Learning with A & J | Cupcakes and Commentary

Adventures in cub scouting, Learning with A & J, Seriously Crafty Treats

Camp-out cooking and leaf crafting

November 19, 2018 No Comments

At A’s den meeting this week, he learned about first aid, safety, and how to grill a hamburger/hot dog, which are three important things!

He was very excited to eat the hamburger he made all by himself, and he even tried it with an onion on it!

While he and B were hiking and cooking, J and I worked on a leaf craft project at home. This is a super easy project that requires minimal items, all you need is a hammer, watercolor (or other heavy weight) paper, paper towels, and freshly fallen leaves.

You want leaves that have some pigment left in them because it will transfer color better to the paper. All you do is arrange your leaves on the paper…

And then cover them with paper towels, and hammer (carefully, with adult supervision) all over the leaves…

And the imprint of the leaves will transfer onto the paper!

Super simple, and a great weekend afternoon craft!

Family Style, Learning with A & J, Philosophical Cupcakes, The Christmas Countdown

Operation Christmas Child

November 12, 2018 No Comments

I always feel like this day is the start of holiday season, as crazy of a day as it typically is. For the past several years my Mom, sister, and I load up all five kids and head to Target on Saturday to go shopping for Operation Christmas Child. It is usually slightly chaotic and the kids may have been trying to load almost life-sized stuffed animals into the shopping cart at one point, but it is a great way to teach them about helping others.

Here is an idea of what we typically pick out (go here for a full list of what you can and cannot pack):

We typically get:

– A stuffed animal

– Socks

– A bar of soap and holder

– Colored pencils and pencil sharpener

– Toothbrush

– Fun bandaids

– Uno Card Game

– Fidget spinner

– Small plastic animals

– Notepad

National collection week is this week! You can go here to find a collection spot in your area.

Learning with A & J, Seriously Crafty Treats

Current favorite art supplies

August 28, 2018 No Comments

The boys go through cycles of art interest. Sometimes they are doing many projects, writing books, drawing pictures, etc. and then other times things are in a bit of a holding pattern. I keep quite a few supplies on hand, so the boys have items whenever they decide they need to draw, color, or write a story. I thought I’d share some of our current favorite supplies:

My on going struggle is where to store everything so they can easily get to it, but it’s not sitting out all the time. I typically store it all in our kitchen hutch, but my dream is to have an area of the house where all of this can be out and they can leave projects out while they work on them.

Learning with A & J, Seriously Crafty Treats

Ladybug craft

July 26, 2018 No Comments

I have to share this cute craft and story idea that J came up with for my niece. He decided to make ladybug paper plates and worked very hard on an example. My personal favorite part was the hidden smiley face on the underside of the paper plate! I really think J is going to end up being an imagineer at Disney or Pixar. He starts about every other sentence with “hey mommy, what do you think if….” and then he’ll end it with something like “if butterflies had wheels so they could both drive and fly.” And that will follow with a ten minute discussion of how he could actually make that happen. To support or paper plate ladybugs we watched The Grouchy Ladybug:

And a quick video on how ladybugs fold their wings:

And a lengthier one that they started getting bored about why ladybugs are called ladybugs:

And then we made our paper plate ladybugs:

All you need is two paper plates per kid, some construction paper, glue, scissors, and crayons. You just put the wings in between the plates and glue the plates together. Then color one side like the ladybug, and the inside is the ladybugs hidden face! So fun! If you want even more craft ideas for ladybugs, the boys and I did a ladybug activity day three years ago. You can find it here! Happy ladybug learning!

Family Style, Family travels, Learning with A & J

If you have two days in San Antonio…part 1

July 19, 2018 No Comments

We arrived in San Antonio right at dinner time. We stayed at the Marriott Riverwalk (with a river walk view room) and I would highly recommend it. Although there are lots of other quality hotels in the area, you get a great view of the riverwalk, there’s a Starbuck’s in the hotel, and it is walkable to lots of the main San Antonio attractions (like The Alamo). We checked in and then headed to Casa Rio for dinner…

I got the green chile chicken enchiladas (which I forgot to take a picture of), and they were excellent. The boys got nachos and tacos. The margaritas were also excellent!

One of my favorite things about our hotel besides the view:

Was the fold out couch. We usually have a room with two doubles or queens, but it saves us many an argument for the boys to be in separate beds…

The next morning we enjoyed our coffee on the balcony:

Then headed to the Alamo!

