Sunday, July 31, 2011

Boredom Buster: Marbles

I came across a bag of marbles a few years ago.  I know marbles is a really old game, and I swear that I am 33 years old.  But I grew up inside a museum, and marbles was a game that my best friend and I loved to play.  We were constantly exposed to games and ideas from long ago.  I can now pass on to my children some of the ideas that date back from our own ancestors time.  That is rewarding in itself.
We played inside or outside, and we didn’t play for keepsies.  You see she had her own bag of marbles, like mine.  Finding marbles sets today is still quite simple.  I found a few listed at Amazon.com for under $10, a package.  
We start by making a circle, either on the sidewalk with chalk, or in the dirt with a stick, or if you want to play inside with a string. 
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We each had 13 smaller marbles (called mibs) and 1 larger marble (called a shooter) for shooting, that we played with. 
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The object is to get as many mibs out of the circle as possible without your shooter leaving the circle.  If your shooter leaves the circle the mibs that you knocked out don’t count and go back into the circle.  Each of us collected our “captured” mibs in piles next to us. We played  by taking turns every turn, regardless if the last person “captured” any mibs or not.  The person with the most marbles “captured” at the end when all the mibs are gone wins. 
There are so many different variations to playing.  The most important thing is to make sure all of the rules have been clearly discussed with everyone at the beginning, and everyone agrees to them.
I mainly loved the beauty that the marbles have.  As a child I was very careful with my collection.  To this day, they are one of my most cherished belongings and they sit right on my desk (since I found them).  I would love to hear from other marble lovers as well. 

Saturday, July 30, 2011

Skill Building: Dip Rules!

The kids and I needed a fast lunch the other day, and I decided to cut up fresh veggies and fruit and have them be able to dip their food as they ate.  Dip can be great fun or a total embarrassment in a formal situation.
What a great opportunity to teach you kids etiquette, in a controlled setting, before they have to deal with a situation that is more public and it gets out of control.
These are the rules that I taught my children as they ate, mindfully.
  1. No double dipping, if a plate is accessible then take some dip with a spoon and place a dollop on your plate.
  2. No knuckle dipping, it isn’t polite to touch the dip with your fingers or hand at any time.
  3. No dripping with dipping, be polite and do not load your food up with so much dip that it will drip in excess.
  4. Chips are often tricky, if there is a situation that involves them always try to use the dollop method.  If a chip breaks in a bowl of dip it can become gross for everyone afterwards.
  5. No horizontal or drop dipping, laying a carrot, or celery stick into the dip so one whole side is covered is inappropriate, and messy.  Its not nice to be messy when you are using a community dip.
Preparing your children for social situations and teaching them be polite and tactful is your job.  If there is a time of embarrassment when you didn’t have your children prepared, then teach them the way you feel is correct during that situation.  If your children do not not know how to deal with the situation, a hand over hand form of instruction is sometimes necessary.  And it shows great etiquette with you to be teaching your children instead of reprimanding them or completely ignoring their behavior and avoiding it altogether.

Friday, July 29, 2011

Recipe: Sweet Cream Crepes

We try to do a special treat breakfast every Saturday and we tried this recipe, and of course I changed it up to make it my own.  My husband doesn’t like the rubbery texture of “Crepes”, so we used our favorite pancake mix and thinned it out with water instead. 
Ingredients:
Crepes:
  • Pancake Mix made as instructed on container.
  • 1/2 to 1 cup of water (to thin pancake batter into crepes.)
Additions:
  • 4 Cup sliced strawberries
  • Sweet Cream Spread
    • 1- 8oz. softened cream cheese
    • 1/2 cup half and half
    • 1 1/4 cup confectionary sugar
    • 1 Tbsp. Lemon Juice
    • 1/2 tsp. Vanilla
Instructions:
Crepes:
Take batter for pancake mix and thin out with milk until it reaches a heavy cream consistency.  On a griddle (300 degrees) start cooking your crepes in about 6”-8” oval shapes.  Flip crepes after about 1 1/2 minutes. 
Sweet Cream Spread:
In a bowl, combine cream cheese, half and half, sugar, juice, vanilla with a hand held mixer, until well blended. 
Filling Crepes:
The sweet cream is then placed onto the fully cooked crepes, down the center, along with a few of the sliced strawberries and then the two sides are folded in to complete.  Serve immediately.
Tips:
  1. Only apply a thin layer of the cream onto crepes, otherwise it will break the crepe and make a mess.
  2. If you want more cream mixture add it to the top of the crepe after it is folded.
  3. Kids love to garnish, let them pretty up their plates with any extra fruit.

