Once Upon a Book {July 2010-Sept 2010}

For those of you who don't know, I contribute to the Once Upon a Book feature over on Totally Tots. Basically, I choose a book(s) based on the Totally Tots theme of the month and come up with fun, educational ideas focused on the book and the current theme.

The posts contain:

• a book summary
• a related Bible verse
• ideas for crafts, math, science, art, games, snacks, songs, fingerplays, dramatic play, fine motor skills, etc.

Here are the books I chose for July through September 2010. You can click on the book images to go to the post showing what I did with my tots for each of the books.

 

To see all of my Totally Tots posts, click here!

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Once Upon a Book {Oct 2010–Dec 2010}

For those of you who don't know, I contribute to the Once Upon a Book feature over on Totally Tots. Basically, I choose a book(s) based on the Totally Tots theme of the month and come up with fun, educational ideas focused on the book and the current theme.

The posts contain:

• a book summary
• a related Bible verse
• ideas for crafts, math, science, art, games, snacks, songs, fingerplays, dramatic play, fine motor skills, etc.

Here are the books I chose for October through December 2010. You can click on the book images to go to the post showing what I did with my tots for each of the books.

To see all of my Totally Tots posts, click here!

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{This post may contain affiliate or advertiser links. Please review my disclosure policy.}

Tin Can Constellation: The Little Dipper

When my daughter was learning about stars and constellations in her Adventures in My Father’s World curriculum, we decided to re-create the Little Dipper by making a tin can constellation. It was super easy and lots of fun!

All you need is a tin can (we used a 36oz sized Nestle hot chocolate container), a nail, hammer, marker, and flashlight. We used the books Stars! Stars! Stars! and Constellations: A Glow-in-the-Dark Guide to the Night Sky while creating her tin can constellation.

Directions: Using the marker, draw the dipper on the bottom of the can. In hindsight, we should have drawn it backwards so that it will appear “the right way” when we used the flashlight. So, be sure to draw yours backwards. Then using the hammer and the nail, poke holes in the can to make the stars forming the little dipper. Make the hole for the North star a little bigger than all the others. My daughter wanted to label both the Little Dipper and the North Star!

Once you have poked all of your stars, now it is time for the fun part! Take your tin can constellation and your flashlight and head into a closet or dark room. Flash the light through the can so that the stars appear on the wall making the Little Dipper! (I tried, but couldn’t get a good picture of our Little Dipper on the bathroom wall…I need to do some research on how to get a good pic in the dark…)

Be sure to check out Science Sunday for more fun science activities.

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More of His Beautiful Creation…

If you saw my last post…and now this one, you may begin to think that I am just enthralled with God’s amazing creations right now…well you are correct! In the midst of my less than stellar outlook on our move, I have decided to trust God and change my attitude! Seeing and acknowledging His beautiful creation just reminds me that He created it all and He knows…including what is best for our family!

I have been going through some of my partially completed posts and I noticed this one with just a bunch of tulips that we saw last year. I just love the vibrant colors! They reminded me of the Encouragement Cards that I made awhile back! If you need a little pick-me-up, God’s Word usually does the trick for me! Pair that with some beautiful flowers and you’ve got a win-win situation!

 

Download the Encouragement Cards HERE!

So, no more huffin’ and puffin’ from me about our move…I will be getting back to the fun, crafty, homeschool related posts!  :-)

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A Rainbow…A Promise

We are slowly getting settled in our new home. The move has been a lot more difficult FOR ME than I was expecting. Regardless, I still believe that this little BIG curveball is part of God’s mighty plan for our family!

Since we haven’t had internet access for awhile (just got it up and running in our new home yesterday), I didn’t even bother trying to plan any blog posts. However, I have quite a few partially completed posts. When I saw these pictures in one of the drafts, they brought a smile to my face. The rainbow reminded me that God’s promises are true AND it reassured me that we are just where God wants us to be right now…even though the beautiful rainbow was taken months and months ago in our old neighborhood! :-)

Don’t we serve a mighty GOD!!!

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Nesting Sort & Stack Cubes & Cylinders {A Guidecraft Mom Review & Giveaway Link}

Bight, colorful, wooden nesting blocks…what’s not to love about that kind of wooden toy?!?!? My 3 year olds were absolutely thrilled when I opened the package from Guidecraft and they saw the Cylinders and Cubes!

