Homeschool Buyer's Co-op

I'm happy to announce that I'm an affiliate for Homeschool Buyer's Co-op!!!  I've been very pleased with my purchases through the Co-op, so I was thrilled when they contacted me and asked me to be an affiliate.  So, what does that mean???

When you join Homeschool Buyer's Co-op simply put CHEERIOS in as your referral code.  You'll automatically get 500 BONUS Smartpoints, and when you make your first purchase, I will receive a small bounty.  Easy, right?

I will let you know periodically about programs that are offered at Homeschool Buyer's Co-op, and I will also review the programs that I purchase to use with my own children.

Also, it's FREE to join!

The Alphabet Stomp

While Elliott and I were in a hospital far away having his brain tumor removed, the girls stayed with their grandparents for the week (the longest we've ever been away from them...it was so hard).  They had lots of fun playing outside and playing school.  My mom found these large letter cards leftover from her teacher days, and they had fun learning with them all week.


One day after we returned home, I spread the cards out all over the floor of the deck, and we played "Alphabet Stomp!"  I called out letter names or sounds, and the girls found the letters and stomped on them.


After playing for a while, we put the letters in ABC order.


Then we walked along our alphabet path and said the letter names or sounds as we walked.


Lastly, O(5) and I had fun making words with the letter cards.



My favorite thing about this activity was that we did it outside!  I love for our girls to spend as much time outside as possible. They usually spend their outside time digging in the dirt and making various stews and soups out of dirt, sand, gumballs, leaves, etc, but occasionally we'll "play" school, too :)

E Week

We had fun during E week... (a long time ago...I'm so behind on these posts) We made an elephant puppet. E(2) named it Ellie.
She colored on hot boiled eggs with crayons. She and my mom made egg salad. E LOVES to cut eggs with the egg slicer, and she loves to eat egg salad! We had fun gathering eggs! She traced the sandpaper E. She loved painting E sheets with dot painters (she also loved painting her fingers and hands).

Kindergarten Activity Bag...Sight Words Beans

I put together this activity for O(5) a few months ago to take on vacation. It was super simple to put together.




I used sharpie marker to write sight words from the dolch sight words lists onto white beans.  Done!





The beans can be kept in a pencil pouch for "on the go" sight words practice.

Studying Degas

We studied Degas during February. E(2) loved painting a Degas coloring page with liquid watercolors (and when I looked away, she quickly painted her face...so funny).
We checked out Degas and the Little Dancer and have read it repeatedly. It's a wonderful book, and we all love it. We read Dancing with Degas. We planned to do a Degas art project, but that fell to the back burner after Elliott's brain tumor diagnosis. We'll get back to Degas and our project eventually...maybe.  

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Pattern Blocks on Contact Paper

E(2) and I had fun making designs with pattern blocks on contact paper about a month ago.  I saw this idea somewhere, but I have no idea where (to be honest, the entire month of March is like a blur to me, and the only reason I remembered this activity at all is because I came across the pictures in my dropshots account!)



We taped a piece of contact paper (sticky side out) to the glass door and got to work.  We had fun making boats and starts, and E made a "snowman."  I made the design in the center, and E said "that looks just like a mandala!"  Love my girl!

Homemade Moon Sand....FAIL!

Edit to add:  Our moon sand was great for a few days, and then it turned nasty...very, very nasty.  Don't make my mistake and use cornmeal instead of cornstarch...unless you only want it to last for a couple of days :)

The girls and I had fun making and playing with homemade Moon Sand last week. We made moon sand with O(5) when she was younger (probably 2), and it was really messy. This time we used a different recipe, and I liked it better. Here is the link to the blog where this idea originated. To make moon sand you need 4 cups of sand, 2 cups of corn meal (the recipe says corn flour, but we used corn meal...evidently I was supposed to use corn starch.  However, it worked out fine with the corn meal, and I like it better since we used cornstarch last time, and it was terribly messy.  I'm not sure how long it will last...I'll let you know), and 1 cup of water. We ended up tripling the recipe and adding a little bit of extra water.

The girls took turns pouring in the ingredients, and they loved mixing the dry sand and corn meal. I added in some mini construction vehicles, and we had a work site! I had fun playing with them, and O(5) asked "Mama, how do you know so much about construction?" so I must have done a good job of pretending! We were excited when Elliott played with us, too! They tired of the construction zone fairly quickly and started cooking with the sand...no big surprise there :)

Right Start Math or Singapore Math????

Now that all of our time is no longer taken up with researching brain tumors, neurosurgeons, and brain surgery, I am now back to searching for the very best (and most fun) 1st grade curriculum for O(5). We've tried Life of Fred, and O loves it, but it will just be an extra math book for fun. I'd like to use either Right Start Math or Singapore or maybe even both...I'd LOVE some input. This is a very difficult decision (although not as difficult as choosing a neurosurgeon!!!), and since O loves math so much, I want to make sure that I get the best program for her. Thanks in advance for your comments and emails!

Volcano Fun!

We love to make volcanoes on our beach, and I thought this would be a fun activity to do with Elliott while he is recovering from surgery. The girls were SUPER excited, and we had a lot of fun. First, the girls built up the sand around a bottle to form the volcano. Then they took turns pouring water into the bottle. They took turns squeezing red food coloring into the water. They took turns measuring out a total of 2 tablespoons of baking soda and pouring it into the bottle. Elliott poured in the white vinegar, and we watched the lava explode! Here are our volcano posts from previous years....2011 and 2010 and 2009

Animal Flip Book

I recently came across this animal flip book that I made for O(5) about 3 or 4 years ago, and E(2) really likes it. I downloaded it from www.childcareland.com. It's perfect for a 2 year old who loves animals and matching!