Thursday, July 28, 2011

Boredom Buster: Become a Puppeteer #2

In this part of making our puppet theater, we are priming and decorating our box, to give it the style that we desire.
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Here we have primed our box with spray paint in a grey color, and my daughters are painting on the color they chose by mixing washable paint. 
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We used a decoupage technique to apply the lettering.
We made the curtains for the front and back of the box by:
Measuring the cloth that we wanted on the box, and made two pieces the same size.  One of those we cut in half for the front.
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I sewed up the rough edges on all sides.
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I hot glued the top piece of the back to the top of the backstage.
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I folded down the corners and hot glued the edges only.
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Then I sewed a seem across the top of the curtain pieces for the front.
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I ran a string through both front pieces and hot glued the string to the box.
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I left the strings hanging to the side so that the curtains could be tied up during ShowTime.  Here it is finished.
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Stay tuned for Boredom Buster: Become a Puppeteer #3, where we will be
  • Showing different ways to make puppets.
  • Ideas for what plays to choose for your shows.

Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Boredom Buster: Water Balloons

When its hot outside, and the kids want to cool off and have fun at the same time, Water Balloons are the answer.  Here are some ideas that our family tried with little preparation and planning.
Water Balloons:
Volley: Throw the water balloons back and forth between 2 people.  When it is caught each time, without the balloon breaking,  that person takes a step back.  The winner is the one who doesn’t break the balloon.
Dodge Ball:  Split into two teams, try to dodge water balloons being thrown at you from the other team, as you throw them at them.
Toss (version of Hot Potato):  A group of people gather in a circle, and toss a water balloon to someone else, keep going as fast as you can until it breaks on someone, then that person is out.  The last one playing wins.
Fill the Bucket:  Form lines of equal amounts of people.  Have a bucket at each end of each line.   One bucket is full of water balloons, the other is empty.  The empty bucket has a line drawn in it to show how much water is needed in that bucket to finish the race.  The first person in line grabs a balloon from the first bucket and passes to the next person in line, and it keeps being passed down the line until the last person breaks it into the bucket.  The first team to have water filled to the finish line in their bucket wins. 
Have a safe and wonderful summer!  Hope you will be able to try this.  If you have any other ideas or suggestions, I would love to hear from you. 

Tuesday, July 26, 2011

Girls Night In: DIY Manicures and Pedicures

Girls love pampering.  Well I want my girls to be able to treat themselves, even if on a budget.  I personally have an addiction to nail polishes and lipsticks.  LOL!  I should say I have an addiction to buying nail polishes, I get in kicks where I will use them, but not often.  I have collected everything I need for a true manicure treat like a trip to the salon.
What we use for a Pedicure is:
Foot Bath
  • Nail Clippers
  • Foot bath
  • Foot Soak Salts
  • Foot Scrub
  • Favorite Lotion
  • Toe Nail Brush
  • Foot Grater
  • Pumice Stone
  • Cuticle Sticks
  • Nail Buffer
  • Toe Separators
Trim, and shape your toe nails.  Use the foot grater on the bottom of your feet.  Soak your feet.  Scrub them with the foot scrub and pumice stone.  Wash them and use the nail brush to make sure all of the scrub is gone.  Push back your cuticles.  Buff nails using a cotton ball remove any dust from nail beds with nail polish remover.  Using toe separators, paint nails, then coat with a top coat.
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What we use for a manicure:
Mani Set
  • Nail clippers
  • Nail and Hand Brush
  • Favorite Hand/Shower Gel
  • Favorite Lotion
  • Cuticle softener pen
  • Cuticle Sticks
  • For Tough Cuticles, Cuticle Remover
  • Emery boards
  • Nail Buffer
  • Cuticle Trimmers
Trim, and shape your finger nails.  Wash your hands, and allow your nails to soak in the water for a bit.  Push back your cuticles.  Trim any hang nails, or any loose pieces of skin around your nails.  Dry your hands and nails thoroughly.  Buff your nails.  With a cotton ball, remove any dust that may be on your nails with nail polish remover.  Paint nails then apply top coat.  Allow to dry then apply lotion.
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Monday, July 25, 2011

