Junk Drawer Learning

If there is one thing I love doing the most, it's making art from items that would normally be thrown away, something else I love to do, is to make learning manipulatives! A few simple ingredients that we had around the house and 1 hour of Criminal Minds and I had a Color Spelling Game!

This game is perfect for a literacy center for kids to work on quietly alone or in a group. All you need are:

1. Used File Folder
2. Water Bottle Caps
3. Circle Labels (But you can use a sharpie right on the labels if you want!)
4. Dark Marker
5. Crayons

Once you have gathered all your items, just make up the alphabet on labels or righto on the caps and then add in the extra letters you will need for colors that double letters in their spelling. My game is for color spelling, but once you have the caps made, you can just make multiple file folder games using the same caps! Use your folder as your game mat and add on whatever you need to do and then draw circles or lines, so they know how many letters are in each word!

The caps can be used with the game or alone as an alphabet game or even for use with some spelling list words, to spell names and numbers as well!

Use cardstock or cut down an old file folder to make self checking cards with the correct spelling and the same picture that you used on the game mat. These cards can be used alone or with the game mat.

Pop everything loose into a baggie and staple it to the back of the file folder, now it all stores neatly and together.

Enjoy every minute my friends!

   Follow Me On Facebook!
   Follow Me On Pinterest!

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!

   Follow Me On Facebook!
   Follow Me On Pinterest!

Tried & True Tips for Tuesday!

How does a week go by but it feels like months or even as though it never happened? I cannot believe that a week ago we were out of town without a care in the world. Coming back always seems to take too much effort, do you ever realize that? It's as though my brain is still on siesta mode. My husband has been texting me so much yesterday and today about how much he misses me and asks how the kids are, that I think it is hitting him too. He usually averages 4 texts a day, but this week has been so much more already!

Today, I am sharing some of my favorite tips with you. My kids absolutely love Search & Find books, but wish they could cross off what they find, so they could stop and take a break if need be. A simple transparancy does the trick! I slip one over the page and they use a dry-erase marker to keep track of everything. Once they are through, just wipe it down and move it to the next page

Transparancies strike again! Each child has a subject file folder, where they keep their notes, loose worksheets and any other information I need to pass on to them for that subject. Stapling on a transparancy to the back of each page allows us to use it for quizzes, quick notes and games. It saves us paper and can be used over and over again!

You can find awesome fact-a-day calendars for around 1 dollar right now and NOW is the time to buy them! We buy them now, based on the facts and use the facts like flashcards for learning or fun fact of the day. They don't have to be done in the right order or on a certain date, the information is good for any day and this Historical Events one is perfect for our Fact-of-the-Day for History. What a fun way to begin each subject. After we read it, I cut off the date portion and just slip them into a folder, this way I can band them togethether when we are done with them and pass them along to a new family! Do this for younger students with colorful calendars that have beautiful pictures and you can use them for art work and collages. Cut out the Months and Days of the Week and laminate them and you have instant flashcards for an ordering game. Cut out 1 month of calendar squares numbered 1-31 and you have flashcards for counting, skip counting, adding, subtracting...you get creative!

Enjoy every minute my friends!

   Follow Me On Facebook!
   Follow Me On Pinterest!

DIY Learning Games

Happy Friday!! Boy how good does it feel to say that? This has been a draggy week (is draggy even a word?!) and I am very happy to welcome the weekend with open arms. I am ready to dive right into the weekend and not look back so today's post will just be a round up of learning games that I have created over the years, photographed and then never posted about. Life seems to always get the best of me and I can't say that I mind! Here is a simple alphabet game using water bottle caps, paint chips, stickers and a marker! Easy and saving plastic from the landfills! 

