Garden Sensory Tub

This week we’ve been talking all about plants and gardens in our house. To go along, I put together a sensory tub which Kaleb has LOVED…and to be quite honest, the rest of the kids have all been crowding around it too.

Can you blame a kid when dirt is involved?

 

Here’s a little look at what we put inside our sensory tub. Most everything came from our local Dollar Tree or the Target dollar section.

~ Large plastic bin

~ Bag of potting soil

~ Trowel

~ Set of 3 mini terra cotta pots

~ Bug magnifying glass

~ Fake plants and flowers

~ Pebbles {to use as seeds}

~ watering can {not pictured}

~ Plant card/stakes {printed off from my upcoming Garden Preschool Pack, laminated, and taped to mini popsicle sticks}

~ bugs…courtesy of our children and not required.

I pulled apart the fake plants and flowers so that we could ‘plant’ them in our garden. The kids had much fun planting and staking the garden, adding a variety of bugs to the garden, and later watering the garden too!

Putting Faces to Blogs

This past weekend I attended the Relevant Conference and was BLESSED beyond measure to not only walk away having put up close and personal faces to so many different blogging friends, but also to have soaked in some amazing teaching and learned some new things. You can get a more detailed look at my thoughts here, but here are a few of the amazing ladies that I got to meet in person!!

I spent the bulk of my time with my lovely roomie Carisa from 1+1+1=1 and Totally Tots.

Kris from Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers ~ we spent several hours driving up and back…much fun! Ask her if she shared her sweet tea with me…

Jen from Daze of Adventure…

Crystal from Money Saving Mom {so wonderfully sweet!}

Jill from Reflections on Becoming and Excellence of Wisdom drove over to meet us on Saturday afternoon for a bit.

Stef Layton from Layton Family Joy and also a co-creator of The Homeschool Village…{this was at the Bible in 90 Days meet-up}.

There were so many others that I was able to met also…and I know there are more pictures floating around somewhere…so I may have more to share later, but wanted to share a few for now!

Meeting Blog Friends

Last week I had the chance to meet Heidi from Reviews & Reflections when she was driving through my area. Heidi heads up the Homeschool Crew, the review group that I was a part of for the last two years.

Her daughter Ashley was along for the trip and took a picture of the two of us before we had to say goodbye {and Ashley is just as sweet as her mom}.

So good to finally meet her in real life ~ and put a personality, smile and more to the emails that go back and forth between us. :) Now we just need to figure out a time to get together again so I can meet all of her crew too!

Fourth of July Resources

Fourth of July sorta snuck up on me. It wasn't until I did this Friend Makin' Monday post that I realized we've done little over the years for the fourth. Since we have no pictures at all to show for any 4th of July activities, I figured this would be a good year to start. I also posted some Fourth of July crafts {a cute hat and 'sparkler'} that we made today over on our family blog, No Ordinary Moments, so stop by and check them out

If I get really ambitious, we might even do a little unit study, but in the meantime {and since one of you asked}, here are some resources for you to use for your own Independence Day study.

Heritage House Press ~ Free Mini Unit {act quick!!} all about the 4th! All you have to do is sign up for their newsletter. The link is on the page.

DLTK Independence Day crafts ~ some coloring pages, printables and great crafts

F is for Flag written by Shannon ~ great mini-unit for preschoolers!

Independence Day unit ~ notes and lesson ideas {grades 2-4}

First School patriotic mini-unit ~ geared toward preschoolers with craft ideas, printables and links to online activities.

Enchanted Learning ~ July 4th activity book

Create your own fireworks ~ link from PBS - need flash to do this one

Lapbook Lessons ~ Free 4th of July lapbook

Family Fun ~ they always have some creative and fun ideas for crafts, food and more!

Perkins Home ~ a little unit all about the 4th!

Crafty Crow ~ there are a TON of 4th crafts, recipes and activities here.

Road to Revolution {PBS} ~ teacher resources, games, and more based on the Liberty series

Tour the house of Betsy Ross {virtual tour}

Listen to some patriotic songs

Have fun looking through the sites ~ and hope some of them help you out!

ItzaBitza Review & Giveaway

I'm hosting a giveaway for two full downloads of ItzaBitza, a fun computer game, over at No Ordinary Moments. Head on over to check it out!

Apparently They're Learning...

I pulled up a new game for the girls to play on the computer the other day based on European geography and they did amazingly well...much better than their Mom, mind you.

When I asked Laurianna how she remembered all the countries, she reminded me about the GeoPuzzle that they have been using, which has apparently more than paid for itself - hurray!! There are two more that are being moved over to the "buy now" section of my Amazon cart now. If it works...

The website the girls visited has geography games for all the continents and each game has different levels that you can choose to play. Level 1 allows you to click on the correct country; in level 2 you drag countries to the correct location (by region); in level 3 you are on your own to place countries where they belong. There are so many different ways to play too!



The games are provided free of charge through a company called Sheppard Software and there are tons of games on their site, including ones for vocabulary, science, math and more. I'll be putting the link in my sidebar too, but be sure to check it out!

Homeschooling Through Their Eyes

At Heart of the Matter online Amy posed a question question to her 6 year-old homeschooled son: "Why do you love being homeschooled?".

Just for fun I thought I'd ask our girls the same question. Too fun how their answers give a little glimpse into their personalities.

Laurianna (age 7) - The first thing is, we don't have to get up early to go wait at the bus stop. We get to play outside longer than we would at school and also we get to learn about lots of fun things. I like it because I don't have to sit at a desk, I get to sit at our table. AND Mommy teaches me! The last thing is you get to stay home all the time (unless you're running errands).

The bus stop comment was timely since it was freezing and raining this morning...so she was very grateful to be able to stay indoors!!

McKenna (age 6) - 'Cause I like writing and stuff. I like it better because we have different schoolwork than school does. There's less writing and stuff. And I don't like going to the principal.

This little girl just cracks me up. First she likes writing and then in the next breath she enjoys homeschooling because there is less writing (umm...really not so much, but shhh...). And since she's never been to school, or had to go the principal (other than Daddy), I'm not sure where that last comment came from!

Inchworm Art Activity

We had so much fun making this little worm! (We had plenty of toilet paper rolls around the house thanks to Zachary pulling all the toilet paper off the roll, stuffing it in the toilet and plugging the toilet for us.)

1. Cut two toilet paper tubes into rings (4 rings each for a total of 8 rings).


2. Fold 7 of the rings flat and then cut them in half. One ring needs to be left whole to use as the inchworms head.


3. Have your child color the inchworm pieces if they would like.


4. Staple the inchworm together so the his back is like little arches.


5. Use a paper punch to put two holes at the top of the worm's head. Insert 1/4 of a pipe cleaner into the holes to use as antennas. Add googly eyes.


6. Admire your handiwork.

2008 Homeschool Blog Awards

It's that time of year again - time for the Homeschool Blog Awards. Do you have some favorite homeschool bloggers? Head on over to the Homeschool Post and nominate them as your favorite blog.

There are 24 categories to nominate your favorites for (including funniest, best thrifty homeschooler, best homemaking, etc), but you can only nominate one per category. If you'd like to learn more about the Blog Awards you can head on over to the Homeschool Post to read a little more - and while you're there, drop a few names in the hat too! There are prizes galore that are going to be awarded to the winners, and we all like free stuff!

Shadow Puppets

Just a little something we're going to try at home today. Here are some great ideas for making shadow puppets with your kids: