Our Summer Poetry Basket

The girls LOVE poetry baskets, but I haven't been as good about putting them together as I had planned. I recently put this one together, and we've really enjoyed reading the poem while acting it out. O(5) recited it after I read it, and then E(1) had a turn. I was amazed by how well E recited the poem while pointing to the words! She loves to do everything her big sister does!

I've got to get better about doing monthly poems with them! It's so simple, and they enjoy it so much!

Laura Ingalls Wilder Monthly Subscription Packet

For O's 5th birthday, I gave her a monthly "subscription" to a "Laura Ingalls Wilder Packet." I've been planning this for months, and I am so excited about it! Luckily, O is excited, too!

In her first packet, she received a letter from Laura (typed in "old time" type and printed on beige paper so it would look older), a picture of Laura and her sisters, My First Little House Laura's 5th Birthday book, the Little House on the Prairie pilot dvd (this was the perfect gift since I gave it to her the day before a 12 hour road trip!), "old time" crayons, and "old time" candy (both from Cracker Barrel).

Each month she will receive a letter from Laura, a Little House book, a craft, and some other type of old time trinket or candy. I'm hoping to find more pics of Laura to print since it would be fun to include a different picture of Laura with each packet. It's going to be so much fun to put these packets together each month! Maybe even more fun than the monthly fun boxes, which are one of the BEST gifts I've ever given the girls.

Spin Art

The girls and I have had lots of fun making spin art over the last couple of weeks using a set that my sister gave O(5) for Christmas (she found it super cheap at World Market on Black Friday).

This is a very simple art kit. It comes with a spinning top and papers to put on the top. You spin the top and squeeze the paint on as it spins. Lots of messy fun! If you sqeeze too hard, the paint goes everywhere, and it does NOT come off of skin easily and probably won't come out of clothes at all.




We made art until we ran out of paint. I think I'll be able to easily refill the bottles with liquid watercolor, which should (hopefully) wash off a little easier. The girls were very proud of their artwork, and O plans to send a spin art painting with each cultural exchange package.


Next, we need to try salad spinner painting again. We haven't done this since we made our Rachael Ray video, which means sweet E(1) has never made salad spinner art...well, we can't have that, can we? :)

I didn't include a link to Amazon with this product since it is terribly overpriced. It also got some bad reviews. I would have given it a bad review if I'd paid 10 dollars for it, since it's basically a cheap plastic spinner, paper, and paint. We've had LOTS of fun with it, and it would be fairly easy to make your own.

O's Perfect Birthday

O(5) had the perfect birthday outing last weekend! My bff, EB, called Saturday morning and told us that the restaurant where she works was having an "Old Time Festival"!!! This was perfect for my history loving girl. Both girls dressed in their "old time" clothes and had a great time riding a horse, feeding goats and donkeys, grinding corn, etc. What a fun day!

Blow Gun Game

My mom (aka Guhguh) and O(5) share a birthday, so we always spend the day with my mom on their birthday. This year O went into the playroom (at my mom's house) with the intention of drawing a picture for my mom for her birthday, but was struck by the inspiration to make a blow gun game for her instead! (we learned about blow guns on a recent camping trip during which we toured an Indian village).

O(5) used straws and q-tips to make the game. She cut one end off of each q-tip, and cut about a quarter off of each straw. The small parts of the straws were the "blow gun holders" (to hold the q-tips when they were not in use, and the long straws were for blowing the q-tips. She told Guhguh that when she got tired of using the blow guns, she could match the straws.

Guhguh was very excited by her gift, and she and O had fun trying to blow the q-tips into a bowl. I was very impressed by O's creativity!

Loading the blow gun.


Firing away!

E's Muffin Tin Lunch

I realized about a month ago that E(1) had never had a "muffin tin" lunch. I fixed this lunch for her, and she was thrilled (I usually serve the girls their lunches on trays).

E had rotisserie chicken, dip (Ranch), lightly steamed baby carrots, avocado chunks, kiwi, and cottage cheese with grape tomatoes. Deeeelicious!!!

Checking the Temperature

After her initial excitement over her summer Montessori work shelf, O(5) quickly lost interest in doing "Montesori school" this summer. However, she does enjoy doing this work.

O's teacher gave me a copy of a thermometer, which I laminated. I have the laminated thermometer, a real thermometer, and a dry erase marker on the shelf. O puts the thermometer outside or inside, and then checks the temperature before filling in the laminated thermometer to match. Simple and fun!

