Monthly Archive: May 2014

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Water Unit: Free Worksheets on Water and Water Usage

As I mentioned yesterday, we started a new unit on water (jumping off onto a new tangent for our weather unit).  I made a couple of pages for the kids’ science notebooks. They go along with some of the resources I shared yesterday. I had the kids try to brainstorm as many uses for water as they could and then had them study a printout of the USGA water use poster...

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Books and Series My 8-Yr Old Has Been Racing Through

My daughter reads all the time. She will grab anything that’s out and about… from the easy readers that ED brings home from the libraries to books that LD recommends.  I thought I’d share some of the series that she’s flown through this semester. Dog Diaries: She’s read them all… Ginger, Buddy, Barry, Togo, Dash. She said they were wonderful.  I notice there is also a series called Horse Diaries...

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Free Water and Water Cycle Resources

A couple of weeks ago, we started on a new unit. One that focuses on water, the water cycle, and water pollution.  A lot of the time I make our own science notebook pages, but there were so many wonderful resources already available, we used what we found online instead for this portion of our Weather and Water unit.  I thought I would share some of these resources with you...

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4 Fun, Active Games for Practicing Math Facts

With the weather so beautiful, we’ve taken math outside. Don’t you love when the kids BEG and BEG for more math practice?!! So here are some of the games we’ve been playing outside… Math Sponge Toss: If it’s getting warm where you live, the kids might enjoy this activity.  We hung math problems up on the garage door with painters tape. The kids took turns trying to SPLAT their card. If...

Who Are You Remembering This Memorial Day? 0

Who Are You Remembering This Memorial Day?

Memorial Day was formerly known as Decoration Day and started after the Civil War to commemorate the fallen Union Soldiers. By the 20th century Memorial Day was extended to honor all Americans who have died in wars. A couple of years ago, I had a long conversation with my Dad and extended family about the members of our family who have served in the U.S. military. As I asked for...

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Homemade Nutrigrain Bars

We love this homemade Nutrigrain Bar recipe! I hadn’t made them for a couple of months and while the kids were out playing I made a batch. Yum! I didn’t have any almond extract on hand so just used 1 tsp of vanilla instead.  No matter how I make them, they’re gone pretty quickly! I thought I’d share that recipe again today. So here you go: A few years ago,...

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A Tour of Jamestown, Virginia – Fabulous for Kids!

On our way back from the Outer Banks, we decided we would spend a day at Jamestown.  This is a reconstruction of the first permanent settlement by the British in the New World. We first saw the film and toured the museum — which was just fabulous!  The kids spent a lot more time reading and browsing through the museum than I thought they would (I guess they’re growing up!!)....

Don’t Miss Tonight’s Meteor Showers! (Fri. 5/23) 2

Don’t Miss Tonight’s Meteor Showers! (Fri. 5/23)

  Our family loves star gazing and I always try to find out when the next meteor showers pass by. Tonight there is a brand new meteor shower that may light up the night sky.  They are called the Camelopardalids. Scientists aren’t sure exactly how many shooting stars we’ll see, but they could shower down at a rate of 1-per minute.  If the showers happen they should be visible in...

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Teach Your Child to Read!

In this post I’d like to share a dozen activities that we did with the kids to help foster early reading skills. These are activities we did with CVC words and basic sight words to make the learning process fun and engaging!! 🙂 The first step in learning to read is to make sure your child knows their letter sounds. We shared lots of ideas about that in our Preschool...

Wild Horses and Light House Tour – Outer Banks, NC 0

Wild Horses and Light House Tour – Outer Banks, NC

One afternoon last week, we decided to do a couple of tours.  First, we stopped off at the Currituck Beach Light Station.  It is 162 feet and has 220 steps.  Construction on it began in 1873 and it was first illuminated in 1875.  It still serves as an aid to naviagation, lighting up every 3 seconds and off for 17 seconds throughout the night. The exterior of this lighthouse was...

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Ocean Unit Freebies

If you are planning a trip to the beach this summer, you might be interested in some of these freebies I made for the kids when we did our ocean unit.  I hope someone finds these helpful! Below are some of the ocean invertebrate cards  that I made when we were studying the ocean. Remember, crustaceans, arachnids and insects are all part of the arthropod group (look at this chart to see what...

Vacation at the Outer Banks 4

Vacation at the Outer Banks

My sister’s family also homeschools, so we take advantage of the pre-summer season prices to spend a week together. We met up with my Dad & step-Mom, my sister, brother-in-law, nieces and nephew at the Outer Banks. The weather had called for temperatures in the low 70s last week, but once we arrived the forecast changed. We had several days between 85-88 degrees. Perfect for the beach!  I slathered the...

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Fishing — It’s Not Hard or Mysterious!

I consider myself pretty outdoorsy. I love to hike, backpack and go camping. I love learning the names of the lizards, snakes, bugs and birds in our area. But I had never, ever gone fishing.  For some reason it seemed mysterious. Hard. Something only real “fishermen” did.  So when I heard that our local park was offering a free fishing workshop for kids, we signed the kids up. The ranger...

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Animals and Their Groups Sorting Cards (ages 5-8)

A couple of months ago, I did an animal unit with my youngest.  We went over the characteristics of living and non-living things. Then we talked about vertebrates and invertebrates and finally we went over the five vertebrate groups in quite some detail. I shared the free Montessori cards I made for that part of our unit: the Montessori Vertebrate-Invertebrate cards and the sheets I made on Animals and their Characteristics....