People should be free to find or make for themselves the kinds of educational experience they want their children to have. ~John Holt

Sunday, December 18, 2011

Pokepark fun

We recently discovered Pokemon and having fun with all the various ways to enjoy. Never knew there were so many Pokemon related things.
We decided we wanted to try finding a Pokemon video game and heard about the Wii game Pokepark  A couple of weeks ago we heard that Pokepark was one of the easier games for younger kids and decided to try it out. Luckily we have a really great library system and Pokepark was available for us to try.

The game definitely requires a lot of interaction on my part to help her read the different messages but it's been fun to help C progress. What I really like is that you're not constantly falling off a cliff or into the beyond and thus losing all the time. The general idea of the game is to  eventually make friends with all the Pokemon in the Pokepark by doing battles, challenges and solving riddles. Seems easy right? Well, I'm not a huge video gamer but I couldn't even manage to figure out the game. C's dad got a few Pokemon friends but was still having trouble figuring out the game. Enter a four a half year old who isn't reading much and after just a short time she had figured out how to reach new levels and win the mini games. Maybe she can eventually explain the game to me :)

So before we make Christmas cookies today, we are having some fun in the Pokepark!

Friday, November 4, 2011

Exploring reading

I happened upon a Magic Treehouse book at the library today and decided to bring it home and see how C liked it. She's always been fascinated by the words in my books and always wants to know why there aren't any pictures to which I reply that it's fun to imagine the details of the story in our mind (brain). So after reading a bit in the Magic Treehouse she decided it was time to go to sleep with the book on her head so she could imagine the details of the words...evidently thinking that through osmosis she would get more of the book :)

Monday, October 31, 2011

Happy Halloween 2011

Happy Halloween!

Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Kool Aid dyed playsilks

Playsilks are great fun for kids and can be used for everything from capes to tents to carry bags to dresses and just about any other use that a kid can come up with. We Kool Aid dyed our first two playsilks last winter and they've been used mainly as capes and blankets. When I recently came upon some playsilks I had put away I decided it was time to get some more Kool Aid and have some more fun 


Since I couldn't remember the entire process I decided to go searching on the Internet. We found so many sites together and Caitlyn had great fun typing the words into Google and getting to choose the pages we looked at. We found so many great blogs that detailed how to dye the silks but we really liked a few specific sites which I'm going to post below. And, since there are already so many sites that are posting detailed instructions, I thought it would be more useful to simply share the resources we found rather than reinvent the  wheel.  


But, before I get to the resource list, I wanted to off a couple of our experiments, including the one on the left that was dip dyed! We used silks bought from Dharma Trading and Kool Aid flavors in pink lemonade, orange, black cherry, and grape. The entire process took nothing more than silks, Kool Aid, vinegar, a few jars, the stove, water, and about an hour from start to finish!




Here are some of the resources:
Dharma Trading - source for silks
Artful Parent- Jean always has great ideas
Tried & True - nice detail of different color combos from Kool-Aid
Raising Olives - great photos and nice explanation of how to dip dye
Squirrel Acorns - includes instructions on how to make streamers


Have fun!!!