Get Creative!

I've mentioned before that I love that our living room is a calming environment. We rid ourself of the tv and other distractions and now the couches and chairs call out to be lounged on, the blankets and pillows beg to be snuggled with and the bookshelves are overflowing. The tables hold stacks of books, new magazines and even games that get changed out every now and then. I love seeing my kids start an impromptu game of chess or my middle son programming his robot and of course my husband and I are always inspired to play a game up UpWords after dinner!

My purse is always full of goodies for the littles to keep occupied with, in case we are ever stranded somewhere for a long time. This has paid off many times when we dine with friends and 3 hours later we are just ordering dessert! Because these things have to be portable and changed out often, I try to keep costs low and have them fit in a snack sized bag. This game is made with water bottle caps, colored stickers, masking tape & felt!

8 milk caps get divided in 2 with half covered in 1 sticker and half in another (or just use a marker and write x's and o's on them). Now make your criss cross pattern with your masking tape (mine is only 2 strips cut long ways to make 4 skinny strips). Your DIY tic tac toe game is ready to go! I had my kids work on this one together and they really like figuring out the best way to make things work.

Chore Chart time! Our kids have regular daily chores that they DO NOT get paid to do, they are things that normally need to get done around the house and that's that. These jobs listed above are ones that my husband and I do, but recently the kids started asking for a way to make some extra money (ours do not get an allowance). I decided to quickly put this together with mini clipboards from Michael's (They are magnetic and stick to the fridge). My husband and I made up chores together and then laminated them along with the sign that goes above them. Each clipboard holds what we are paying for that chore along with the chore itself. They are allowed to grab them AS they are ready to do them, NOT hoard them. The work must alos be approved BEFORE they can collect the money. IF anyone grabs the money without doing the chore, they must do all listed chores and not get paid at all. We also have some empty chore boxes that we still laminated, in order to write anything that comes to mind. Chores pay anywhere from two dollars up to five so far. This has gotten the children SO EXCITED about helping out and being able to earn money, not to mention we are preparing them for their future with things they will need to know how to do anyway.

Enjoy every minute my friends!

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Christmas & Birthdays & School...Oh My!

WOW, it came and it went all so quickly didn't it?! We managed to celebrate the Christmas holiday with friends and family, rush in a birthday celebration for a very special 9 year old and even did some school work! Just because your friends are off of school, does not mean that we have to be! I am one of those parents and it drives my kids insane. Even while out of town for a few weeks, we are still doing school. Oh woe is me..I mean them! How was your Christmas? I am NOT looking forward to finally getting home and having to clean out toys to fit in new ones...oh and my kids all got tablets from my father...so I need to look into filtering them and doing something with those as well.

While getting ready for friends to join us in an evening of games and exchanging gifts, I needed the kids occupied and didn't have time to put anything together. I handed them scissors, tape and coffee filters and told them to create a table runner for me! The result was this snowflake runner and I LOVED IT!!

Being out of town results in a lot of eating out and sometimes even that loses its luster for children and I am so glad my purse is always full of entertainment! (No cute clutch over here) Games, cards, dice, cars, figures, tape...you name it, I have a variety in there. I like to use brain games as much as possible or even just hand them a few things and tell them to create their own games. Keeping them thinking is key.

School on the road needs to be quick and handy as well as not take up too much space so these Folders are perfect for flashcard learning! We made these folders out of cardstock and are perfect for the flashcard kids in your life. The folder closes up and stays closed with a rubberband. This makes them portable for a quick run through on the go! It's also a great visual reminder on what your child/student needs to work on. Visual enticements keep the kids eager to keep going, because they see how much they know and want to add to it! My boys are visual and tactile learners and this works so well for anything they are doing. They are always eager to fill in that KNOW column. I tell them that the know column is their brain and the more they put in that slot, the more they are filling their brain with awesome information.

With a new year on its way, I remind you to enjoy every minute my friends!

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Learning with Dominoes!

Happy Tuesday my friends! How is it that these days are just flying by? Oh yes, the old adage that when you are having fun time flies! I wanted to share some more learning fun that I made up for the kids as they were learning to count. This could easily be adjusted to adding and subtracting as well as multiplying and the like!

Step one is to cut out each domino, unless you want to preserve this game, then print out and laminate before cutting. You can get your dominoes HERE! Once you have cut out each individual domino, you are ready for step 2. Keep in mind you can use these dominoes alone as teaching tools. Have your child count each dot on each domino and you have a simple counting game.

For example -

In counting from L-R: 1,2,3,4,5,6,7.
When using as an adding game: 1 + 6 = 7
Rotate for Subtracting: 6 - 1 = 5
Multiplication: 1 x 6 = 6
Rotate for Division: 6/1 = 6
You can also use real dominoes if you so choose, they even have them at the dollar store!

