Pumpkin Lollipops

We still had a few pieces of candy leftover after my son’s “science experiment” so I decided that we would make a few pumpkin lollipops. Gotta get rid of all that candy somehow…right?!?!  {grins}

 

Needless to say, the kids LOVED them! They don’t get to eat a whole lot of candy in general…so, it was quite a treat! And, they were fairly easy to make! Here's what you'll need.

Ingredients:

• orange and green hard candy (the recipe called for Lifesavers like we used for our candy canes, but we used what we had)
• popsicle sticks
• aluminum foil
• baking sheet

Directions:

1) First, line the baking sheet with aluminum foil.

2) Place the orange candies on the popsicle stick in a “round” shape…making sure that all the candies are touching.

3) Break off a small piece of the green candy and place it just above the orange candies…again, making sure that it is touching the orange candy.

4) Bake at 250 for about 10-15 minutes…or until the candies have melted. Since all ovens are different, be sure to keep an eye on the lollipops while they are baking! Once the candies are melted, allow to cool…then enjoy!

I got this super cute idea from Gourmet Mom.

Looking for a little more pumpkin fun?

Check out some of our other pumpkin activities and snacks below:

• Crispy Pumpkin Treats
• Pumpkin Grid Game
• Mr. & Mrs. Pumpkin Heads
• Pumpkin Snowmen

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Pick and Draw {Review, Giveaway & SURPRISE!!!}

I received this product free of charge for review/giveaway purposes. All opinions expressed in this post are my own and I was not required to post a positive review of the product.

After being out of town a few weeks ago, it was a bit challenging for me to get back in the groove with the kids. So, rather than getting back on schedule, we spent the day just having fun! So, I whipped out our Pick and Draw game for the first time and the kids absolutely LOVED it!

What exactly is Pick and Draw? While it may look like a simple deck of cards, it is really much, much more. It is a fun drawing game for children and adults alike that teaches you how to draw faces and encourages creative thinking! Everyone can play this game, whether you think you can draw or not! There are step by step directions on how to use the facial feature cards to create your very own characters!

What I LOVE About Pick and Draw:

• encourages creative thinking
• instills confidence (My son who doubted his ability to draw “good” faces is  now impressed with the characters that he has created!)
• easy to follow, simple instructions
• works on fine motor skills for the younger artist
• only requires pencil and paper to play
• even the little ones can play along (One of my 3 year olds was trying to draw faces right along with us!)
• only costs $10 (would make a great stocking stuffer!)

Details About the Game: Each deck of cards has five sets of characteristic cards (face, nose, ears, mouth, and hair). You play the game by starting with the sets of cards face down. One card from each stack is flipped over and you use that characteristic to draw your face. The possibilities are endless! Once you are done drawing your face, give your character a name and tell a story about them!

Our Experience: The kids drew and drew and drew! I am certain that we used up a tree’s worth of paper with all of our cartoon character creations! It was great to see how the kids could come up with characters that looked so different, all while using the same basic facial features!

We made so many faces that I figured I needed to come up with some way to conserve some of our paper! At first we just used a white board and dry erase marker. But, the kids didn’t really like having to “wipe away” their creations. So, I came up with the idea of drawing multiple faces per page using a 3x3 grid. Our grid soon turned into a gameboard!

I contacted Rich Davis (the Pick and Draw creator) about my idea and we worked together to come up with a new way to play Pick and Draw…

Pick and Draw BINGO!!!

Yes, that is the surprise!!! If you already have the Pick and Draw cards, you can now download your very own Pick and Draw BINGO board for free! If you don’t have the Pick and Draw card game yet {which you will need to play Pick and Draw BINGO}, be sure to head over and purchase it for only $10!!

Directions for Pick and Draw BINGO:

1. Using the Pick and Draw game, draw a different cartoon face in all 9 boxes.  Each card may be used only once.
2. Shuffle the deck and select the top card.  Find that facial feature on one of the 9 faces drawn and put a “counter” of some kind in that box (m&m’s make yummy counters and everyone gets something at the end!)
3. Continue turning over cards one by one. Winner is the first to put a counter in all 9 boxes and yell, “BINGO!” Only 1 counter per box.

The kids LOVE Pick and Draw BINGO and so do I! We have played it many times and it continues to be a favorite! {While it takes us about 20 minutes to get all of our faces drawn, it only takes about 5 minutes to actually play the BINGO part!}

Pick and Draw BINGO is a “sneaky” way of helping improve the kid’s visual observation skills! It can be played with as few as two people or as many as you would like! Not only is it fun for families to play together, but it could be used as a great ice breaker activity at work, a creative group art activity at school or a fun game for birthday parties!

