PRESCHOOLER MATHEMATICS IN TWO MINUTES

This year, Mr. Junior has shown an increasing amount of interest in mathematics (you can read more on it here). It is such great a time for us to work with his curiosity and add on to his skills whenever possible. The other day, he learned how to add numbers between 1 and 9 (inclusive) to 10 and 20. It took him less than 2 minutes to do it. We were about to park our car just outside of a store when we started talking about it and by the time we came out of the car, he already knew how to do it, with almost no mistake at all! 

I will tell you about this picture at the end of the post. For the moment, lets not get unfocused and continue on with our preschooler maths secret. 

Here is our trick: If you are using the number 10, then whatever number you are adding to it (only 1-9), use that number with a 'teen' at the end (with a few exemptions which you need to inform him of. ie. numbers 1, 2, 3 and 5). 

So, it goes like this;

1 + 10 = 11 (eleven- not covered by the rule above)

2 + 10 = 12 (twelve- not covered by the rule above)

3 + 10 = 13 (thirteen- not exactly covered by the rule above)

4 + 10 = 14 (four-TEEN)

5 + 10 = 15 (fifteen- not exactly covered by the rule above)

6 + 10 = 16 (six-TEEN)

7 + 10 = 17 (seven-TEEN)

8 + 10 = 18 (eight-TEEN)

9 + 10 = 19 (nine-TEEN)

Then comes the twenties (and the thirties and so forth) which are even easier! First say 20, then say the number you are adding to it and it makes the total number.

20 + 1 = 21 (Twenty-one)

20 + 2 = 22 (Twenty-two)

20 + 3 = 23 (Twenty-three)

20 + 4 = 24 (Twenty-four)

20 + 5 = 25 (Twenty-five)

... and so on. 

This exercise gave my 4 year old son a great sense of achievement and made him even more excited about numbers and all the tricks that Mummy knows about (!). The next day, we were invited to his uncle's place for dinner and he wanted to impress his uncle and aunt with his newly learnt maths skills as well. He only shares the secret to it with particular people though, and leaves the rest to wonder how on earth a 4 year-old can do addition so quickly, so perfectly. 

I suppose you have been wondering what these two photos are about. The photos are all about Mr. Junior and some of his favourites. He LOVES his fruit, his books and bow-ties. Approximately a month ago, we were invited to a party and the night before, I decided to surprise him with something that I knew he would appreciate well and would be useful and made him this black-and-white bowtie which was such a success. He was extremely happy with it. I mostly used this tutorial with a few minor changes to make this impressive bow-tie.

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VINEGAR FOR FROST-FREE CAR WINDOWS

Here in Australia, we are far from having frosty nights. In fact, we are currently rather worried about keeping ourselves safe from fire dangers due to the extreme and continuous heat in most parts of the country. However, I know my readers are not only from Australia and also, this is a tip that needs to be noted for the days when it will become handy even if it is not now.

If you would like to prevent your car windows from frosting, coat them with a vinegar solution overnight (3 parts white distilled vinegar to 1 part water).

Have a safe day!

VINEGAR AS A CARPET CLEANER

To clean some small and mild stains on your carpet, use half a cup of water and two table spoonsful of salt and clean the carpet with this mixture. Leave it to dry before vacuum cleaning the area.

TUTORIAL: Making Fabric Appliques

There are different methods and materials that can be use in applique making. Today, I will be sharing one of the easiest and most efficient methods that I use with you. This method requires some double sided fusible interfacing that most craft stores sell.

Using double sided fusible interfacing, it is very easy to make appliques. Here are some simple instructions for you.

Materials needed: 

• Double sided fusible interfacing
• Fabric of your choice
• A shape/an applique pattern
• A pen/pencil
• Scissors
• Iron
• A needle (optional)

Instructions:

1. Draw a shape/a pattern on the 'paper' side of your double sided interfacing (It has two sides; one shiny side and one dull and smooth side which is I will be hereafter referring as the 'paper side').

