Sensory Bin Palooza (and this month's school games)

So we're studying geology in school this semester and I thought these chocolate rocks would be a hit. I was right.

 I added some colored paper to an old cardboard scrapbooking-supply-bin and gave Bruce his bin of vehicle manipulatives and he went right to work sorting them into the colored bins.  It was fun to dump them into the wrong color and have him calmly "fix" it.

It wouldn't be a complete blog post without overwhelming you with photos of some of the sensory bins we had this month -- since our "theme" is Spring and Colors they involved a lot of colored items:

Dyeing popcorn kernels was NOT as easy as anything I've done before! This photo does not include the blue/purple because they took longer to soak in color and dye. 

I found these AWESOME pasta noodles at Aldi for $2 per bag! They came in Farm Animals and Traveling Vehicles.  Although they were fun all on their own I did pull out all the natural ones (some had been dyed with spinach and carrot powder already) to add some color to them.  I couldn't help myself!

So pretty, right?! We pulled out trains of every color and glued them to cardstock after we read Freight Train - a book about trains of each color.

Dollar Store straws cut into pieces - Bruce and Dean enjoyed cutting them up more than playing with them.  We later strung them onto pipe cleaners for a little fine motor skill-building.

Water beads are messy. But they are so fun. So I tried again (I swore I'd never buy them again a year ago). Yeah, it happened again.  Dean chopped them up with spoons and they got stuck in the grooves of the wood floor.  There won't be a next time, but if there is, I'll lay down a sheet first. :)

 Lentils. And no, I haven't colored these. 

 They can't all be a slam dunk.  For me, shaving cream (and cornstarch) was an epic fail.  All my preventative measures did nothing to hinder the mess this made.  I can handle a lot when it comes to sensory play but this required far too much clean up to be worth it.

Bruce enjoys sitting IN the sensory bins.  So I found him a bigger bin.  He's playing with colored rice here. He's allergic to rice only if he eats it or it gets into his system. 

Hayden and Dean use pirate ships in everything.  Dry beans this time. 

We had this awesome St Patrick's Day Treasure Hunt! I downloaded a really creative freebie from the teacherspayteachers site and hung up the clues where they fit. The goodie bags were filled with rainbow candies (Mike & Ike, fruit gummies, part of a Nerds rope, rainbow sour straws, Easter mini erasers, a stretchy bunny fidget, a love note, and some stickers.  Then I added some curling ribbon for flair. Okay, I spent longer prepping for this than it took the kids to find the treasure, but they really enjoyed it. Worth it. 

Ended our ordinary day today with a round of Doodle Dice and a homemade Contraction Concentration game.

Our Homeschool Journey: Sensory Friendly School Room

Cran Apple Salad

I love a good salad but definitely like to experiment with ingredients - a change from the basic lettuce, tomato, croutons, dressing... This salad was so good I ate it every day for a week!

Romaine lettuce, chopped

Fresh spinach

Candied walnuts

Dried cranberries

Crumbled bacon bits

Crumbled goat cheese

Buttered croutons

Sliced Granny Smith apple

Topped with Pomegranate vinaigrette

So simple, soooo good!

DIY Weighted Stuffed Animals/Lap Buddies

First off, apologies for the poor picture quality.

We've found that the weighted blankets we bought the kids (ours are from sensacalm.com) were a phenomenal investment, and even a weighted lap pad I purchased to use during the school day was very popular.  We've got 6 kids living here and they ALL want to use the lap pad at the same time so I wanted to make something for each child to have as their own.

I loved this tutorial I found on Pinterest for making weighted stuffed animals however I have made a few on my own in the past without success.  The stitching comes undone - especially when I tried to wash them. My kids are big fans of fidgets of all kinds so I decided to make stuffed animals that satisfy their sensory-fidget needs as well.

I wanted to be able to remove the filling to wash the stuffed animal and also add more essential oils once the scent faded.  It would be nice to try different fillings until I find the weight that works best.  I totally COULD sew zippers onto stuffed animals but I'm lazy/busy/not an expert seamstress so I was SO thrilled to find these pencil cases on clearance at Staples.  They are soft, fuzzy, and adorable - and have zippers with space to fill 'em up!

