away somewhere! Gather up all your old, broken crayons and peel off their paper. Break the crayons into smallish pieces and spread evenly among paper or foil baking cups. Place the baking cups into a foil-lined casserole dish or cookie sheet. Make sure cups are at least 1/3 full. Bake your broken crayons in a 250 degree oven for about 8-10 or until most of the crayon pieces are melted. Some of the crayons may be unmelted, but they should look mostly flat on the top. Allow to cool completely and room the baking cup wrapper. Enjoy using your new rainbow swirl crayons!

Living the Lutz Life: Jackson's Surprise Party, Easter and the Midwest Homeschool Convention

We are in the middle of April and I feel like I am just now recovering from the whirlwind of a month we had in March. I lost my camera for a few weeks and my husband just recently found it hiding in our van. (Love that man!!) Needless to say, there wasn't a lot of picture taking going on there for awhile. 

I fell into a bit of a "funk" at the beginning of April (or was I simply recovering from March?) and my motivation, even for blogging, completely tanked. I got the Fresh Food Deals posted each week, but that's about it. I am finally back in the game and I've been posting up a storm this week. Here's what our family was up to during the last half of March and the beginning of April. 

For kindergarten, Jackson did a unit on colors and learned that "God makes our world beautiful". We sorted Crayola crayons by color families and graphed them, made our own recycled rainbow crayons, learned about the colors of the rainbow, mixed colored water in glass jars (on the dishwasher door) and measured/cut strips of paper to make construction paper rainbows. We continued to work on reading and writing short vowel words, addition and telling time.



Jackson wanted a surprise party for his 6th birthday, so that's exactly what he got! We invited family to come and surprise Jackson and he was so shocked that he almost cried. He had a great time with his cousins, loved the Bowser's castle cake that I made for him and was thrilled with all of his new gifts. It's hard to believe he is already 6 years old. Time seems to fly by more quickly with each passing year.

Our church held an amazing Easter egg hunt the Saturday before Easter and the kids had a BLAST! 50,000 plastic eggs stuffed with 100,000 pieces of candy...let's just say we had more candy from the egg hunt than we got last Halloween!

The kids helped me make a resurrection garden for our dining room table and Bill and I tried to put the Easter focus on Jesus as much as we could (and minimize the bunny). One night we made resurrection rolls out of jumbo marshmallows and some leftover pizza dough. I got the biggest giggle out of Charlotte biting into hers and exclaming, "Oh NO!! Where my marshmallow go? We need make new ones!"

Bill and I were able to get away by ourselves a couple weeks ago and went to the Midwest Homeschool Convention in Cincinnati. We sat in on a few workshops, including one from Ruth at The Better Mom and another from Crystal at Money Saving Mom. It was extremely nice to have two whole days where we could be Bill and Ashley instead of "Daddy" and "Mommy". I enjoyed browsing the gigantic vendor hall--filled with every homeschool curriculum, manipulative, workbook, game or supply you could imagine. It was fun running into a few friends from church while we were there, too!

What has your family been doing now that spring has finally arrived?

Living the Lutz Life: March Snowstorm, Stone Soup, Nature Walk & Missing Tooth

Last week we got a pretty decent March snowfall that caused all of the local schools to close. The snow was just perfect for building snowmen and making snowballs! The kids had a blast with their new snow friend.

                                               

I took Jackson sledding, but Charlotte thinks sledding is "too scary" so she played dress-up at her cousin Cora's house instead.

Jackson and I completed a unit on rocks last week and spent one afternoon making stone soup (note the "townspeople" who brought food to put in the soup! Ha!).

The temperatures were in the high 50s last Saturday, just 4 days after our big snowfall, and we took advantage of the beautiful day by walking around at Hobart Urban Nature Preserve. Note to self...buy rainboots for future spring nature walks!

 

We ran into the Easter Bunny at church last weekend! Charlotte was not a fan. at. all.  She wanted nothing whatsoever to do with him. Jackson, on the other hand, thought he was pure awesomeness.

See this kid?? You have never witnessed any 5 year old go as postal as this one did when he lost his first tooth on Monday night!! Raging hysteria, I'm tellin' ya. Don't let this sleepy morning after picture fool you. Head over to YouTube and watch it for yourself!

How did your son or daughter react to losing his/her first tooth?

Living the Lutz Life: Why I Should Never, Ever Roller Skate & 100 Days of Homeschooling

 

The bigger they are...the harder they fall. In my lifetime, I have broken my foot swing dancing, crashed a moped into a pine tree, fallen down a large flight of stairs at a school assembly (I was the teacher!), gotten a permanent dent in my shin from skiing and even burned my knee once on a sandwich maker (It was college-don't ask! Ha!). And that is only a small sampling of my klutziness. The point is that I am an accident waiting for a place to happen. This was proven yet again, last Tuesday, when I took Jackson for his homeschool gym day at the roller skating rink.