2. Cut your shape out roughly.

3. Place your shape on the 'wrong' side of your fabric ('wrong side' refers to the side that doesn't have a pattern and is the size that will stay inside). Don't forget, the paper side of your interfacing needs to face you while the shiny side touches the fabric.

 4. Turn on your iron. Fusible interfacing comes with instructions and it is best to follow them. Otherwise, set your iron to medium to high heat and start ironing (dry iron). It should not take long. Mine takes less than a minute (or perhaps half a minute) to work. Don't forget to give it a break though. I generally do mine about 8-10 seconds at a time and I do it only a few times for it to work.

5. Cut your fabric. This time, you need to cut carefully and cut the exact pattern/applique shape. 

6. Using a needle, peel the paper backing from the applique piece. 

7. Lastly, place the wrong side of your pattern/applique where you want it to be on the main fabric and iron it on, again for less than a minute. Some interfacing allows (or requires) you to sew on as well but with my double sided interfacing, you don't have to. It is only optional.

Here are a few examples for you to enjoy.

LEMON AS A WHITENER

Lemons act as a natural garment whitener. You can use lemon in whitening coloured clothes as well as whites. Here are a few recipes for you. 

Photo source

Try boiling some water with a few slices of fresh lemon. Once it boils, turn the heat off and add your garments to be whitened (eg. socks, linen, table clothes etc) (The lemon mixture should be approximately 5 sliced lemons or 1 cup of lemon juice for 3.5-4litres (1 gallon) of water). Leave them to soak for up to an hour and then wash as usual. Drying your garments in sunlight also helps whitening.

Alternatively, you can rub some lemon into the stains directly before washing them. If you add some 
salt to it, it will perform as a scrub and may work better if the stain is tough (eg grass stains). 

PLANTING TREES: Tips and More

Australia is an island continent that has a lot of water restrictions and high water bills as well known by most of us. Even though gardening is great in many ways, it can get quite dear as well. When planting, it is good to consider whether your plants are immune to drought and so forth. It is also wise to use methods and materials that will keep your soil moist for longer. Other ways of saving water are important too but here, I will share with you how we have chosen to plant our trees in a water-wise way. 

We used a drainage pipe (as it makes watering easier, the use of water more efficient and is so much cheaper than many other watering solutions), water crystals and some mulch as our water-friendly materials. 

First, Mr. Hubby dug holes where the trees were to go. We made sure that the holes as well as the tree roots were well soaked. 

Then, we placed the drainage pipe making sure that it was long enough to have both ends out of the ground. 

After that, we put some water crystals in the middle of the hole, around the pipe. 

We also added some organic chicken manure with Blood & Bone.

We placed the tree in in the middle of the hole with the soil that it originally had. After this stage, we filled in the hole making sure that the tree was upright. We firmly patted down the soil on top. Then, we watered the plant generously with some seaweed mixture. (We repeated the application of the seaweed mixture about a week later as well.) Lastly, we layered some mulch (approximately 5cm thick) around the tree trunk and the pipe ends. 

Tree planting - no mulch as yet

All we need to do know is to water the trees (from the pipes) every few days. (We particularly try to water them the night before a hot day). 

If you would like to read more about our garden tips and what we have been doing there this year, you can click here, here, and here. 

VINEGAR FOR BAD ODOUR

To get rid off bad odour from rooms, fridges, cars, drawers etc, wet a slice of bread with vinegar and leave it there over night.

A HANDMADE SIFTER FOR THE GARDEN

We thankfully worked with Sontec Plumbing. They were great. Recommended: 0409 695 927

As I have mentioned here, there are things happening in our backyard this year and we are excited about it all as a family. There will be other posts on other aspects of what is going on there and what we have done or learnt throughout this process. Today, here is one of Mr. Hubby's ideas and our handmade tool that worked wonderfully for us.

As you know from my previous post on our garden that we have some stones and rocks on the sides of our backyard along with the fence and we wanted/needed to take them off from there and use them elsewhere. There were four reasons for that: 1) We need to dig up some parts of the garden and the stones are very hard to work with when doing so. 2) Where we are planning to dig up the soil, stones are unneeded and are not welcome. 3) We need all those rocks and stones elsewhere. 4)We have enquired about some walk in bins to take all that dirt away from quite a few places and the quotes for a 6-8 cubic meters walk in bin started from approximately $300 and went up to around $600 which too made us think of other possible options.

