Some on Saturday

1)  Yesterday was Field Trip Friday!  We've decided that the last Friday of every month should be celebrated with a Field Trip!  So for our first field trip of the school year, we went to the Morris Museum of Art in downtown Augusta.  It's in a beautiful building right on the river.  The museum itself was small enough not to completely drain two kids who probably aren't all that interested in art museums.  They did a handy job of checking out the paintings, commenting on some, and picking one favorite per room.  After viewing the gallery, we went outside and checked out the Riverwalk.

We got to see some pretty turtles!  There was a big guy on the end of that log.  I thought he was a rock, but Jack insisted that it was a turtle and he was right!

2)  Today was Super Adventure Saturday, so we did a small hike around Brick Pond Park in North Augusta (that's on the SC side).  They also have a 7 mile hiking trail that loops around this park called the North Augusta Greenway.  We're going to try biking that sometime in the future.

Brick Pond Park has a little man-made waterfall.  I'd call it a fountain, but they call it a waterfall.  Still, very pretty.  And they had some very friendly turtles here too!  The turtles came swimming up to us while we were standing on the Pavilion.  There are signs warning people not to feed the wildlife, but we think many people do anyway, by the way the turtles swim so close.  There were 5 or 6 swimming underneath us looking up with those sad eyes by the time we decided to head back.

There were also plenty of insects!  The gnats were horrendous!  I think we brought a whole nest of them home with us in the car.

Jack and Ginny think that Brick Pond Park is much nicer than Phinizy Swamp.  But really, that is only because Brick Pond Park is much smaller and easier to hike around.  (Not as many gators either!)

3)  Still working on this shawl.  It is HUGE!  Can't wait to see it finished!

4)  These two sets of Flashcards are now available in my store!

5)  Check this out...Make Magazine has a sister publication called Craft Magazine!  WHAT?!  It sounds really neat.  I might snag a copy and try something out with Ginny this weekend!

Have a great Labor Day weekend!

Perplexing Puzzles 8/27/14

Here's another Hidden Word Puzzle for your first graders!

Puzzles, Puzzles Everywhere!

Today, I thought I'd give you a peek into my puzzle storage areas.  I have a nice coffee table and two side tables in my living room, each having 2 drawers.  Three of the drawers are filled with my puzzles!  The first drawer above has my new Kanoodle Genius (got it for my birthday), Vikings Brainstorm, Stenzzles, Microbes Attack, and various others hidden underneath.  It is packed quite full.

The second drawer contains Pathwords JR (I got Pathwords SR for my birthday too!), Serpentiles, Tangrams, Square by Square, and various others.  Stuffed to overflowing!

The third drawer has regular Kanoodle, Turnstile, Hoppers, and various logic style puzzles, like tangrams and polyominoes.

Here are a couple of puzzles hanging out with Shaun the Sheep!  The one at the back is called Nemesis factor.  My old college-mate Jeff got us hooked on this one!  It's kind of Simon style with flashing lights and sounds.  The one with colorful towers is 36 Cube.  That is one stinker of a puzzle.  I've never solved it, but my genius nephew conquered it with ease!  And the last is one I picked up in Germany.  Just a little frog hopper brain teaser, but it's really cute!

Hidden in my games closet are some larger puzzles.  You can see Laser Maze (best ever!) and I believe that is Cat and Mouse underneath and Pirates Undercover on top.  At the very top of the pile, you can see Cool Circuits!

Here's my last bit of storage space for puzzles.  It's a new spot...I've been clearing out some other stuff, so it's not quite full yet!  (and I say yet because more are coming! HAHAHAHAHA!)  Anyhow, you can see Anaconda, Tangrams JR, Block Buddies, Dig It!, Rush Hour (in the storage bin), Utopia, Pathwords SR, and Life of George (kind of hidden, but it's there!)

And I almost forgot about these guys!  This is Perplexus and Perplexus Epic.  Our friends from Germany sent us Perplexus and Jack got totally hooked on it, so we had to buy Perplexus Evil...I mean Epic...too.

I've got some other puzzles floating around the house.  We like to work on them while we listen to stories at night before bed.  I recently purchased a wicked bluetooth speaker that can play Audible books from my phone.  We're now on book 3 of the Stoneheart series.  Our favorite character is a gargoyle named Spout who tries to talk and is really just adorable!  And the narrator, Jim Dale, is simply amazing!

Well, I hope you enjoyed the quick tour of my puzzles.  How many puzzles do you own?  Do they overflow your house too?!

