A while back I read Bunches and Bits idea of creating a parent-teacher conference survival basket. I thought it was such a great idea, that I stole it for gifting our teacher (Teacher N) when our conferences finally rolled around (yesterday).
I decorated a basket with some pretty ribbon and filled it with shredded paper. I included water, an energy drink, some fruit, a muffin, mints, citrus candies, tylenol, blistex, a stain remover pen, and added a very cute stamp (she uses them on paper for the kids all the time) from MJ’s Art Stamps for Teachers, just for fun.  [Do I have a picture of ours? Of course not! Grr camera!] Kidlet decorated a thankful for teacher card (since conferences lined up with Thanksgiving week it seemed appropriate) and we tucked that in as well.
Teacher N loved it! She said that in 23 years of teaching she’d never gotten anything like that, and was so touched to get such a thoughtful gift to help her through 12 hours of conferences. When we arrived at our conference time in the afternoon, she said that she’d been making the other teachers jealous all day, showing off her basket, LOL.
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The conference itself didn’t really hold any suprises. We all know that his behavior is something that we are all working on — he just seems younger than the other children emotionally and socially (and that’s not really shocking, given his history). But he is improving, having fewer emotional melt-downs, etc.Â
As we (immodestly) know, Kidlet is very bright and Teacher N had nothing but good things to say about him academically.  It’s not just that he knows things that are well ahead in grade level (ie, reading, math, etc), but the way that he looks at the world. He is constantly seeing things that tie into whatever the class is doing and the things that he knows (finding “wall words” in the community, pointing out that such and such is a noun, or a solid, etc –  that kind of thing). He is so enthusiastic, he apparently has some of the other kids (including a couple of the slower ones) doing the same thing.  She would like to have Kidlet enter TAG, but thinks we should wait a little bit to give him more time to work on his behavior and emotions.
We are probably going to have an occupational therapist look at Kidlet, mainly because of the writing situation I posted about the other day. There just seems to be a disconnect between what he knows to do and what his hand does. I had read enough on the internet to wonder if he might have some kind of sensory processing disorder. Mom and DH and a SiL thought I was just making the symptoms fit the disorder, but without any mention of it by me, Teacher N brought the subject up. So we’ll see what comes of that.
This week Open Ended Art is Non-Open Ended Art — Lets see turkeys. I decided to do a re-make of an activity we did a few years ago. Sadly, I couldn’t find any pictures of the finished product last time; it would be neat to see then and now!
Once again only about half my pictures came out, so I don’t have the contruction shots of the actual bag, or very many of him actually decorating, grr.  I set up the turkey for the most part by myself. Then over the course of 3 days, I asked the kidlet if he wanted to make more feathers. It was a little “open ended” in that I put out a bunch of different supplies – markers, paints, beads and glue, feathers, stickers, collage materials, tissue paper and contact paper, etc. I let him cut out the feathers from colorful cardstock and decorate them however he wanted.
This is our final product. Didn’t it come out great? Now I just need to line it with some pretty fall napkins and fill with rolls for a Thanksgiving meal!
Brown Bag Turkey Bread Basket
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Brown paper bag
CardboardÂ
Paper plates
Stapler
Glue
Colored paper
Decorations (such as glitter and stickers)
Red balloon
Craft eyes
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Cut feather shapes out of the construction paper. You can make a stencil out of the cardboard to make it easier to ensure all the feathers are the same size and shape. Cut out a variety of feather colors. Use glue and decorative items to decorate the feathers as you wish. You may use glitter, stickers, markers, crayons, other pieces of paper, or paint to create your own unique look. Set the feathers aside to dry after decorating them. Cut down the corners of the paper bag, making sure the cuts end about 8 inches from the bottom of the bag. Trim off the top few inches. Then fold the bag over, so all the sides line up and the excess is folded over to reinforce the sides. Each side should be double or triple the thickness it was originally. Cut a piece of cardboard that is the same size as the bottom of the bag. Insert it carefully into the bottom of the turkey basket, making sure it lays flat and also holds down the edges of the folded sides of the 
paper bag. Insert a paper plate along the inside back portion of the bag. This is where the turkey’s tail will be. Staple the plate in place. Make sure that plate is touching the bottom of the bag. [I didn’t have plain white paper plates, I ended up using a small paper bowl for the inner tail] You may need to fold the plate to fit it inside the edges of the bag. Staple another plate to the outside of the bag, making sure it is elevated about the edge of the inside plate. This allows you to have two tiers to make up the turkey’s tail. Fold two paper plates in half and staple them over the long sides of the bag. These will be the turkey’s wings. Fold another paper plate like a cone. Bring the two sides in until they meet in the middle, then crease the edges, so there is a sharp point at one end, and a rounded ridge at the other end. Fold down the pointed end about 
2 inches to create a beak for the turkey. Staple the plate to keep the folds secure, and then staple the turkey head to the front of the paper bag. Glue craft eyes onto the turkey’s head, and glue the red balloon onto the neck of the turkey to look like a wattle. Color all the paper plates brown, using either paper or a brown marker. Glue the feathers you created earlier to the two levels of the turkey’s tail (the back two paper plates). You may attach as many or as few feathers to the turkey tail as you would like. Allow the entire craft to dry before filling the bag with bread or whatever you wish to serve from your turkey decoration for Thanksgiving dinner.
