Geowhating?

Exactly.

Geocaching.

Have you heard of it? Probably, I am usually the last one invited to the party.Anyways geocaching is our new hobby. We have spent the last 3 weeks trudging over the river and through the woods looking for hidden treasure.

Basically geocaching it using latitude and longitude coordinates to find a specific spot where there is or at least should be some sort of cache hidden. We have successfully found 6 caches as of this weekend. They have ranged from small pill bottle and film canisters to Tupperware containers to personally the coolest one yet a teeny tiny little magnet with a strip of paper in it.

We have even started a little geocaching kit in the car so we are always ready to go. We have a small stash of goodies to drop too. Some of the caches have little trinkets or coins in them that you can snag in return for dropping something else in.

I think the coolest part is where are discovering all of these amazing new places right where we live! This past weekend we found a an old hidden mill which happens to be about 5 minutes from where hubby and I shared our first apartment. We had no clue this place even existed and it was awesome!
We have been using hubby's Blackberry to track the caches so far but he just ordered us this awesome GPS that will {fingers crossed} work better and is a bit more rugged for the woods!

So have you been geocaching yet?
What's your favorite part or coolest find so far?

Nature Girl

A la Sid the Science Kid Madison went on a little nature adventure this afternoon.

Armed with her trusty magnifying glass, egg carton nature box, crayons and nature book Maddie set to work inspecting the backyard.

Respecting nature to the utmost she of course didn't tear out grass, pick leaves or pluck the newborn bleeding hearts from my bushes.

Yes she did.

After she filled her nature box, Madison took the time to draw each and every item inside. Dandelions are blue right?

Has the weather warmed up where you are? What are your favorite things to do outside?

Liquid Sunshine

It was 80 degrees at the shore in Connecticut yesterday. Correct me if I am wrong but it is April right? Not August? What happened to my Spring!?

I digress.

Well the sun was shining so I decided Madison and I would would make our own little sunshine too! Off to the store we go for piles of lemons.

Madison's question - Mom where are all the pink lemons?

~Lemonade~

Start off by making a simple syrup with 1 1/4 cups of granulated white sugar and 1 cup of cold water. Combine the sugar and water in a saucepan of medium heat. Stir continuously until the sugar is completely dissolved. Remove from heat and allow time to cool.

Time for the lemons! Juice enough lemons for 1 cup of lemon juice. Today that was 7 lemons for us- we bought 8 to be on the safe side! Be sure to strain the seeds and pulp from the juice too.

Now whisk together the lemon juice, simple syrup and 6 cups of cold water.

Enjoy!

I picked up my juicer at Walmart for 2.97!

Spring Science

Madison has been fighting off a cold this week AND we had some crazy weather so we spent most of the week at home doing a whole lot of nothing. I was able to entice Madison away from her blanket and Disney movies long enough to do a little Spring Science in the kitchen though!

We used the directions on suite101.com to make Geode Easter Eggs!

Or eggs are still in the process of forming so I don't have any finished product pictures yet although I will say it may have been more about the process than the results ~ we'll see.

May I suggest that you prep the eggshells BEFORE the project ~ like the night before when the kiddo(s) are fast asleep or you may have to break out the hair dryer to speed along the process. Not that I had to do that or anything.....

We ended up using Epsom Salt, Table Salt, Cream of Tartar and Baking Soda for our experiment.

Madison loved mixing the materials and adding the dye!

Stay tuned to see how the project turns out!

Counting Coins

I picked up this package of St Patty's Day coins at the Dollar Store with some sort of counting game in mind. Then I found the Pot Of Gold Math Mat at makinglearningfun.com and had a plan! I was hoping to use dice for this counting game but of course I couldn't find any so we broke out the princess cards. I picked out the 2, 3, 4 and 5 cards for us to work with this time.

Madison and I took turns drawing cards and placing the correct amount of coins on the mat. She decided whoever covered the mat first won! We probably covered the mat 5 times before she had enough but I was surprised at how well her number recognition has come along!

Tell me a story

Madison LOVES to tell stories but oddly enough every store seems to transform into a Disney Princess story. I can start a story " Once upon a time there was a bear and a frog playing at a pond" and Madison finishes it with "Then the bear was a princess that pricked her finger on the spindle and the frog was an evil lady then the prince kissed her then happily ever after."

Uh huh Madison.

So I decided to try something new and picked up a few small painted wood figures from A.C. Moore. Each figure was anywhere from 10 cents to 39 cents so not to much of an investment.


I told Madison that they would be our Story Starters and began to explain to her that we would chose a figure from the box and then start a story. Wow! I am so happy with the results! Madison told all sorts of different stories about the little figures and not a single one sounded like a Disney movie!

We had a whale that ran out of 'chicken pie' and called all of his animal friends in search of more pie. Then there was the snowman that argued with the ladybug at the beach but then the bird helped them become friend again!

I am sure we will be picking up more little figures soon!

Winter Sensory Bin

Instead of doing a Christmas bin for just this month I decided to make Madison bin for the season!

A quick trip to the Dollar Store and a bit of rummaging through the craft closet was enough to fill the bin with plenty of fun white and blue items!

I love listening to her play with the bin ~ today is was a candy factory and she was making lollipops! Too cute!

Where do they live?

Madison is really at the must ask questions all day long stage and sometimes its cute, sometimes its annoying and sometimes I want to scream I don't know!! Well Great Grandma from Montana will be flying in later this month and I have heard "Where is Great Grandma coming from?" more times than I count. All the questions inspired a quick little family geography lesson earlier this week.