Mr. Hubby is a person with bright ideas and can think outside the box. He is skillful too which is a great advantage on our behalf. He started thinking of possible solutions (can you tell he is an engineer?) and voila! This is what we did on the same day after he suggested it:

We bought a metal mesh for about $20 from a local hardware store. We came home and got working. We picked some pieces of wood that would work well for our little project from our little 'unwanted-for-the-moment' wood pile, took our drill set and some nails out out, and started to make our rectangle metal sifter. We kept one side's two wood ends a bit longer to make it easier to lift it up when heavy.

We placed the sifter on top of the wheelbarrow that we have borrowed from a family member (which we should really give back sometime soon).

The rest was pretty straight forward. We loaded the sifter with dirt using a shovel, sifted it through our handmade sifter, most of the soil and some small sized beneficial rocks went through and went into the wheelbarrow, we separated the big chunks of branches, twigs and grass roots and the rest stayed on the sifter which we then poured into buckets to make it easier to transport.

During this work which went for over a week on and off, Mr. Junior was very helpful finding all sorts of bugs and worms and informing us of his new findings. As a person who would not go to his Grandparents' house unless they make sure that their pet dogs are locked away or on leash, he did really well with bugs and all those slimy little creatures!

As for Miss Junior, she helped us out with the rocks the most by making sure that we did not miss any unwanted bits in the rocks section. She was an excellent supervisor and a worker. She inspected the rocks that we collected in a container in detail and whenever she didn't like it, she took them out of the container and put them on the ground so that we would know we needed to do it again, this time, more carefully.

Once again, it was hard work but was well accomplished and we surely had a smile on our face when it was all completed.

We even found some surprises in the garden where they were least expected! 

TIP: HOMEMADE GROUND MINT

Mint from our garden

If you leave your mint to dry in the sun, your homemade ground mint will go dark and won't look as good. Instead, do it indoors and it will look greener.

TIP: Removing Stickers

Use white vinegar to take off stickers (from toys, glass, car windows etc). First, wet the corners of the sticker with some vinegar and then using a hard piece of card (bank card, telephone card etc), start taking it off.

You can use more vinegar for the rest of the sticker and use a soft piece of cloth to take off anything that is left on the surface. First make sure the vinegar stays on the surface a bit before you clean it with the cloth.

PREPARING A QUICK GARDEN BED

We are extremely excited about our garden this year as we have taken the plunge and decided to make some changes in the garden. I will be posting more on our garden and what we are doing there this year but for today, it is about one of our garden bed preparations and a very useful tip on it. 

The sides of our backyard along with the fence (perhaps a few meters from the fence) have some small rocks and we can't really use our lawn mower there properly. We have also been quite busy (as usual) recently and as a result of it all, we have just let go of the grass and have ended up with something like this in the first picture on the sides of our garden. 

One day only a couple of weeks ago, we decided to make a vegie patch there and we wanted to make it immediately. Mr. Hubby borrowed a van from a family member and bought some untreated wood (sleepers) after work the day before we made this garden bed. The next morning was a Saturday and we went out for some grocery shopping. On the way to the shops, we visited a few local garden suppliers and ordered 2 cubic meters of dirt with some organic matter in it (Note: The price for the same amount of the same or a very similar quality soil varied from $53AUD to $67AUD per cubic meter in three different but physically close-by places!). We did our shopping and came back home in the early afternoon. After we put our two little fruits of love to bed for a nap, the delivery truck arrived with the soil. We surely didn't have the time to clean all the grass on the ground but there was no reason to stress about it. Here is how we went about it and what made it stress-free for us:

All we did was that after we placed our sleepers, we put some thick cardboard boxes that we were happily given at a local hardware store on the ground, on top of the grass (even though initially, we did try to pull the grass off and take the small rocks from there to use them elsewhere. However, the rock collecting method that we used was not practical enough and did not work there, so, we gave up on that).

