Jello Shapes

We decided to make jello with an astronomy theme. We picked blue because it's a favorite flavor in this house which also worked out well for learning which color stars are the hottest. We had a few stars and a few planets. Zachary of course made Jupiter because it's his favorite and you can see him pointing to it below. They definitely go fast! Recipe below!

Jello Jigglers

• 9 oz of flavored Gellatin
• 4 packs of unflavored Knox Gellatin (or store brand)
• 4 oz of boiling water

1. Boil water
2. Stir in all packs of Gellatin
3. Refridgerate for 2 hours.

Sun Craft

We got this super fun and easy sun painting idea from a blog I just found the other day called Mrs Karens class.  She had some great ideas for a hands on astronomy lesson.  Her blog post on this craft can be found here.  Mrs Karens class.

Sun Painting:

1. Trace a circle onto white paper.
2. Cut out.
3. Put a blob of red, yellow, and orange paint on the circle (less red than yellow).
4. Put plastic wrap over the circle.  Taping plastic down temporarily is optional which can  
5. Smear paint together all over the circle!  
6. Let dry!
7. Glue to black piece of paper.
8. Add suns rays with small paintbrush or cue tips.

Adelyn's sun (I helped with the rays a tad. And the tracing...and the cutting)

Creative Letters for the Wall

My sister n law (ah so nice to say that officially!!) married to my only brother took the time and effort to make Adelyn this beautiful name decoration for her wall.  Adelyn has become a purple fanatic as you can see with the bed and outfit.  This was the perfect addition to our decorating her area of the room. 

The letters are wood and are painted with purple acrylic paint.  My brother drilled holes through the sides at the top of each one in order to string them all together for hanging. The ribbon has the wire edges which made it easy to shape the ends into the curls hanging down.  The flowers on the front are embellishments for scrapbooking.  The back of the flowers have a self sticking adhesive which makes it easy to peel off and stick onto the wood. 

To hang I put push pins in the wall and wrapped each side of the ribbon around them.  I also hammered tiny nails through the ribbon underneath the push pins and added more sticky adhesive under each letter. 

Thank you Kathryn!

An Organizational Investment

My two children share a room.  They are 3 years apart in age and the rooms are a very good size in our house fortunately.  About a year and 1/2 ago I listened to mothers in the Moms group I belong to at church say that they thought sharing a room helped their children become close.  Of course like every parent, I wanted my children to be great friends so when Adelyn turned 5 months she began sharing a room with Zachary. He was thrilled to have his new baby sleep in the same room (actually he wanted her to sleep in the bed with him). 

As time has gone on though, we have had to rearrange clothing and items in their room. We no longer needed to changing table (which had become another shelf) and the drawers of the dresser were overflowing. The closet is also a great size but did not have enough shelving to help our situation. This closet had clothes and items in baskets on the floor which often got mixed together or tossed about. 

Solution: a wonderful friend who showed me her Elfa drawers in her house from the container store(where she also works!). It was an investment but the space it saves, the ease of the kids reaching and organizing their own clothes, and the durability of these drawers to last for years to come, has made them well worth it.  These drawers are deep from front to back and up and down which gives plenty of space to hold all of their clothes not hanging as well as blankets.  Another perk is that they were very easy to put together.

They each have their own unit and we can rearrange the order of drawers from top to bottom.  It fits in their closet also.  Now that we have these I am able to removed the dresser from the room that was too small for the both of them and get some decorative wall shelves for their little picture frames, trophies and baptism memory items. 

Thank you to Becca who with her skills learned from working at the container store, continues to teach me about home organization all the time.  

Two weeks ago we did an Earth day/Astronomy project.  Here you see a close up view of the Earth in space taken by our own dear Zachary. Please note that this picture was not taken by our satellites orbiting Earth, although perhaps easily mistaken.   :) 


We found this very fun and easy project on D.L.T.K's Growing Together Site. It also makes a very good science experiment for the kids as they watch the colors mix together on the coffee filter which the earth is made of.