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Open Ended Art is hosted over at Mommies Wise Little Bookworms. Be sure to check out the linkie to see all the other great projects!
Here’s an example of the bentos I have been doing over the past week:
Plus, there was a side car with cottage cheese and diced tomatoes. This was probably the cutest of the lot, some of the others weren’t even packed this tightly. Certainly as little variety.  Just not worth posting for the most part!
I’ll be back next Monday with lunches again though =)
I didn’t have a menu plan last week, and it really showed. Between no plan, and the hubby’s 3 day in a row craving for fillet o fish — well, we didn’t eat that well!
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There were also no bentos this week. Well, there were lunches packed in bento boxes, but not packed well, and not really in bento style. Monday is the only day of school left before Thanksgiving Holidays, so I probably won’t be posting bentos again until the 30th.
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Monday: Â Chicken with Pepper Relish, Pasta, Green Beans
Tuesday:Â Dave Lieberman’s Black Bean Soup for the FNCCC with Lime & Coriander Cream (just chopped cilantro stirred into sour cream, thinned with lime juice), Easy Mexican Corn Bread, Fruit
Wednesday: Salmon Cakes and Lemon-Garlic Aioli, Lentil salad with Watercress, Broccoli, Cauliflower and Carrots
Thursday: Thanksgiving. We are eating out this year. I’ll miss the leftovers, but I’m not up to all the work it takes with a six month old. Mom can’t make it, but we’re meeting my brothers and their families for dinner, and then going to have desserts at one of their homes.
Friday: Easy Skillet Tacos, Corn Chips and Salsa, Cucumber Salad
Saturday: Ginger Beef and Edamame Stir Fry, Rice, Fruit
Sunday: Baked Ziti with Spinach and Sausage, Corn, Garlic Toast
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For breakfasts we always have oatmeal, cold cereal, scrambled eggs, toast, freezer muffins, yogurt, cottage cheese and fruits to choose from. Â I also keep us stocked with lunch meats, cheeses, fruits, veggies, etc for bentos. Â Â Â Even when not specifically listed, I usually have a mixed greens salad and fruit available for dinner.
This post is linked to Menu Plan Monday at Organizing Junkie.  Check out the hundreds of other menus posted.
A few months back, Family Fun Magazine had a project to create the “Ultimate Homework Station“, using a tri-fold display board (often used for presentations, found in office supply stores). Thier version was designed to actually store all the supplies needed for homework, and then to fold up for easy storage.
I don’t really need it for its original purpose. I have an inexpensive short tower of drawers that I use to keep all our homework and learning materials together. But I am always juggling reference items when he is doing his homework and practicing academic skills.  Since we are working so hard on his handwriting, having the handwriting card easily visable during work time is vital to us. Horizonally on the table, it would get shuffled under other papers, mislaid, and beat up.
So I altered the idea of the homework station to provide a space for reference materials. A few things are permanently affixed (the plastic sleeve the handwriting card is in, but the card can be switched to something else, the large paper clips holding the cards on Oregon, Washington and California, but of course the cards can be changed, the red envellope on the right that currently holds parts of speech cards, the “blackboard” paper with the sight word post it notes) but the majority of things are attached with repositionable adhesive so that I can easily change things out as he masters whatever topic is highlighted on the board at the moment.