 

 

 We were having a great time until I fell I down an itty bitty 3 inch "ramp" at the get on/get off point of the rink. I was so busy taking pictures that I lost my footing, rolled backward and wiped out something major--jamming my elbow AND my camera into the very hard floor. I wish I could have seen it, because it was probably hysterical! I put on my best "brave mommy" face and sucked up the impending tears (It really hurt!). After some elbow ice, the hokey pokey and a few more laps around...we called it a day. Although my elbow was not broken, my camera was.

Without a working camera, my blog plans for the week were at a stand-still. I will make it up to you this week--I promise! My sister and my niece came over on Thursday to help us celebrate Valentine's Day and Jackson's 100th day of kindergarten. (Thanks for taking the pictures, Erin!)

 

For our 100th Day Celebration the kids made a tower using 100 cups, played a game to see how many dice rolls it would take to reach 100, made snack mix using ten each of ten different snack foods, and drew a picture of what they would buy with $100. We also decorated homemade sugar cookies to share with their grandparents for Valentine's Day. It was a really fun day that Jackson had been looking forward to for months.

Help make this embarrassed mom feel a little better by sharing a time you were "less than graceful" in the comments below!

Living the Lutz Life: Penguins, Movie Night & Newport Aquarium



This is a new weekly feature for 2013, giving you a peek into our day-to-day life and serving as a digital journal for me and my family. Take time to savor these precious days and don't forget to take LOTS of pictures! 

 

I didn't post Living the Lutz Life two weeks ago, because it was a super lame week and we didn't really do anything. Well, I shouldn't say we didn't do anything. I had a bad chest cold most of the week and we had just begun our penguin unit, so there wasn't much to write about. (Not that there are boatloads of people who read these posts, but I know there are a handful of you who do! Thank you!!)

On the last day of January, Bill and I took Jackson out for some one-on-one time to see the movie Wreck-It Ralph. Taking the kids out once a month, individually, is one of my monthly goals. Our first stop was to Hobby Lobby, so Jackson could make his very first purchase with his own money. He had been saving Christmas money and after much consideration, decided to buy a 16 inch Yoshi backpack. It was so cute to watch him go to the register with his stuffed Yoshi and plunk down his entire bank in front of the cashier. (Don't worry, we had previously counted it all and put it into an envelope labeled with how much he had to spend. We even used a 40% off coupon!) Of course, his new pal had to come and sit with us at the movie. Wreck-It Ralph was very good, much better than either Bill or I expected, and as soon as the credits started rolling Jackson leaned over and asked when he could see it again!

Last week we wrapped up our P-p Penguin Unit for Kindergarten. We had such a great two weeks learning about penguin species and living out our words to remember: I show love to everyone, especially my family. Some highlights from the unit were...

• Bill and the kids put penguin "eggs" on their feet and waddled around, pretending to be Emperor penguins, before eating gummy fish from a pretend ocean.
• Jackson and Charlotte went out to play penguins in the snow (including sliding down the slide on his belly!) and experiment with icebergs and glaciers in a tub of water.
• I read the book Penguins, Penguins Everywhere! to Jackson and made a color copy of all the penguin illustrations in the back of the book. Then Bill helped Jackson put all of them onto a large world map, showing him where in the world penguins live.
• We made a balance scale out of two paper cups and a wire coat hanger. Jackson put various objects into each side of the cup in an attempt to balance it. Then we wrote out some picture "equations" showing what was in each cup. Jackson practiced the concepts of heavy, light, equal, plus, add, more and less.

 

We finally wrapped up the chapter book, Mr. Popper's Penguins, and decided to celebrate with a movie night. The 2012 Jim Carrey movie has pretty much nothing in common with the book, other than the characters' names and the fact that Mr. Popper received a penguin. In spite of that, both of the kids thought it was hysterical. We ate homemade pizza for dinner and had black and white ice cream (vanilla with made-from-scratch Magic Shell) for dessert.

  

Last Sunday, we took the kids down to the Newport Aquarium. Jackson was simply in shock that after we crossed the bridge spanning the Ohio River, we were magically in "Tucky". Just like that...a brand new state. Ha ha! I haven't been to the Newport Aquarium since my first year of teaching waaaay back in 2001. A lot has changed since then and they have added some new areas and exhibits. Bill and I made the decision to never ever go to a museum or aquarium on a weekend again. Ever. Wowzers...that was not our smartest parenting move!

