Read.Explore.Learn.- Calendars

Welcome to Read. Explore. Learn! This meme was designed to be a place for you to share the learning opportunities, crafts, field trips, and other activities you have done this week that tie-in to children’s books. I look forward to seeing ways you have learned with and explored books.

Steps:

• Link your activity below.

• Please place the Read.Explore.Learn. badge on your post or create a link back to this meme.
  
  
                                                        
  
  
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• Please try to visit at  least three of the other people that have placed links below and leave a comment. I will visit each of you and leave a kind comment and Stumble your post.

• If you are not linking up an activity and are just visiting, please try to stop by a few of the links below.

My Book Tie-Ins of the Week:       

Calendar by Myra Cohn Livingston walks you through the events and activities that go on each month of the year. The main character is set in beautifully illustrated backdrops that fill each page of this book. Oh! There are also wonderful rhymes to go along with them.
What did we do?


Calendar Number Identification

We searched for times the numbers 0-9 appear on a calendar page.


Calendar Counting


                               




We rolled a giant die and looked for the number that came up on the die.


Calendar Celebration Stickers



We place stickers on the important holidays that will come up during the year so JDaniel will have a visual reminder to look at. We also decorated squares that contain family member's birthdays. JDaniel chose to decorate some of the stickers to make them more festive.
   

Waking Up to Find New and Old Dreams

“If you want to make your dreams come true, the first thing you have to do is wake up.” ~J.M. Power

The quote placed at the top of this post talks about waking up to live your dreams. As the mom of an almost three year old, I find that some days are not filled with fulfilling my dreams or even building towards them.

Some days are about making my son’s dreams come true or helping him learn skills that will help him achieve his dreams later on. It may be getting to go to the local children’s museum. (JDaniel dreams of going there a lot.) It could be teaching him how to share or get along with other people. He will need to master sharing to be a successful child and  later man.

Some days are about redefining my dreams. I spent twenty years as a teacher in a public school system. It was all I planned on being. That dream changed when I got married and had JDaniel. I was still a teacher, but one of different kind. The shift from classroom to home meant learning a new skill set and dreaming different dreams.

Some days present new paths and directions that cause your dreams to shift. Things happen in our world’s that show us we have woken up to a new world or circumstances. There are family struggles, job changes, or economic shifts.

So when I stumble out of bed following the announcement through the baby monitor that it is morning time. I am not always sure if the goals and dreams I have for the day are going to happen or if something else will happen that I have yet to even dream off.

What goals and dreams do you have for the New Year?


This post is a part of Mama Kat's Writing Workshop.

   

If Mrs. Matlock Offers You Lemons, Take Them and Make a Pie

 

Every week for about nine months I have written a post for Mrs. Matlock’s Alphabe Thursday. There are about seventy bloggers a week that join Jenny Matlock in sharing ideas, thoughts, reflection and more that begin with a particular letter of the alphabet.


Reading each of the posts along with the comments Mrs. Matlock leaves for all of her students or meme followers is a highlight of my week.(Yes, she visits every person every week and leaves amazing comments. She sends e-mails to her students if she has a chance too.)

During L week Mrs. Matlock post was called L is for Lemon. In her post she mentioned she was going to giveaway boxes of lemons and peppermints. It sounded like she had a multitude of lemons growing in her yard. We love fresh fruit and peppermints at your house so; I left a comment stating that we would love to win a box.

Much to my surprise we were picked by Mrs. Matlock to receive one of her special boxes. The box arrived two days before Christmas. We loved the luscious lemon scent of the box. I wonder if the mail carrier kept it in the front of her truck just to smell the lemon scent as she made her deliveries.

We had guests over for dinner that night and I cut lemon slices for us to have in our sodas and iced teas. They were as impressed as we were that this wonderful box filled with candies and lemons with leaves still attached had been sent across the country to us.

I loved having the Larsons for dinner, but I could hardly wait to begin looking through my cookbooks for a recipe for lemon pie to make for the holidays. The first book I pulled out was The Taste of Home Cookbook my husband had given me the several years ago. It was within its pages that I found a two page spread dedicated to lemon pies.

I settled on one that was label light and easy. With all the sweets we have during and before the holidays light was definitely needed. I am all for easy recipes that are guaranteed to come together.

The pie turned out so well. JDaniel and I were able to work together to squeeze the lemons and mix the ingredients. He did have to be distracted to keep him from drinking the lemon juice right from the measuring cup right after squeezing it. Mrs. Matlock’s peppermints were the perfect answer.

I could tell by the way JDaniel enthusiastically licked the bowl clean that it was going to taste good. Actually I knew it was going to taste good too. My fingers were dipping into the remnants left in the bowl as fast as his were.

So, if Mrs. Matlock offers you lemons I hope you will accept some and use them to make this lemon pie.