When our formal learning time is over (and he is only five, and in Kindergarten from 8 until 2. Formal “homework” and academic time is limited to what he can tolerate, often only 10-15 minutes), I can fold the board up and tuck it behind the tower of drawers for storage.
In addition to making the information easy to spot, I am hoping that the board will help shield him from distraction. I *just* made this and haven’t had a chance to see how well it works with the Kidlet, so we shall see!
This post is linked to Kid Friendly Friday at I Blame My Mother. Check out this weeks linky for more kid friendly ideas!
On a side note, Kidlet is really *really* struggling with his handwriting.  We practice every day. I have three different books that I use for worksheets, I create my own on wide ruled paper that tie into to whatever phonic sounds they are learning that week, and outside of formal learning time I have him helping with making shopping lists, writing letters for grandparents, etc and I have offered lots of fun fine motor activities. At this point, I’m not sure it is those fine motor skills that are lacking. He has no difficulty manipulating small items, using tongs to sort marbles, doing puzzles, operating eye droppers for eye dropper art, cutting with scissors, or any of the plethora of “fun” activities I have contrived in our pursuit of legible penmanship. He is a whiz with a keyboard and mouse, or with game controllers. He can also *trace* letters just fine, with very little wavering or going off the lines.
He brought home the class ‘pet” (a stuffed animal in a dog carrier LOL) and with him came a journal that each child writes in to record the happenings with the pup. If you’ve ever seen your dog suffering and felt helpless, you may want to consider looking into the organic cbd oil for dogs to help your pet. It really hit home how truly atrocious my son’s writing is seeing it side by side with the other children’s entries. He has no trouble composing his thoughts on what to write. He spells things correctly (when you can read it to tell!). He just has a terrible scrawl. Letter formation, sizing, spaces between words, and line-alignment are all off. I’m at a bit of a loss and would welcome any suggestions!
 Week 12 – Danny Boome
This week’s chef for the Food Network Chef Cooking Challenge is Danny Boome. Never heard of him! I checked out his food network recipes as well as his recipes from his UK show. I was just uninspired. I’d wanted to a beef recipe to use up some of the meat in the big freezer, but his beef selections (either on food network or on his UK show) were very limited — mostly to whole roasts / tenderloins. I finally picked a simple roasted vegetable dish.Â
Roasted Carrots and Parsnips with Thyme
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1 pound carrots
1 pound parsnips
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons honey
Coarse salt and freshly ground black pepper
6 sprigs fresh thyme
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Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Peel the carrots and parsnips and cut them in half lengthwise, larger ones can be quartered.
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Place them on a large rimmed baking sheet. Drizzle the carrots and parsnips with the olive oil and honey. Season with salt and pepper and toss to coat. Scatter the thyme sprigs on top.
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Place them in the preheated oven. Â After 10 minutes, give the veggies a toss and put back in the oven for another 10 minutes until the vegetables are soft and slightly caramelized. Serve warm.
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I cut my parsnips into 1/8’s instead of the halves or quarters suggested because they were really fat and I wanted them the same size as the carrots. It took slightly longer than the 20 minutes listed here to get them cooked, even cut down to size. An extra 5-8 minutes and they were soft as I like them.
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What we thought? Too sweet. Carrots and parsnips are already very sweet vegetables. Roasting brings that out more. Add in the honey and I thought they were almost cloyingly sweet. Yuck.  Â
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I thought that would make them successful with the kidlet. He said he liked them when I asked but when I said, “should I make them again?†he quickly said No thanks! So I think he was being polite 😉
Be sure to check out the linky over at I Blame My Mother for more Danny recipe reviews!
I was tagged by Bunches and Bits to share what I do with the bits that are leftover after prepping a bento.
I did a post on this a while back! I’ll copy that over and update it with my current changes.
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Bento-ing can be contrary to my current frugal goal of tightening up my food budget. It could be very wasteful. I cut away a lot of bread to fit sandwiches to the box, Fruit and veggie shapes leave a lot behind, cheese buses and sonics leave tons of scraps, and so on. What do you do with all the leftovers from decorating bentos?