Chicka Chicka Boom Boom...will there be enough room?? This book is a long time favorite in our house and we must speak about it a lot because at one point we had FIVE copies?! Hardcovers, soft covers, signed...you name it! I am also the mother of fidgety boys that love to wander around while I was reading, so I created a game for them! Taking linking monkeys and then writing letters on their bellies, and a plastic tree turned coconut tree, I created a chick chicka boom boom prop and the kids would search for the letter I was reading about and place it in the tree. There was never enough room for those silly monkeys and just like in the book it would topple over and the letters would scatter about. 

Counting is a simple thing to do, but it gets boring learning the same old way! Using pieces from other games that I saved when parts went missing, I created this matching and counting game when I added in animal counters as well! Remember, anything can be a counter but the brighter and more fun, the more it's like playing and less like learning! 

Teaching simple addition and subtraction? Flashcards can be ever-so-boring! Add in some unifix counters and then the children have a visual tool to use and see the answer. As they configure the problem with the cubes, they are repeating the problem in their head and counting with each cube. This is helping them remember even more!

Remember my friends to take the time to remember every minute! Enjoy your weekend!

   Follow Me On Facebook!
   Follow Me On Pinterest!

Upcycle & Play!

If there is one thing we love to do in this house, it is recycle and upcycle! As you can see from almost all of my posts, I enjoy giving everything multiple purposes. This way items are constantly seeing new life and not the trash heap. 

One of our favorite things to do is Cardboard Building! Whenever we get a delivery of something in a large box, the box is always the hot item. First it gets massive amounts of play AS IS, but then it begins to take on a world of it's own when it's starting to get a bit too warped.

Cutting slits into the cardboard makes them stackable now! They use the slits to interlock the pieces and build away!

The best part about cardboad building? When playtime is over, it stores flat! When it gets too torn up, it gets recycled and when it's time for more fun, the cardboard is always FREE!!

Something else we used A LOT around here? Baby Toy Links!! I use them everywhere to hold stuff up. Here they are on our school cart, holding bags of library books and stuff we need for an upcoming project. In my daughters room they hold her purses on a rod, in my room they hold scarves...on and on it goes! 

YES I DO!!! Enjoy every minute my friends!!

   Follow Me On Facebook!
   Follow Me On Pinterest!

Take Out Tuesday

It's Tuesday and today I am just going to take some time out of my scheduled blog posts and just ramble on about a mish mash of things! Our co-op took a field trip to a working fire station yesterday and I have never met a more personable group of people. They were AWESOME with the kids and really put together a great trip for us. What a blessing that we get to take these trips and enjoy them as we do with friends both new and old! It was definitely a fun Monday and as most homeschoolers do, we ended the day at the library! It was funny listening to all the families as they were packing up to leave and hearing how many were headed to the library, with 12+ branches between us all, we were all headed in different directions but still with the same goal in mind...books truly do open up another world.

My craft in a minute involves upcycling containers! Many do not have labels that can be peeled off or have labels that are just too stubborn to come off. I don't have time to soak them (when is the sink empty enough to do that?) nor do I have time to peel them little by little. We make it a fun project and let the kids go wild with collage photos from old maps, magazines and travel guides. They use those and packing tape and voila! a new container is born!

A way to keep my kids helping me upcycle, I keep this cup hanging right above our recycling bin and they know to throw in pop tabs (Ronald McDonald House), Batteries (Ronald McDonald House) and caps of all kinds (upcycling). This helps me keep it all contained until we need to deliver them somewhere or use them! Rod & Cup are both from Ikea!

A sneak peak at an upcoming blog post this week! Cardboard creations are so easy to make, store flat and are great for hours of fun...oh wait and they are free too!

Yesterday was a fantastic mail day as our Disney Cruise package arrived AND the Spectrum workbooks I will be reviewing for this blog! Check out all their goodies HERE and be sure to like their Facebook page HERE! I love their workbooks and have used them in the past to prepare my children for testing and to evaluate if they are at the level where they should be, before I pay for their state testing to be done. I look forward to diving right in with these and passing along my honest opinion of them in the near future!