Recipe: Vanilla Ice Cream

A wonderful treat for anytime of the year, is homemade ice cream.  We love the simplicity of this recipe, and the great flavor it has.
Ingredients:
  • 2 3/4 cup Half and Half
  • 1 1/4 cup Whole Milk
  • 1  1/4 cup sugar
  • 2  1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
  • 3 tsp. powdered pectin (found in the food supplements aisle)

Instructions:
Follow the instructions according to your ice cream maker on how to set up.  In a medium bowl, mix all ingredients with a stick blender, or stand blender to make sure pectin incorporates.  Pour into ice cream maker and activate.  Wait about 20 minutes until mixed well and a soft ice cream has formed.  Remove immediately and store in a tightly sealed freezer safe container, and place in freezer for at least 2 hours to harden.
Tips:
  1. The pectin might sound like a strange ingredient, and can be skipped, but it does improve the texture of the ice cream and help it to not crystalize.
  2. After using our stick blender, we place ice cream mix into freezer  for about an hour, then blend again.  This pre cooling helps to make sure that when the ice cream maker is used, it will have a chance to set up correctly in the ice cream maker.  Otherwise you might not always get to the soft ice cream stage.
  3. Mix this up: add different things while ice cream maker is on, crumbled cookies, candies, fruits, or sauces are great.
  4. Endless Possibilities:  add other extracts or flavoring oils to it to make it any other flavor of ice cream.

Sunday, July 24, 2011

Boredom Buster: Showtime

One of my kids favorite games to play is “Showtime”.  They take some of their toys and take time to come up with a play or “show”.  They put it all together and put on a show for us.  This is what inspired me to create the puppet theater. 
This wasn’t something that I came up with.  My daughters started this with their major fashion show, they made tickets for everyone, made a runway, even had costume changes.  They took a couple of hours to plan it, and set it up.  My son is a bit more spontaneous and of course only 4 years old.  So 20 minutes putting it all together tops, but the girls helped him make tickets and so on. 
My son just went with my husband to a Monster Truck Rally, so we have seen quite a few monster truck shows lately. My daughters have done fashion shows with their Barbie dolls, with an elimination segment at the end like “American Idol”. The planning and theme is totally theirs to create, and they have a bit of independent time in doing this. This is something that really gets everyone involved at the end and a great time for everyone.
This is an activity that could be done either indoors or outdoors, and is always a sure hit to get kids to use their imagination.  Have fun and let them do as much as possible so they can have a wonderful since of pride and accomplishment in their masterpiece.  Have a fun!

Saturday, July 23, 2011

Boredom Buster: Board Games

Over the years we have built up quite a collection of board games.  Some I don’t even remember acquiring.  Kids love board games, and super hot days, when you cannot get outside, are a great time to peek through all that you have.  Let the kids choose a few that they would like to try, this will keep their interest more than you choosing for them. 
  • If you don’t have a collection to choose from, but you have a magna doodle, play Pictionary. We have even used our laptop in the paint program as well to play.  This is a great game that keeps everyone involved for hours sometimes.
  • We have also played the computer games where you have to hunt and find the missing items.  I have connected my laptop to my TV, using an HDMI cord so everyone can join in the fun.
  • Sometimes the kids even make their own games up, and we play trying to follow the rules that they make.  It doesn’t always work out the greatest, but the self confidence it instils, is reason enough. 
Make some snacks, settle in, forget about the housework for a bit and have fun as a family. The laundry will be there in a few hours, building memories that your kids can look back on is the key.

Friday, July 22, 2011

Staying Cool: During Extreme Heat

We are still having a massive heat spell, today.  Here are some tips for staying cool when its just too hot for you or your family to be outside having fun!  :(
  • Wear light colored, loose fitting, cotton clothing.
  • If the kids are dying to go to the beach or pool, take them in the morning for a few hours, before noon.
  • Running cool water over your wrists and temples.  This cools down your pulse points and overall temperature.
  • Don’t eat large meals, they cause your body to work hard, causing more heat internally.  So eat small meals more frequently.
  • Eating spicy foods that make you sweat will help cool you down.
  • Misting sheets with a linen spray or water, will keep you cool at night, when a fan is being used to circulate the air in the room.
  • Before bed taking a room temperature shower or bath will help you feel cooler as you sleep.  If you take a cool shower, your body will try to compensate and produce more heat.
Be safe everyone!  If you have any other ideas please comment, I would love to hear from you!  Until tomorrow.

