Math – Page 5 – Butterbees and Bumbleflies

The Christmas Gift They’ll Be Talking About All Year

We all want to be the one that gifts THAT gift – the one that is truly enjoyed ALL year long. The one that doesn’t get lost in the shuffle. And, if you’re a mom like me, you want it to be something that your kids had a hand in making. When I finished making our 2015 calendar in November (the day before Thanksgiving, literally… I was down to the wire, ya’ll…), I told my mom and my bff… “friends don’t let friends make a calendar like this EVER again.” And “don’t EVER let me think I can do this kind of project again. I might go crazy.” So why am I sharing this EPIC project here, and already saying I’m doing one again this year?

Because it’s January. And by starting NOW on this project, I have the whole year to get it done!! (Thanks, Mom and Rena for the encouragement to do this again!!!) And so do you. And the best part for you – I’ll be giving you various art ideas all year as we do them, so you’ll be able to follow along right behind us and make your own amazing, EPIC calendar for 2016!

Inspired by artist/author Eric Carle, we did a wide variety of art – painting, chalks, markers, etc on sheets of textured card stock, and then I cut the papers to make a collage for each month. Becca helped glue the pieces down, and selected Washi tape for each picture. (She’s a little Washi obsessed… just like Mommy.) Then, I scanned each picture into my computer, and printed the pictures out on our color printer. By scanning, I was able to make an awesome cover, which has a preview of each month. Then I printed out calendar blanks and typed up a sheet that explains what type of art is included on each collage. I used photo splits to attach the sheets to each other (fronts to backs), then laminated and comb bound each calendar.

Here are some close-up photos to give you some ideas for your 2016 calendar! Plus, later this year, I’ll share a FREE printable set of 2016 calendar blanks, so you don’t even have to worry about creating those – just start working on your art, and I’ll help walk you through creating this calendar for the important folks in your kids’ lives!

Plus, throughout the year, as we do our art, I’ll give you ideas for how to modify this activity to involve more than one child – so don’t think you have to worry about making a calendar from each child! There are ways to make some months be a collage of art from each child, and then also making certain months especially just from one specific child in your family (perfect if they don’t share the same birthday month – let them be the star of their own month!) And yes, baby Grayson will be taking part in making the art for 2016. (Again, I may be slightly off my rocker… but I think it’ll be worth it in the end!!)

SO – check back next Friday for your first art project… we’re ready to make our February collage, and so are you! (Yes, we may not do our collages in order… we’re full force excited about Valentine’s Day around here… so we’ve got February done already!)

Please note – due to the fact that the family members who will receive our calendar read my blog, we’ll give you art ideas and show photos of our sheets of painted paper, but will not be posting photos of the finished collages. Gotta keep something a surprise for Christmas! (And I want you guys to be original in your collage ideas…) Next January, I’ll be asking for photos of your finished calendars… and feel free to share your photos of completed activities you’ve done inspired by my blog ANYTIME by sending me an email: butterbeesandbumbleflies@gmail.com Please be sure to put on your email if I can share your photos on my Facebook page.

The Gift of Giving

It’s something all parents (I’d hope, anyway) want their kids to be able to do – to give. To give of themselves, to give things they love, to give to people they love, and to give to people they’ve never even met. But how do you start teaching and nurturing that gift in your child? And when? I think the answer to when, and maybe even how, varies by child. But here’s what I did with Becca this year that seems to have started planting the seed.

She’s super into money – sorting coins is really fun for her. She doesn’t really understand or remember the values of the coins, but she understands the concept of what it’s for, and that it all adds up to equal stuff purchased at the store. Before she was born, we were given a large piggy bank for her, and over time, the coins (and a few stray $1 bills) have added up. We dump loose change into her piggy bank (and now her brother’s as well) randomly. So, I got out her coin sorting tray one day, and we dumped her piggy bank contents out on the floor. She was super excited to help me sort, and decided she would find all the pennies, and leave the silver ones for Mommy. That’s fine. We had fun with the activity, and it was great fine motor practice for her too – picking up and sorting through all those coins.