Remember my friends that every day is a gift and to take time to enjoy each and every minute! Good things are just around the corner!

   Follow Me On Facebook!
   Follow Me On Pinterest!

Recycle and Make New!

Do you have chunky puzzle pieces or even worse...board books that have seen better days? Are the pages tearing out, missing pieces or just ready to go to that great book heaven out there? Give them new life by salvaging all the can be saved and punch holes in them all around the edge to make Lacing Cards! Add a shoe lace and pop them into a pencil pouch and you have a busy bag! If you don't have any shoelaces, use string and tape the ends to make a "needle" and you are all set! Want to get even more involved? Pick up wood spools from any craft store and wind your laces around them for a mini 'sewing kit'!

If you are new here, we are on our way to Disney World and I am making the Littles Epcot Passports and adding 1 page a day. Page 2 has been added HERE and there are plenty more to come. I will post a link to print all pages when the passport is complete! Take a look and remember when you hover over a photo on my blog, you can pin it easily to pinterest!

Remember to enjoy every minute, but to also take time to do some good in the world!

   Follow Me On Facebook!
   Follow Me On Pinterest!

Corner of my Classroom

Today's corner of our classroom holds our globe, hundreds counters and an old straw dispenser that now holds pencils!

   Follow Me On Facebook!
   Follow Me On Pinterest!

Loving Learning!

Did you know that it's not quite as hard as you think to have children that love to learn? No, really! All 3 of my kids absolutely love to engage in any form of learning, the secret? I make it fun!! Simple toys can become learning experiences when you add in some alphabet or number stickers. Blocks can help with spelling words when you add stickers on those too! Rub on letters on rocks are fun to make and help create a word garden out of rocks! It's NOT expensive to get creative and you usually have the stuff you need on hand already. Look around and let your mind lead the way!

A sharpie on some bath tub slip stoppers creates a fun game for bathtime or water table play! Work on learning numbers for the Little Ones and then make it into a math game with addition and subtraction of numbers! Work your way to Multiplication and Division too! This is so easy to adapt for many different age levels.

Still don't have that stuff laying around? Check your recycling bin for anything and turn it into something else altogether! A yogurt container turns into a green house when paired with the bottom of a 2 liter bottle and you drill holes on the bottom of it, use the lid as the water catcher. Use a crystal lite container to transform it into a see through planter, where you can watch the plants roots as they take hold in the container. 

It's not hard at all to get creative and it's definitely not expensive! Sorry for the delay once again in writing, we have been busy finishing up our school year and then picking up a huge volunteer job that the whole family gets to help out with and takes over our Saturdays! Until next time my friends, when I will share more recycling fun! ~Enjoy every moment!

   Follow Me On Facebook!
   Follow Me On Pinterest!

It's Too Hot To Blog...

I am grateful for this weather but it's HOT HOT HOT. I am loving getting to spend all this time with the kids but we have to get creative to stay cool!

A snack cart is an absolute must, to keep the kids hydrated and everyone snacking healthy!

Planting in the cool soil keep us feeling good but also gives us an excuse to splash with the hose a bit!

A water bottle, hammer and screwdriver make the BEST watering can for little hands! Just poke holes in the cap using the screwdriver and hammer!

Some screen stretched in between scrap wood and screwed into our porch makes the BEST place to clean out goodies while found on our outdoor adventures.

A little bit of soapy water is the best way to stay cool, with a bike and scooter wash!

Add in a bucket of clean water for rinsing and it's become a magnet for hot children!

Time to get ready for beach weather too! This net bag is recycled from oranges that I bought and all I did was save recyclables for castle building and some shovels we got from going on a school tour. Now I have an all-recycled beach bag for each child that allows the sand to fall out of it and if something gets broken, no big deal throwing it away!

Enjoy every minute and take chances everyone! 

   Follow Me On Facebook!
   Follow Me On Pinterest!