Today is my birthday. To celebrate, I went to a beautiful spa yesterday with my good friend Ysanne. We had such a blast that we wanted to barricade ourselves inside!!
I’m looking forward to eating my red velvet cupcakes (without the red dye) and Blue Belle ice-cream later today to continue the celebration. For now, I have to tend to a sleepy 2.5 year-old who’s acting, well…two.
Peace, Persist & Prosper!
-Asia
Posted in Activities for toddlers
A.J. is continuing to learn his alphabet by identifying lower case and upper case letters. I printed the capital letter heart printout as well as the lower case letter heart printout from Pre-Kinders.com. There are many ways you can use these printables. I chose to laminate both sheets so I can use them later for Amira. I cut out the lowercase letters and glued them to foam hearts so they would be easier for A.J. to handle.
Last month I created a letter board with various shapes and colors. I re-used this board with the lower case hearts to add a different spin on the activity.
The last activity I want to share was exciting to make. I think I had more fun than A.J. on this one! There’s a product called Instant Snow that when mixed with two ounces of water makes faux snow.
I turned the snow pink in honor of Valentine’s Day.
Pray, Persist & Prosper!
-Asia
As the month of “love” comes to an end, it’s a great time to begin intentionally fostering an attitude of gratitude in our children. One way we’re doing this is by creating a gratitude tree. I saw this idea on Pinterest and loved it. Unfortunately I can’t find the pin to credit the source.
For the month of February I asked A.J. what he is grateful for and wrote it on a heart on the tree. I also included what I’m grateful for and plan to keep the hearts as a keepsake.
When A.J. talks with my mom over the phone she always asks him what he is grateful for. These conversations inspired me to be more intentional about talking about gratitude and to explore ways that we can demonstrate this spirit daily. I will share ideas as I come up with them.
Pray, Persist & Prosper!
-Asia
Posted in Activities for toddlers, Gratitude
Tagged attitude of gratitude, expressing gratitude, gratitude, thank you, Thankfullness
In honor of Black History Month, A.J. is learning about some famous African-Americans. I found a simple mini-book printable from TeacherVision that is perfect for now. I laminated the sheets, cut them out, added a hole in the middle and used an orange pipecleaner as a ring to hold the book together.
Of course these lessons will extend beyond the month of February because it’s never too early or too late to learn about our history!
Pray, Persist & Prosper!
-Asia
Source: pinstamatic.com via Asia Hadley on Pinterest
I saw this on the wall of our local Pak Mail office and the attendant was kind enough to photocopy it for me. This note is a great reminder to think about our tone of voice when we are speaking to others.
Pray, Persist & Prosper!
-Asia
February is the month of love and when the rest of society celebrates Black History. I added learning opposites for February and will also celebrate my B-day this month, so you will read posts about the February happenings surrounding Valentines Day, Black History, opposites and my birthday this month.
I began the month by decorating A.J.’s door with hearts. I saw this idea on Pinterest and added my unique twist. Instead of writing phrases like, “You’re awesome!” or “You’re cool!” I decided to write prayers for our children. Each day I walk into A.J.s room I remove a heart from the door and pray the prayer written on the heart over him.
Although the prayers are from Bible scriptures, I translated them into more simple language. I wrote the verse at the bottom of each heart so that I could remember where the prayer originated.
I plan to keep all of prayers and place them in an album so that we can refer to them time and time again. I do think I should take the hearts down and laminate them. A.J. likes to choose which heart we will read in the morning and he is a bit rough on the construction paper when pulling the heart off of the door. Laminating them will make them more durable.
Pray, Persist & Prosper!
-Asia
Posted in Arts & Crafts, DIY Crafts, Holiday Celebrations, Valentines
Tagged hearts, prayers, prayers for children, scriptures, Valentines Day Craft
Happy Valentine’s Day! This Valentine’s Day we made our own cards and even our envelopes! In this post, I will show you how to make envelopes yourself.
But first, here is an example of our Valentine’s cards. Since the card has only a back and front, I used a second card to show how A.J. personalized it on the back. He also helped with the gluing and heart.
