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Monday, February 20, 2012

Peek-A-Book Pantry

Was inspired by a kind of similar project on Pinterest, but my husband had to come up with the design and dimension on his own. I think he did great! We have a very small 1924 bungalow that is short on space. The previous owner bought this overlarge fridge and it takes up a massive amount of space and only fits in one space in the kitchen, so any remodeling is very limited. This sliding shelf uses the little space between fridge and basement wall to its most advantage!

Pardon painter's tape and white door in process of being painted, and busy fridge doors. Too many projects happening at one time!
My Father-in-law recently built us a custom wood table, so we got matching wood from his mill and finished it the same as the table. We debated for awhile about painting it white, but my husband won by pointing out that if we ever move I may not have white trim and walls in the kitchen, but we will have the wood table his father made us.

The hardware does match the drawers in the kitchen. Jon also though ahead by drilling handle holes in the other side to, just in case we move and want to put it on the other side of a fridge. Jon used dowel rods to hold the cans in, and casters for the whole shelf to roll. Again, he drilled holes on both sides for the dowel rods just in case we move and need to switch the side we use.

Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Mixing Primary Colors- Preschool Rainy Day

With two boys, we are very tactile here in our lessons. Here are some fun ways we learned how primary colors mix. No color wheels needed, just early hands on learning. As your chidlren get older, you can teach the true circular flat color wheel , but this concrete knowledge will only add in their abstract knowledge of the color wheel.

Red +Blue= Purple

We had already been playing in the water table (bus tub from Sam's filled with water). Decided to fill two small bowls, one with red food coloring and the other with blue food coloring. Then I gave them some medicine syringes to each add colors to the plain water.



Yellow + Blue= Green

We did some finger-paints inside a Ziploc (make sure it is really sealed). Started playing first with the yellow, then after 5 minutes added blue.



Red +Yellow = Orange

As we studied Fire Fighters, we decided to paint some fire. I only gave them red and yellow. Just using finger-paint and brushes, we painted flames and as painted we talked about how they combined.

Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Valetine's Day crafts

My husband and I decided to go homemade for valentines day this year. I decided to get the other men I love in my life in on making my wonderful husband feel loved.

VALENTINE'S DONUT HOLES
We first surprised him with some Donut Holes by his coffee maker:) Thankfully he shared with us all!


VALENTINE'S PHOTO
We made him a gift for his desk at work. I needed to keep costs low, so I tried to use items from around my house. We had a large roll of paper from the local Habitat for Humanity ReStore and after I wrote the words I had the boys color the heart red with crayons. I used an editing software to make the collage below. If you don't have that, you can use the editing tools at the printing kiosk, then print a collage. We printed this out for 9 cents and then put it in a nice $2 frame! He really loved it, and can be reminded everyday at work how much we appreciate him!



FOOT & HANDPRINT VALENTINES' CARD
 The day before Valentine's Day we worked on cards. I have to wait til the day before for holidays because my boys are really bad about telling my husband the moment he gets in the door that we have a surprise for him. I assisted the boys in making the card below, then the boys colored several pictures for their dad and dictated their words to me.
*Teaching moment- We talked how to begin and end cards, and then they verbally practiced structuring paragraphs while watching me turning their words into written form!