Quick & Easy St. Patrick's Day Walk

For moms looking for ways to spice up St. Patrick's Day from home and still do some school or review. This activity is quick and easy.   It can be made with rainbow construction paper or green (make a shamrock walk) or even white with rainbow colored writing (one paper with red marker, one with orange, then yellow, etc.).

I write items on there that I want my kids to be learning or reviewing. Each time they approach the kitchen table (snack, lunch, dinner, craft, etc.), they have to call out the answers as they step on the papers. You can do this with vocabulary words, sight words, ABC's, Latin, capitals, science terms, etc. 

If you have multiple children all doing different things, you could assign each a corner of the paper and put their items there.  You could also color code (all of one child's be in blue, another child's in red, etc.) or label with an initial. Happy St. Patrick's Day! :)

Suddenly Homeschooled!

One week life was normal.  The next week it wasn't.

Has your family recently fallen into the "suddenly homeschooled" group?  You didn't choose this.  It just happened.

A virus reared its nasty head.  Stores ran out of goods.  Schools closed.  You might have even been asked to teach your children at home for a while.  Suddenly, you homeschool.

But what does that look like?!  Where do I even begin?!

Hang in there, mama!  There are many who want to help.

You are not alone in this.

 Let that concept really sink deep and take root in your heart.

You are not alone in this.  

If there is one thing homeschool moms understand and identify with - it is the vital need for support.  They understand ups and downs on a daily basis.  They understand doubt and fear and even chaos (hmm... especially chaos).

Now, let's talk some homeschool "shop".

1.  Seasoned homeschool moms will tell you - community is important!  As you begin this unexpected journey - be it short or long - try searching online for homeschool communities in your area.  Reach out to them.  Chances are, you will find moms willing to help you through this.

2.  If you are unable to find or join a homeschool group - start your own!  Reach out to other "suddenly homeschooled" families and swap stories, share resources, plan a picnic, etc.  You might even make some new friends!

3.  Another option is to join an online homeschool community or to surround yourself with a few encouraging mommy bloggers.  One of my favorite online sources for encouragement and resources is www.sallyclarkson.com.  This woman understands what it feels like to raise children with a variety of needs under very trying circumstances!  I highly recommend her books and podcasts (no, I was not paid to say this).

4.  Free or inexpensive resources are readily available online and in stores:

*Teacherspayteachers.com is an awesome resource!  This is a site where teachers (or therapists, moms, etc.) create lessons, games, STEM activities, etc. and other teachers or homeschooling families purchase/download them.  There are some seriously creative people out there who have done a lot of the work for you and made it super fun as well.  Just search for what your child has been studying, and you are likely to find much to purchase or download for free.

*Starfall.com is a great place to brush up on reading, math, etc. skills for younger children.

*Fun4thebrain.com and www.reflexmath.com are good resources for math fact practice using games, etc.

*Pinterest.  Need I say more?  Search for your child's grade level or subject and prepare to be amazed by the great ideas others have come up with.

*Dollar stores.  Not only do some have an education section with short workbooks for younger elementary/kinder, they also tend to stock harder puzzle books (crosswords, Sudoko, etc.), advanced coloring books, small games, and puzzles for only....you guessed it....$1.  If you know you are only homeschooling for a week or two, these might help keep your child on his/her toes.

*Homeschool blogs online.  There are moms out there who will share both experience AND great resources with you via their blogs.  Remember - community and support!  Here are a few to get you started:
www.sallyclarkson.com
www.readaloudrevival.com
www.pambarnhill.com

Here is also a link to another blogger who lists some websites which are offering free subscriptions right now.

3.  READ, READ, READ!  I know many libraries have closed temporarily....but maybe not the private ones.  By these, I am referring to many homeschool family homes.  Yes.  We have books.  Many, many, many, many books.  It is very possible that some of these families would loan your child books while waiting for school buildings to reopen.

Also consider checking with family members and friends.  You might be surprised at the hardback/paperback treasures you uncover when you just ask.

4.  Play!  There are so many educational board games out there which secretly (or not-so-secretly) require your children to put their education to good use.  You may be surprised at what your kids learn or skills they review by just playing a great game.  You might even suggest your children design one of their own (recycle that old pizza box)!  Imagine the education-worthy potential of such an activity:  fine motor skills, creativity, problem-solving, collaboration, math, language arts, writing, and the list goes on!

5.  Online schools.  There are many of these out there depending on what style or level of homeschooling or online schooling you are interested in.  This has proven to be an incredible resource for our family!  Our kids may take one or two classes online (live or self-paced) which allows me to have some time to work with a younger child or have some time to get chores done, etc.

One of our favorite online academies www.veritaspress.com offers amazing self-paced courses.  These are backed by a 90-day return policy.  The courses often present material via amusing characters and sometimes animation.  They spice things up with creative games and challenges which my children have really enjoyed.  These often seem to be the highlight of our school subjects.

DIVE into Math  offers graded self-paced learning in certain math and science subjects.  They also offer some live courses.