    

These Nesting Sort and Stack wooden toys are obviously great manipulatives for:

• sorting by color
• sorting by sizes
• stacking to make tall towers
• nesting the graduated sizes

Plus, they are great for developing fine motor skills in addition to shape and color recognition! To help with color recognition, I grabbed some little sticks from a building set (you could also use colored craft sticks) and the little boys matched the color of the sticks with that of the blocks, making this a great color matching activity!

Now, I mentioned that my 3 year olds have enjoyed playing with our new wooden toy but what I didn’t expect was for my 5 year olds and my 7 year old to enjoy playing with them as well!

In fact, we came up with a little game using our Education Cubes to practice color names. While the game was designed for two people (because we have two nesting sets) all of the kids enjoyed helping one another!

First off, remove all of the blocks from the yellow base. Roll the Education Cube and read the color name. Find a cube or cylinder that color and add it to the base. Take turns doing this until your base is filled. First one to fill their base wins! The kids had SO much fun playing this and I had a blast watching them have fun learning! (FYI, I used the color names red, blue, green, pink, plus a few extra: brown and black.)

I just LOVE when I am able to take a learning toy designed for younger children and adapt it so that my older kids can be engaged in learning through the toy as well!

Yet again (and it is no surprise) we have another winner from Guidecraft! We are thoroughly enjoying our Nesting Sort and Stack Cubes and Cylinders!

So, want to win a set for your kiddo(s)? Head over to Thanks, Mail Carrier for a chance to win! Giveaway ends March 11th at 11:59pm CST.

Can’t wait to win? Want to purchase a set now? You can purchase the Nesting Sort and Stack Cubes and Cylinders from Amazon here and here or directly from the Guidecraft website here and here!

As a Guidecraft Mom blogger, this product was given to me for review purposes. I do not have to return the product to the vendor and I was not paid for this post. All opinions expressed in this post are my own.

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You know you’re a homeschool mom when…

…you find these little guys neatly stashed away in a baggie in the kitchen cabinet

…and you actually contemplate whether or not to pack them up and bring them along to your new home

…just in case you ever get around to learning about flies

…and there don’t happen to be any where we are moving to. 

Ugh…I have too much stuff!!!!

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The Schoolhouse EXPO

Have your heard about the Schoolhouse EXPO? It is a fun and informative online homeschool convention brought to you by The Old Schoolhouse Magazine that will be held May 16-20, 2011.

The theme for this year’s convention is “Homeschooling with Heart” and they have an awesome lineup of speakers including Susan Wise Bauer, Carol Barnier, Dianne Craft, Jim Weiss, and Marie Rippel from All About Spelling. View the full lineup of speakers and topics here.

Purchase an Early Bird ticket and you'll receive a special bonus package of goodies valued at more than $100 along with the main package of free gifts! Combined, that’s more that $300 in freebies for just $19.50!

The special Early Bird ticket price of $19.50 ends TONIGHT, Wednesday, February 9th at 11:59 p.m. On February 10th, the price goes up to $29.00 and on February 27th, the full price of $39.99 will be effective.

So, be sure to head over to purchase your ticket before the Early Bird ticket price expires and you miss out on the special bonus package of goodies!

Tickets can be purchased from the Schoolhouse Expo website.

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10 Days of Homeschooling

Have you heard about Heart of the Matter’s 10 Days of Homeschooling Blog Hop? They have partnered with 16 awesome bloggers in the homeschool community to bring you 10 days, 160 posts full of resources for those starting out, burned out or in need of new ideas.

I was originally planning to participate by providing ideas and encouragement for those homeschooling with toddlers in tow. However, due to life’s curveball, I am in the midst of everything that goes along with selling your house and moving to another state…and trying not to loose my sanity through it all!  :-)

Even though I am no longer participating, I have already begun to hop around…and let me tell ya, you will NOT be disappointed. I started out with my pal Erica’s post over on Confessions of a Homeschooler! Get a vision!!! Boy, did I need to read that!!! So often I get wrapped up in all of the academics and planning involved in homeschooling that I loose sight of the main, and most important reasons that we homeschool in the first place! Thanks Erica for the conviction, encouragement, and reminders! You rock!!

So, be sure to visit all of these wonderful women in this 10 days adventure between February 7th-18th (weekends excluded) for a wealth of information, resources, ideas, and encouragement for homeschoolers!

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