Monthly Archive: July 2012

Arrowheads 2

We Found an Arrowhead!!

I’ve been bursting at the seams to write this post, but wanted to wait til I had more information before sharing our excitement! Can you believe, we found an arrowhead on our property?! Okay, so technically it’s not an arrowhead, more about that in a second.   The first thing we did was start googling to find out more information. I really didn’t know too much about arrowheads. I was...

Fitness Game for Kids —  Bakari 0

Fitness Game for Kids — Bakari

A couple of months ago I featured a fitness board game called Flip2BFit.  My kids really loved it.  Today I’m going to review a similar product they put out called Bakari.  It is a fitness memory game. The kids have been itching to play that as well and we finally got a chance to play it. It was a huge hit too!  I thought it’d be perfect to feature today as we’ll...

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;...

Black Bean Dip: Simple to Make! 0

Black Bean Dip: Simple to Make!

Over the weekend we had a barbecue for friends. One family is vegan and I tried a new recipe that I thought they could eat.  It was so simple to make and delicious that I thought I’d share it here. Why not, right?! Homeschoolers eat too! Since I was making other Mexican dishes I used half a can each of black beans and kidney beans.  The original recipe called for one full...

Northern Green Frog 0

Backyard Nature

This is a Northern Green Frog that took up residence in our little man-made pond. It’s been there for four months. If you’ve been following our blog for a while, you know that we love spending time outdoors. We live nestled down in the woods and have lots of critters and creatures around the creek that cuts through our property and in the woods beyond.   The kids have learned to...

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Sunny Side Up: Number Recognition Dice Game for 4-6 yr. olds

This is a game I’ve played with all of my kids as they’ve started working on double-digit number recognition.   *Make your own dice (5 total) with the numbers 1-5 and a sunny side. You can use wooden cubes (available at a craft store such as Michaels). *Each player gets their own 3×3 square card (available here). *Roll all 5 dice and make as many number combinations as possible. *The sunny...

Learn All About Mars, “Curiosity” is Landing Soon! 0

Learn All About Mars, “Curiosity” is Landing Soon!

We have started getting excited about the Mars Space Laboratory, Curiosity which has been enroute to Mars for about eight months now.  We started doing some activities to learn about Mars. I wanted to post this early enough that you could get your child excited about the upcoming landing too. It’s a little less than two weeks away! The new Mars Rover, a space laboratory called Curiosity is set to...

A Great Art Material for 4-10 year olds 2

A Great Art Material for 4-10 year olds

LD has been gone most afternoons so the girls and I have been doing various crafts and activities together.  Yesterday we pulled out the Model Magic. It’s just such a great material to work with, I thought it was worth another mention.  It is soft and pliable and it is easy even for my four year old to mix and blend colors. It is self-hardening and clean to work with. ...

Homeschooling in the News: Relaxation of Homeschooling Oversight in New Hampshire 0

Homeschooling in the News: Relaxation of Homeschooling Oversight in New Hampshire

In a time when public schooled kids are being monitored and tested more and more closely and state (and national) standards are being put firmly in place, I was intrigued to read an article in the  Concord Monitor (July 8, 2012) entitled Educators Watch Homeschool Changes. Homeschooling parents will no longer have to share evaluations of their students with public and private schools. According to a July 8th article in the...

Rethinking Chores 6

Rethinking Chores

I have a confession. We have never found a chore system that works right for our family.  It’s not that the kids don’t help out, but daily checklists, wall-mounted chore sheets, even our assigned chore system didn’t work.  This summer when I got together with one of my best friends, she asked what we do for chores.  I had to stutter and admit to her that we didn’t have a...

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Free Beginning Reading Program, Sam Books

One of the things I’ve been doing  since returning from our trip is to continue planning for our homeschool.  I came across an email from ReadingTeacher.com. [Added in 9 months Later: These are no longer available for free from ReadingTeacher. Instead I wound up visiting Dr. Mariott’s website and downloaded them from there. We wound up using all 52 of these readers with ED, my youngest. They really worked well...

The Tourist Town of Branson, Missouri 4

The Tourist Town of Branson, Missouri

My in-laws happen to live right near Branson, Missouri.  It’s quite a tourist destination… there are shows of every description… magic shows, country shows, dancing, live music, the Dolly Parton’s Dixie Stampede, Chinese Acrobats, the art of Kung Fu, blues, the Brady Bunch, a tribute to the Eagles, gospel music and on and on and on. Driving down the main thoroughfare there are fun places everywhere. It is a great...

Camping, Hiking and the Legend of Petit Jean 0

Camping, Hiking and the Legend of Petit Jean

I’ve always been an avid camper and backpacker.  I’ve backpacked a number of stretches of the Appalachian Trail and backpacked for nearly a month in the Wind River Range in Wyoming.  Hubby and I hiked quite a bit in the Outback in central Australia, did the Cradle Mountain-Lake St. Clair overland trek in Tasmania, Australia and even had the opportunity to hike along the Annapurna Trail in Nepal.  All that’s great, but...

Plantation Agriculture Museum, Arkansas 0

Plantation Agriculture Museum, Arkansas

We actually stumbled across this museum, but what a FABULOUS place to visit.  Just had to shout that out, it was *that* good! From the time Arkansas became a state in 1836 to the mid 1940s cotton production was common in the Arkansas River lowlands.  Men, women and children could be seen picking and stuffing cotton into long sacks in the fall. Tractors were not used for the preparation, planting,...