I know I'm not the only one who is ever a little unhappy with my body, but this message really helps put things in perspective.
I started by telling Sweet Girl I had a magic wand that would help me get the things I wanted. I waved my magic wand and said "Daddy give me that book." Of course he knew not to give it to me. We tried again, and when it didn't work I told Sweet Girl we must be missing the magic words. I whispered the magic words to her and together we said "Daddy, please hand me that book." This time he handed the book to us. From there we talked about how real magic words are words that are nice, make others happy, and help others want to help us. We learned about magic words like thank you, sorry, and saying yes when we ask her to do things.
It was really simple, but Sweet Girl still talks about that lesson. Whenever she uses a magic word, she makes sure to point it out to me just in case I missed it.
Family home evening is one of the best nights of the week. Since my kids are little we are pretty much home together most nights, but it's nice to have a special night set aside to do something together. For some simple and really great ideas for a family night lesson and activity you can also go to lds.org and look at the manual Behold Your Little Ones. It's for the nursery class on Sundays, but the lessons are great for family nights too.
I love to read. Snuggling up with a good book is one of my favorite things to do. But even more than I love reading, I love books. I don't think a person can ever have too many books. I love the way they look and the way they smell. Over the years I have amassed a pretty good book collection (It would be bigger if Husband wasn't here to reign me in.) In our play room we have a large book shelf with many of my favorite children's books. While I love just the look of lots of books on a shelf, it felt like something was missing, so I added this cute decoration to the top. I picked up these paper mache letters at Joann's, and covered them in this cute paper I got from Hobby Lobby.
If you've never done this before it's a pretty simple process. Some people like to cut the paper to the exact size and shape of the letter, and then glue it on, but that is way too meticulous for me. I trace around the letter, leaving some extra space all around. Then I cut it out and mod podge it to the letter. You can see in the first picture how the paper is still hanging over the edge of the letter. Next fold the extra paper over the edge and use sandpaper to sand it off. It will rip off right next to the edge of the letter. IT does leave kind of an ugly ripped edge, so I take a black stamp pad and run it over the edges to cover it up, plus I add some to the front for and antiqued look. And voila, it's done!
I used my repurposed soda bottles to add some height and fullness. Now I not only love looking at all my books, but I also love the overall look of my shelf.
A couple years ago I posted a recipe for pork schnitzel with mushroom gravy, and it is delicious. I have found another equally delicious schnitzel variation to share. And let's be honest, you can't ever have enough schnitzel in your life. We made this weeks ago to celebrate Germany's win in the World cup, and it was so incredibly delicious.
Ingredients:
1 1/2 lbs pork chops
1/2 C Flour
3 T Grated Parmesan
2 Eggs
1/2 t Salt
1/4 t Pepper
2 T Milk
1 C Dry Bread Crumbs
Butter
Oil
Lemon Slices
1. Place thawed pork chops between plastic wrap or inside a ziploc bag. Pound with a meat mallet until very thin, about 1/4 inch.
2. Combine parmesan, eggs, salt, pepper and milk in a medium sized bowl. Pour flour in a separate bowl, and bread crumbs in a third bowl.
3. Coat pork chops in flour, then dip in the egg mixture. Then coat it in bread crumbs. Gently press the bread crumbs onto it to help them stick. Let them rest in a single layer for at least 30 minutes.
4. Melt 3 Tablespoons of butter in a skillet and add some oil. There needs to be quite a bit of butter and oil in the pan to keep the schnitzel from sticking to the pan. Once the butter and oil are heated cook the schnitzel until browned on each side, about 3 minutes on each side.
5. Squeeze lemon on top for added deliciousness.
*Okay here is the trickiest part of making schnitzel, cooking it all the way through without burning the outside. First you really need to make sure the meat is pounded thin so it can cook all the way through fast. Second tip, heat the oil over medium to medium high heat so it is hot enough to cook quickly, but don't let it get too hot, or your breading will burn and the inside will still be pink.
Okay, that's it. If you want to be super authentic throw some sauerkraut on the plate too. Ours may or may not have come from a can. Either way it was very yummy.
Here are the rest of the O is for Ocean activities. Sorry it took so long. I have also included a couple more free printables to go along with the other free ocean printables I posted forever ago. For the printables, just click on the picture and download it.
I am super picky about handwriting pages. So many of them are in weird fonts or too small for beginning writers, so I finally decided to try making my own. This one worked out really well for me. I hope you like it too. Hopefully there will be more to come.
I loved this writing activity. Sweet Girl was really into sharks. We read a few books about sharks and then filled out this shark facts paper. I was surprised at how much she remembered.
Here are a few more activities we did that didn't require printables.
Literacy/Writing Activities
- Fishing for Letters- I printed these fish patterns off of Oopsey Daisy, wrote the ABCs on the back and slipped a paper clip on the front. Sweet Girl used our magnetic fishing pole to catch one and then practiced the name and sound.
- Fish Tracing-We practiced writing by tracing the pieces of our wooden fish puzzle.
- Ocean Writing- I filled a gallon sized bag with blue paint and then used a Q-tip to practice writing letters.
Math Activities
- Goldfish Graphing- I printed this goldfish graph off of Oopsey Daisy. We used the colored goldfish to graph them by color.
- Land or Ocean Animal Sorting- We used our growing collection of plastic animals to sort which ones live on land and which live in the ocean.
