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Today, the Pope is making his first visit to the United States. The kids and I watched his arrival on TV just a little while ago. We aren’t Catholic, but the kids’ Grandma is. (My Mom died about 15 years ago and my Dad remarried just before LD was born.). Anyway, we took the opportunity today to talk about a bit about Catholicism today and about why the Pope is...
Are you looking for free fall printables for PreK-K? Here’s a huge list of fabulous FREE fall-themed packets that have been shared by generous parents and teachers. Get your 3-6 year old into the fall spirit with some of these fall-themed activities and printables. You will find everything from puzzles, counting and letter recognition activities to writing, do-a-dot pages, dot-to-dots and more! Fall Pack from 3 Dinosaurs: Leaves Unit by...
The weather is gorgeous, so once again it was time to take advantage of the lovely temperatures, get active, and practice some math! For this game we drew a giant circle out of chalk and put numbers into each space all around the circle. Which numbers? We wrote down the numbers as we skip counted by 2s, 3s, 4s, 5s. (2 thru 20, 3 thru 30, 4 thru 40 and...
Later today, I will be sharing an active, outdoor math game that the kids played last week. I needed a set of Pre-Algebra type problems that had certain answers so that LD could play an active math fact game with the girls. More about the game in a few hours (and I’ll link to it), but in this particular post I wanted to share the Order of Operations cards printable. ...
So in my last post, I talked about how I really wanted to start off my mornings strong. I realized I needed a Power Morning Routine to make sure that *I* was energized, refreshed, focused, and prepared. You can read more about all that in this post: Thoughts on Teaching: Creating a Power Morning. But, along with that I really needed to make sure I was completely organized. I think...
Music continues to go really well for us. I’m glad I’ve got the general plan and all the printables organized and ready to go at a moment’s notice. It means that music really is getting done about 3 days a week. Hooray! So this is Week Two following the rough Beginners Music Curriculum that I put together this summer. My write-up here really is geared more for my youngest (ED...
Are your kids studying words that have the Long I sound? They might enjoy the activities in this packet. It contains a word sort, board game and bingo cards for reviewing the long /i/ spelling patterns: ie, y, i-e, igh, ind and i. I made this long /i/ word sort file folder game for ED. She went over many of these words (and rules) last year, but she will definitely...
Have your kids read the Plot Chicken? We started our Writing Workshop off with this book. What a great buk, buk!! In fact, I liked it so much that I created a chicken writing rules printable to go along with the book (free to download down below)!!! So, in this post I want to share some of our Writing Workshop Mini-Lessons about the Story Writing Process & Story Structure. The...
Fall is an amazing time to take homeschool field trips. The weather is gorgeous and there are often special programs and discounts for homeschoolers! I’ve highlighted some Homeschool Days from along the east coast: Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Ohio, New York… even the Kennedy Space Center has a special Homeschool Day event! I noticed that this next week in particular has a huge number of Homeschool Days. (If you...
I really want to do a series called “Thoughts on Teaching.” Why? Well, I’ve been reading a lot lately and have been excited about some of the ideas I’ve come across. As I process all that, I always want to write about it. May as well bounce my ideas with my online reader friends, right?!! Do you ever need a private cheerleader… someone to pat you on the back and...
A week or so ago, I shared my general plans for music this semester, but I thought I’d try to share what actually happens from week to week with pictures. Remember, you’ll find more information about the games and activities in the PDF at this post: Free Beginner’s Music Curriculum: Learning Notes, Rhythm, Music Notation and More! Last week was our first official week of school, so we only spent...
Today I’m going to share this Minecraft themed addition and subtraction packet that I made for my daughter. It’s free to download! It’s the beginning of the year, so ED definitely needs some review of some of the basic addition and subtraction facts. Combine math facts with her beloved Minecraft characters and she’ll beg to “play” more!! Although they are not presented in this order in the packet, we first...
It’s Labor Day and there are so many reasons to be thankful that our family lives here in this country and at this time! This is a post I wrote a couple of years ago and I thought it was worth sharing again. After the Civil War, the availability of natural resources, new inventions, and a receptive market combined to fuel an industrial boom. The demand for labor grew, and...
Before I dive too much into our school posts, I wanted to share pictures from our last week of summer vacation. Back in the spring, we made camping reservations at the Blackwood Campground in Acadia National Park. We drove up to Maine and spent a week enjoying the beauty of that area! We did a lot of hiking! And the kids and Hubby even braved the cold ocean waters! We...
