Boggle Jr. Games

So I am planning for next week's return to workboxes and serious school time. While I was writing up plans last night I decided to focus on word families a little more in hopes of helping Cameron with reading and inspiring fun learning for Nathan. We are starting out United States unit that will last about 25 weeks (2 states per week).  I finally decide to do the states in Alphabetical order for simplicity and also to work on Alphabetical order with the boys.  Alabama and Alaska will be the first 2 states. I decided we will do word families _at  and _ad during the week as well.  I had planned on making word family cards using Sherwin Williams paint swatch cards I picked up while dreaming on new house colors (they already had a hole punched in them for a block). I traced the word family letters onto 2 of the cards and began playing with the Boggle jr cubes.  After a couple of minutes Nathan joined me and told me it would be easier if we just used the game board that comes with the blocks.  So the Boggle jr. game 'board' is now housing --at and --ad blocks ready for next week's lessons.. ( I picked up Boggle jr. at Goodwill and actually ended up with 2 games so each of the boys will be able to work on the word families at the same time. Might even make a game/ contest out of it)

Other than traditional Boggle jr. rules, have you played games using the cubes or the board? I would love to hear any other uses for these fun blocks and boards.

Bouncing into Summer

As many of you know I love Goodwill and Freecycle...
Well, I just happened to be in the right place at the right time as a friend was preparing to take a used hand me down Bouncy House to Goodwill. He asked if I thought Mike could fix it for the boys and would he want it... Heck yah!!! so we are now the proud owners of the Bouncy Castle...

Computer Joys and Woes

It is crazy!
I love working with them, but some days I just hate these dang machines... I've been working with computers for a long time (since age 10 to be exact), from my first machine.... a Vic20 (yes I had one, and I think it is still in my parents' garage somewhere) to my current XP machines (all are at least 4 years old...) I enjoy the challenge I guess, but at the same time the frustration with the simple stuff can really drive a girl nuts!

Of course my husband loves the fact that I can take a machine that most people would throw out and resurect it and make it go and better yet, I seem to find the best components at goodwill... Last week is the perfect example... My laptop is almost 8 years old (we have a history....ha ha) and I was complaining about the networking issues I seem to be having... well at goodwill I found a brand new in the box PCMCIA card with ethernet connector.... (I had been eyeing one at Staples for $34.00) anyway, the card was only $4.99...!! yippee, I got it home and mazingly enough it works... (I'm on the laptop connected to the home network now...). Also found an older zip drive (parallel port) and an HP scanner that just need a plug (which I happen to have)... how exciting... so with my awesome deals found at Goodwill I was able to restore some digital files I had saved on zip disks (lost my old zip drive) and scan some scrapbook pieces (die cuts and stickers) that I want to use in my digital scrapbooking... all in all those were the computer joys...

And so far the Woes have been working themselves out... Now just need to find a couple of odds and ends to add to my desktop computer (needs a little more life and spunk) and we will be ready to go... Of course I still need to try and fix the older computer that was smoking so the boys have their game back....