Don't Eat Pete...Eat a Root

When Luke (my seven year old) was about two, my mother gave us a board book that came with a little tin of Cheerios called, Don't Eat Pete. Each page has pictures of 9 to 16 different faces on it. Faces made out of clay, animal faces, etc. You pick a page, place one Cheerio on each face and have one person leave the room or cover their ears. Then you pick which face will be "Pete." After that person comes back in the room, they slowly eat the Cheerios one by one. Right when he/she is about to put the "Pete" Cheerio in their mouth, everyone else yells, "DON'T EAT PETE!" It sounds like a very simple stupid game, but kids love it! This morning Luke, Isabel and I taught Sylvia how to play. She caught on and was delighted whenever we would shout "DON'T EAT PETE!" at her. The company who made the book is called Klutz and I went to Klutz.com to try to find this book but I guess it is not in print anymore. However, I did find this site that has the Don't Eat Pete game but with M&M's and a printable game board. We will have to play with M&M's next time...yum.

From the February 2008 edition of Friend magazine I had Luke and Isabel make these cute hearts and write or draw what they love. While they were busy with that I put together the one from the magazine that I used as the pattern and showed them what Heavenly Father gave us because he loves us.

Last night I went grocery shopping with root vegetables on my mind and came home with a jicama or a "Mexican Potato" or "Mexican Turnip." That is exactly what they look like too. At lunch today, I was pretty timid about cutting it, but once I found out how easy it is to peel it with a knife and then slice up, I wondered why I haven't been buying jicamas all the time! Yummy.

Isabel and I liked to say "We're eating roots!" Luke was very serious and kept correcting us, "They are root vegetables."

Christmas Comics and Funny Magazine People

This morning I had Luke and Isabel make Christmas comics. I used a piece of poster board and marker to make sections. They then had to draw and write a consecutive Christmas story. By the way, I am just adding the picture to show you how I did it. Obviously I am not a perfectionist and this was a last minute idea. You can have your children use a comic strip format for... -Retelling what they read (book reports)

-A story board for any story ideas they have

-Making up jokes

-For younger children you can illustrate a simple consecutive story, cut it up and have them place it in the correct order.

Luke's had to do with "Super Luke" an abominable snowman and Rudolf. Isabel's was Santa coming down the Chimney and a girl getting a doll for Christmas.

Luke then had to write his spelling words in sentences and Isabel has the colors for her words this week so she had to copy them down in their own color. Did that make sense? Isabel then studied seven more words in sign language and Luke read an article from his Ranger Rick magazine. Luke then had to tell us about what he learned and Isabel taught us her new words.

I then cut out heads and bodies from old magazines and let them glue them together to make funny pictures. I don't really know what that project taught them, but they sure thought it was fun.

We then finished up our coloring of the Twelve Days of Christmas and taped them to the wall. We practiced singing and Isabel and I even made up hand motions for each day. Luke was not so into that and thought we were annoying. They then watched a Bill Nye the Science Guy on Amphibians. Tonight they will do Math with Joey.