 

Even though it was crazy crowded, we were pretty happy to take advantage of the Winter Family Days promo where 2 kids get in free with each paying adult. That saved us a ton of money! This promotion is running through the end of February, so if you are looking for a fun family trip I would recommend going in the next couple weeks (but not on a Saturday or Sunday!). I would also encourage you to buy and print your tickets at home if you want to skip the outdoor ticket buying line. Another lesson learned!

 

 

Jackson and Charlotte enjoyed seeing Mighty Mike, the biggest baddest gator in the country, who is only there for a limited time. I absolutely love, love, love that picture above where he is putting his arm around her because she was a little scared. What a good big brother she has! Another highlight was the rain forest area where both kids got to sit on Bill's shoulders and feed tropical birds with cups of nectar. Jackson cracked up when one of the birds left a present on a lady's head! Ha ha! They loved the jellyfish room, seeing a real octopus, the Penguin Palooza exhibit and Jackson proudly admits his favorite part of the whole trip was the gift shop. Seriously?! Gotta love kids!

 

Have you ever been to the Newport Aquarium? What did you think? I'd love to hear any tips or tricks you have for saving money at museums and aquariums! 

 



Sparkly Snow Dough

 

I have been watching the weather report for the week and I saw that snow was in the forecast for today and I saved this post especially for your wintery Friday. This is the basic recipe that I use for all of our playdough, but this time I thought I would add a bunch of the forbidden glitter that no one in my house is allowed to touch. Ha ha! Seriously, glitter is so attractive to kids but man what a mess! This dough is perfect because you get all of the sparkle and none of it sticks to the table or your kiddos' hands. I also added a couple drops of peppermint oil to this dough and it smelled amazing and reminiscent of wintertime.

 

 

 

My 2 year old is obsessed with making snow families with this sparkly snow dough. She plays with it for 30 minutes to an hour at a time. Throw some googly eyes and cut up pipe cleaners on the table with the dough and let 'em have at it! Did I mention how great the clean-up is with this dough? Just take a hunk of it and pat it on the table or floor to pick up the other little loose pieces. Easy peasy!

 

 

My kindergartner and I got a little creative with the dough and decided to use items found in nature to make "snowflakes" in our sparkly snow dough. We used a couple pieces of pine tree branch and the top and bottom of a pine cone. He decided the top of the pine cone made the best "snowflake". However, the pieces of branch were fascinating to look at, in my opinion.

  

Another fun idea that incorporates your sparkly snow dough is making "tracks" in the snow. This could go along with a real walk outside in the snow to look for animal tracks (such as squirrels, cats, dogs, rabbits, birds, etc.). If you have Barbies, action figures, toy animals or anything else with plastic feet--make them walk across your sparkly snow dough and leave their tracks.

If you want to make it into a game, choose one person to close their eyes while the other makes the tracks. Then, let the first person guess which animal/figure made those tracks by examining their foot and matching it up with the tracks left behind. This is also a great opportunity to teach counting by 2s.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

 

Sparkly Snow Dough

3 c. flour + up to 1 c. extra (bleached all-purpose is best for white dough)
1/2 c. salt
1 T. cream of tartar
2 c. boiling water
5 T. cooking oil (the cheap stuff is just fine!)
several drops of essential oil or extract, such as peppermint (optional)
food coloring (optional)
1/4 c. glitter**

1. Boil 2 c. of water in a microwave-safe bowl or on the stove. Add oil and food coloring (not for the snow dough, but if you were going to make colored dough).

2. In a large bowl, add 3 c. of flour, salt and cream of tartar. Pour in the water/oil mixture and stir well. Add the glitter** and stir until well mixed.

3. After the ingredients are well-combined, pour the still warm and sticky dough onto a piece of foil or parchment paper and allow to cool completely. Wait no more than 2 hours or it will begin to dry out on the surface.
 
4. I have found it is best to wait until the dough is completely cool to do this step. Using up to an additional cup of reserved flour, knead dough well until it is soft and pliable with no lumps. It should not stick to your hands or table, but it is MUCH softer than Play-doh brand dough. You may need slightly more or less flour. Feel free to add extra glitter at this point if yours does not have enough "bling".

5. Store dough in a sealed container or plastic zippered bag for up to 3 months.

**The first time I made this sparkly snow dough, I used iridescent glitter mixed with silver and we loved it. Unfortunately, I ran out and had to use gold for this blog post and it wasn't my favorite. Feel free to use what you have on hand, but if you are buying it especially to use for this project, I would go with something that looked like actual sparkling snow. :)



Living the Lutz Life: Fun with Friends, Sparkly Snow Dough & Our Jumpy House

This is a new weekend feature for 2013, giving you a peek into our day-to-day life and serving as a digital journal for me and my family. Take time to savor these precious days and don't forget to take LOTS of pictures!