You don't need to cut your grass as after you put your cardboard boxes and the dirt on it, your grass will die anyway (since there is pretty much no oxygen, no food, no drink).

It surely took longer for the four of us (of course with the little helpers when they woke up) to carry all that soil from the front yard to the garden bed than preparing the foundation and the frame of the garden bed. However, it was all worth it and we all felt a great sense of accomplishment at the end. No whingeing from any of us at all and it only took an afternoon to have this:

Not too bad, ha?

Have a great time with some loved ones today!

TIP: Cleaning Pen Marks from Walls

To clean your pen marks on walls, simply use a piece of cloth or sponge and some vinegar.

GUEST POST: Taking Kids' Photos

Here is an entry on some tips on taking kids' photos from Janet of Mum the Photographer. Thank you Janet for your contribution.  

 ***

My sister-in-law and I started Mum the Photographer as a way of sharing our passion for photographing our own children. We’re not about taking perfect photos (in fact mine are often far from perfect!) but more about remembering to capture our children and their personalities in their everyday lives.

When I think about taking photos of my own children I realise that broadly they fall into three scenarios – posed, planned and impromptu.

1.      Posed Photos. To be honest, I don’t often take posed photos of my children. It can be quite tricky to get them looking natural. Tricky but not impossible. Firstly, I find a well-lit place in my house and free it from clutter – the general everyday things we have in our houses like a few letters, pens, newspapers, a stray toy or two. These things can be distracting in the background of a photo. Once I’ve got my spot ready, I then get my son over as there is no point having them wait around while I get prepared. I will face my son towards the window so that the light is captured in his eyes. But I don’t pick up my camera straight away. Even my sons who have been photographed thousands and thousands of times don’t have a natural smile at the ready as soon as my camera comes up. You need some easy interaction first. You will know your own child the best – in my case a bit of ribbing can work, or tickling, or having them pull their silliest face and showing them mine etc. Once they’ve relaxed my camera then comes out and I take about 10 – 20 photos while still interacting with them. If I’m taking a posed photo it is generally for a reason – in this case it was to capture his first missing front tooth. I chose to have his face almost entirely fill the frame. If I’d pulled back a bit, there wouldn’t have been as much focus drawn to his face.

2.      Planned photos. This is often my approach to taking photos of my children because as “Mum the Photographer” my goal is to create a strong photographic record of my children as they grow up. I read Gretchin rubin’s book “The Happiness Project” and her quote “the days are long but the years are short” has really stuck with me. I want photos to help me remember exactly how my children were growing up. I don’t really get that from posed photos – sure, I can see what their face was like when they lost their first tooth, but sitting on a chair smiling isn’t really how they spend their time. So if it’s not an impromptu activity, I’ll often bring the activity they are doing to a place in my house with great light. Why not give yourself the best opportunity to capture a great photo. And apart from again clearing distracting clutter away from the background, that is all the planning I’ll do to get the photo. I won’t ask the boys to hold the toy in a certain way, or look this way, or arrange the blocks so that their colour pattern is pleasing. I want to get a photo of how they are playing … because all too soon, this phase of play will have passed and they’ll be onto something else. I want real memories in my albums and on my walls. Other planned photos I take will often be outside, late in the afternoon when the light is soft. Again, I won’t direct how they should play, but rather capture them as they are running off their late afternoon steam.

3.      Impromptu photos. These are those photos you take where there is absolutely no planning or posing at all. They are completely natural, and I think sometimes the absolute best photos in your album. They might not be the clearest photos because perhaps your light wasn’t great but there is no point asking your child at this stage to stop what they are doing and relocate to near the nice big window. It’s also in these times that you grab whatever camera you have nearby and mostly for me, these are the photos I’ll snap on my iPhone. I make a point of seldom using my flash when I take photos but impromptu photos are when I may well use a flash and an auto setting just so that I can capture the funny or precious moment. I recently had one of these moments on a plane … Will giggled uncontrollably for about 5 minutes over a joke. He was so infectious that the people around us started laughing too. This blurry photo is one of my favourites from over our school holidays.