Some on Saturday

1)  A couple weekends ago already (I'm always behind), we went to the garden in Aiken.  It's called Hopeland Garden and is really quite beautiful!  Definitely a nice place to visit...and it's free.

There were some wonderful turtles in the lake there and an interesting meditation maze to follow.  After checking out the gardens, we stopped at a local pizza joint for lunch!

2)  Last weekend we visited Phinizy Swamp.  It's a park just south of Augusta.  Quite a lovely place with some very interesting wildlife to see...like alligators!  We saw some swimming in the various swampy pools and that was quite close enough for us!  You can see from the picture above that Jack didn't have such a good time.  It was bloomin' hot by the time morning was wearing off.  I guess we have to save our outdoor adventures for November, about the time fall actually hits here in the south.

3)  We got some fun kitty pictures this week!  These cats have lived together for more than 5 years now and they still hate each other.  It's always fun to catch them so close.

4)  We just finished week 3 of homeschool.  One of our new curricula choices this year is Latin Alive!  We've used other Latin curricula so are familiar with the material so far, but it's definitely more rigorous.  I'm enjoying it, but the kids have decided Latin is their worst subject.  They don't like watching the videos at all.  Too bad for them!

5)  I've been working on some Spanish puzzles for my store.  These ones are Back to School themed with 12 school supplies to work with.  I also have a Zoo Animals set done.  There are 15 puzzles and activities included with a variety of solving levels, for grades 1-6.  These also include flashcards!

6)  I also finished up some more flashcards for history.  These ones are about Romanticism.  I've got another set almost finished about the Industrial Revolution.

7)  We've taken the weekend off for some lazy time.  I've spent a bunch of it knitting.  I finished the above shawl a couple weeks ago, but just finally got it blocked.  It's not my favorite.  Now I'm working on a different shawl with a yarn called Squirrel Heather...there are some fun color names for yarn!  It will be a long shawl that you can wrap up in on a cold winter night.  Oh, darn, there aren't any cold winter nights here in Georgia...

Well, have a great weekend everyone!

Perplexing Puzzles 8/20/14 - Hidden Words

A day late and I missed last week!  My apologies!


Anyhow, today's puzzle freebie is a Hidden Words puzzle.  These were designed for first graders, specifically focusing on words that first grade spellers are studying.  I'm sure they'd still be fun for second graders who might need some extra review!

You can find Hidden Words #1 here.

Enjoy!

Perplexing Puzzles 8/6/14 - Back To School

Ready for Back To School?  Here are some more puzzles to get your kids ready!  Two Rebus sets, one easier and one harder.

Enjoy!

Some on Saturday

1)  We had two beautiful days here in Augusta this week.  Considering it is the worst part of the summer, we got pretty lucky to find two whole days that were almost bearable to be outside.  So we went for a bike ride and picnic one of those days!

2)  My mom got me a bird feeder for my birthday.  It took about a week for the bird-word to get out, but starting yesterday, we've got regular visitors!  Our black cat Mona is now glued to the window sill which looks out onto the bird feeder....cat TV!

3)  School will be starting on Monday for us, so we've been taking it easy this week.  We even shared a chair massage at the mall the other day.  The kids really enjoyed it!

4)  Yesterday (Aug 1st) was my birthday and I treated myself to a hair cut.  It's shorter and has a lot of layers.  I also got two new logic puzzles from my kids, and Ginny dressed up my Build-A-Bear in a fancy outfit.  She's also holding a birthday cupcake!  JP took me out to a parent's only dinner.  It was a very nice day!

5)  Here's something I found in my wanderings around the internet this week...Mirror Readoku!  This link gives you some more information about this type of Sudoku.  And MirrorRead.com has a couple more puzzles to try.  I didn't have too much trouble solving these, except that I decided to write my numbers backwards as I solved and my backwards 6's kept looking like curly 2's.  That's a little confusing!  So if the standard Sudoku seems a little dry these days, give the Mirror Readoku a try!  It'll put your brain into a spin!

6)  Last (but not least!) Teachers Pay Teachers is having their Back to School sale on Aug 4th and 5th.  This is a fantastic time to stock up on resources to enhance your school year.  You can find all kinds of things to excite your students minds, including games and activities, art and science projects, puzzles and mind benders, classroom organizers and decor, and even complete curricula by grade and subject!  My entire store will be on sale at 20% off.  TpT is offering an additional discount with the Promo Code BTS14 for a total of 28% off at checkout!  Don't forget to check that out on Monday!

Have a great weekend!