Book reports

Last week I attended a meeting with SweetieS school teacher. In the meeting we were discussing SweetieS progress in the different school subjects.

In the past year she has made good progress when it comes to reading and writing. But sometimes I feel SweetieS gets bored and doesn’t want to whether read or write. When the teacher showed me a few pages of stories they have been writing in class I got the idea of book reports. Using a creative way to combine reading and writing would hopefully keep SweetieS motivated.

Inspiration

This is a stamp I bought of Aliexpress, from this listing. But the stamped image will be to small for SweetieS to use as her hand writing still needs practice..and shrinkage if it is to fit inside this print.

As the concept of books reports have yet to be introduced in class yet, I made an example for SweetieS to reference. Writing a few lines in her own words about the story line in the book will make SweetieS both reflect over what she just read and describe the story line in her own words. Hopefully this will keep things interesting.

Been a while since I wrote a book report 

As for the rating of the books. We are going for a star system. We haven’t decided if we are going to just  color in the stamped stars or if we a using stickers. For now we will use the stamped stars as placeholders. The star stamp is an old Stephanie Bernhard stamp I've had for years (pre Stamps of life) so I don't remember the set it came in, but here you can use any small stamp you feel like. I ordered these star stickers of Aliexpress if SweetieS opts for stickers.

Me being big planner fan, of course I have made planners for my girls. For now these pages are inserted into SweetieS «training planner». It also holds pages for her to practice her writing. I just printed some pages I found on Pintrest. Like these.

-how do you keep your kids inspired when it comes to reading and writing?

-what pages does your kids have in their planner?

Inspired by Britney

Spears....really? Well kinda, I was inspired by the colors on the packaging of Britneys perfume «Midnight fantasy».

loving the color scheme

With November just around the corner, I thought I might as well start planning my next layout in my planner. Yes this is yet another planner post (not gossip related as the title might have suggested, sorry!)

The first week of November will be quite hectic for CasaR, so might as well take advantage of the free time I had this weekend.

With the color scheme planned, I kinda had a sense of the layout I wanted to aim for...stars and galaxy of some sort. 

playing with the colors

Finally got to try out the markers I ordered on Aliexpress a while back. This one to be exact. I opted for the 100pack. Not sure I need this many colors, ever...I used the markers on an acrylic block (I wound up using a longer block than the one in the picture), sprayed some water on it and pulled it across the pages in a diagonal line. When the paper had dried, I went over with a Wink of Stella clear marker to give is some  sparkle.

Tried to catch the glitter sparkle on the left side

Then I went over with a number stencil and wrote up the days of the week with the purple marker I had used for the «galaxy» stripe.

The result

Quite happy with the end result. Now to fill out alm the plans for the coming week.

-have you been inspired by any celebrity?

-what theme do you have for November in your planner?

PJ masks birthday party

FYI: picture heavy post…

This years big happening was the girls birthday party with their kindergarten friends. This year we opted to have their birthday party together as they have many common friends. With over 20 invites handed out (and we only invited the girls) I was a bit nervous as to how many would be coming. Luckily “only” 16 girls came.

The invites was made using a template I found online, thanx to Pintrest. Here to be exact.. The Oh my fiesta webpage is a great resource for birthday printables, and ideas. So do check them out for some great ideas. I did some reasearch on comic book fonts and guidelines. I wound up using the font “Comic book” that can be downloaded from dafont.com for free,.

and here are the invites…

With the invites sent out, I started preparing all the other stuff I wanted for the birthday. First thing of…a picture to make a large target wall for the girls to throw sticky splats at. I did some surfing and found the “bad guys” from PJ masks and using the poster print function in my pdf software Adobe Acrobat Pro, I was able to blow it up 400% (!). Now came the hard work, assemble the 16 A3 format sheets of paper. It took about two evenings (after the girls had gone to bed) to get it together, reenforce the back so that it doesn’t easily break.

puzzled together, now for the holes…

The biggest challenge was how to make a temporary stand to hold it up. the finished poster measured about 1,7meters wide and 1,2 meters high and was too big for one adult to just hold it ut. With stuff we had around the house we were able to make a stand that I could staple the poster to.

pretty happy with the result…

For sticky splats (“klistreklæsj” in the Norwegian version) I had filled latex gloves wiith water, some with just plain water and some with colored water. Just fill, tie and cut of the exccess part of the glove.

I wanted all the kids coming to be able to dress for the PJ masks theme, without adding pressure to the parents to buy themed costumes/clothes for the party. So in advance I had put in orders for PJ mask sets which consisted of masks, bracelets and a cape. Since I knew I was going for the PJ masks theme, I had put in orders already in February. You never know how long packages from China will take. I bought mine from these two sellers on AliExpress: Shop3271008 and COS Store.. In my attempt to gift the sets to the kids, I had wrapped them in for each kid to open its own set. For the “seals” I printed some PJ mask pictures meant for cupcake toppers on some sticker paper and punched them out using a hole punch.

gifts for all….