Here is the recipe:

Lemon Cream Pie

1 envelope of unflavored gelatin

1/4 cup of cold water
1/3 cup of lemon juice

1/3 cup of Splenda

2  6 ounce cartons of whipped fat free yogurt

1 tsp. of lemon peel

1 carton of frozen reduced fat whipped topping

1 graham cracker crust ( 8 inches)

Directions:

1. Sprinkle gelatin over cold water and let it set for 1 minute.
2. Microwave this mixture for twenty seconds uncovered.
3. Stir in Splenda and lemon juice.
4. Add yogurt and lemon peel.
5. Mix well and then fold in whipped topping.
6. Spoon into crust.
7. Refrigerate for 8 hours.
8. Sit in front of a computer with a slice of pie and read the other wonderful posts from Mrs. Matlock's Alphabe Thursday.



   



Back to the Salt Mines



Many of you probably returned to working in the salt mines yesterday after a holiday break. I have been working in the salt mines for several week now without a break in sight.

My husband says I’m heading back to the salt mines almost every morning. I’m not sure if that is why JDaniel loved to pretend to work in the salt mines so much or it could be the Mighty Machines video on machines working in the salt mines that we have watched over and over again.

As JDaniel told his friend Nathan when he came over to play and was invited to work in the mine, “I work here almost every morning.” He does work in the salt mine every morning with me by his side. There is a space between the futon and closet in the guest room that has been transformed into the mine. There is also a brace that supports the futon that is the perfect tunnel for the machines to slip under to begin their work.

There used to be only construction trucks and machines on site. They would dig up the salt and transfer it to other machines that would carry it out of the mine.

Then the whole operation expanded. JDaniel has dragged or driven in almost every machine he has across the hall from his room into the mine. When I asked him about it, he said they all had to be there for a reason.

Now there is a fire truck that waits just outside the mine encase there is a fire after salt is dynamited out of the mine. You won’t want to have a fire and not be able to put it out immediately. The ten feet between JDaniel’s room and the guest room is just too far for the truck to travel.

A lawn mower that makes popping sounds when you push it is used to dynamite the salt. The pops of the ball in the mower are the sounds that come from the explosion. We have to back away from the mine and close our eyes during all explosions. Salt in our eyes would really hurt.

A drum has been added to the mine too. It is a salt drum crusher. Once the salt has been extracted from the mine, it has to be brought over to the crusher to be banged on with drum sticks. In the Might Machines video there is a crusher and we couldn’t leave it out of our pretend play.

There are tons of assorted cars and tractors parked on the edge of the mine now too. They belong to the mine workers. Other than the plastic dogs that drive the fire truck JDaniel and I are the only mine workers I know off, but apparently there maybe others I just haven’t seen them yet.

What pretend play are you doing at your house?

  

Muffin Tin Monday- New Year's Eve Meal

Happy New Year! I hope that you and yours had wonderful New Year’s Eve and will have fantastic New Year.

We had a Chinese carryout meal for New Year’s Eve at my house. It was just the three of us so; I decided a fun meal that required no more than mom ordering food and taking it out of little takeout boxes would be wonderful. My guys both agreed a restaurant meal would be a perfect way to welcome the New Year.

We ordered shrimp with broccoli, sweet and sour pork, and pork fried rice that came with fortune cookies. (I love pork. Can you tell?) It was all really wonderful and we loved feasting on it. Oh! JDaniel also had a New Year’s cracker with chocolate bits in it.

JDaniel have a few opinions about the meal that he shared with my husband and I. He didn’t think the sauce on the shrimp and broccoli was good in fact he announced it wasn’t a favorite. He usually loves shrimp, but commented on how the sauce made it not good. He loved the restaurant nuggets. Most the world would call it sweet and sour pork JDaniel renamed the dish restaurant nuggets. The dipping sauce that came with the restaurant nuggets was very much loved. He dipped everything in it including the fortune cookie.

This post is linked to Muffin Tin Monday .

What did you have for New Year's Eve?

 

My Peek A Book Giveaway (2 winners)

While this book may be designed for young children, JDaniel still takes out his copy of this book to read and lift the flaps. He loves the textures on each page and still seems to enjoy look to see what is hidden under each flap.

Some of the pages in this book have hidden noise makers in them. It is such fun to try making the noises ring out from the book.

JDaniel also seems to like the short verses on each page. The repetition of rhymes still holds his attention.

Would you love a copy for one of your little ones?

Here is how to win one of the two copies I am giving away:

*Tell me your favorite book for children. ( 1 entry)

*Follow me on Facebook or Networked Blogs (3 entries for each)

*Write a blog post about this giveaway. (3 entries)

*Enter another giveaway I am hosting. ( 1 entry for each giveaway)

*Leave a comment on Mom Loop (A BlogFrog community I am a part of) (1 entry per day)

*Add my button to your blog. Please leave a link to your site.(3 entries)

*Add me to your blogroll. Please leave a link to your site. ( 3 entries)

*Leave comment on non-giveaway blog post. (1 entry per day)

*Tweet about this giveaway. (Up to three times a day)

* Visit any of the blogs linked to Read.Explore.Learn. (My Friday meme) and leave a comment letting them know I sent you. (1 entry per blog visited)

This giveaway begins January 2nd and ends January 14th.That is 10 ways to win. The winner will be selected randomly using Random.org.