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1. Unless I know I can dice them and use them in another meal that day, stock-suitable vegetables (carrots, zucchini, celery, etc), go into a gallon bag in the freezer along with other cooking scraps (parts of onions, celery tops, etc) to make stock. I roast a chicken at least once a month, so having those veggie bits come in handy. I much prefer my own stock – we try and cut back on salt around here, and most canned / boxed broths taste of nothing except salt.
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Veggies that aren’t that great for stock (peas, corn, etc) I will save to make a cute little skewer for the next day, or use in soups, fried rice, and so on.
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2. Cheese bits are saved in a baggie. I sprinkle them on my taco soup lunches (which I am eating a lot; I haven’t gotten sick of eating taco soup several times a week!) or use them to make grilled cheese sandwiches. They can be tossed into scrambled eggs or omelets. I also use them in savory meat and cheese corn muffins.
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3. Meat bits go in those same corn muffins and egg dishes, or tucked into a sandwich if he has one that day.
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4.I’ve gotten better with bread bits since my last post. I save them in the freezer in a baggie and whiz them in the food processor as needed to make breadcrumbs.  I can use those homemade breadcrumbs for meatballs (one of the few non lunchmeat proteins I can count on the kidlet to eat) or breading cutlets for dinner.
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5. Usually the fruit scraps get eaten right away by me or the kidlet. I suppose you could save them and make a fruit salad, but I’m happy to let the kiddo gobble them up with breakfast for a little more nutrtion.
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6. I don’t save nori bits. I don’t use much of it; he doesn’t actually LIKE it, and peels it off anyway. Just sometimes you just have to have a little black! No one here (including me) likes seaweed in any form. Truthfully, opening the bag I have the nori stored in to pull out a little bit to use makes me want to gag with that sudden fishy sea aroma that assaults my senses. So, bits left after punching out eyes or whatnot just plain get trashed, with no apology.
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I’m going to tag Arkonite’s Bento Box next and ask her to share what she does with her bento leftovers!Â
Once you accept the tag, the rules are simple:
1) Please link back to the person who tagged you and add your name to the “tagged list” below.
2) When you have answered the question (which can be in any style/format you like), nominate another (one will do) fellow blogger (who is not already on the list) and pass the tag to your nominee.
If you (the selected nominee) has already answered this question in an earlier post (well done), then your job is very easy – just link the tag to your earlier post and pass the tag on as per item nos. 1 and 2 above. Alternatively you can update it (if you wish). Have fun 🙂
Tagged:
1. javapot
2. susanyuen
3. sherimiya
4. Karina
5. MandLmom
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[Ps. No cute picture with this tag unless someone can generously suggest one which would be most appreciated! Hint, hint…anyone wanna sponsor or is just creative? All credits will be given.]
As you might have noticed, I did NOT get my menu plan done this week (yet?). I shopped for lunch stuff for kidlet, and that’s about it.Â
All I know for sure is that Monday or Tuesday I will be making Roasted Carrot and Parsnips for the FNCCC. I wanted to do a beef recipe to use up some of the meat in the big freezer, but his beef selections (either on food network or on his UK show) were very limited — mostly to whole roasts / tenderloins. So carrot and parsnips it is.
We got to open ended art a little late this week.Â
He made balls with the clay, shaped them with the tools, stuck them full of feathers and stuck on googly eyes.
He kept working on them until he ran out of clay. I guess it’s a good thing that I only pulled out a handful or so instead of letting him use all the clay in the bucket!
Getting Started
“Funny Bird”
Prepping clay bits
“For Daddy”
The fleet of critters, drying on parchment paper.
Open Ended Art is hosted over at Mommies Wise Little Bookworms. Be sure to check out the linkie to see all the other great projects!
Yesterday’s bento that just didn’t make it to be uploaded. Mom was in town the last couple days and I spent most of my “free” time at Kidlet’s school, volunteering in the classroom instead of sitting in front of the computer.
Friday’s are music class day, so that sparked the little bit I did with a theme. It was another rush and go lunch.
PB and lemon curd sandwiches shaped like notes, quail eggs, grapes, blueberries, carrots, broccoli, little bell pepper flower on top, a japanese pastry and a couple little strawberry candies.
Time taken: 20 minutes, while also making breakfast.