6.  Come up with a relaxed and simple schedule to start with (see a sample below).  It should be something which will allow your family to ease into this abrupt educational change, but one which will also provide a source of welcome structure for both your children and yourself.

A note about snacks:  consider having a box/drawer in your pantry or fridge or both which have snacks your children can choose from.  Limit the choices to one or two per snack time.  This allows children to practice responsibility and choice (after the first few times, they understand that they don't need to ask you what they are allowed to have for a snack but just head to the snack box).

7.  Consider hiring a part-time tutor.  There are many teachers who will be staying home right now who might welcome the opportunity to earn a little extra money while helping other families.

The list could go on....and on.....

But I will stop there.  Why?  Here's another tidbit of homeschool wisdom: too many choices may muddy the waters.  Instead of helping, an overload of information could cause you to feel overwhelmed once more.  I suggest starting with just some of the ideas above and moving forward from there.

If none appeal or meet your child's needs, then I would direct you back to #1 and #2.  Let the vast community of homeschool moms help!  So brew yourself a cup of tea or coffee, take a deep breath, and dive in knowing (all together now) you are not alone in this!

"Invalidated" - A Homeschooling Family's Dream Turned Upside Down...

Many of you may have benefited this summer (and past ones) from the Bunch O Balloons (Zuru) invention which allows children to fill up a large quantity of balloons in an incredibly short amount of time.  Not only do the balloons fill up, but they drop off already tied and ready to go.  Absolutely BRILLIANT!  Parenting, at least during the spring and summer months, just got a little bit easier (or a lot depending on how many days per week your children ask you to fill and tie their water balloons for them).

What many of you may NOT know is that the inventor, Josh Malone and his homeschooling family,  have been battling in courts over a period of years now.  The issue?  His hard work and achievement were targeted by others who wished to steal his design and benefit from it.  You'd think that his patent would protect him, but you would be wrong.  It borders on the ridiculous what this family has had to endure in order to try to protect and fight for his invention. 

The patent he worked so hard for is pretty much pointless.  While courts sided with the Malone family, the large company trying to steal Josh's design took their argument to the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) trying to prove that one cannot know when a water balloon is "substantially filled" as Josh's patent claimed.  Incredibly, the board sided with the large company and said they could now copy Josh's design.  And if you think this is an isolated incident...well, I'd just encourage you to take a deeper look at our country's PTAB (the film below contains some alarming statistics and information). 

It is a tragic story but one that should really be heard as it illuminates a very broken patent system.  Did you know that while the United States once used to be a leader in the patent system, we have now apparently dropped to number 12 in rank behind other countries?!  What this is beginning to mean for many inventors is that they might be better served by taking their inventions to another country for protection and development.   I don't know about you, but I find that quite disturbing.  And it is happening now.  Inventors are being faced with these decisions.  How many medical and technological advances might be lost to other countries if ours allows this sort of behavior by the PTAB and larger companies to continue?

Consider the time that our inventors spend in courts trying to protect their patents instead of investing those years in more inventions which benefit our society.  Quite honestly, if you were an inventor, do you  think you would even want to invent something again after having your other patents marked as invalid when a larger company sees a profit to be made and takes their arguments to the PTAB?  And what of the expenses involved for inventors, especially if they have to go to court and/or the PTAB (at which point, they could be looking at hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars needed to keep fighting). 

"Invalidated" is a film which exposes what the Malone family and others have had to endure and is well worth watching and sharing!  We benefit from the ingenuity and creativity of inventors.  Isn't it time we supported them as well?

Note:  If you have an Amazon Prime membership, I believe you might be able to view the film for free.

5..4..3..2..1..Blast off!!! Back to School Launch (Space Theme)!

BACK TO SCHOOL ALREADY?  No, we are not starting school right now.  This just happens to be what we did last year.   It was a great theme, and I wanted to share some pictures with you while I have a little bit of free time this summer.

 

The party plates, tablecloth, straws, etc. were purchased at a store, but there are SOOO many options and great things online when it comes to the "space" theme (see links below).  The placemats are black paper with designs I drew on them using a silver marker.  I then had them laminated.   The sign is one I made myself (the flames coming out of the rocket are red tissue paper).

To make the NASA shirts, I purchased some NASA patches via someone on Etsy and put them on plain white shirts.  If you buy some patches that are not iron-on, you can sew them or use fabric glue. 

 

A space-themed background greeted my kids that first school morning.  The black star clustered paper was purchased at a store (I think it was Hobby Lobby), and I believe I bought the planet cut-outs online (see link below post).

 

Of course we always like to include something yummy for breakfast.  Special cereals are a treat for our kids so these worked into our theme perfectly.

 

After breakfast, it was time to take some first day of school pictures.  I made them each a sign with their grade level printed on it (but blacked out for pics). 

The kids spent some time exploring the other areas of the house as well.  This was the moon corner (more black star paper for the space background) where I used gray party tablecloths on the floor with light paint to create the surface of the moon effect.  Speaking of the moon - we also had a "moon" snack (rice cake with cereal and sliced bananas for craters).

