My friends over at Education.com wanted me to share this great worksheet just in time for Spring!

They have tons of free worksheets covering all sorts of things. I link to several of their activities in my new Summer 2018 Mommy Camp too! All you have to do is click the image for the FREE download!
Springtime is here so let's get in the spirit as we search for these words in this fun word search. You'll find more spelling resources, games, and printables like this at Education.com!

Enjoy the free worksheet and if you want the answer key you can click here!

Summer is almost here and that means nearly three months with THREE kids for most of the day ALL. DAY. LONG. So, I have once again compiled and created a plan for Mommy Camp to give the kids something to do and to maintain my sanity!

This year we will be be learning about nine different animals and their habitats. It is comprised of nine weeks of lesson activities and ideas about nine different animals, their habitats and the people that live near them and their culture. I have included links to all of the activities and a plan for how I plan on using them in the document. I will post each week about how I have used the lessons and ideas so you can get even more ideas for using the document. All you need to do is follow along! I also encourage you to share your experiences and ideas here on the blog by commenting!

And, you can download it for free! Right Now! Just click the image below!

I'm excited to get started and can't wait for summer break to begin! I hope you join us on this years Mommy Camp!

Lilly's school has an upcycle fair every year. Last year she made a plastic bag jump rope and won 3rd place in her grade. This year she made what she called "ipod Bears" which are basically mini bean bag chairs that look like chairs to hold your ipod or iphone. She won 1st place in her grade!

I'm going to show you how we made them so you can make your own. They are super adorable and easy to do using materials you probably have right now! We did get the idea from youtube and used this video to help us make them.

You will need:
- rice- hot glue and glue gun
- yarn
- stapler
- sock
- scissors
- ruler

It was a pretty easy and fairly quick project. We ended up making three in total and only spent about 1 and a half hours. It's definitely something interesting to do with all of those socks with missing partners!
Maybe now she won't lose her ipod under her bed. Lol.

My son turned 4 last week and we had a very fun party at a local museum. I took it a little easier on myself than usual by letting the museum take over some of the party planning in regards to activities but did dress it up a bit with a photo booth area and themed food.
As always though, I made a party planning board you can check out below.

Easy, transportable food options, a fun photo backdrop and a paleontologist outfit for the birthday boy were all I had to plan for this time with the museum taking care of goody bags, activities and cake!

I designed this poster on my computer using powerpoint and then sent it to be printed at my local Walgreens. For a grand total of about $10 (I also had a coupon). I had this great centerpiece for the food wall. I found the paper decorations in the discount bin at Target for a couple of dollars each.

Since it wasn't at my home and I had to transport all of our food I went pretty simple. The party was also at 2 so a full meal wasn't necessarily expected by guests. We had turkey sandwiches, doughnut holes, fruit and veggies and bugle chips. I also brought a punch. The venue provided the cupcakes and I added the cupcake toppers. I used powerpoint again to create the food labels. I just took a picture of the photo backdrop and then layed a text box with a white background over the rectangle image of the photo backdrop and printed them out. Super easy.

I bought the photo backdrop on Amazon. It is a tapestry/wall hanging and only cost $11! I'm sure I'll find another use for it in the future and because it is fabric it will still look great after each use!

The museum had a great plan for the party with a several paleontology themed activities. First, the drew clothes on skeletons while guests arrived. Then, they searched for "dino bones" to complete a large puzzle. After that, they learned about how fossils are formed by making a fossil sandwich filled with layers gummy worms, gold fish and pretzels that they then mashed down to create fossils in the soft, white bread.

After the fossil sandwich and discussion on fossils, they went on a scavenger hunt that had a really fun story element and found dino eggs, arrowheads and buried treasure!

It was a really great party and I think everyone had a great time. It was definitely nice for me to take a break from all of the crazy party planning I tend to get myself into.

Thanks for visiting!

It's been a busy and kinda rough last few months. My Mother-in-Law has been very ill and passed away on Friday. My grandfather also passed away only two days before on Wednesday. My husband and I both agreed to put our Valentine's Day on hold but, I knew that I wanted my kids to keep some semblance of normalcy and have a bit of fun to take their mind off of the very heavy things that have happened. Plus, I hoped to involve my Father-in-Law and Sister-in-Law as well to give them something to keep them occupied with the tragedy so fresh and it being the day of love as well as my FiL's 55th birthday.

