Five For Friday: Place Value


How has your week been?  This hasn't been our finest week but here are 5 random thoughts from me!

My husband and my girls are all battling colds this week.  The minute I started to feel symptoms I started popping Zicam.  I learned this from my husband.  He used to do this when we were first dating and I would bring home all of my elementary germs and pass them to him - sometimes I didn't get sick but was just a carrier and spread the love with him.  Ha!  It would reduce the length of a cold and make the symptoms less severe.  Luckily both of our immune systems got much better and so far my girls are really healthy.  I'm hopping that I can avoid all of this cold stuff after spending the week wiping noses.  Yuck!  It seems like everyone is getting better.  My hubby learned that staying home and taking a sick day is a little different when you have two little ones.  Not so relaxing!  We've watched a lot of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse episodes and movies this week.  We stayed home all week, so our normal routine is off.  No storytime at the library, no family dinner with my family.  I'm definitely ready to get out of the house and get everyone healthy.


We have been all about apples this week.  We picked apples for the first time on Saturday and now have lots of apples in the house.  I tried THIS apple pie recipe.  I needed something easy with a homemade crust because I didn't have a premade one in the house.  This totally did the job.  Didn't have to roll out the crust - even better.  My topping turned out a little different and I missed the crust on the top but it was still delicious and my husband and I took care of that bad boy in two days.  

Today I made THIS homemade applesauce.  It was good but I would change a few things.  For starters, I can be a lazy cook so when it said you can leave on the skins and that they will dissolve I was all about it.  I left the applesauce a little chunky for something new.  Basically I just stirred it up - no mashing.  Well some of the skins were still there and not fun to eat.  So after our first round, I went back with a stick blender and smoothed it all out.  Now it is thin and liquidy but still good.  I think my next batch I'll just peel the apples first and leave it chunky.  

Now I need to get to Trader Joe's for some Cookie Butter which is amazing with apples.  And some caramel too so I can make the apples like they do at our local cider mill (sliced apple + warm caramel + chopped peanuts = yum), which is the best!

I love this math interactive notebook for place value.  Ideal for 2nd grade but could be used in so many different ways.

I finished a product this week that I've been wanting to do for awhile.  I have an Interactive Notebook file that covers time and money that is one of my top sellers.  Every time it would sell, I would think I need to make more on other topics.  I love the concept of interactive notebooks and making the learning more hands on.  Plus I think it is great to have a reference for review instead of referring to a worksheet or paper that they already took home and forgot about.

I finally got the place value version finished.  Here is a look at what the completed pages look like. 




Okay so this is totally random and you might know about this but for some reason it is new to me and saving me lots of time.  A little background - once a week I transfer pictures from my phone and my camera onto my computer and go through them, pick out the best ones that tell our story, print them and put them in our scrapbook for the week.  It doesn't take forever but it is time consuming to get my cords, plug into the computer, open the various files to get to the pictures I want.  I go through this same process if I take pictures of products or something I want to blog about throughout the week.  Well that all changed....one of my scrapbooking blogs that I follow said something about someone using the Dropbox app to take their pictures off their phone and put onto their computer.  Wait what??  That caught my attention.  I'd used Dropbox before if I was sending multiple pictures to someone and my brother in law has sent me pictures that way too.  That was the extent of my Dropbox use.  Until I read about this little game changer.  I put the free app on my phone and now when I want something on my computer I just click to share on Dropbox, it uploads it and is on my computer.  Super speedy!  No cords.  No opening a bunch of files to get to the pictures.  So much faster and is making it easier to get one or two random pics onto my computer to throw into a blogpost.  I have an Android.  If I'm not mistaken iPhones automatically save to the cloud and go right to your computer if you have a Mac.  So maybe that's why I haven't heard of using the Dropbox app for this purpose sooner.

Okay so I made the decision that I'm going to see Gone Girl, even though I haven't read it.  I had plans to read it but it is checked out of all the libraries here plus I'm still in the middle of another book.  So I know it will be a long time if we wait to see it until I read it.  When the preview has come on TV my husband has said multiple times, that looks good.  I've been watching interviews with the cast all week and I'm totally sold.  I want to see it this weekend.  I know it is going to be crazy busy since it is opening this weekend but I need a date night and my hubby agreed.  So assuming my parents will come watch the girls.  We are planning to catch an early movie (maybe nobody will think to go earlier in the day right?) and then have dinner after.  So looking forward to this.  Not only to seeing the movie but having an adult night out with my man with no diaper bags, baby food, or a giant mess at the table when we leave.

I'd say I'd go back and read the book after but that probably won't happen once I know what happens in the end.  But I have heard her other books are even better so I might try those.

Happy Friday!  What are your plans for the weekend??