Thursday, July 21, 2011

Safety Concerns: Extreme Heat!

We are under an Excessive Heat Watch today.  I would like to share with you a few things you can do to protect yourself and your family.


Do any strenuous activities in the morning or evening.

Check on relatives and neighbors.

If you need to work outside take frequent breaks in a shaded environment.


Stay hydrated:
  1. Drinking plenty of fluids
  2. Stay out of the sun
  3. Get to a place where there is air conditioning.
Signs of heat exhaustion:
  1. profuse sweating
  2. weakness
  3. nausea
  4. vomiting
  5. headache
  6. light headedness
  7. muscle cramps      
Signs of heat stroke
  1. confusion
  2. lethargic
  3. possible seizure
  4. the skin stops sweating
  5. body temperature may exceed 106 (F)
Watch for these signs so you can be prepared and know when to take action.  Stay safe everyone, have a great day!

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Snacks In No Time: Groovy Guacamole

Dips or Sauces are excellent with kids around.  They are fun and different, which catches their interest.  Avocados are so good for you, and kids are sometimes very picky.  But the tanginess of guacamole, and the fact they can dip chips into it really encourages them to try new things.
Ingredients:
  • 10-12 cherry tomatoes, peeled.
  • 4 ripe avocados, skin and pits removed.
  • Juice from 1 lime, or 2 Tablespoons of reconstituted
  • 1/2 a small onion
  • 2 garlic cloves, or 3 tsp. chopped garlic (already prepared)
  • 1/8-1/4cup dried cilantro
Instructions:
Place all ingredients in a food processor and process until desire texture.  Season with salt to taste.  Place in an airtight container in refrigerator and use within 4 days.  Serve with tortilla chips or crackers.  (serves 6)
Tips:
  1. Remove skin from tomato's:  Place tomato's in a bowl, and pour boiling hot water over them until they are covered and allow to sit for 3 minutes. Peel skins off with a paring knife until all have been removed.
  2. Remove skin and pit from avocado:  Cut avocado in half, remove pit with a spoon.  Scoop flesh out with a spoon.
  3. This recipe can be done also with a blender if you prefer.  It is quite thick so you will need to stop and keep scraping the sides with a rubber scraper.

Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Snacks In No Time: Peach Mango Punch

My daughters and I had a girls night out last night and we had homemade pizza, and toffee popcorn with peach mango punch, while we settled in for a great movie on Netflix.
Ingredients:
  • 5 Peaches
  • 2 Mangos
  • 1 Can of Sprite.
Instructions:
I took the stones out of the peaches.  I took the stones out of the mangos.   Using my juicer, I juiced all fruit and poured equally into three tall glasses.  I topped the glasses off with the can of sprite, equally.  I carefully stirred, being careful not to let the drink foam up too much and voila!  A wonderful sweet, fresh punch.  (3 Servings)
Tips:
  1. Removing stone from a peach:  I did this by cutting the peach in half along the seam up against the stone. Twist the halves to open fruit, and pop the stone out with a spoon.
  2. Removing stone from a mango:  I did this by cutting the mango lengthwise, about 1/2 inch from center out,and repeated on other side, so the stone would be still in the center. Then took the center part and cut around the stone.
  3. Using a blender instead of a juicer:  You would want to peel your fruits and remove stones from them.  Take fruit instead of placing in juicer, place in blender and add a liquid to help liquefy your ingredients.  I would recommend using water or juice, not using a carbonated beverage because that could foam up with the blending action.  Blend until desired thickness.  Then pour equally into three tall glasses. Top the glasses off with the can of sprite, equally. Carefully stir, being careful not to let the drink foam up too much.  Then serve.

Monday, July 18, 2011

Boredom Buster: Coloring Pages

We were planning on heading to a farm for the morning, but the gloomy weather helped us to choose to stay inside instead.  We can move the fun indoors.  I have searched the web and wanted to share with you our preferred sites for finding printable, fun and educational activities.  Having an idea of what you can do during bad weather, limits TV, game system and computer time.  We let our kids choose what they want to color, then we throw in a couple that we think are fundamental as well. 
Our Favorites:
  1. Crayola- Any Age
  2. PBS Kids-Preschool
  3. Nick Jr.-Preschool
  4. Disney Junior-Preschool
  5. Sprout Online-Preschool
  6. Discovery Kids-Preschool
There are many options out there, a quick search online can help you come up with some ideas.  Feel free to add any websites that your children love as well. 
Fraggle
My 9 year old colored this, she wanted to share it and tell you that she name this dragon “Fraggle”.