Armed with our Dollar Store United States map, sticker paper and the handy dandy computer we set to work as a family figuring out where we all live.

Daddy pulled up maps of the states so that he could rather accurately place the pictures and arrows in the appropriate spots.

We included a picture of Madison when she was a baby because she was born in Washington but we currently live in Connecticut.

We also added our little family, grandparents and great grandparents.

Now whenever Madison asks me where Great Grandma is coming from I tell her to look at the map! Although now I am working on explaining that Montana is not the same as Hannah Montana!

Art Wall and Color Wheels

Maddie has been obsessed with her water colors lately and we tons of loose sheets of beautifully decorated paper everywhere! She desperately wants to display everything but I only have so much room in the kitchen so we put on our thinking caps and came up with a good solution, I think.

I picked up everything at Walmart: corkboard $8, 8x10 frames $3 each, 4x6 frames $1 each. So for $20 Maddie has her own little art corner in the living room and it still fits in with our decor.

We certainly couldn't but up a new art center without some new art! At the dentist this week I saw this super cute color wheel garland idea in a Family Fun magazine. Instead of tearing up some magazine we grabbed our scrap box and picked out some different shades of each color to work with.

Of course this was a big hit because glue was involved!

To help everything last a bit longer I coated each of the circles with an additional coat of glue.

What a perfect addition to our art wall!

Learn With Me

Well if you haven't noticed there hasn't been any jumping for joy posts about my potty trained child because....yup we aren't there yet. She promised us that she would be a big girl when she was 3 and that's when she would use the potty. No go. The big THREE rolled around and she decided she still wasn't a big girl. Oh well.

Due to the lack of underwear usage in our home a little goose can't go to preschool so I am trying to keep her along the preschool route at home. Right now I have three workbooks that I am in love with: Brain Quest Workbook Preschool, Sesame Street Ready Set Preschool! and Get Ready for Pre-K with PB&J. We are starting with the color section of the books to get Mad used to the concept and she loves school time. When hubby gets home from work Mad can't wait to show him her 'homework' that she did. Too cute!Since we have been doing colors for the past week or so I also incorporated some fun time with colored rice! She ended up spending 45 minutes at the kitchen with the bucket of rice before she got bored, score!I also threw together a simple color matching activity with clothes pins. We have never really worked with clothes pins before so this was new for Mad and she had a great time.

We will probably do another week of fun color activities to go along with the workbook pages before we move on and next up may be the ABC's.

Salad for Breakfast?

Earlier this week Maddie came to me around 7:30am and asked if she could make a salad. Umm....I haven't even finished my coffee yet so no I am not emptying out the vegetable draw just yet.

Instead I grabbed the stack of colored foam laying in the craft cabinet and tossed a quick fake salad together. Maddie handed me foam and told me what we needed in the salad: lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers and shredded carrots. Ahh how I love that my child LOVES her veggies!


I few hours later I also cut up some white and pink foam a la Allie's coffee to make 'Lola milk' or as the regular folks call it strawberry milk! Then we cut out some strawberries and blueberries with little bits of white for yogurt to make parfaits! Maddie spent the day cooking up a storm in her play kitchen and was thrilled with the new additions.

A Little Help Please

Over at Chasing Cheerios they did this awesome ice cube painting and I knew that I just had to do it with Mad! As soon as I saw her post I set to work filling an ice cube tray with water and food coloring. Today was finally the day that I broke out the ice paints. Maddie had a ball and said that it was 'super cool mommy'! I gave her some blank greeting cards to decorate and I think they will make wonderful thank you notes.


As for my need of help.....
Every year around Maddie's birthday we give her a blank canvas to paint however she wants and I was wondering if you think that the ice paints would work on it. Like I said it is food coloring (I used the paste kind because I have a TON more colors in that variety) along with water. Any ideas? I suppose we could always just give it a whirl and see what happens!

Frozen Treasure Hunt

Maddie is a huge fan of I Spy and we end up playing multiple times a day so I thought this would be wonderful outdoor and cool down activity. We ended up working on the frozen block all weekend long which was nice since we had an ongoing project through the whole weekend!

A few weeks ago I froze a bunch of random things like sequins, beads, small plastic animals, shells and corks in a large bowl of water. I did freeze everything in a few layers so I didn't have a bunch of stuff sink to the bottom and then the rest floating at the top!

Once we finally had the sun out this weekend I flipped it into Mad's water table and let her go to town with a toothbrush, small water bottle and the salt shaker. She wasn't overly excited about it on Saturday, and I think its fairly safe to assume that's because she was allowed in the pool that day! So Sunday morning we ended up flipping it into a bigger bowl in the kitchen and Mad and daddy went to town trying to free the elephant!

It took a good five hours to eventually free all the treasures and of course Maddie asked when we could do it again!

I guess it's time to head back to the freezer for next weekend!

Counting Boats

Maddie will be going on a boat ride tomorrow evening for the very first time (along with her first laser show!) so I thought it would be nice to incorporate our upcoming event with numbers today.

Materials: egg carton, play dough, construction paper, glue, popsicle sticks, paint/markers


After I managed to pry apart each little egg cup and trim them down Maddie decorated them with glitter dotters. I cut out triangle sails and added number stickers so that we could practice counting and number recognition. We glued small popsicle sticks to the sails. To finish up we glued small balls of play dough in the egg cups and pressed the sails in.

So simple yet Maddie had fun playing with them all afternoon! The counting is slowly coming along and I think the boats helped make it a little fun for her!