Printables we used this week:

For A and M

Cone Dolls – just for fun

A and M are both excellent readers. They read voraciously. but when it comes to spelling they make a few consistent mistakes one of them is putting an e at the end of a word that shouldn’t have one (writing ‘ate’ when they mean ‘at’, ‘made’ when they mean ‘mad’, etc.) I thought these cards may help them to practice when to use the ‘magic e’ and when to leave it off.

For X –

Fall Dot Pages we used these with our pompom magnets

For Q –

Make your own stretchy baby wrap for $10-$15, no sewing required!

I love my baby wrap, I made it 7 years ago and have used it with 3 babies.  I can’t find the tutorial that I followed at the time, but I’ve found a couple of others that are just like it.

It’s really quite simple, buy a length of Jersey Knit fabric, most people recommend 5 yards, but you can go longer than that if you need more length, I made mine 5 yards but have often wished it was longer, especially when my very tall, broad-shouldered husband wants to wear the baby, the wrap is just not long enough for him.

Jersey knit fabric is usually 48 to 60 inches wide, that’s too wide for a wrap, you want your wrap to be about 24-30 inches wide. Fold your fabric in half lengthwise and cut on the fold so you have two strips of fabric that are 5 yards long (or longer, depending on what length you bought) and 24-30 inches wide. That’s it! Now you have two wraps, I kept one in my house and one in my car until I gave one of them to my Sister-in-law.

Here are a couple of tutorials that include pictures and instructions on how to make the wrap and how to tie it and put your baby in it: here and here.

Stretchy wraps are for front carries only, do not use these to put your baby on your back.

Looking for some last minute Easter printables for your tots or preschoolers? I found some adorable ones over at totschooling.net

Playdough Mats

Ten Frame

Color By Number

Number Matching

Color Sorting

Many more, totschooling.net has the cutest printables! They have tons of great options for spring printables too!

Why do I teach my kids to memorize poetry?

There are a few reasons for this:

1. Memorization is part of our Language Arts curriculum. This is the reason we started to memorize poetry, as I have seen the benefits and learned more about memorization we have added more of it to our curriculum plan.

2. Helps kids learn language patterns. Andrew Pudewa from the Institute for Excellence in Writing includes memorization in his talk entitled “Nurturing Competent Communicators” it’s free on iew.com and I highly recommend it. He talks about why memorization is important, why we should choose excellent literature for our kids, and why reading aloud to our kids or having them listen to audio books is more beneficial in nurturing good writing and communication skills than reading quietly to themselves.

3. Builds confidence. My 4-year-old is so proud of himself when he can recite a poem for someone and they tell him what a good job he did. All of my kids are proud of how many poems they have been able to memorize it gives them a boost of confidence that they can learn something that seemed really hard at first.

4. The more we memorize, the easier it gets. Memorizing multiplication facts, scriptures, a part for a play, or anything else is much easier for a child (or adult) who is used to memorizing, knows how to do it, is practiced in the skill, and has the confidence that if they can memorize 20 or more poems they can memorize anything.

Cowgirl came up with a great idea yesterday. We were playing outside, drawing on the driveway with chalk, and she came outside with a cup full of ice. She says “I like to paint with ice” and handed out the cubes.

It was a fun activity, of course the designs don’t last long, they dry and dissappear quickly in the sun.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the way we homeschool, I like most of what we do, but I want to find ways to make it more interactive and self-directed. I have been studying Charlotte Mason, TJed, Well Educated Hearts, and Classical Education. We kind of do a mash up, I take what I like from each, what I think will work for our family, and I don’t worry about what I know won’t work for us. I have been thinking a lot lately about incorporating notebooking and it was so overwhelming for me to even think about. I didn’t know how to get started, what to do, how to do it. I never even tried because I was just so overwhelmed.

So, I did what I always do. I started looking for resources to help me. Well Educated Hearts talks about notebooking, and I love all of the resources and support available on the website. I wanted to find more information and see how other homeschoolers did it, so I continued looking and I found notebookingpages.com There is a free membership and a paid membership. If you watch for a sale, you can get a paid lifetime membership for a great deal. Both include tutorials, tips and ideas. I’m headed there right now to get started on the first tutorial. 🙂

I’ve been wanting to make elderberry syrup for a while, I though it would be fun to make some gummies for an easy way to give the kiddos (and myself) a dose a few times a week when we are trying to prevent illness and a couple of times a day when we are fighting something off.

We tried this recipe from Wellness Mama. It was too spicy for us. The kids wouldn’t even eat the gummies that I made because they didn’t like the flavor. I might try reducing some of the spices and see how we like it.

But I also want to try this one from Real Food RN, this one from Simply Healthy Home, and this one from Learning Herbs. I plan to try these out one at a time, and I’ll review them all.

I also want to make some regular gummies, just for fun 🙂

I just read this amazing post from Desiree at the36thavenue.com. It really got me thinking, I’ve been really ‘busy’ lately, and have been telling my kids too often to ‘wait just a second’, I need to adjust my priorities, and put my children back on top. The computer, or my book, the cleaning, or even dinner, can ‘wait just a second’ so that I can focus on my child and give her the attention that she needs. Thanks Desiree, for helping to remind me what is most important, and for your great ideas for making memories with my kids.

I bought a set of refillable bingo bottles from Discount School Supply. I bought these a couple of months ago and we love them! I filled them with tempera paint. I had to water it down a little because the paint was too thick to work well. My kids love these, they paint really smooth lines and also make perfect dots. I love them because they are relatively clean and the kids can paint without making a mess. No water, no paintbrushes, no spills, perfect! I also love that they are refillable. The kids can get the lids off to paint, but then there are caps underneath that have the sponges that the paint comes through, and those fit tightly enough that there is no way the kids can get them off. This is a great activity to keep the kids busy while I’m making dinner, or if I need a few minutes to finish something that I’m working on.

As a mom I have said many things that I never could have imagined I would ever say. Kids have a way of doing things you never expect and putting you into situations that you never dreamed you would face. So here are some of the things I never thought I would say:

• “Girls! Did you just shut your brother in the dryer!?” – I should clarify that they did NOT shut Tank in the dryer. But he loves to play in the dryer and will climb in there any time he finds it open. So when I am in the other room and I hear Princess say ‘Tank is in the dryer’ and then I hear the dryer door close, what else am I supposed to think?

• “We don’t throw eggs at mommy!” – The twins were probably around one and a half, I was getting dinner ready and had left the fridge open. I guess the girls decided to help me because suddenly an egg splatters at my feet. I look over at the fridge and Princess has an egg in her hand, Cowgirl has one in each hand. I’m lucky that I got them to hand me the eggs nicely or I would have had an even bigger mess to clean up.

• “Cowgirl! Please don’t count your sisters food! You know she doesn’t like that.” – Cowgirl and Princess are counting everything lately, but when Cowgirl starts counting the food on Princess’s plate there will be a fight. I don’t know why it bothers her so much 🙂

• “Don’t hit your sister with the alligator!” –

• “Girls, please don’t step on each other’s tails.”

• “Don’t step on the clean plates!”

• “Stop fighting the wall”

• “I had to fix the wall right there. The kids ate a hole in it.” – This windowsill had no trimming, and it was right at the level of the girls mouths, and they were both teething, one day I walked into the living room and realized that they were both standing there chewing on the edge of the windowsill.

• “Who threw up in my shoe?”