If you’d like more information on how to best optimise your light for taking posed or planned photos, then “take a peek” at our lighting module from our home page. (www.mumthephotographer.com)

We’d love for you to join our “Mum the Photographer” community … check out our bog and facebook page for weekly tips on improving your photos and interesting ways in which to create a photographic record of your child as they grow up. If there is something that you think would help you out when taking photos of your own children please get in touch with us on facebook or email info@mumthephotographer.com

All the best

Janet from Mum the Photographer

CLEANING STAINLESS STEEL APPLIANCES

If you have stainless steel kitchen products such as pots, then put some white vinegar in a bottle with a sprayer head spray it to the surface you need to clean. Use a piece of clean cloth to wipe it with.

FROM MAMA TO BUBBA (1): A Handmade Dress

The pictures below are my proof that once you set your mind to something, you are very likely to achieve it! It was a day when I had so much time in hand that I didn't know what to do with and I am not a person who is extremely good at handling 'nothing-to-do' times. I had the urge to challenge myself with something and I took the plunge to destroy a never-worn shirt of my niece who has generously donated it to me for me to 'make something with'. 

I took out one of my daughter's much loved dresses and decided to make something similar to that. I had almost no idea how to make a dress but I had the courage to give it a go anyway. At the time, my daughter was possibly either not born yet, or a newborn as I remember the burgundy dress was never worn before.

Using the dress that I had bought for Miss Junior possibly even before she was born and some scrap paper that I found around the house, I came up with an amateur pattern. Basically, I laid the dress on top of a large piece of paper and with the help of a pen, I drew around it after deciding what parts of the shirt I wanted to use for the dress. I allowed approximately 1/2cm-1cm for seam (and correction if needed). In other words, I cut my fabric about a centimeter away from where the actual dress's lines were. While cutting the dress, I made sure that I worked with the buttons and the buttonholes that the original shirt had rather than working against them. I used them as an advantage to me as I didn't really know how to make my own. I used the same strategy with the hems on the skirt of the dress and the sides whenever possible.

I used some light blue binding tape that I happened to have a small amount of at home around the arm holes and just folded the neck line and sewed. I placed a soft velvety ribbon on top of the folded area on the neck for a better look and comfort.  I think it worked pretty well considering the only sewing I did was the binding on the armholes and the folded area around the neck.

With this particular project, the success was through some good planning and the amount of love I put in it knowing (or rather hoping) that one day, my little princess would wear it!

I tried this dress on the latest addition of our family just a few days ago and was thrilled to see that it sat beautifully on her. Definitely looking forward to making some good use of it sometime soon!

VINEGAR AS A RUST CLEANER

To clean rust on furniture and walls, use undiluted white vinegar.

SHARPENING SCISSORS

Cut through some aluminum foil. Place about 6-7 layers of aluminum foil on top of each other and cut through it to sharpen your blunt scissors! If it doesn't end with the result you are after after the first go, do it a few more times and you will be impressed!

Note: You can also use some sandpaper to sharpen your scissors with. Just cut into some thin layers of sandpaper and see the difference!

BANANA PEEL TO WHITEN TEETH

Nature has it all! 

I have recently come across with the picture below and it made me think once again that it could be possible and it could be this easy. Has anyone tried it before or is anyone planning to give it a go? 

TIPS FOR CLEANING IRONS

Here are some suggestions for you to use if your iron has some melted fabric on it.

• Heat the iron at low setting just until material softens, rub using a paste made using baking soda and water. Wipe off with damp cloth.
• Salt on damp cloth, soapy water and a nylon scourer. 
• Vinegar and bicarb soda
• Oven cleaner and lots of gentle rubbing using a clean cloth

VINEGAR FOR SILVER

You can polish your silver with white vinegar. Make a mixture with half a cup of vinegar and two spoonfuls of sodium bicarbonate and leave your silver items in them for a few hours before you rinse them with water and polish them with some soft piece of cloth.