This seemed to be one of the more favored areas of the house for a while.  The space shuttle was painted on a white vinyl party tablecloth.  On one side was "Mission Control" and the other side acted as the inside of the shuttle with a cockpit.

 

Here's a picture of the cockpit inside our "shuttle".  I created this AND our Mission Control Center using tri-fold school project boards with control panel pictures glued on.   Control panel pictures can be purchased here for 99 cents!  I also added some other little pictures I found online.  I hot glued some toggle switches on (these and others can be purchased pretty cheaply on Amazon - see links below).  One of the best features though was adding lights (kind of hard to see but really added to the effect).  I did this by punching out small holes in the boards and sticking small poster lights through them.

 Here is a close-up of the cockpit.

 This is a picture of our Mission Control Center.

 

Of course, we had our usual treasure hunt for school supplies hidden by our homeschool elf (note that this time we caught him with them on the moon!).  

 

We ended our day with a build-your-own-planet-pizza bar.  Mmmmm!

If you are able, I recommend a visit to NASA as well.  We ended up having to travel to that area for medical reasons this past year and visited NASA while there.  It was definitely one of the highlights of our trip!

Linking up here this week:

Littles Learning Link Up

Homeschool Highlights 

Wow Me Wednesday 

Friday Favorites Linky Party 

Inspire Me Monday 

Craftastic Monday 

Made By You Monday

Modest Monday

Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Just wanted to share a quick Valentine's idea for any little ballerinas out there.  I made these using heart lollipops and then used hot glue to add some tulle.  :)

We are 100 days COOLer! :)

While I have been taking a bit of a blog break - or maybe a really, reeeeaaallly long one - I found I had some free time on my hands for a few evenings and thought it might be fun to jump back on for another post.  However, I'll be keeping the wording to a minimum (unless you take the old saying "a picture is worth a thousand words" literally).

This year, our 100 day celebration came during a bit of a rough patch of illness for us.  We'd been cooped up, and it just seemed like a bit of excitement was in order...

 

We'd already completed a winter themed 100th day at least 2-3 years ago.  However, my kids seemed to be really lamenting the lack of snow this year, so I felt it might be time to have a "snow day" once more. 

 

 Cover each activity with a snowflake once completed!

 

What an easy way to incorporate 100 with these melting snowman kits!  Simply give them 100 seconds to build a snowman and then enjoy the wonder of watching it melt...

 

Snowman necklace with 100 white beads!

 

Toss the "snowball" in a cup and add the numbers.  First child to reach or cross over 100 wins!

 

This was a more time consuming activity - consider yourselves warned if you attempt this at home.  I had each child lie down in a snowball fight pose (except for the youngest who stood against the wall) and traced around him/her.  They then painted themselves and broke open a bag of 100 cotton balls (snowballs) which they glued to the mural.  We actually ended up opening two bags because one just wasn't enough!

 

We counted out 100 cotton swabs and the kids used them to make snowflakes - even our toddler was able to participate in this one with a bit of help.   

 

Snack time!  We counted out 100 items (usually in groups of ten such as 10 pretzels, 10 yogurt covered cranberries, 10 mini rice cakes, etc.) and created our own snow mix for munching. 

It is hard to tell, but these melted snowman pictures are puffy and came out so cute!  We made the puffy paint by mixing roughly equivalent amounts of white glue and shaving cream.  It can be a lot of fun as long as the children are old enough to realize it should not be eaten (or you are sitting right next to your toddler).

 

Spelling practice - the kids practiced spelling snow/winter words in whipped cream.  Yes, our toddler enjoyed participating in this one as well!  The whipping cream was on top of brown (unbleached?)  wax paper.  This was definitely a finger-licking activity!  

Note:  Make sure you do this one AFTER the shaving cream painting above to avoid confusion regarding what can be eaten.   If you do them in reverse order, you run the risk of a toddler assuming that if you can eat one puffy whiteness first, the other is fair game as well.  

Happy homeschooling!  :)

Girls' Club

Today is launch day for Sally Clarkson's new book "Girls' Club"!  Co-authored with her two daughters Sarah and Joy, it focuses on cultivating friendships among women and how powerful such bonds can be.  If you have been struggling with loneliness, wondering how to cultivate friendships with other women - this book may provide just the direction and encouragement you need!

As a homeschooling mom of four children (including special needs), I have had my share of ups and downs.  Often I have found encouragement AND inspiration while reading one of Sally's books, listening to one of her podcasts, or by reading one of the posts on her blog www.sallyclarkson.com.  I highly recommend her to other homeschooling moms (and moms in general).  Her ideas, understanding words, and kindness point me towards Christ and the powerful mission he has given me:  the mission of motherhood (also the title of one of her books). 

For moms struggling to find time to research great composers, artists, and great books for children, she also provides amazing resources on www.lifewithsally.com (this is a paid membership account).  The site includes resources and podcasts that are meant for encouraging moms as well (such as scripture studies, etc.), and the forums are a great resource for moms to share, encourage, or ask questions of other mom members.  Highly recommend this as well!  :)

As always - happy homeschooling!  :)