***Download the Pick and Draw BINGO board here***

******

UPDATE: You can now download the new and improved version of the PAD BINGO board on my Pick and Draw BINGO board webpage!

 

Giveaway Info: {Giveaway is closed}

Now, on to the giveaway! Would you like to win a set of Pick and Draw cards? There are several ways to enter to win. However, the first and MANDATORY entry is visit the Pick and Draw website and tell me one thing you learned about Pick and Draw. (There is a list on the page.)

Optional Entries: (leave a comment for each additional entry)

• Play a quick game of Pick and Draw online. Name your character and leave a comment with the name.
• Subscribe {via email} to Rich Davis’ drawing blog. He shares some great drawing tutorials! (The sign up box is in the top right corner.)
• Follow Pick and Draw on Twitter
• If you subscribe to Mama Jenn give yourself an extra entry!
• Follow Mama Jenn on Twitter (I am a newbie here too!!)

The giveaway ends at 9pm on Friday, November 5th. The giveaway is open to US Residents only. Please be sure to leave a way for me to contact you should you win!

If you can’t wait to win a set of Pick and Draw cards, head over to purchase them for only $10. {Hint, hint…Christmas in on the way and this would make a great stocking stuffer!} ;-)

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Apple Doll {Tutorial}

You may have seen our apples doll in our A is for Apples post. Well, as promised, here is a tutorial so that you can make your own!

To be honest, I had never heard of an apple doll until we read The Apple Doll by Elisa Kleven. However, my daughter has been taking hers just about everywhere we go and we have gotten numerous comments from mothers who also made an apple doll when their were children. So, I guess the idea is nothing new! Regardless, here is what we used and what we did! :-)

Supplies Needed:

• Granny Smith apple
• apple peeler or sharp knife
• plastic knife
• toothpick
• lemon juice (enough to cover your apple)
• salt
• pipe cleaners
• glue (we used a hot glue gun)
• yarn
• googly eyes
• fabric scraps (we used felt)

Directions:

1) First peel the apple.

2) With the stem up, use a plastic knife to make a nose. Carve an outline of what you want the finished nose to look like and then carve around that shape so that the nose kind of sticks out.

3) Using a toothpick, make holes for the eyes. (This part really isn’t all that necessary if you plan to use the googly eyes. However, at the time, we didn’t know we were going to use them.) Using the toothpick or the plastic knife, also carve out a mouth.

4) Now that your faces are all ready, put enough lemon juice in a container so that it will cover your apple. Dissolve 1 Tbs of salt into the lemon juice and put the apple in. Use a glass to hold the apple down in the mixture (otherwise the apple will bob up.) Let the apple soak for about 30 minutes.

5) Remove the apple and let it dry for a few days. You could try speeding up the process by using the oven, however, the books warns to cover the nose to prevent burning. We sat ours in a windowsill and rotated the the apple so it would dry evenly…it took about 4 days. The dried apple will feel somewhat spongy and leathery and will have wrinkled quite a bit as well.

6) Once dry, we started making the body using pipe cleaners. We stuck the neck into the bottom of the apple and used a hot glue gun to help hold it in place.

7) Next we used the glue gun to add yarn for the hair. We also glued on the googly eyes.

8) Next we cut out clothes from felt scraps. I used the glue gun to glue the clothes onto the pipe cleaner body.

Take a peek at Mac (short for Macintosh), Ambrosia Golden, and Fuji!!

Yes, the kids named their dolls…with the names of apples!!!!!

While the boys are not as interested in playing with their apples dolls anymore, my daughter has created an entire wardrobe for her doll. Ambrosia Golden now sleeps in KJ’s new doll bed. {A huge thank you to Guidecraft!!! Be sure to check out some of their other doll furniture!}

If you decide to make an apple doll, please let me know. I would love to see what you come up with!!!

FYI: The Apple Doll does provide step by step instructions for making an apple doll as well!

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The Way Home DVD {Review & Giveaway}

When I saw the trailer for The Way Home, I knew right away that I wanted to see it and I am thrilled to be able to review and host a giveaway for it!

The Way Home is a family friendly movie (rated PG for brief tobacco use) that will stir up a gamut of emotions for any parent! It is an inspiring, true story about how a rural community rallied together to help a family search for their missing son.

More About the Movie: Dean Cain (“Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman”) stars as Randy Simpkins, a husband and father torn between the demands of his job and commitment to his family. Asked by his wife Christal to watch their two-year-old son Joe for a few minutes, Randy is distracted by work and Joe disappears. Racked by guilt, Randy joins Christal in a desperate search for their missing son alongside hundreds of others from their church and community. Randy and Christal’s strained marriage must now weather the ultimate test—the potential loss of a child. The Way Home is the story of Randy's powerful spiritual journey back to love, faith and a Godly understanding of what must always take first priority in a man's life—his family. (Movie description from The Way Home website.)

