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Showing posts from February, 2017

Love (homeschool unit)

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Printables - sight words with chocolate - sight word hunt sensory bin - number hearts matching Ideas - Lady and the Tramp family date night - arranging roses in a vase - trace and cut out hearts - cupid's arrow bead counting - V-day fancy glasses pouring - arranging hearts on on a stick - counting m&ms on number cards - pompom sort - digging for hearts sensory bin - paper towel roses - snipped paper valentine's card - sensory rice bin - marshmallow building Videos - There was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Rose - Happy Valentine's Day, Mouse - The Night Before Valentine's Day - Somebody Loves You - The Story of Valentine's Day - Llama, Llama!  I love you! BONUS!  Valentine's Day themed books with QR codes! Click here to download.

Back to Homeschooling- Snow Day

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We ended up taking a very long break for Christmas and haven't done hardly any school in months.  I don't feel guilty about it.  Taking unexpected, unscheduled, and unauthorized breaks is why we homeschool.  Ironically, we started back at school just when a big dumping brought a week of snow days to the public schools. Skimmer recently took scissors to his own head, reminding me that I haven't given him (and all of them) enough cutting practice.  I set up "stations" on the table that the kids took turns using.  One station was a piece of cardboard, colored paper, and a giant push pin for poking.  They're obsessed with poking right now so this was a hit.  Dragonfly worked on her name.  I was busy making sure that all the activities were painless and didn't get a picture of it.  Bummer. Another station was a bowl of yarn for snipping.  Skimmer thought cutting all that yarn from big strands to tiny half-inch pieces was the best.  He wor

d is for dinosaur

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Every year, I plan for us to study dinosaurs and every week it doesn't work out like I thought.  Well, here's a bunch of ideas for next time. Blog Posts About Dinosaurs -  dinosaur skull 3-part cards -  paleontologist anchor chart -  measuring dino bones - Review of Museum of the Rockies - F is for Fossil - d is for dinosaur (year 2) Printables -  lots of amazing dinosaur printables -  dino facts printables -  dinosaur word wall printables -  dino pre-k pack -  dinosaur tile spelling cards -  dinosaur preschool pack -  egg puzzles Ideas -  dinosaur world felt play mat -  dinosaur measuring -  giant dinosaur sand skeleton -  counting dinosaur bones -  dinosaur eggs discovery bin -  4 types of fossils -  mini real dig site -  DIY fossils

t is for tiger

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I had intended that we would talk about big cats, India, and extinction this week.  We didn't end up doing formal school at all.  So, here's a list of things we can do another time. Printables - parts of a tiger 3-part cards - kindergarten printable unit - India printables for preschool - tiger mask Ideas - matching spices - drawing henna

Lady and the Tramp Valentine's Day Party

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"He's a tramp, but I love him." Last year, we did the Lady and the Tramp family date night for Valentine's Day, but I lamely didn't have the movie for us to watch.  Yesterday, I ordered the DVD off of Ebay, so we'll be ready for this year.  I am the only one in my family who has seen it, so I'm excited to hear what the rest of the family thinks of it. There's still lots of time to put together this Italian dog-themed movie night.  It can be as simple or as elaborate as you chose.  And, of course, it doesn't have to be just a "family" date night, the movie and ideas will work for a regular date as well.  So, pick up a box of graham dog bones and settle in for this classic Disney flick. Ideas - Lady and the Tramp ( Ebay ) - printable chalkboard signs ( In Our Pond ) - red and white checked table cloth ( Amazon ) - candles in wine bottles ( Pinterest ) - coloring pages ( Coloring Book ) - felt dog ears ( Project Caitlins Li

Cabled Afghans

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This is a the tale of a process knitter and this blog post was written during the process.  Hopefully, it makes a good story of woe: First Pattern Original cable pattern (chart) was found on a Russian website .  I translated it into English and wrote the chart out in long form.  The English pattern can be found here. My afghan was knit with Simple Soft  (off white) on size 11 circular needles.  The cable pattern was set on a bed of 25 stitches, and I placed panels of 25 stitch moss stitch between the cabling.  The blanket had 7 stitches of moss stitch for border stitches (14 total) plus five panels of cabling (125 stitches) plus four panels of moss stitch (100 stitches).  There were 239 stitches.  I don't know why I didn't notice there were way too many stitches. Here's what I've learned- Statistics AKA- why this afghan is priceless Yarn- 30 oz (6 oz to a skein) Time Per Row- 25 minutes per row Number of Rows- (264) Total Time- 110 hours! And then I