To make sure that the kids would sit at the table and not run aimlessly around, I had put together an activity pamphlet for each kid. Just a little google search for some coloring pages, connect-the.-dots and some mind-activities, all PJ masked themed of course. Together with a table filled with coloring penciles, the kids sat longer at the table and not just for the food. On our latest UK trip I had bought Kellogg’s Froot Loops.. Paired with elastic string, the kids could make their own edible necklace/bracelet.

activity folder when sitting at the table

The last thing I prepped before going to bed…decorating the cakes. I had baked the cake earlier (thank you Gunhild for the supertasty cakes, recipes in Norwegian can be found in Gunhilds blog. Chocolate here and carrot cake here) and they had been cooling down for the most of the day. Just needed to wip up some frosting. Well one cake didn’t take much work as it was a carrot cake with frosting, we just called it sticky splat cake since the frosting looked like something sticky. As for the the other cake I had to put in some more work as the request was a gecko cake. I had printed out a gecko silhouette and cut it out using my trusty Gyro-cut tool. Great when cutting out shapes.. I used the negative as a template when adding the green Wilton sugar sprinkles.

yummy yummy, both tasted great

After two hours of 16 kids running around the house, I was ready for a break. But no rest for the weary….We had to get the house ready for the family coming to celebrate the girls. By evening all members of CasaR were popped and ready for bed.

Thanks to all family and friends who made the day great!

Planner archiving

This week I suddenly got the urge to look at storage options for my used planner pages. After my post about using my planner to document more memories (post here) I realized that now I really can’t throw away my old pages. With the planner community so big, I started “reasearching” how others do it.

I wanted a solution that;
- wasn’t too bulky, as I will be using planners years to come
- doesn’t take up too much space
- easy to look up/flip thru
- wouldn’t break the bank

I ordered a 6 ring folder of Ali a while back that I have used to keep my past planner pages if my planner was getting full (this one…). It has been very practical as it had 6 rings just like my planner(s). I thought about buying more of this folder to organize my “planner past”. But I soon realized that it would be too bulky. I only use week on two pages and monthly pages to the folder would be too big for a year of pages, and (I think) too small for two years. This solution might work for some…just not me. So back to the drawing board.

Yesterday I think I landed om a solution that fullfills my “wishlist”. And it is as simple as it is cheap, as I already had all the supplies I needed.

You need;
- transparency sheets
- exacto knif (or similar)
- elastic string
- some imagination

I designed a simple cover and printed on transparency sheets using my trusty laser printer. I lined up a page of my planner and marked of the holes. Using my exacto knife I cut slits where the holes are and feed the string thru.

And there you go, a flipable archive.

- how do you store/archive your planner past?

Not too early to organize

This week I put together a planner for SweetieS. Well not so much a planner as a binder set up like a planner. Just without the calender and planning part. I bought a cute planner from Aliexpress. This one to be exact. Very cute and perfect for SweetieS.

No point in having sections that require SweetieS reading and/or writing, as she don’t do either yet.

So I set it up with fire sections:
- ABC123: for all the flash cards I make/find, in Norwegian
- 中文 (zhong wen): flash cards in Chinese, preferably in Cantonese
- “free hand”; blank pages for whatever SweetieS feel putting on the pages
- coloring: coloring pages (there are tons available thru Pintrest)
- stickers: laminated colored paper for all thos stickers

I googled a bunch of Minions pictures and stuck these on dividers that I laminated before punching.

I’m pretty happy with the result…and SweetieS loved it!

	one a happy SweetieS
closed planner	lots of those yellow little guys	flashcards

And to add some bling I bough a bunch of crystal keychains for SweetieS to add to the rings. Today SweetieS is in a mood for cats…

I removed the keyring and use the hook in the planner rings

After two days of coloring I see I need to print more coloring pages…

- do your kids have a”planner”?
- what do you think of my attempt at a planner for SweetieS?

DIY planner inserts

The past few months I have been using a paper planner. I haven’t been using a planner since my university days, but earlier this year I was reintroduced to the planner society. I never knew this community was so big!

Since getting back into planners I have joined a few Facebook groups and played around with my planner.
Not finding a planner page layout quite as I wanted it, I wound up making my own. All you need is a word processing software and some creativity and you're good to go! I used Microsoft word to create mine… As I use an A5 planner, it works great to make them in A4 and just scale down to A5 – printing two pages at a time! Cut in half and hole punch. I use a hole punch bough on AliExpress, this one to be exact. Like that the holes are adjustable – in case I ever change planner size. All other options I had available where too costly on the shipping front. So far I’ve punched quite a few pages and still working smoothly for me.
So far my planner consists of MO2P – month on two pages, and WO2P – week on tw pages. Both undated so just print as many as need be. After using them for a few months now I’m pretty happy with the layout.
I promised on one of the planner Facebook groups I’m in that I would blog and post online when I got the chance. So better late than never
The files I have uploaded is in Norwegian, but the pdfs are editable - I think - so you can change the text using Adobe Reader – let me know if that is not the case. I don’t have Reader available on the computer now so can’t verify before posting this.

I purposely left out any coloring as I decorate my pages using washi, colorful pens, stickers and cute post-its. So here they are:
- Week on two pages (WO2P)
- Month on two pages (MO2P)

And here a few decorated examples from in my planner….

… the month of May

… a week in May

Well off to decorate the pages for the next two weeks as I will be travelling and not bringing my “planner stash”…

- do you decorate your planner pages?
- storebought or DIY planner pages?