My Thoughts: I really enjoyed this movie. I pondered. I questioned. I reflected and I cried...A LOT! (May I suggest that you have a box of tissues nearby when you watch this movie!) I cannot begin to imagine the thought of losing one of my children! This movie will definitely impress upon you the importance of making sure your priorities are in order as well as restore your faith in the goodness of people! I will definitely be recommending this movie to my friends!

For more information, check out the official website. The Way Home DVD (released yesterday, Oct. 26th) can be purchased via Amazon.

Giveaway Info:

~Giveaway is closed~

If you would like to win a copy of The Way Home, there are a few ways to enter to win. The first and mandatory entry is to leave me a comment simply letting me know you would like to win.

Optional Entries: (leave a separate comment for each entry)

• Follow The Way Home on Twitter
• If you are a Mama Jenn follower or subscriber, give yourself an additional entry!!!

The giveaway ends at 9pm on Tuesday, November 2nd. The giveaway is open to US Residents only. Please be sure to leave a way for me to contact you should you win!

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received one or more of the products or services mentioned above for free in the hope that I would mention it on my blog. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers. I am disclosing the in accordance with the FTC’s 16 CFR, Part 255.

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Mission of the Month: November 2010

Welcome to Mama’s Mission of the Month! My hope is that this will help me {and you} follow through on some of the goals that we have set for the month! So, if you are a mama and you want to join in, check out the intro post! (If you have already read the rules, you can easily grab the buttons from the Buttons Tab on the top of the sidebar.) 

October Mission Update: My October mission was to complete my daughter’s kindergarten lapbook books and to come up with a storage system for my kid’s completed schoolwork. Well, I am sad to say that I failed…miserably…at my October mission! I “thought” about some storage system ideas, but I didn’t put anything into action nor did I complete a single lapbook. :-( 

 

So, in light of me not completing my mission, I decided to make a few changes. First off, I am going to change the posting date for Mama’s Mission from the to the 1st-5th rather than the 25th-5th. This way I will have a little more time to get my mission done before having to post the linky! Gotta squeeze in some extra time however I can!  :-) 

 

Also, I decided to go ahead and create a button for those of us who need a little more time to complete our mission!  ;-) So, this is what I came up with. (If you need to grab the Mission NOT Accomplished YET button as well, you can get it from the Buttons tab on the right sidebar! But, hopefully, you won’t ever need it!!!)

 

 

Seeing that box missing the checkmark just doesn’t even look right!!! That is motivation enough for me…gotta get that checkmark! Those lapbooks will get done and a storage system will be implemented! So, with that said…

 

My Mission for November 2010: My mission for this month is to finish my mission from last month AND begin to tackle Christmas gifts. I always have great intentions when it comes to Christmas and giving homemade gifts. However, it seems that all too often I end up waiting until the last minute to try to make them all. Well, hopefully this Christmas it will be a little different.

 

So, my mission for November is to make and finalize our Christmas gift giving list and get half of the gifts made…along with finishing my October mission!

 

What is your November mission of the month?

If you participated last month, how did you do? 

Feel free to link up and share! It is a great way to hold yourself accountable! For more information on how to join in, please read the intro post. The linky will be open until midnight, November 5th.

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A is for Apples

The big boys are using My Father’s World Kindergarten curriculum and they are loving it just as much as their big sis did! Last week we learned about apples and we had SOOOOO much fun!

We had an apple taste test and tasted ten different apples. (There were even a few that I had never even heard of!) I was really surprised at how serious they were about it all! It was actually kinda cute seeing them carefully taste eat apple!!!

We used the Taste Test Accordion printable form Homeschool Share to record the data from our test! Rather than making the accordion, we cut it apart and glued our results to one page. Big sis wanted in on this activity!

We bobbed for apples. This was h.i.l.a.r.i.o.u.s!!!

We used our super-duper-juicer to make apple juice.

We followed the instruction in Apples to Applesauce to made our own applesauce.

We followed the directions in this book to make Apple Muffins.

Now, before you start to think that all we did last week was cook and eat, here are a few of our non-edible activities.

Our “words to remember” for the week were, “If I stay in Jesus I will have much fruit.” We also talked fruit could “grow” on them…i.e. the Fruits of the Spirit. They did their Words to Remember Copywork page and stamped apples onto it. They were excited to see the little stars/flower shapes.

I did decide to go ahead and teach the boys cursive. I was VERY surprised at how well they took to it! So far we have covered all of the lower case letters and have begun to work on the capitals. We use Cursive First.