- Counting Octopus-I made this octopus out of construction paper and wrote numbers 1-8 on the body. Each leg had circular suction cup stickers (okay they were flowers, but at least they were round). The first leg had one sticker, the second leg had two stickers, etc. Sweet Girl counted the suction cups and matched them to the correct numbers.
- Roll and Cover- We also played a roll and cover octopus game from Teachers Pay Teachers.
Other Activities
- Five Little Jellyfish- I made these by gluing some ribbon between two pieces of felt. We took them away one at a time as we said this poem: 5 little jellyfish swimming by the shore, the yellow one got lost and that left 5. 4 little jellyfish swimming in the sea, the blue one swam away and that left 3. 3 little jellyfish in the ocean so blue, the red one swam away and that left 2. 2 little jellyfish swimming in the sun, the orange one took a dive and that left 1. 1 little jellyfish swimming all alone, it was time to go home and that left none.
- Cupcake Liner Jellyfish- Cut a cupcake liner in half and glue down, then glue tissue paper strips down as the tentacles. Add some googly eyes.
- Textured Starfish- We talked about how starfish are rough and that helps them cling to the rock. Cut out a star shape and cover with glue and rice.
- What's in the Ocean?- I found these foam ocean stickers at the dollar store. Sweet Girl stuck them on our ocean paper while we talked about the different animals.
I loved this unit. There are so many amazing things to learn about in the ocean, and I learned a lot of new things right along with Sweet Girl. I hope you enjoy learning more about it too.
I promised a few more printables to go along with our O is for Ocean preschool unit, and here they are. Click on the picture and you can print them off for your own personal use. They aren't perfect, but I hope you have fun using them with your preschooler.
Ocean Animal Pattern Cards: We used these for making patterns, but you could also use them for basic sorting.
Ocean Counting Clipcards: These go along with the Beginning Sounds Clipcards. Count the number of sea creatures in the box and clip a clothespin over the correct number.
Ocean or Land Animal: Cut the pictures apart and have children sort them by which animals live in the ocean and which live on the land.
Ocean Writing Page: I used this at the end of our ocean unit, so we had already talked about a lot of different ocean animals. I wrote what Sweet Girl said, and then she drew a picture of her ocean animal.
I have a few more O is for Ocean preschool activities still to come. It was a really fun unit.
We just wrapped up our O is for Ocean preschool unit. I will get our activities and some really awesome printables up soon, but I wanted to start with the books. There are a ton of really good ocean books out there. These are a few of our favorites. Enjoy!
This is a great book for focusing on sharks. Obviously. It has lots of great pictures of different kinds of sharks and other cool facts about sharks. Sometimes nonfiction books can be hard to read with little kids because they are too wordy and the print is small. This one was perfect for those young readers. The print is a good size and, although it gives a lot of information, it isn't too much. Sweet Girl became a little obsessed with sharks after reading this book.
I was surprised at how much I liked this book. I am not the biggest fan of the Cat in the Hat. Does that make me a bad person? Anyway, this book has so much information. It goes through all the layers of the ocean (I didn't even know there were layers in the ocean.), and what animals live in each layer. With each animal there are a few interesting facts and some fun pictures. It's a little long, but a great book anyway.
I love this book. It just cracks me up. It is the 2013 Caldecott Medal winner, which is the award given for best illustrations. It starts off with a little fish admitting he stole a hat and is on the run from a big fish. It isn't a real informational book, but it takes place in the ocean and and it is so cute that it had to be included on this list.
I loved the brightly colored illustrations in this book. It made for a fun read. The little boy in the story is diving deep down in the water and meets all sorts of different ocean life. The cutest part was the end when we find out that he was diving down in his own bathtub.
Rays, Sharks and Sea Turtles
I bought these books together in a set. They are great nonfiction books for really early readers. There are only a few words on a page so it's really easy for kids to understand. The photographs in the books are great too. they show close ups of the animals with labels. Perfect for preschool!
This is a great fish counting book. It starts with ten little fish swimming together, and one by one they go away. The illustrations were adorable.
This came in the same set as the Rays, Sharks and Sea Turtles books. It's another great nonfiction. There are some really cool pictures of star fish. Did you know if there arms break off they can grow new ones? I do, because I read this book.
Swimmy
A little black fish lives in a school of little red fish, until one day they are all eaten, and the black fish has to go find a new home. He swims through the ocean and meets all kinds of new animals in the ocean. He eventually finds a new school of fish and helps save them. I'll admit I was a little shocked when his entire school dies on the first page, but the book gets better after that. Leo Leoni has very unique illustrations.
I loved this story. Mr. Seahorse carries the eggs from Mrs. Seahorse in a pouch in his tummy. Mr. Seahorse swims through the ocean and talks to other fish who are also carrying their eggs around in unique ways.
Hermit Crab's shell is starting to feel tight, so he goes in search of a new shell, but when he finds one it is just too plain. As he wanders through the ocean he meets different sea creatures to help decorate his shell. My favorite thing about this book is that you get a look at some of the other sea creatures besides the typical fish, shark, or whale. Crab decorates his shell with a snail, a sea anemone and other creatures. By the time he is finished decorating his shell, it starts feeling tight again and it's time to start all over meeting new friends and decorating a new shell. I loved this book.