To determine the amount of filling that would fit I first used Ziploc bags.  For the 4 girls I used uncooked rice and lavender scented Epsom salts. After filling a bag squeeze out all the air and place inside of another Ziploc bag.  Wiggle the rice around inside the bag until able to zip the pencil case/animal closed.

I filled another Ziploc bag with only scented Epsom salts and added this in last.  At first I tried to place it so the tummy of the animal was scented but there was too much stuffing in that area. So I placed it in last and the rear of the animal has the strongest scent. The kids think it is hilarious to "small the butt" of them!

Once I knew how much rice to use I made bean bags out of fabric scraps and poured the rice into the bean bag and stitched it shut. I put the bags of rice into the pencil pouches and zipped them shut. Since Bruce is allergic to rice I used dry barley in his. Taylor wanted hers to weigh more (they are about 2 1/2 lbs each) so I replaced hers with dried corn and that was just above 3 lbs.

 Finished product -- heavier than an ordinary stuffed animal, soft, flexible so that the kids can fidget with them as well.  We call them our "desk buddies" and have them sit in their laps during school.

Hands down, this kitty is Bruce's favorite! He doesn't have much in the way of attachment objects aside from my breasts, but this kitty is one exception.  He already loves animals and enjoys pretending to be a cat or dog daily.

I used a seam ripper to open the stuffy at the bottom side.  After removing a fair amount of the stuffing/filling I put a homemade beanbag I filled with glass beads (used in vases, found at craft store).  After adding a bit of the stuffing back in to pad the bottom I hand stitched the cat back up.

This was actually made years ago for my girls so it has held up REALLY well!

Another thing we tried, which turned out great, was to weigh down a Build a Bear before filling.  We had so much conflicting answers in-store (yes, you can weigh it down IN the store, yes, you can stuff it but not tie it so it can be filled at home... then the manager on duty that day would not let me do either).  

We ended up purchasing the animal itself, UNSTUFFED, from the Build a Bear website.  Bruce chose Batman Bear.  I experimented with MANY kinds of fillings to add weight.  In the end, what worked best to be small but heavy were rocks for flower vases.  Very tiny pebbles but they were heavy enough.  I packaged small mesh baggies with the pebbles and stuffed them into BatBears' feet and bottom half.

In the store we added the fluff on top of and around all the weighted baggies.  It turned out perfect! It weighs just over 5 lbs and is just right for carrying around and cuddling with at night. 

                                                          

DIY Occupational Therapy & Play Room (in our Unfinished Basement)

So it is still a mess, of course, because, well, I have kids. And we moved only recently. And I'm busy. All the same, I am pretty jazzed about getting the OT room set up in our basement.  We have an unfinished basement in the house we are renting. The floors are cement and the walls are sheet-rocked.  There are 2 windows in part of basement but overall it is, well, an unfinished basement.

What an opportunity! The idea we came up with is a play room in the first portion of the main basement living area and an occupational therapy room in the second portion. There is a bathroom, laundry room, storage room, and a nice carpeted room on the lower level so we like to keep a walkway through the OT area to all that.

Sensory Bin Play: Ice Excavation & Googley-Eye Slime

We love sensory play around here! We make sensory bins every week - everyone here, from 20 months through 13 years (plus the adults!) enjoy getting messy in the name of fun.  I'll warn you that pretty much every sensory bin we do is crazy messy and requires a bit of "letting it go." :)

(I put both my boys in Curious George shirts for the day but we played with baking soda and vinegar and they got so messy they had to change. Lasted an hour. Why do I never remember to get photos of those adorable matching-clothes-moments?!)

I used Ziploc Tupperware with the twist-lock lid to make giant ice cubes for each kid.  I find these freeze well and nothing spills in the freezer in the process.  The ice comes right out of the tubs with no mess. The first time made them we tried some Styrofoam cups as well and although they stayed upright in the freezer getting them out of the cups was a HUGE mess. Pieces of the peelings were all over the place.