Materials:

• Coffee filter
• washable blue and green markers
• Medicine dropper
• black construction paper
• white paint
• a Popsicle stick
• small paint brush
• Glue stick

1. Kids scribble with the markers on the coffee filter.

2. Drop a few dots of water with the dropper on the filter.

3. Watch the colors spread

4. Let dry

5. Take black piece of paper and dip brush in white paint.

6. Use a Popsicle stick and slide it in a flicking motion down the paint brush to flick paint onto paper.

7. It should look like small stars.

8. Glue coffee filter onto black paper

Memorial Garden

One of my newest projects is here in my backyard.  I am building a memorial garden with flowers dedicated to special people in my life who have died.  This has been an important step in my healing process. 

I have had the privilege of knowing an abundance of beautiful people in my life. Everyone we meet has something unique to bring into another's presence. In the past 7 months 3 people dear to my heart have died and gone to heaven as I believe. One was a friend from junior high and high school, Sofia. At the time she was one of my best friends.  When collage came around we went separate ways and got involved in different things. I regret that we had not seen each other in a few years. It was unexpected and sudden and I found out via Facebook. Thankfully I was able to attend her funeral and reconnect with her beautiful family.  I often look at old pictures.  The second was Scott's grandpa who was his mother's father. I did not know him well I cherished the few times I got to visit with him or read his letters.  He was completely deaf and not always interested in being around other people.  He was very good at painting and I enjoyed learning ASL to communicate with him as I do with Scott's mom. He lived until he was close to 90. The third was a beautiful lady whom I've known my entire life and she happened to be my aunt through marrying my mom's brother Carl. Her name was Linda Marie and she was one of the kindest, gentlest people I've ever known.  She took me into her home many nights for sleepovers with my cousins growing up during the summers.  I always loved to be in their home.  She made trips to visit us for many important events in our lives growing up such as my confirmation, my brother's first communion and my son's baptism. We found out in November that she had cancer.  The 5 months after that are almost a blur.  Linda went to heaven on March 6, 2012.

 I often find myself back in the denial stage but things such as the garden bring me great comfort. Each person has flowers named just for them. 

Sofia's Roses

Linda's Roses

I also have flowers planted for Scott's grandpa Philip and am planting more for two friends from high school, Zack and Kristen. I met Zack in choir and had biology with him.  He was one of the kindest and most respectful men I have known. Kristen I met at church. I don't think she had an enemy.  She was always cheerful and kind to everyone. 

Another resource I have found helpful is the set of books from the Stephen Ministry. Although it is put out by a religious organization the information inside applies to anyone. It discusses different types of grief and helps guide people to a healthy grieving. There is a book for 1 month after the death, 3 months and 6 months I believe. I highly recommend them. 

Traveling

My mother gave Zachary this great map for his birthday. It is an FAO Schwartz item however she got it discounted online. It comes with velcro names of continents, oceans, some countries, and animals.  We could have just used a regular large world map to play with also.  It's fun to just put it on the floor or low on the wall and it probably would have been doable to print off animals, countries, and oceans from around the world and laminated them.  

All About Me Project

We are hoping to make a booklet all about Zachary. Adelyn can make one when she gets old enough also.  We will include where he is from, where his family is from, favorite foods, colors, books, movies, sports, games, activities, etc and also the places he has been with pictures of the states or cities. Hopefully we can include our great bluebonnet pictures too. 

Books

      A School Like Mine: Europe-  We got this one at Chick Fil A There are a few other books in the    series about other countries.

   The Earth and Sky: A First Discovery Book- we also read the one like this called Musical Instruments which has some from other parts of the world. 

   

The Armadillo from Amarillo is a great book by Lynne Cherry where an Armadillo begins travels in San Antonio, goes to Amarillo several other states and then to the moon.

the Waterhole by Graeme Base- Has animals from different countries on each page who are drinking from a water hole which are all becoming dried up. Children learn that the rain fills up the waterhole again and takes away the dryness from the land.