This domino parking lot is perfect for your beginning counters, have them count up the dots and park them in the correct spots. After printing, you could easily white out the numbers and then fill in with the numbers that fit whatever way you are teaching. 

Make sure you remember to enjoy every minute my friends! It's so easy to want to complain or get down on ourselves, spouses, children, significant other, but if we took the time to remember that this could be the last day we had with our loved ones...well we might just rethink our attitudes.

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Learning to Read and Loving It!

Happy Saturday Readers!! I love to read, even that is an understatement. Barnes & Noble is my heaven, I can seriously be there from open to close and just look at the covers, smell the pages and feel the written word in my hands. As a child I would be shooed outside to play and would spend the entire time under a tree reading. The books were often larger than I was and I would be so lost in the story that I would lose track of time. I was the kid at recess with a book and at lunch reading. I bring books to parties, read in the car and even while waiting in line at the bank. I have a Nook and yet still purchase books like crazy. My home is bursting with books and I have this innate desire to keep purchasing more. It's an addiction, but a good one. My daughter is the same way and it makes me smile! My son is getting there and the youngest is just learning. I know with my enthusiasm for reading, it rubs off on them, but my husband only reads a magazine hear or there every now and then and I have to make sure he doesn't influence them too much! Hahaha!! This post is all about how we work on falling in love with reading!

For my youngest that is still a beginning reader, I HIGHLY suggest the BOB books. I've spoken about them here before, but I wanted to let you know how great these are again. My son is on Set 3 of 5 and he really enjoys feeling as though he mastered something when he completes a book.

5-A-Day is still another thing that we enjoy doing together. On Monday we pick 5 books that we read throughout the day all week long. This helps familiarize my son with certain words as we reach each.word.slowly.

You will ALWAYS find Sight Word flashcards in my purse. This is so that no matter where we are, we can create a game of some sort with the cards and learn all while having fun! Here we are playing on an ice cream date!

I make up fun worksheets for him too, I took words used in the Bob Books and put them in a chart-type sheet. I then had him say each word, then spell it with alphabet stickers and finally say it again. This is an activity that he can also do on the go or while waiting somewhere. It's perfectly portable and fun to do.

Even if you do not have alphabet stickers, you can do the same thing with colored markers and as they spell it, have your child use a colored marker to trace each letter and then a crayon to color the box when mastered! Get your sheet HERE!

We keep the learning love going and even involve Daddy with a BOOK CLUB! We have a family book club that meets once a week. We have snacks and games and spend quiet unplugged time in the classroom chatting. It's so easy to do this, because we pick up multiple book copies at thrift stores! For less than .60 a book, it works out even cheaper to do this for all the books we buy than just buying 1 book new! The kids love Book Club day and the youngest cannot wait to join us when he is reading on his own and not having Mommy, Daddy or his siblings read the book to him!

Enjoy every minute my friend and keep smiling!!

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Garden Science

We've been having so much fun in Science Lately as we study plants and animals and living and non-living things. There is something to be said about hands on learning. I can stand at the front of the classroom and read from a text book all I want, but when they actually get their hands dirty with soil, explore an animal at the zoo or examine parts of a plant under a microscope, it makes all the difference.  

The celery and food coloring was our first introduction into how the stems of plants work. Watching the stem 'drink' the colored water was so much fun for the kids. They each wrote out what they thought would happen and compared it to what actually did happen. After we had colored celery, we sliced off strips and examined them under a microscope. We even had a taste test to see if the colored ones tasted any different from the one that we left in plain water. 

We learned how easy it was to re-grow green onions and have been able to harvest them once a week!! This has been so much fun to see and enjoy for all of us, even daddy was impressed to see this work! We plan on trying celery and carrots next! 

As we tackled today's lesson, they sampled different roots and were so excited to tell Daddy later that night that they ate ROOTS!!! Plan for this lesson ahead of time and it will be so worth it for the kids to learn that they can actually eat roots like carrots, beets and radishes!

I made up this worksheet for the kids to make sure that they truly understood everything we were learning. It's easy to adapt to different learners. I left the words on the bottom on for the younger two and cut them off of the bottom of the page with my oldest.  

It was time to get our garden started and fit it into our lesson as well! I picked up this magnetic watering schedule at Michael's in the dollar spot and the rest of our stuff was from a home improvement store! We were ready to roll!  

With each step we discussed plant parts and what would happen as they grew. We also discussed all the different seeds and how each seed was different. Some were so tiny and some were so big that it was amazing to think of all the things that these would become. 

The kids took turns trying out all the different jobs I created in the planting process and they got along the entire time. The conversation eventually moved on to just them discussing plants and what would happen on their own, without me leading the way. They were truly involved with every step.

I made up these cute little garden markers and printed them on cardstock. They are not that sturdy or waterproof, but they are perfect for while this little garden sprouts indoors! The kids loved writing out the types of seeds they were putting in and even let Roman have a shot at it. 

Enjoy the weekend my friends!

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