My Happily Ever After: Pausing to Appreciate it

The pain is sudden - in an instant I was no longer laughing at my Netflix sitcom while balancing the checkbook.  The pain is deep - I'm overwhelmed at the heaviness of it.  The pain is physical - my heart has sunk into my stomach like a rock, my mind is racing, I am nauseous. It is raw and real and feels brand new - even though I said good-bye to my daughter almost 4 years ago.

What's crazy is it feels like I JUST wrote a "Happy Birthday in Heaven" letter to her like a week ago. How has it been almost a YEAR already?! I hate this hurt, this pain, the memories of THAT DAY and the ones that followed. I hide from it, turn and run from the pain that consumes me, yet here it is.

God has the most gentle way of reminding me to appreciate my life - just the way it is. I joined a couple of online support groups after my daughter was stillborn but I had been struggling with some depression for awhile and unsubscribed so that photos and posts would not end up in my Facebook news feed all the time. Today one got through. Somehow I was scrolling through my Facebook news feed and there it was - a post with photos of a sweet little baby girl, cradled in her mother's arms before being placed in a casket.

Superhero Themed Teacher Appreciation Party!!

In my Organize-All-Things project (brought on by moving to a new home after 11 years) I came across these photos on my computer and realized I never blogged about this awesome event! It was waaayy back in March that my girlfriend and I (she's cochaired this event with me for SEVEN years!!) put on the Teacher & Staff Appreciation Lunch for ECFE - Early Childhood/Preschool/Special Ed. 

Parent Advisory Council plans and puts on this Luncheon Event every year to thank the teachers and staff for all they do.  We've had different themes over the years - this was our last year on Advisory (I was moving school districts and her youngest was off to Kinder) and last time we would do this event so we went big - Super Hero Big! We also added another awesome cochair this year to pass along the torch and take over the event next year. 

The cityscape was way more work than you'd think - but having a couple of them on the walls brightened up the gym a bit! Black paper (from those long rolls they have in the staff room) with yellow Post-Its cut to look like windows. 

Our Foreclosure Journey: Part 7 - Good-byes and Hellos

Here's my disclosure before I get into what will totally sound like bragging (it's actually gratitude): All good things are from the Lord. All praise and thanks go to God, our Provider, Comforter, and Firm Foundation. Although this particular story has a happy ending (compared to where we started out), God needs to be given glory and thanks in all situations. He is in Control and His purposes are for our benefit and His glory.

Moving after 11 years with 4 children is no small feat. I didn't realize what a task it was until it was all done. Wow. I can't offer enough gratitude to the friends and family that helped us move (included tons of last minute packing and LOTS of heavy lifting -- we kept our appliances!)!!

June 30th we were able to move our first truckload in the evening. We started out just after 7 am on July 1st and took 6 more Budget Moving Truck loads plus 3 pickup loads and stuffed my van full a couple times.  I went back several times to get a few remaining items and to clean. 2 truckloads were dropped off at a thrift store (with tons more to donate still) and several truckloads went to the dump.

Our Foreclosure Journey: Part 6 - Greater Things

It's crunch time here - moving day is Tuesday. It's almost midnight on Thursday. Tomorrow we go strawberry picking with my in-laws, up from Mexico (yay!) and Monday is BACKTOBACK appointments. I'm a bit overwhelmed by all there is to do still. Changing utilities, packing, that sort of stuff. I've been soooo sick the past couple weeks it has really limited my progress packing.

Dan has had to miss work to get the kids to appointments because I have been so crazy sick. He also has not been able to work much overtime because we are so crazy busy I simply cannot accomplish all the packing AND the appointments. He's had to really take on a lot and we are both seriously lacking sleep. That said, it is almost over (moving, that is).

The good news is I thrive under pressure. I work best with the whole procrastinate-then-do-it-all-last-minute thing. So I know it'll all be okay. I lied. I THINK it will all be okay. I mean, if it doesn't all get done, that is pretty much the norm anyhow. I can't ever seem to get it all done. Anyone relate? Yeah, I thought so!