Sunday, July 17, 2011

Skill Building: Staying sharp during summer.

Having a nice vacation clears our minds and helps restore tranquillity.  Our kids tend to clear their mind so well over the summer break that they forget essential skills in Math and Reading.
Incorporating review into their normal day can be a challenge when all they want is free time.  So we take the challenge and try to make it fun for them at the same time.  This is what we do to help them stay on track.
  • Scheduling and Planning Ahead.  Meal Planning and a trip to the grocery store can help young ones with spelling, reading, following directions.  (Include them in making the grocery list, reading the list and finding the items in the store)  Older kids can learn price comparison.  Not to mention the lessons in attention to detail, they pick up from being helpful and following directions.
  • Counting.  My 4 year old helps make coffee everyday.  He counts the scoops of coffee we put into the coffee basket.  He is so excited he gets to push the button to start it.  If we are reheating it in the microwave, we tell him what numbers to push on the microwave.
  • Reading.  Going to the library often, really encourages them to read.  I know my 12 year old is outside reading through book after book, while she sits in the sun.  My 9 year old is trying so hard to find something that she is interested in, that she starts books and doesn’t finish them.  The point is she is reading regardless.  My 4 year old loves the library and enjoys our trips there,
  • Computer Skills.  I have set my girls (12 and 9 years old) up with limited email accounts, and have encouraged them to become pen pals with their friends over the long summer break.  This teaches them essential skills in computer literacy, reading and typing skills, they can’t get enough of it.
  • Intermediate Math.  Helping cook in the kitchen.  My 12 year old is adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing fractions. While my 9 year old is learning and becoming familiar with fractions.
  • Basic Math.  Now to brush up on memorizing simple math facts, I have replicated a game for them that I played in my 4th grade class. I found that it really helped me.  It was called  “Beat the Clock”.
  •   Making sure to creatively incorporate fun learning skills into as many activities as possible. Will really help your children from forgetting fundamentals over the summer.  Good Luck, I hope this helped.
If you have other ideas about helping kids stay on track over the summer, please feel free to comment and share with others.  Thanks!

Saturday, July 16, 2011

Boredom Buster: Local Events

We are all so busy, sometimes we don’t have time to scout out what’s going on around us.   Like in our area right now there are tons of signs for the circus that is going on tonight, so its pretty obvious we are going to know about that one.  But there are a lot of places or events you could attend that are inexpensive or sometimes even free.  Examples of places we look for are:
  • Museums
  • Zoos
  • Amusement Parks
  • Gardens/Farms
  • Aquariums
  • Community Centers
  • Library
  • Fairs
To make sure we don’t miss out on times when these places offer lower or even free admissions.  This is how we find recent opportunities to do just that.
Doing a little legwork we:
-Local Newspaper/Nearest City Newspaper
-Word of mouth. Getting out there and just striking up conversations with people in the area.
Ways that we set up to conveniently come to us are:
-Signing up for online newsletters- this can be a wonderful way to stay up to date on discounted admission fees or possibly free days.  *Note:  I do this myself, but I devote an entire email address specifically to this, so I can just check it whenever I am planning my weekly events and it won’t overwhelm my regular email.
-Subscribing to websites RSS feeds, and using a wonderful feed reader like “Google Reader” or “Windows Live Essentials” to organize them conveniently.
  1. “Google Reader” is an online only application that organizes everything so brilliantly, and it tracks back to the beginning of the feed.
  2. “Windows Live Essentials” is a desktop application that you can download to your desktop completely free.  It does everything from organizing your Calendar events, checking several emails at once, organizing your contacts, has a feed reader and it even picks up your newsgroups all at once and in one convenient place.
-Social Networking sites.  An example is Facebook, you can find the businesses page and click on the link to like it, and you then receive all updates that they post.
*These are a few to get you started on having a less expensive summer filled with events with your kids.  Please leave any additional ideas that you would like to add in my comments. 