A.J. gave away these loopy straws to a few of his friends. I saw this idea on Pinterest and thought it was so cute. We made it all with scrapbook paper and little clear party bags.
Now on to how to make an envelope.
Start with an envelope shape that you like from one that you already have. Next, open the envelope to reveal the shape. Then, trace the shape of the envelope on card stock paper and cut it out. This will be your template.
Trace the template on your paper of choice. I like to trace on the back instead of the front. Next, cut the paper and fold into the shape of the envelope.
Lastly, glue the appropriate sides closed. That’s it!
Pray, Persist & Prosper!
-Asia
Posted in Activities for toddlers
Our theme for January was Winter. As a wrap-up, here are a few activities that we did during the month. I didn’t photograph some activities because I was engrossed in the moment. Nevertheless, I hope what I share is useful to you or to someone you know.
Arts and Crafts
Snowmen printable cut out from Teachmama.com. Oh you don’t know how badly I wanted to jump in and help out during this activity! I checked myself and let him do it all by himself.
I downloaded the snowman below and snowflake craft from Learn Create Love, home to over 300 printables.
Miscellaneous Activities
A.J. loves to match things, so we did some mitten matching. The mitten printable is from Prekinders.com.
He played with ice…
and even went ice-skating. A.J. enjoyed this activity most.
We learned about arctic animals and read several books. I hope to have the amazon book feature working the next time I share about the books we are reading.
What was your kid’s favorite winter activity?
Pray, Persist & Prosper!
-Asia
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Posted in Activities for toddlers, Arts & Crafts, Water Play
Tagged ice play, ice skating, snowflakes, snowman, snowman printable, water play, Winter
Source: pinstamatic.com via Asia Hadley on Pinterest
Dr. Wayne Dyer is one of my favorite authors. I don’t always choose peace, but I’d like to remember to do so. I will be quoting Dr. Dyer a lot because I’m rereading his book , There is a Spiritual Solution to Every Problem. He has so many golden nuggets in this book that I’d like to remember. I hope you like the quotes, too!
Pray, Persist & Prosper!
-Asia
Posted in Quotes
We celebrated Dr. King’s birthday by coloring and decorating the mantel with a birthday streamer. Early on the holiday we attended a 5k race at Piedmont Park. Although we didn’t run or walk, we listened to various high school drum ensembles perform. After they finished playing, A.J. took out his drum and had his own drum session. Next year we will arrive earlier so that he can play along the route to encourage the runners like the other drum troops. Perhaps Amira and I will walk/stroll in the race.
I scoured Pinterest and found 10 tot friendly ways to celebrate Dr. King’s Birthday. Some of these are sites with downloadble printables others are from other bloggers who share how they spent the King holiday. This is a great post to revisit next year. But then again, you can teach about Dr. King’s legacy anytime, not just around his birthday!
1. 11 Easy Crafts and Printables for Martin Luther King Day from blog No Twiddle Twaddle
2. Montessori Inspiration for Martin Luther King Day from blog Living Montessori NOW
3. Martin Luther King Jr. Resources and Freebies from blog One Less Headache
4. Books about Dr. King from blog All Done Monkey – Guest Post by Sprout’s Bookshelf
5. Black History Month Printables from Familyeducation.com
6. A Primary Unit All About Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. from a Teacher’s Notebook ($2.95)
7. Honoring Dr. King’s Words and Art Based Lesson from blog Wonderteacher
8. Create a Mini-book about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. from TeacherVision
9. Honoring Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Free resources from Laura Candler to go with the free BrainPOP video about Dr. King
10. Children’s activities for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day from blog Kid Activities
Pray, Persist and Prosper!
-Asia
Posted in Holiday Celebrations, King Holiday
Tagged Dr. Martin Luther King, King, King Holiday
Happy Belated New Year! So much has happened since my last post that I thought I’d better write something before 2014 rolls around.
A.J. helped juice a bunch of kale and apples a few weeks ago. Amira was able to get in on the action, too.
I froze some of the juice and made popsicles. Although the popsicle tasted good, it proved too big for A.J. to eat at one time. I didn’t mind helping him!
