Donna's 1 to 100 Number Book

I wanted to make sure that Angel could count to 100, so we made a number book.
Do you know how hard it is to find items for every number up to 100?
Well, I am here to tell you that unless you wanted to pay a fortune in stickers or
print up stuff on the internet, it was pretty darn hard!

Angel wanted to write her own numbers on the cover.


Besides the numbers, Angel had a 100 chart puzzle and some various problems that involved numbers.


Numbers 1 through 20


Numbers 21-40


The left side of the lapbook.


Number 41 to 60


This is my favorite item in the book. Sixty-one paperclips!


Numbers 62-70


The right side of the lapbook.


Numbers 71-79


I did numbers 80 through 99 a little differently. I had Angel do simple addition. She caught on pretty quick.


Number 100. YEAH!

American Girl Josefina Lapbook

Throughout the year, we have completed a few lapbooks. I have neglected to post them. Now that school is, for all intense and purposes, over, I have time to scan and post. I will post as I get them scanned.

This year, Carol attended an American Girl Book Club. For every historical Girl (except Julie), she made a lapbook. I have previously posted Kaya and Felicity.


Josefina is the third historical American Girl that we studied. I try to put something historical on the front of the lapbook. We learned some interesting facts about the Santa Fe Trail.


I kept a basic format for all of the American Girl lapbooks. Not only did it make it easier for me, it also allowed Carol to compare and contrast each American Girl's time period.


I try to have something that is very specific to each American girl. For Josefina, I made a Spanish word fan book. Carol got to pick from a list of Spanish words to put in the book.


Here are some other elements that I had for each American Girl. For the various elements, Carol picked a different color for each girl.




I really like how interactive lapbooks. I love not only looking at a book, but being able to manipulate various elements. I think that is why I love pop-up books so much.


I got the "Design a Dress" idea from the American Girl Book Club Handbook (no longer available from American Girl). I really like to see Carol's interpretation of the clothes each American Girl would wear.

I got the templates from HomeSchoolShare , Josefina graphics from the American Girl Website, and Santa Fe graphics from the following sites: map and picture.

NetFlix vs. Blockbuster

First off, let me say that I am have not been using NetFlix long. But I will say that so far I am impressed. I really like the "instant viewing" that you can watch on your computer. I have already watched Dr. Who and Red Dwarf (yes, I am a fan of British Television) and my youngest is enjoying Shirley Temple's Curly Top as I write this. She is even watching it on our older computer without any problem with the downstreaming.

I was a member of BlockbusterOnline. I really liked them at the beginning but they continued to raise their prices and take away perks that I got feed up and canceled.

With Blockbuster, I had long wait times not only for current movies, but also for older movies and television shows. It was very frustrating. So far, the movies that had long wait times at Blockbuster are available at NetFlix. I have already got quite a few and enjoyed them immensely either by mail or instant viewing. Did I mention that I was fan of the NetFlix's "instant viewing".

I have read about "throttling". But I don't think I will have a problem. I forget to return movies all the time and I don't like a lot of the current movies anyway. If they send me stuff that is not at the top of my queue, I do not really mind.

I will say that with my experience with Blockbust and NetFlix, NetFlix wins hands down.

I Have Finished . . .

cleaning my dining/computer room.

What a silly thing to blog about. But maybe if I do I will feel more accountable to keep it tidy. I am a "piler"--when I was young I had piles of stuff in my room. My mom is not a "piler." She thought my room was a mess. I could go directly to anything I wanted. She would just shut my door. I guess being a "piler" when it is only you that has to worry about the stuff is okay but add three more people and all you get is an unorganized mess. I still have to work very hard at not piling my stuff. Maybe if I give an update on the condition on my rooms about once a month I will feel more inclined to keep them clean. Well, anyway, here are "before/after" pictures.

For those who did not see it--this is the "before."


Here is the "after."

I know there is still a lot of stuff, but I need it for school. I have metal grid walls--the type that retail stores have on the corner wall to hold a lot of my stuff. The bench--my Mom and I made. This is the girls computer.


The work table was completely covered with stuff. I am actually doing a project on it. YEAH!


I even had the inclination to clean up my computer area. It is so nice not to feel hemmed in when you are working.

UPDATE: The living room is still clean!

BTW: I have three cucumbers, at least three squash and many tomatoes in my garden.

How To Tie Your Shoes

I am still cleaning my computer/dining room. Did not realize how much stuff you can cram in a room! While I was taking a break, I found this video on how to tie your shoes (yes, you can find anything on YouTube.)


It shows both the right- and left-handed way to tie your shoes.

My Special Angel

We were at my Mom's during Mother's Day weekend. Angel was not allowed to walk Buddy, Mom's dog, so she found her own pet to walk. It is one of those back massagers and, for some reason, the feet have lights.

She would turn it on and it would "walk" on the leash.

House cleaning

I never thought I would be excited about cleaning my house.


~MY CLEAN LIVING ROOM~
My camera is slowly dying but you get the idea. I do not have much closet storage space so I have had to stack my scrapbooking totes by the white cabinet. Not the best but it will have to do for now.


The same cat and yes, I do have a barber chair in my living room. It is actually quite comfortable to sit in.

I finished the living/school room. It took me probably a total of 24 hours to clean it completely. I even opened all the cabinets and cleaned them. I ended up with three bags of garbage (mostly VHS tapes of shows we recorded off telly). I now have my school stuff organized and I even have an empty cupboard in my entertainment center. YEAH! Now the big test. To keep it clean. I have made a new rule for the living room. Toys that are in their room stay in their room. I will know that some stuff will end up in the living room. Every night before bedtime, I have the girls do a quick clean up of their room--I want to start that in the living room. I was thinking of letting each girl have container to pick up their stuff from living room to put up.


YUCK!

Next room--I need to deep clean my computer/dining/not sure what it is room. In my defense, I knew this was going to be the next room I cleaned so I moved stuff from the living room (that I was not sure what I was going to do with) to the dining room. I don't know if this is how other people clean, but I find that if I am stuck with something that I do not know what to do with it, I set it aside and then I can figure it out. The computer/dining room became that space. Even though this room looks really bad in the picture, I don't think that it will take me as long to clean. I know I will have to break up the cleaning because I have to pick my hubby up when he gets home from his business trip in Orlando.

Will post the "after" pictures when done. (Hopefully, tomorrow!)