Then, we sat down and made a list of all the people she would like to buy a gift for for Christmas. She thought of most of the people on her own, though she did have prompting for a couple of them.

The next day, we went to Dollar Tree on a mission. She had her list in hand, and we talked very seriously before we got out of the car about what the expectations were for this trip. We weren’t there to buy things for her. We were there to buy specifically for the people on her list. She had a bag of quarters (and a few $1 bills) to cover her gifts and the tax. We also took three extra dollars just in case she thought of someone last minute, and also so that she would have to count out the money to the cashier.

She did a fabulous job. She got a bit “grabby” a couple of times, and I had to remind her to allow ME to take the items off the shelf for her. But I was super impressed with her thoughtfulness. She’s a very deep thinker anyway, so it was the perfect place for her to stop and think about what each person on her list would enjoy. A game for a friend, a craft for another, a candle for one family member, an airplane puzzle for another. A sudoku book, a little stuffed animal, she had a thoughtful reason for each and every gift she selected. And then we got to the checkout, and she was so proud to tell the cashier she was spending HER money to buy gifts. We had the bag of quarters pre-counted, so I handed the cashier the bag and said “This is $7. She’ll count the rest of it for you.” We had practiced at home, so she knew to start with $8 in her counting. She counted out the $1’s and I handed each $1 to the cashier as she counted it. She was excited that she got to keep some, too. (I hadn’t told her I brought extra.)

Here she is opening her bag to get her $1 bills out to count them.

She was SO proud of her receipt showing she had bought presents with her very own money.

When it came time to wrap, I had her help me wrap the presents that were going to my family in Tulsa for Thanksgiving. I’ll be perfectly honest and say that having her help wrap was very stressful for both of us. She did enjoy having me help her write on the little labels, and sticking them on the packages. She was so happy on Thanksgiving (“Thanksmas”) morning to get to give her gifts to Granny, PawPaw, and Daddy!

Since we learned from the first wrapping experience, I decided to do something totally different for the rest of her gifts. The two for friends, we put in gift bags. The gifts for family, I wrapped (while she watched) in brown paper, and then she used wet chalks to decorate the boxes. I helped her write who they were to and her name, and then we put them under our tree. She is so excited about having her gifts for family under the tree!! And I know she’ll be really excited about giving them as well.

There is nothing like seeing the excitement on your child’s face as she eagerly anticipates Christmas morning… but there’s really nothing in the world like knowing that a lot of that excitement is about GIVING her gifts that she bought. Because THAT is what Christmas is all about – remembering God’s Gift to us, and giving our gifts to others.

2014 Advent Activities

Well, it’s finally here. My advent activities post. I know some of you were really hoping to see this last week so you’d have more time to prep. So I apologize for the delay… but sometimes you just gotta prioritize… and sleep is really important for this mama! HA!

I’m super excited for these activities – and I really appreciate the advice that my dear hubby gave me – to not over-do my planning because I don’t want to wear myself out. So, instead of doing a service activity every single day, I included some of our family activities that we were already planning, as well as some super simple things that will take just a few minutes to do so that I avoid burnout. Here are the activities we’ll be doing (though they are randomized on this list since some folks will read this who will be recipients of our projects, and we don’t want them to know what day to expect our good cheer)… feel free to “steal” any of these ideas for your own kiddos!

Advent Ideas

1st – Make and deliver two snowman neighbor gifts (UPDATE: link now corrected, sorry!). (This we actually ARE doing on the 1st because you want to get this started EARLY in the month – click the link to get all the info, FREE printables, etc do do this yourself!!)

Make a pretty snow picture for our babysitters.

Bake breads to give to people.

Make a Christmas card for the mailman.

Read “A Letter to Santa” and write a Letter to Santa! (USPS Santa Letter Info here)

Bake cookies to share. (Daddy’s work, cookie exchange, and other friends)

Go to Target and select one new toy for the toy run.