What’s your favorite juice combination?
Peace, Persist and Prosper!
-Asia
We had another rockin’ play date on Wednesday exploring Styrofoam. The boys had a blast playing with it. They also played lots of chase and refined their ability to jump by jumping off of the green bin. A.J. enjoyed landing followed immediately by a forward roll. The boys were forward rolling all over the place.
A.J. was excited because he knew that he was going to have a paint bath that evening. That evening he also performed a puppet show for me and his dad. I wish I could have had my video or at least my camera handy…perhaps next time.
-Asia
Posted in Activities for toddlers
Cucumber Crunch- Cucumber, olive oil, lemon juice & sea salt. Ummmmm!
This is a great side dish that I found on Pinterest. It also makes a great snack. I can happily eat these cucumbers at anytime. Yay!
Pray, Persist & Prosper!
-Asia
Posted in Activities for toddlers
Contents: pom poms, stars, larger beads, blue glitter, dollar store hair gel. I doubled the plastic bag because they are a bit thin and reinforced the top with clear tape and painters blue tape.
I finally made some homemade sensory bags for the kiddos. I love to squish them and thought the kids would enjoy them, too. Amira kinda, sorta, liked the bag, although it kept ending up on the floor or squashed in her seat. More so because she is so young and her hand muscles are still developing than the fact that she didn’t like it. A.J. found it interesting and played with it for a while as well.
Ohhh, fun.
All done mommy!
I would ask him about the colors he saw and the textures he felt and had him share his findings with his sister. Now that was funny, because all he said were his friend’s names…ManMan and NuNu which is actually LuLu. We are working on his speech and language development, which we have discovered needs more specialized attention. More on that later…
I made a special sensory bag for A.J. with the letters of the Alphabet and some beads.
Heads up: Do not take the tape from the back of the letters. Doing so will make the letters clump together and stick.
I presented it to him during our evening reading time where we snuggle and read and re-read books. He did enjoy searching for the letters, but as of yet, he has not gotten the bag out on his own to play with it. Meanwhile we will use it during our cozy reading time. This is my sneaky way of bonding and making letter recognition fun.
There are so many ways to use sensory bags as fun learning opportunities. A few are: numbers, shapes, colors, items for books they are reading, ocean animals, farm animals, jungle animals, holiday symbols…etc.
Pray, Persist & Prosper!
-Asia
Posted in Activities for toddlers, DIY Crafts, Sensory Play
Tagged sensory, sensory bags
Here are a few photos taken at our group play date. My friend Keisha brought her sons Corey and Sean over for some playtime fun. You’ll be seeing a lot of them on this blog. They have known each other practically all of their lives already!
To add some sensory fun to the day, I filled the bin with shredded paper. In the spirit of the holidays I added red and green toys to hide in the bin. A.J. and the boys had more fun playing with the paper than actually searching for the toys. Even the youngest boy, Sean got into the action. Amira had a good time, too, but tired herself out before I could sit her in the bin.
I enjoy play dates because I learn so much from other moms. Keisha is an elementary school teacher turned stay-at-home mom. She is a wealth of information and shares great tips, resources and strategies to help nurture kids’ growth.
I’m looking forward to our next play group. I know it will be fun! Subscribe to this blog so you won’t miss a thing!
Do you want a play date with me and the kids? Feel free to contact me and we can work it out:-)
Pray, Persist & Prosper!
-Asia
Posted in Activities for toddlers, Group Play Date Activities
Tagged group kid activities, play date, sensory bins
Hi, I'm Asia! I'm a wife and mommy of two precious little ones. A.J. is a two year-old spirited little drummer boy and Amira is our 2 month-old cover kicker. They keep us going, especially me since I'm home with them most of the time. We are far from perfect, but are grateful for the perfection in each moment.
Here you will find Montessori inspired crafty, creative and cost effective fun learning activities that I do with my little ones sprinkled with pieces from my journey to eat more living foods.
I love hearing from you, so feel free to share what's on your mind in the comments section.
Beacon Villages 