Category: Holidays

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Suffering With Cold — oops I mean… Halloween Math Sheets (PreK or K)

Because we’re so busy, I often blog a week or so in advance — then shuffle things around as seems appropriate.  But in a way that’s bad because then I feel like I can’t just chit-chat about our homeschooling because there’s a post with a particular theme… hardly fitting for bantering about bad homeschool days or the house-stuff that hasn’t gotten done. So… I’m going to interrupt my own post...

Yesterday’s Family: Today’s Family – Can you imagine your 4 year old working to help pay the bills? 4

Yesterday’s Family: Today’s Family – Can you imagine your 4 year old working to help pay the bills?

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics this is how American adults spend their time: And according to the statistics, most American high school students spend very little time working (in employment): Times were quite different when Labor Day was first established.  Labor Day became a national holiday in 1894 to honor the contributions of the American worker. Between 1860 and 1900 the population of the US more than doubled from...

Free Summer Olympics Pack and Other Resources 0

Free Summer Olympics Pack and Other Resources

Can you believe the Olympics are here?!!! The opening ceremonies are tonight! You might be interested in capitalizing on the excitement and spirit of the games with your young kids with this free Summer Olympics Pack created by Cassie over at 3Dinosaurs. There are three parts you can download, plus a toddler pack! This pack includes activities such as find the difference; tracing, 3-part cards; number puzzles; counting practice; initial letter;...

The Future of Space Exploration as the Space Shuttle Program Ends 2

The Future of Space Exploration as the Space Shuttle Program Ends

We learned some really amazing space missions are in development!  Last week we watched the Space Shuttle Discovery in awe as it flew close by our house towards its final destination. The Space Shuttle Program has truly come to an end. We went to see the space shuttle is in its new home at the Udvar-Hazy National Air and Space Museum, but we were surprised to learn just how much...

What You Can Do to Celebrate Earth Day on April 22 – freebies and more 0

What You Can Do to Celebrate Earth Day on April 22 – freebies and more

The celebration of Earth Day began over 40 years ago. It is a day to celebrate our planet and think about how we can help our environment. Did you know that the Environmental Protection Agency was established not long after that first Earth Day in 1970? The Clean Air Act also passed that same year. Now Earth Day is celebrated in more than 175 countries by an estimated 500 million...

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Valentine’s Day Word Hunt Game

I came across a Valentine’s Boggle Game at Teacher’s Pay Teachers. I printed it out and much to my surprise both LD and DD loved it.  They did it both yesterday and today and then complained that it was too easy the second time. I promised the kids I’d make a new word hunt for them and just finished it this evening. My version is not as cute as the...

Valentine's Subtraction Cards 1

Valentine’s Day Math Games: Division and Subtraction Cards and other games

Valentine’s Day Division Cards I made a Valentine’s Day set of division cards to use with LD over the next week or so. We use these cards to play a game called Fast Track — an idea we got from Peggy Kaye’s Games for Math. To make the board you need a large piece of butcher paper or poster board. There are three win spaces, three start spaces and various...

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Preschool: Free Valentine’s Day Word Matching Game

ED has been working a lot on letter sounds and simple -at and -an words. I made this Valentine’s themed word matching activity for her to work on over the next couple of weeks. She has to attach the clothes peg to the matching word on the wheel. It took some cutting pasting to put it together, but if you’d like to make your own you can download the pages...

Holiday Crafts 8

Holiday Crafts

This is by far my favorite craft we did this year!  You glue toothpicks onto a star (cut out from cardboard or poster board).  Then you spray paint it with gold paint and glue a toilet-paper roll on the back.  Easy and quite beautiful! DD loved the cardinal art lesson from Art Projects for Kids. Below the kids made a few ornaments for the tree this year: little reindeers, a...

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Halloween Festivities

I organized the Halloween Party this year.  We had quite a lot of games and I think everyone had a great time. The youth organized a haunted room and another adult set up a spooky cake walk with black lights and so forth which was a huge, huge hit! The kids also loved the skeleton scavenger hunt where teams competed to find the various parts of the skeleton (we took...

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Leprechaun Bottle Doll: Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

DD is feeling a little bit better and wanted to do a leprechaun craft too.  She wanted to do something different than the other kids.  Last evening someone shared a new art website that had lots of elementary art lessons.  I took a quick look and the bottle dolls caught my attention.  When DD asked to do a craft she agreed that the bottle doll might be fun.  She and...

Word Family Activity 10

Shamrock- Spelling, Word Family Sort

Confession Time: One thing that I have not done well these past couple of years is to include activities that show word family patterns.  Both LD and DD learned to read easily and early.  Once they were off and reading, I guess I never saw much “point” in going over these kinds of things. But then… then I saw LD struggle as a writer. He has worked hard on the...

Shamrock Fishing Games (multiplication, addition or letter sort) 2

Shamrock Fishing Games (multiplication, addition or letter sort)

Today we did some shamrock fishing.  I made three different activities to be age appropriate for my 7, 5 and 3 year olds. LD is working on his multiplication tables from 2s through 6s.  His shamrocks had various problems whose answers fell between 20 and 29 (such as 4×5, 5×5 and 3×7) and other problems whose answers fell between 30 and 39 (3×11, 6×6, etc.) DD’s shamrock fishing was addition-related....

Leprechaun Craft 4

Leprechaun Craft

Today we made this leprechaun craft. For the hat, I had some round rubber gripping pads from the dollar store and cut them into a hat shape.  The kids then used a large embroidery needle and yarn to make the buckle shape in the hat. This is ED’s finished leprechaun to the left. LD had me on the floor laughing with his crazy leprechaun hat!!! Kids come up with some...