Our Dead Insect Collection

After finding several really beautiful and interesting dead insects, the girls and I decided to start a dead insect collection. They are VERY excited about this, and we've gone on several "dead insect hunts" in our yard. We've found beetles, bees, dragonflys, moths, huge grasshopers, grandaddy longleg spiders, mayflies, etc.

Elliott found these huge and scary insects at work (Thank goodness we didn't find these at our house!)






We keep our dead insects in an old printer's box. We're hoping to fill every space before summer's end.

Birthday Donations

O(5) asked her friends to bring donations for a local children's home rather than gifts to her birthday party this year. We are so proud of her for making this decision, and she was very proud, too. After gathering the donations together, we went shopping so that O could choose some things for the children herself. After our shopping trip, we went to the children's home to deliver the donations. This trip made the donation process much more real and relevant to O since she was able to see the children and their home.

I started talking with O about the possiblity of asking for donations before her 4th birthday party last year. She wavered back and forth between deciding to get donations or gifts, and she finally decided that she'd rather have gifts. She had lots of fun opening her gifts at her 4th bday party, and I remember thinking that she would never consider asking for donations since she enjoyed the gifts so much. So, I was surprised a couple of months ago when I asked her if she wanted donations or gifts for her 5th bday party. She immediately said that she'd like to get donations, and she wanted the donations to be for children (last year we talked about donating to the local animal shelter). I asked if she'd like to donate to the children's home, and she loved that idea. I assured her that if she asked for donations, she would still get gifts from us, her grandparents, and my sister (so don't worry...she was not at all deprived of the fun of opening and receiving gifts!).

I love that O asked for donations for her birthday, but I love even more the fact that it was her decision to do this. I'm sure she knew that I preferred for her to get donations, but I did my best to not influence her decision. I asked her several times if she was sure this was the best decision for her. I told her that once I called the children's home and sent out the invitations, she would not be able to change her mind. She was sure (although at 11pm on the night before her party, she was questioning her decision :). She said that next year she's going to get gifts and then she'll get donations the year after that, so she'll just alternate between gifts and donations...works for me!

Harvesting Fruit

My prairie girls and I harvested our fruit last week from our fruit trees. We had fun picking peaches, figs, and plums. O(4) was an adult Laura and E(1) was her baby girl, Rose. I was ma :)

A Failed Activity

We (my mom, the girls, my niece, and I) attempted to make hand-dipped candles during "Laura" Camp. It didn't go very well. I dipped a candle for about an hour, and it looked like a bendaroo! I think we'll use our wax to make beach sand candles...eventually.

Making "Town Party Lemonade"

During "Laura" Camp, the girls and I had fun making (and drinking!) lemonade. We used the "Town Party Lemonade" recipe from the Little House books website.

The girls loved rolling the lemons before I cut them. They also really liked squeezing the juice from the lemons. O was excited to dissolve the sugar in the water, and this was a fun science lesson. She wants to explore this further at another time (she LOVES to do science experiments that she creates on her own).

Homemade Laundry Soap

My mom, O(4), and my niece(7) made laundry soap while E(1) and I went to the toddler library storytime one morning during "Laura" camp week. (E helped when we got back...she does NOT like to be left out of any activity!)

My mom wrote the ingredients out on a wipe-off board. Then they they grated the soap.


After they grated enough soap, they mixed all of the ingredients together (with close supervision since Borax is poisonous if ingested).


My mom really likes using this laundry soap to wash towels and sheets.

In addition to making soap, the girls made a covered wagon! They draped bedsheets over a 4 post bed and set it up as a covered wagon. When E and I got back from the library, we all went for a ride. I sat in the front and drove the horses. We had a lot of fun playing in the covered wagon!

Shucking Corn

One of our 1st "Laura" Camp activities was shucking corn to make corn cob dolls. We had fun shucking the corn, and the girls loved eating the corn that I cut from the cob for supper. Frozen corn just doesn't compare to fresh!


We left the corn cobs to dry for about a week before trying to make our dolls. O(4) was not pleased when she tried to draw the doll's face. I think we may try this project again and use the husk next time.

In addition to shucking corn, we made apples and onions (Almanzo's favorite dish) for supper. The girls helped wash and cut the apples. I cooked the apples and onions in butter, and they tasted ok. Elliott is really the only one who liked them. However, O put a little apple cider vinegar on them and said that made them better!

One More Group!...It's Full! Thank You!

The last group is full. I'm still waiting on mailing addresses from Greece and the UK, and I'll be sending the email to the group members after that. Thanks, everyone!

I'm creating one last group for someone that requested 12 and only got put with 6. I have 5 slots open, please email me at chasingcheerios@gmail.com if you would like to be in this group! Thanks!