Participate in the Christmas PJ Toy Run.

Read a Christmas book.

See what happens when we put candy canes in water.

Build a Gingerbread house.

Kid’s Christmas party for Daddy’s work!

Make a special Christmas card and mail to Grandma and Grandpa.

Make a music video singing a Christmas carol and send to Mamie and Pappy and Granny and PawPaw.

Help make cards/stuff baskets of food for hungry families with our MOPS friends.

Make a Christmas card for her MOPS teacher

Deliver Christmas presents at MOPS!

Go visit Santa (as a whole family).

Make a bird feeder and put out for the birds. (Some great bird feeder ideas here)

Sing Christmas carols as loud as you can!

Take donuts to the nurses at the hospital.

Bake gingerbread men and decorate!

Go to Sea World and play in the snow!

Take breads and cookies out to the farm.

25th – MERRY CHRISTMAS!

The Set-Up

Obviously, you can chose any way to get the point across of what activity you’ll do when. You can write activities on popsicle sticks and draw them out randomly. You can use toilet paper rollers to do all kinds of super cute things (like I originally intended to do – check out my numerous pins here – but it takes a long time to collect 25 toilet paper rollers!!) Or, you can do what I ended up doing – and put each paper slip in an envelope. I had these kraft round labels already, so I went on the Avery website and designed some simple labels (Click HERE to download your FREE copy of these December labels! – print on Avery product number 22808, or print on plain paper and cut with a paper cutter in whatever shape you prefer). I use PicMonkey regularly, and used their designs to create my slips. Then I simply covered clothespins with Washi tape I already had to make a pattern. I removed our artwork from our art wall and used the same wire to hang up the envelopes, and then simply placed a December calendar (artwork I also created on PicMonkey, free download available below) inside our frame where the Picasso quote normally hangs. So when we pull from the envelope, we will also use a dry erase marker to mark off the date on the calendar – part of our math calendar time daily activity.

Click HERE to download your FREE copy of this December printable!

Kids in the Kitchen – Banana Bread

I love making banana bread. But I love eating it even more. Everybody makes theirs a little different, but this time I made mine very different… didn’t change a single ingredient… I just changed the physical part of HOW it was made. Because I had help! Becca loved getting to mash the bananas, loved dumping the ingredients into the bowls and stirring, and she loved watching the mixer beater go around and around and around! This time we also added in some additional math – because we doubled the recipe. So we mashed our bananas, measured them, and then saw that we had enough bananas for a double recipe. So I had Becca help me add the whole numbers together to figure out how many scoops of each item we would need. Baking is always such a fun and easy way to sneak a math lesson in!

Here’s our recipe:

Banana Bread
2 1/4 cups flour
2 1/4 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp Kosher salt
3/4 cup shortening
1 1/2 cups brown sugar, packed
2 eggs
3/4 tsp vanilla
dash or two of cinnamon
1 1/2 cups mashed bananas (the riper, the better – ours were black)

Stir together in a medium bowl – flour, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.
Combine shortening, sugar, vanilla, cinnamon, eggs, and bananas in large mixer bowl, and beat until thoroughly blended.
Add flour mixture, a little at a time, until all is completely mixed.
Place in two greased loaf pans (or I use the 4 mini muffin stoneware pan from Pampered Chef) at 350F for 30-35 mins or until a toothpick comes out clear when placed in the center of the loaf.
Cool and store in an airtight container.

Note – if you’d like to add nuts, pecans or walnuts work great with this recipe. I just poke them down into the top of the loaves that I chose to add nuts to so that anyone can easily tell that the loaf has nuts and can avoid if they have allergies.

Duplo Math

After watching a Leap Frog video where the twins had to fill up the space ship’s fuel tanks with cubes to equal ten, I decided we could do that, too! So, we made towers of ten by adding. I put a couple blocks together, and we figured out how many more we would need to complete our ten. We also made our towers into patterns. She really had fun with it. Then we turned our towers into a building. 🙂