In Our Pond

*This is a sponsored post.  I was given free product in exchange for my honest opinion.  Ark Therapeutic also provided a free necklace for a giveaway to help me promote my blog.  The gift guide is my Christmas bonus to them.  All pictures come from the Ark Therapeutic website and belong to them* Skimmer (age 6) loves to put things in his mouth!  He chews plastic and metal, rips things with his teeth, and gnaws his fingers.  He has many other sensory needs, but the oral sensory seeking can be the hardest to meet.  We have found that certain crunchy or flavorful foods are helpful, but there are often times (like in church) when eating noisy foods is not polite.  Enter- the silicone chew or chewelry. Chewelry is kid-safe jewelry made out of food-grade silicone, which is meant to be chewed.  It's designed to meet the oral sensory needs in a safe way!  It comes in necklaces, bracelets, hand-held objects, pencil toppers, and more.  Some chews are shaped to meet different types o

I've had this dance studio in process since last Christmas!  I did the printables for it last January, and just now got around to putting it all together.  I built this to use as a background for our Elf on the Shelf, JOY, when she teaches us about the Nutcracker like she did last year .  With the new Nutcracker and the Four Realms movie out in theaters now, this is a great year to introduce your kids to the classic ballet. To allow the ballet studio to be easy to store, I used a  Small Tri-Fold Presentation Board , which stands 14" tall and is 24" wide.  It's a great size for fashion dolls and elves.  First, I used plain computer paper and a  glue stick  to cover the edges of the board.  It creates a nice edge and gets you used to cutting and gluing on the cardboard. Next, I used the wallpaper printable that I made to cover the inside of the board.  It took a bit of creativity to make the patterns match up, but it wasn't too hard.  If you had another

I've been busy filling up my Elf Suitcase House with handcrafted decorations.  I wish the pictures were a bit better- maybe I can reshoot them next year when the sun shines again.  For now, hopefully these cell phone snaps from my shadowy bedroom will be enough to get a good idea of what I've done.  Most of the craft supplies with a few exceptions are basic and things I already had around my house.  I've included complete supply lists for your convenience. Peppermint Vase - empty glitter jar - fake candy canes - peppermint nail art pieces I first arranged the candy canes in the jar to get them the way I wanted, then I added a bit of hot glue in the middle of the to hold them to each other.  I lifted the bundle of candy canes out and added the peppermint candies.  A dab of hot glue in the middle of the candies came next, and I pushed the candy canes down on top while the glue was still hot.  When it was all assembled, I hot glued it in place on the shelf.

Next week is Thanksgiving!  All of our regular homeschool activities will be cancelled, so I'll have a whole 3 days to fill with seasonal fun.  I'm sure there are lots of things I could gather for the holiday, but I decided to do videos because my kids love them.  Dragonfly (age 7) enjoyed helping me screen these videos and put together this list of historically accurate (as far as I know) videos of the Pilgrims, Wampanoags, and the first Thanksgiving.  I'm hoping that this list gives homeschoolers and teachers lots of jumping off places for their own good discussions. 17th Century English Village Adults at Plymouth Village talk about the structure and defense of the town, how the houses were built, and the pilgrim way of life.  A solder talks about his armor and weapons, a man addresses tools of the time, and a woman talks about home life and gardening.  I'm sure your kids will have many questions after watching this video. Scholastic Virtual Field Trip

After way too many Christmas posts, I'm finally back to writing about homeschool stuff (although you shouldn't assume Christmas posts are done).  I think all the list making last month has got me in a list-making mood.  Today's article is a list of 250 ideas you can use for your homeschool theme units.  Since homeschoolers learn all year long, there are lists for every month.  If you have more to add, leave a comment! JANUARY 1- Penguins 2- Polar Bears 3- Snow Life Cycle 4- Human Blood (donor month) 5- Antarctica Continent 6- Narnia 7- Snow Adaptive Animals 8- Manners (hot tea month) 9- Rocks 10- Yeast 11- Fitness 12- Italy (Jan 4 is spaghetti day) 13- Little House in the Big Woods 14- Nursery Rhymes 15- Constellations 16- Winnie the Pooh (Jan 18 is his day) 17- Wound Care 18- Winter Survival 19- Sequences 20- Marine Birds FEBRUARY 1- Love 2- Family 3- World Geography 4- Black History 5- Biological Hearts 6- Baking (it's Bake fo

I'm constantly inspired by My Froggy Stuff's creations.  Today's elf printable is a Christmas version of her Tumbler Room photo clothesline.  There are sixty tiny Poloroid-style pictures to use for your own doll crafting, room decorating, or scrapbooking.  Watch My Froggy Stuff's video to see how to do the miniature clothespins and hang the pictures. The original pictures came from the royalty-free website,  Pixabay , and were gathered and formatted in my digital scrapbook program.  The miniature pictures are 0.8x0.7 but can be scaled up or down by changing the settings on your printer.  There is also a blank version and a captions version. > > > Click here to download the printable < < < For the picture clothesline in my Elf house, I first mounted the pictures on paperboard with glue stick.  Next, I cut apart wood matches to create the clothespins (Froggy uses toothpicks) and glued them to the picture first.  It's a bit tricky