Here

The House Fairy

Guess who visited our house tonight?

THE HOUSE FAIRY!

If you have not heard of this lovely lady, she is the neatest invention since air conditioning! She visits your child's room once a week to inspect the room's cleanliness. If she likes what she sees, she leaves a small gift, if she doesn't, she just leaves fairy dust. She also generally leaves a note of some kind for the kids to enjoy. You never know when she will visit, so you ALWAYS have to be ready. My girls LOVE HER. She is a friend of The Flylady. You can find ALL about her HERE.

Here is what happened when she visited us this evening:

The girls were out shopping with their grandparents, so I think that The House Fairy seized the opportunity to check out their room.

Their eyes lit up when they realized that she had been in their room!


We saw evidence (fairy dust) of her entry at the window. This confirmed for us that The House Fairy DOES indeed have wings.


She must love tea, because she had a cup and then washed her own dishes...


She left a picture of herself for the girls, with a message for them...


The girls had a clean room, so they received a gift from her!


I have to say, I am just as excited as these two little girls! I got to enjoy their clean room, and I didn't remind them even ONCE this week to clean it!

If I could only get the boys on board...

Preschool Activity Box

Here is a familiar scenario at our house:

1. I find great ideas to use with preschoolers during school time (mostly from you wonderful homeschool bloggers!)
2. I think to myself...I will remember to do that...
3. I FORGET! Or I forgot WHERE I put that idea for reference...

So, a few years back, I started collecting those ideas with the intent of putting them together into a box that I could go to when I needed some inspiration. I needed all the ideas in ONE PLACE! Well, I FINALLY sat down to do that this morning.

Here's what it looks like:

I started with colored index cards and a card box with dividers.


I thought up how I wanted to divide my activities...here is what I came up with...


Now, time to add the activities...

If the activity needed directions, I usually just put it on one card, like this...


But, for the most part, I tried to do groups of cards like this...


I couldn't see flipping through thousands of cards looking for an idea during a school day. I needed easy, so less is best for me...

Now, when I find an idea I can take two seconds and just add it to a card!

A few WONDERFUL places to get ideas for keeping your preschooler busy during school time:

• 101 Activities to Do with Your Toddler
• This Page is FABULOUS! Tons of ideas and links to ideas...
• Article by Karen Andreola on Preschoolers

A few GREAT blogs that I know of for ideas:

• ABC and 123
• 1+1+1=1
• Totally Tots

If you know of any others, please share! I'm going to put links in my sidebar for preschool idea sites.

I think I might go play with my kids now...I have suddenly stumbled upon a few hundred great ideas :)

The Many Uses of Super Sliders

Well, since it is summer and we are in full swing of being just plain lazy, I thought that I would give you a glimpse of our find today...Super Sliders. Who knew that those little coasters that move furniture could be so fun? Our kids. So here's our list of today's educational, and not so educational uses of Super Sliders.

• Floor Air Hockey
• Regular Indoor Hockey
• The Many Forms of Dance, including but not limited to Break Dancing
• Massage Tools
• For Defining Friction
• Teething Toys
• Exercise
• Sledding
• Indoor Cross Country Skiing
• Calculating Distance Traveled
• Shuffleboard
• Baby Shuffleboard
• Weight Distribution
• Stencils
• Frisbees
  
• Actual Coasters

The way I see it, you could just buy a couple of sets of these, throw away your home gyms, your air hockey tables, and your teething toys, and then just replace them with these little gems. They would be much easier to put away...toss them in a draw and be done! How fabulous.

AND, because I'm feeling incredibly ornery this evening...here's J~'s favorite use...




Or, you could just be normal and use them to move furniture...