We talked about the parts of an apple and the boys colored and labeled this apple. {Sorry, I could find where I downloaded this printable. I printed it when my daughter was in kindergarten and saved a copy to use for the boys.}

The boys used one of our many children’s dictionaries to help fill in the “A” pages in their Picture-Word Journal. {I will post more on this later.}

We read the story “A New House” in the book Grasshopper on the Road by Arnold Lobel and they boys made their own version of what they thought worm’s new house would look like.

Our final project was making apples dolls. We followed the directions from The Apple Doll and this is what we came up with! Big sis wanted in on this too! {I will post more about our apple dolls later.}

Here are some of the apple books that we used this week:

The boys are trucking along with their Singapore Essential Math books. Right now, everything is pretty much review, but they still love it! The boys also started their very first spelling list from SWR this week. I was a little bit skeptical about how they would do, but they are loving it and are doing really well! They are so excited to have their very own learning log!

Well, that about wraps up our week of apples! FYI, I do plan to go back and post from our previous weeks of school…eventually!  :-) Be sure to visit Jolanthe at Homeschool Creations for Preschool Corner {and 5K too!} to see what other homeschool families are doing with their preK and Kinder-kids!

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Really Woolly Winner

Thank you to everyone who entered to win the Really Woolly Trusting in the Shepherd DVD! Congrats to commenter #33!!!

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Apple Notepad Craft

I had been waiting for the big boys to get to our A for Apples week in our My Father’s World Kindergarten curriculum just so I could make these cute little apple notepads for them. I surprised them by putting the notepad on their desk with a little note for them! They LOVED it!

 

Although I made the notepad myself, a child could definitely make it! Below are the supplies you will need.

Supplies:

• a plastic red lid (I used the top from a container of frosting…you could use a PB top too!)
• brown & green craft foam
• string or ribbon
• white paper
• glue
• hole puncher

Instructions:

1. Cut a bunch of circles out of the white paper by tracing around the lid. (Be sure to cut the circles a bit smaller than the lid so that they will fit inside.
2. Stack the circles and punch two holes in all of them.
3. With the circles stacked, thread the string/ribbon through the holes and tie the ribbon in a bow.
4. Secure the notepad to the lid by gluing the bottom of the circle stack to the inside of the lid.
5. Cut a brown stem and a green leaf from the foam and glue them to the underside of the lid.

I got the idea for this super cute notepad from Kathy Ross Crafts Colors.

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Rainbow Blocks ~ A Guidecraft Mom Review {& Giveaway Link!!!}

Guidcraft has hit another homerun with these awesome wooden blocks! They have been in our daily toy rotation since our mail carrier delivered them!

So, what exactly are rainbow blocks? They are high quality blocks with a hardwood frame and soft, rounded edges. The best part is that they have colorful panes made of plexi glass inside them. The 30 piece Wooden Block set comes in various shapes (10 rectangles, 8 squares, 8 triangles, and 4 half circles) and colors (red, blue, yellow, green). 

Our thoughts: Needless to say, the kids have LOVED playing with their Rainbow Blocks! Here are some of the ways I “caught” them playing with their new favorite toy!

First off, they LOVED the colorful insides and were quick to look through the blocks, seeing the world in a different tint! Then they tried looking through two primary color blocks to make the secondary colors! {I just think this photo of TJ showing me his yellow binoculars is absolutely hilarious!}

They created a zoo for their animals by putting them in their cages, i.e. inside of two blocks!

The older kids enjoyed the challenge of copying some of the constructions they found on the box!

The little boys “parked” their cars inside the rectangles! Of course the car color had to match the color of the block!

And, here are some of the ideas that I came up with:

We played a little game where the kids had to stand and drop puff balls into the matching squares! It was a simple game, but the kids had a blast playing it!

 

Finally, we played another little game that I came up with that we called “Trap a Word.” The kids used the rectangular blocks along with some alphabet letters and “trapped” words underneath the block.

 

My final thoughts: We had lots of fun playing and learning with our new wooden rainbow blocks! As a mom, I REALLY appreciate the quality craftsmanship. With five kids (including 4 boys), I KNOW first hand how some toys can have a short lifespan and I see these blocks lasting for a very, very long time!!!!!! I have got my eye on some of the other Guidecraft block sets (the sand blocks, bead blocks, mirror blocks, and water blocks) for Christmas gifts, but I can’t decide between them! They all look like so much fun!!

Want to win a set? Erica at Confessions of a Homeschooler is hosting a giveaway for a set of Rainbow Blocks! So, be sure to head over and enter to win.

Want to buy a set? If you can’t wait to win or if you are interested in finding out more, the Rainbow Blocks are available via Amazon or directly through the Guidecraft website!

As a Guidecraft Mom blogger, this product was given to me for review purposes. I do not have to return the product to the vendor and I was not paid for this post. All opinions expressed in this post are my own.

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