I have to say we lucked out with our weather. Texas is hot (boardering on insufferable) in July, and we managed to get overcast days with slightly cooler than average temperatures. The boys loved the Alamo, and we did pretty much everything you could do, from watching the movie on Alamo history to listening to a speech on Alamo artillery.

These two were the best listeners of the whole bunch:

And you’ve got to find the House cat:

We thought it was just a stray cat, but they have stuffed animals that match it in the gift shop, so apparently it is a house cat. After we left the Alamo we went to the river walk mall to escape an incoming rain shower, had lunch at the food court, then headed back to the hotel’s activity room:

We kept it pretty low key, which was great for the kids. Some sightseeing mixed with downtime is essential for avoiding meltdowns! We headed to County Line on the Riverwalk for dinner:

Their brisket and black eyed peas and bread were delish:

Afterward we headed out on the riverboat tour of the Riverwalk, which was fun:

A enjoyed it, despite contrary tween facial expressions. The boat tour is a great way to see and hear about the history of the city. And to see buildings like this:

It looks like there is no side! A cool optical illusion, with an interesting back story (I won’t spoil it). After the boat tour we headed off to bed with a cavern and zoo in our sights!

How was your weekend?, Learning with A & J, Mini Cupcakes, Philosophical Cupcakes, Seriously. Fashion. Love.

This and that

May 30, 2018 No Comments

This is the haul of shirts I bought for the boys at Old Navy and The Gap for $14.15 (total):

No, this is not a paid advertisement. Yes, this is why I have a Gap card. And actually I got a free gift with purchase, so if you deduct that, the total is actually $2.

This is my favorite lunch at Connor’s…

Crab cakes with sweet potato fries.

This is the beach set B asked me to pick up from Costco…

Hopefully now we have enough sand castle building items!

These are the books J is loving right now, and are on his summer reading list…

I hope that he’s always this excited about summer reading!

This is the way the boys are chilling in the shade outback right now:

These are the baby birds hanging out by our baby maple tree:

And that was the happiest way to tell me I’m done grading in my Canvas app…

Family Style, Learning with A & J, Philosophical Cupcakes

Summer learning routine

May 21, 2018 1 Comment

I felt like a champion when I realized I scheduled my online discussions on my summer work days (also known as “things only teachers get excited about”):

And with my summer work schedule I’m also planning for the boys’ “avoid the summer slump” routine…outside of going to the pool:

Playing all the board games, puzzles, and domino mazes:

And summer road trips:

We’ll be doing…

Summer reading through the library

Kahn Academy courses in math and Pixar in a Box:

Xtramath for A (a program he can access through his school) & addition/subtraction flash cards for J

Mario Teaches Typing (super old, we found it and downloaded on our desktop for the kids)

Super Solvers (also super old, same deal as Mario Teaches Typing):

My plan is to have them switch off spending about a half-hour to hour a day on one of these four choices (reading will be everyday). They can pick one on one day, then pick a different one on another. By the end of the week we’ll have gotten to all five in some shape or form. I’m also planning to pick up a few new Smithsonian & Eyewitness books (either through Amazon or the library) like these:

J’s school also does an awesome summer learning packet:

And I’ve got a cursive writing learning packet for A:

We’re also going to take some craft days, pull out all the art supplies and just create and craft with abandon:

No artist, no story, just paint, create, and imagine. That’s the best of summer! Downtime, being bored, and learning on free flowing time. Oh and I’llalso be answering lots of this:

Learning with A & J, Mini Cupcakes

J’s nature journal

March 28, 2018 No Comments

J’s new thing on hikes is recording nature. He brings a little notebook and pen with him and writes down the names of things he sees and then draws a small sketch to go with it. The artist in me loves this! He also has plans to fill in the pictures with watercolors.

On our easy hike around Hayes we found flowers, a stream, moss, trees, leaves, and grass:

And a barn owl! See if you can spot her through the trees:

Learning with A & J, Mini Cupcakes, Trip Essentials

Easter basket fillers

March 22, 2018 No Comments

The Easter bunny is filling the boys’ buckets with books, peeps, flip flops, pjs, sketch pads, snorkel goggles, candy, and bath bombs. Fun things for heading from spring into summer, for road trips, summer reading, and lazy days to spend drawing nature, and finding fish in the ocean.

Learning with A & J, Milestones, Mini Cupcakes, Philosophical Cupcakes