 

 

We had a really great time playing with some of our homeschooling friends on Wednesday. Jackson and his buddy, Noah, always have a blast! My friend, Emily, has such sweet kiddos and my gang loves to hang out and play with them. I was thinking about it the other day and between the two of us, we have kids who are 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 9. Pretty cool, huh?! Of course by the time Jackson's birthday rolls around in March that will all change--but it's certainly fun for the moment.

 

 

For school this past week (and the week ahead), we are talking about Water and the letter "W". Our words to remember this week are, "Jesus gives my spirit living water to drink." So far, we have talked about the three states of water--solid, liquid and gas--and created a list of items that fit into those categories. We made some Sparkly Snow Dough (new blog post coming on Wednesday!) and filled balloons with air, water and ice. To create the ice balloon, I just filled with water the night before and stuck it in the freezer.

 

 

We invited my parents over for lasagna on Thursday night, which we haven't done in forever. Bill and I are really not the world's most hospitable people. Hahaha! One of my goals in 2013 is to be more intentional about inviting family over for meals and to just spend time together. My parents had a great evening and really enjoyed seeing the kids' bedrooms, our school room, etc.

 

 

Friday night we busted out the inflatable jumpy house in the living room to burn off some post-dinner energy. I bought the inflatable, used, as a gift for Charlotte's 2nd birthday in August and it has been worth every penny. They LOVE it!

 

 

Bill's grandma had a mild stroke right after Christmas and has been in a rehab center for the past couple weeks. On Saturdays, between soccer practice and church, we have been going to visit her. We let the kids take their new Sparkly Snow Dough and build snowmen (and snow cakes!) with Great-Grandma this week.

 

The next few days are supposed to be downright frigid! Any plans for fun indoor activities with your favorite people?

 

Ashley

Living the Lutz Life: Swimming in January and Octopus Hot Dogs

This is a new weekend feature for 2013, giving you a peek into our day-to-day life and serving as a digital journal for me and my family. Take time to savor these precious days and don't forget to take LOTS of pictures! 

 

 

This was our first full week with a regular school routine since before Christmas. It was nice to have a sense of order back to the day and I feel like we made a lot of great progress with Jackson's reading this week. I take so much joy in listening to him read and decode new words. I wouldn't trade this job for anything. :)

 

On Wednesday, the kids and I headed to the Vandalia Recreation Center for this month's homeschool gym day. (Next month is roller skating! Fun!!) Charlotte had been wearing her new swimsuit around the house since Monday, and asking 100 times a day if we "go 'wimming now". Needless to say, by the time Wednesday rolled around she was one excited little girl!

 

Jackson had so much fun visiting with his buddies at the pool and it was great to talk to some mom friends I hadn't seen since before the holidays. There was a big turnout for our outing even though it looks as if we are at the pool alone. Haha! I try very hard when taking pics of my kids to omit other children who are in the background--especially when I know I will be sharing pictures on the web. I think that's only fair. I wouldn't want pictures of my kids (in their swimsuits) on the Internet without my knowledge, would you?

 

For school this week, we worked on the letter O and did some research on oceans and octopuses. Yes, "octopuses" is an acceptable plural of "octopus"...it sounded strange to me but I looked it up! Our words to remember this week were, "Even the octopus praises the Lord." All week long, Charlotte referred to any octopus she saw in books, ocean DVDs, etc. as "applesauce". Jackson and I got a big kick out of hearing her say it, so we kept pointing to pictures and asking her to say what it was. It was always an "applesauce"!

 

We learned many interesting facts about octopuses this week, including what they eat (fish, crabs, shrimp, etc.), where they live (caves mainly), how they protect themselves from enemies (squirting ink to hide) and even how they can regrow tentacles. We did an experiment, seen on the bottom row of the photo above, showing how an octopus uses its ink (black food coloring) to hide from a "wolf eel"--or snake finger puppet, because that's all we could find! :)

 

The kids enjoyed making and eating octopus hot dogs in a ketchup ocean. Leaving the top 1/3 of the hot dog uncut, slice the bottom portion lengthwise into 8 sections and place into boiling water. The legs will curl up and create an edible "octopus". (In case you are wondering what kind of hot dogs we buy, I prefer the Applegate Farms variety because they are grass-fed, all beef and made without added hormones or nitrates.)

 

 

The weather this week was completely wacky! Here's a picture of the kids with a snowman at my grandparents' house on Thursday. The other pictures below are from Friday and Saturday, when it got up to 60+ degrees--in January!! Weather that warm makes me begin thinking about planting our garden. Jackson is still talking about the sledding we did a couple weeks ago, so I think he's itching for more winter weather. I'm pretty sure he will be getting his wish for more snow.

 

 

 

What kinds of exciting things did your family do to enjoy this unseasonably warm week? I look forward to reading about your adventures in the comments below!

 

Ashley