So, I perused Pinterest for some ideas and decided on a fancy family dinner and for the morning, the kids had a scavenger hunt to find their gifts. Walmart had some pretty legit stuffed animals for only $15 so they received those in their favorite animals, some Valentine's Day themed socks and a package of edible bubbles. (I know, I was unaware this was a thing too. They seem pretty neat.)

For his birthday, my husband had a great idea of gifting his Dad with a giant, ultra, mega Nerf gun and got one for each kid too. This turned out to be the best idea. Even though the joy was brief, there was joy, and his Dad even laughed out loud several times in reaction to my squealing kids running in fear of being pelted with a nerf dart. Everyone enjoyed the dinner and our plan is to have a weekly dinner where they come and have a Nerf battle and an opportunity to be happy for a bit instead of grieving.

The family dinner was  such a success that I think we'll do it every year. I made it fun with a sequin table cloth, other decorations, a custom menu and fizzy juice for the kids. I also acted as a waiter, complete with a proper silly voice, for them and let them order off of their menus which they thought was fantastic.

Oh, and I had no idea that I was supposed to send a Valentine's Day box with my son until I picked him up the day before (Usually my husband drops him off and picks him up so the info fell through the cracks.) So, I ended up making a pretty adorable dino box for him. He is obsessed with dinosaurs. When my husband got him to school the next day, he said that most of the kids literally just had a box. Not a decorated one. Just a box. lol. I'm glad I was over-prepared and stressed to make it the night before.

With three kids taking adorable photos can get a bit hard. But, I managed to scrape together a few great ones using my awesome trick of pretty wrapping paper for a background. I dressed the kids in some adorable clothes, bribed them with the promise of candy at the end of the ordeal and quickly captured their adorable little faces with my phone camera before anyone had a meltdown.
I even managed without anyone making silly faces or sounds behind me this time! After selecting my favorites and running them through my favorite photo filter app, Rookie Camera, I ended up with photos that I really like and only cost me some time, a little sanity and $4 for the wrapping paper. Enjoy!

Since I was not looking photo ready during our session, I left the wrapping paper up and captured a few more photos the next day too.

Alan had a fantastic fiesta themed first birthday party...two months ago! I'm sorry for the extremely late posting! I have been so busy recently with work and kids and holidays that I haven't had any spare time for hobbies. But, I'm finally getting a minute now that the semester tests are nearing their end and I have mostly prepared my lessons for the next semester. Take a look at all of the fun that was had a few months ago celebrating Alan.

The party food was a taco bar with all of the fixin's. I made cupcakes (from a box mix) but made them extra cute with swirly icing, sprinkles and Alan heads. We also had corn on the cob and chips with salsa and queso. I also printed out labels in Spanish and English for all of the food. To make the cupcake toppers I took one of the photos from our fiesta themed photo shoot and sent it to Walgreens as wallet sized prints. Then I cut his head out and hot glued it to a toothpick.

For fun activities, we had a create a maraca and/or sombrero station and a pin the mustache on Alan. I just printed a photo of Alan into a poster sized print at Walgreens and cut out some mustaches from black construction paper. I also had a fun photo booth for selfies and such.

For the rest of the decorations I kept it pretty simple and posted Spanish labels on various items in the house and hung a large sombrero and printed sign on the door.

Also, Alan's shirt was made using my silhouette cameo machine. I created the design and cut it into stencil material. Then I used red acrylic paint to paint the design onto the shirt. It is way easier and cheaper than vinyl plus, I think it lasts longer and looks way more legit. For his party hat I used a store bought hat from Target and added the glittery one with craft foam. Easy and cheap!
Guests left with their crafts, some sticky mustaches and mini wooden maracas. It was a fun, colorful and festive party that was a blast to plan.

In preparation for Alan's fiesta themed birthday party we had a bit of fun with photos! It was a simple set up and I think the results are extremely awesome.