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Thursday, July 14, 2011

Boredom Buster: Decoupage

There are many projects you can do with decoupage.  You can cover a lot of things with little scraps of paper, or small pieces of cloth and decoupage glue.  Some examples are dressers, tables, hat boxes, tissue boxes, wooden trays, lamp shades, decorative plates, journals, vases, big chunky jewellery, sneakers, wooden chairs and barstools. The possibilities are almost endless.
I had never decoupaged before today.  We were working on our theater and our project was a simple introduction to how it works.  But I am on the hunt for making things do-able and affordable.
I found the recipes for the glue online:
  1. I made the school glue.  I let it cool for about 2 hours.
  2. I made the decoupage glue by replacing their “white glue” with the school glue I made earlier.
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Items needed for this project:
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  • Decoupage Glue
  • Paint brush
  • The pictures you would like to cut out, (we wanted letters to apply to title our theater, so we had fun choosing a font and color, then printed it out on the computer.)
  • X-Acto knives
  • Cutting Mat
  • And the object that you are putting your fabric/paper onto.
Using the cutting mat, cut your picture out with the exact knives.
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Since we weren’t so experienced with the X-acto knife, the pattern in the picture above isn’t the one we ended up using.  It was too hard to do to cut out all of the curly accents.
Then we applied the glue to our box where we wanted the lettering to go.  We then applied the letters and let the glue dry.
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Next we applied another coat, over the lettering. then to the entire box.
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This gave our flat cardboard have the appearance of wood, because it added roughness from the brush strokes.  Wasn’t expecting that, but it was a nice surprise.
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Overall It turned out very nice.
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Check back for more ideas. 

Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Boredom Buster: Become a Puppeteer #1

Building a theater:
Creating a Puppet Theater can be a wonderful craft with a few supplies. It can be used to incorporate the fun of crafting with the expansion of literature. I have one little one still so… we won’t be doing Shakespeare quite yet. Just remember to keep it simple in order to keep the interest of little ones (puppet/scene making and the stories used). You can let your imagination carry you away. My daughters suggested having actual shows that we invite people to.
I am all for creativity, but to make things nice sometimes it seems like we need to spend money.  My husband came up with the plan for the theatre that I built, all with supplies that we already had.  The price couldn’t have been any better…. free.  
First I sat down with my husband and we talked about what I wanted out of this theatre.
  • Portability.  It being small enough to take to our parents homes, for future shows, with simple breakdown and rebuild that I could handle by myself.
  • A Stage.  In the case that the kids might want to use props they would be able to enhance their shows with them.
  • Space for a Backdrop.  I think plays that have scenes in the background really help you see the whole picture better, especially for kids.
  • Free.  I didn’t want it to cost anything if possible.
  • Simple.  I wanted to be able to build it myself without help. I knew that if it is simple enough for me to build, that anyone reading this could do it too.
Next we talked about the materials and he drew out a plan for me to build.
  • Large Box.  We used our flat screen TV box.
  • A Marker.
  • A Ruler
  • Masking Tape
  • Box Cutter
  • Scissors
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The Plan
Theatre Front
I Drew the pattern onto the box.
  • 5” in from the top and bottom and 7” in from each side.
  • Breaking the vertical lines inside the inner box into thirds.
  • Bisected the center piece. 
  • Now our box opened at the top so we placed the flaps at the bottom, we will add weights to them later to hold the theatre in place.
  • Bisected the bottom half of the center piece
With the Box Cutter I cut along all of the blue lines.
I folded along all of the green lines.  There will be a small piece left over.
Next Step to work on the back of the box.
  • Making a rectangle on my box by drawing lines 5” in from the top and bottom,and 7” in from the sides.
  • Using my box cutter I cut out my rectangle.
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    Back to the front now.  I measure the width of the opening of the box, horizontally.  I measure the depth of the stage area and the depth of the ceiling area.  We need to fill in the gaps, the stage and ceiling need to be up against the wall piece for structural support.
    Using the scrap piece I took out from the back of the box, I measure out two strips.
    1. Depth of the stage by the Width of the box opening
    2. Depth of the ceiling by the Width of the box opening.
      Then I tape the strips I just cut along the underside of the ceiling and the stage pieces.  I then am able to tape the walls against the ceiling and stage pieces and I have made a complete opening.
    From the back:
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    From the front:
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    In Boredom Buster:  Become a Puppeteer #2
    • Priming and Decorating Theater.
    • Hanging a curtain on the front and for backstage.
    In Boredom Buster:  Become a Puppeteer #3
    • How to make puppets and costumes.
    • Choosing Stories to play out.