We took them last minute on a weeknight in the kitchen! All I did was tape a white sheet up over one of the walkways into the space and then added a kid sized chair and sarape. Then added Alan with a kid sized sombrero, sticky mustache and a few tiny wooden maracas. I was honestly amazed that he didn't try to take the mustache off. Probably because his hands were full of maraca and he was most likely confused about what was going on. lol.

After running them through a few editing apps and filters I came out with my adorable pics but, they didn't look great right out of the gate. Editing is a must!

After editing them up a bit I headed over to canva.com and created some invitations for his party. After saving the images I created on canva (for free) I created an invitation at Walgreens online and had them mailed to my house! I was super happy with how they came out!

Now it's time to get to party planning!

Alan's first birthday is fast approaching! We're planning on having a pretty low-key event with a few friends and family but, I have to make it awesome! It's going to be fiesta themed and freakin' adorable. Because we won't have many kids I've only planned a few activities but, the focus is going to be on food! We're going to have a taco bar!! Alan loves tacos so it is definitely appropriate. Check out the party plan and don't forget to come back when I post the deets!

I'm also planning on a 1 year photo shoot that is going to be adorbs so stay tuned for that too.

I have another great guest post from Education.com! This time they've provided a free worksheet and answer key!

Let your child float through practicing subtraction with this fun Under-the-Sea Worksheet. Find more subtraction resources from Education.com.

You can get the free worksheets by clicking each image.

We celebrated my daughter's 7th birthday this past weekend and it went off without a hitch! I even managed to make a cake that was not an epic fail like previous years! Check out all of the details, activities and fun below!

The theme was Flamingos and Dinos with a focus on the flamingo. The cake was one hundred percent boxed mixes in both devil's food and confetti and canned icing but, I made it look extra by making it a tier with ombre icing. I made the two paper figures on top by printing out a dino and flamingo image from the internet and backing it with colored paper and then taping it to a skewer. The rest of the food was simple but yummy with dino scales (chips), flamazing ham and cheese sandwiches, flamingled fruit salad, dinorriffic noodles and dinotastic punch.

For activities, we played flamingo ring toss, had a dino and flamingo egg hunt, did a guided flamingo painting, pinned the tail feather on the flamingo and had a competition to see who could stand on one leg the longest. We also had a tropical themed photo wall area.

For the art activity, I created cardboard easels by cutting out one side of a small packing box and creating a triangle. Then I used duct tape to tape along the cut edge. Then I taped the canvases onto the sides. You can see how I made them here. I ordered kid aprons online for each kid to wear and bought a pack of big paint brushes as well. The paint was liquid tempera purchased at Hobby Lobby and I put the paint on paper plates. The kids all got to take their aprons, paint brush and art home as party favors.

The photo booth props were something I planned on making and then I found a pre-made set in the party aisle at Wal-Mart on clearance for .99 cents! So, I just used that. It even had flamingo glasses! Perfect! I also supplemented with some items from our dress-up collection including tutu's, masks, tiaras and feather boas.

 In addition to the art themed favors, kids also took home a flamingo or dino mask. The girls above are wearing them while competing in the one-legged standing competition. In the background you can see the pin the tail feather game I made. Somehow it did not get photographed! I just drew a flamingo on some pink paper and game the kids colored feathers with tape to tape onto the bird. They enjoyed it!

I found free mask printables, backed them with construction paper and then laminated them. Then I hole punched them and added ribbon for tying. They actually took a lot of time but were essentially free and I think they looked awesome!

I purchased pre-filled eggs online one set was regular eggs but the other were dino eggs! I had some other adults hide them while I corralled all of the kids inside and handed them paper bags with their names on them. Then we let them loose!

I think the party was a success and all of the guests had fun. I didn't feel too rushed the day of but I'm sure that was mostly due to staying up until one the night before. Now I have to get planning on my son's 1st birthday coming up in October! Thanks for visiting!

For my daughter's birthday we decided to have a guided painting activity. I created these cardboard easels in less than 10 minutes and they worked beautifully! Plus they cost less than a dollar a piece! Keep reading to see the full tutorial below.

You will neeed:
- small cardboard box
- duct tape
- scissors/box cutter

1. Remove one of the small sides of the box. I found this pretty easy using just scissors.

2. Pull the two cut sides together to form a triangle shape and duct tape along the edge.

3. Attach your canvas or paper using tape. You could also hot glue a clothes pin or clip. I used two pieces of rolled duct tape to adhere the canvases for the kids at the party. They were easy to remove and we had no issues with canvases falling off.

It's been a busy past few weeks at my new job and it has kept me from posting for awhile. But, I've been getting ready for my daughter's seventh birthday which is coming up this weekend! Eeeek! I hope I'm able to get everything done in time! I'm currently cutting out about a bajillion paper tropical leaves for decor along with 20+ Dino and flamingo masks for tiny people to wear. 

The party is going to be mostly flamingo with a touch of dinosaur to accommodate little boys who might not love the idea of pink birds. We'll have a Dino and Flamingo egg hunt, games revolving around one leg and a guided painting activity for kids to paint their own masterpiece! I'm excited to see how it'll turn out and I hope you are too! You can see my inspiration board below and check back next week for the end result!

What You Need:

• Two glass jars
• Paper
• Pencil
• Scissors
• Blocks of any kind

What You Do:

1. Write out a list of words that describe spatial relationships. Start out with words that will be easy to demonstrate with two jars. Include words like near, beside, next to, in, under, on and between. Cut these labels out so that your child can place them appropriately.
2. Hand your child the labels one at a time. As you give him a label, help him read it. Can he put the appropriate label near one of the jars? What about far away from the jar? He will have to open jars and may have to move things around a bit for some commands. For example, in a jar, under a jar, and between two jars.
3. Encourage him to keep going until all of the labels are in fitting places.
4. Now it’s time to play with the blocks. What can he build if he stacks these blocks on top of each other? If he lays them out beside each other? Encourage him to build walls, towers and other structures. As he works, discuss with him which block is on top, which is on the bottom, which is in the middle. You can also talk about over, under and beside.
5. Now get him to give you instructions and be sure to do exactly what he tells you to do. This will help him learn to use the correct words when giving directions to others.

Thanks so much to Education.com for this fun post! I love their site and always find great activities that match many of my Mommy Camp focus topics! You can find more math focused activities like this one on their site here.

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This week was the most popular dramatic play theme of the summer so far and the other activities were pretty popular too. You can download the lessons by clicking the image below and read about all of the fun further down.

This week they had a construction zone dramatic play area. They had a table with foam blocks next to a square of contact paper that I taped to the wall. They could stick the foam blocks onto the contact paper to build. They freakin' loved it! They also had giant foam blocks to build with and I made them diy wrecking balls using long socks and soft rubber balls. I placed the ball in the bottom of the sock and they simply swing it at their towers. It was also a huge hit. They also had regular blocks to build with. To finish off the area, I provided construction worker hats, caution tape and some signs. This was the most popular dramatic play area so far and they played for a really long time multiple times through the week.

We talked about what an engineer is and what they do. We read some stories about great women inventors and watched a video. Then we discussed the engineering process. Afterwards, we made lego prints. 

We learned about blue prints and listened to a fun song from Phineas and Ferb. Then Lilly did some measuring using a worksheet and followed a recipe to make mug cake. It's kind of like a blueprint in the overall idea because it is the directions for creating a cake just like the blueprints are directions for building a house.

We read a book and discussed different types of tools. Then we did some hammer painting using cotton pads, paint and a rubber mallet. It was a big hit. (get it? lol)

We learned about different kinds of simple machines by watching an episode of Bill Nye and discussed where we have seen and used simple machines in our every day life. Then we made a pendulum using a paper cup, broom stick and string. We used it to create a pendulum painting. We also made a painting using an inclined plane and discussed what that meant.

We had a lot of options but, as always, we didn't get to much of it and instead simply read a book about the three little pigs from an architectural point of view, watched a few informative videos and created graham cracker houses. Then we tried to blow our housed down. They were sturdy enough to resist. Honestly, we skipped a bunch of the activities this week. I think we're all tired and would rather just have free play. They really loved the dramatic play area and spent a lot of their free time in there this week.