    Tuesday, July 12, 2011

    Mix It Up: Popsicles

    Popsicle are one of those summer must haves with kids in the house.  You can easily pick up a holder at a dollar store to make them.  I bought ours at the Family Dollar for $1.  It makes 8 small pops.  I have compiled a list of different things you could use to try for you next batch of popsicles.
    1. Juice or Juice Blends
    2. Drink Mixes (lemonade, cool-ade)
    3. Puddings (chocolate-makes fudgsicles,)
    4. Smoothies (Yogurt, fruit, vanilla, sugar with a touch of milk to thin it a bit in the blender)
    5. Coffee Drinks
    6. Herbal Teas sweetened with honey
    7. Ice Creams (softened)
    8. Yogurts (frozen yogurt softened).
    9. Jell-O's
    10. Sodas
    11. Flavoured Waters
    12. Fruit Puree
    If you have any additions to this list or if you try any of these, leave a comment I would really love to hear from you.

    Monday, July 11, 2011

    Snacks In No Time: Easy Cheesy Quesadillas

    On super hot days, or days when you are exhausted, this is an easy recipe and a great alternative to fast food.


    Ingredients:
    • 2 flour tortillas
    • 1/2 cup shredded cheese (Mild Cheddar, Colby-Jack, or American)
    Instructions: Heat large frying pan to hot.  Turn off the heat and lay a flour tortilla in pan spread cheese in a thin layer over tortilla then top with second tortilla.  Cover with lid and in 4 minutes flip over.  Let set another 3 minutes and remove from pan to a plate.  Slice with a pizza cutter into 8 equal pieces.  Serve with sour cream and salsa. Tips:
    1. Add any leftover sliced cooked meats (chicken, beef, or pork)
    2. Add sliced onions, or green onions.
    3. Since Cheese Quesadillas are somewhat of a simple bland snack/light meal.  We spice things up in our sour cream.   1/4 c. Sour Cream; 1/2 tsp. Garlic Powder; 1/4-1/2 tsp. Cumin; 2 Tbsp. Parsley, then mix.  Yummy!
    * I understand my recipes are incredibly easy and sometimes even self explanatory, but my kids are able to make them by themselves with little to no help.  These are to help them feel confident in the kitchen.

    Snacks In No Time: Tea Sandwiches

    -Great for spring and summer, kids enjoy helping in the kitchen and making decisions.  Giving them choices gets even the pickiest of eaters to eat.


    Ingredients:
    • 8 oz. Cooked Meat (Pork, Chicken, Ham or Beef)
    • 1/4 cup Shredded Cheese  (Parmesan, Swiss, or Cheddar)
    • 1/3 cup Salad Dressing (Ranch, Caesar, Mayonnaise, or Miracle Whip)
    • 2 oz. Fresh Vegetables (Carrots, Celery, Pickles, Onion, or Green Pepper or a combination of these.)
    Instructions: Using a food processor combine all ingredients until smooth.  Spread onto bread and make into Sandwiches.  Slice into triangles, and serve on a plate for snacking.  Store any extra spread in a reseal able container and store in refrigerator, use within 3 days. Tips:
    1. Kids like variety, so try as many combinations as possible to eliminate boredom.
    2. Pre-schooler’s also like sandwiches that are cut into different shapes, try using cookie cutters to make it more interesting.
    * I understand my recipes are incredibly easy and sometimes even self explanatory, but my kids are able to make them by themselves with little to no help. These are to help them feel confident in the kitchen.

    Sunday, July 10, 2011

    Boredom Buster: Hunt for lost treasures!

    It is only the beginning of July and I am already hearing "Mom, I'm Bored!". Well the temperature is in the mid 90's, and its a beautiful day today. Lets go out and take advantage of this wonderful Sunday weather. It’s perfect for games that have been hidden away in storage.  I think its time to go on a treasure hunt!  After a short mission, we found a croquet set (We bought for a birthday party game about 2 years ago) in the garage.
    A lot of us go out and buy things for special occasions, then they collect dust in the garage, basement or attic.  These are free activities that we can utilize in an era where money is tight.  I call these our “lost treasures” because, they are just waiting for us to pick them up again.  Why not use them and have fun with our kids!  We are the only ones allowed to choose for ourselves what we do with our time. 
    Our Choice:  Time to go set up a game with the kids, and make a quick snack for a nice afternoon!  Good luck finding your lost treasures, let me know what loot you find!