Easy Word Family/Sight Word Activities

Colin is working on his first sets of word families. YAY!!! We have been using Easy Peasy All-in-One Homeschooling for his reading (he is in the McGuffey Primer level right now). He seems to be doing well but I think he needs some extra practice, so I came up with a few ideas. ;)







First I made up some simple flashcards.











Then I made a memory game. He LOVES this!!!!











Then I made some of those sliding thingies. ;)

I think I may redo those.... It was 6 am and I was a little tired. LOL











This was his favorite. I wrote some of his words in white crayon on white construction paper and had him use his water colors. As soon as he found a word I had him read it to me.



These activities seem to be helping  him tremendously!!!



Here are a few links to other word family/sight word activities and printables.



St Aiden's Homeschool - word family printable workbooks (I used these to teach Cailey how to read)

Creative Family Fun - Word Family Sort (making this today)

The Measured Mom - Word Family Houses - printables

The Educators' Spin on It - LOTS of activities and a link up

Make, Take and Teach - 18 free word slide printables (so much prettier than my construction paper ones)

Kids Activities Blog - Word family flip chart



HAVE FUN HOMESCHOOLING!!!!!

Top 10 Posts of 2013

It's TIME!!! Time to ring out the old and bring in the new! :D Don't you just love New Year's?? You can kiss the mistakes of the last year goodbye and welcome a clean slate.

As I've said before, I never make resolutions. No way am I setting myself up for failure from the get go. ;) BUT here are some of the things that I want to do more of in the new year.



SEWING -  It's been 2 LOOOOONG months since I have sat at my sewing machine. That's 2 months too long. I have GOT to figure out a way to unpack my sewing stuff in this tiny house!! We are only supposed to be here a few months (until the rental agent finds us a bigger place) but I am going through some heavy withdrawals already!!! LOL



CRAFTING - It has been forever since I made anything. ARGH!!!! I need my creative outlets!! I'll go starkers!!!



READING -  I used to set myself reading challenges at the beginning of each year. It's been a couple of years since I have done that. Just not enough time. SIGH.... BUT I am planning a couple of different challenges for 2014. One is the Alphabet Soup Challenge made by Escape With Dollycas Into a Good Book.  You can check my page for it out HERE.

The other challenge is to read 100 books. That used to be NOTHING to me. I could read 3 books a week. AHHH, those were the days.

I'll be keeping up with that challenge over at Goodreads.



Now, on to the Top 10 Posts of 2013!!!



10



My Worm Unit Study!!!

That was a fun one to make. We actually haven't done it yet... SHHHH!!! That'll be one for spring! ;)



9



My Rocks and Minerals Unit Study! That was a fun one. The kids love anything hands on. I made sure to save everything from our  kits so we can do it again. ;)



8



Apron Skirt Tutorial I just love old fashioned clothes for kids!! Not all the time but it's nice to have some pieces. This was such a quick and easy little skirt to make. It can be easily personalized for the little girl in your life.



7



DinoROAR Tutorial Part 2 - Colin still loves this outfit. It's holding up well, too! HA! Little boys can be so hard on clothes!!





6



Marco Polo Unit Study  

Another fun, hands on study. And another one that we have actually put to use. ;)



5



Plants Unit Study -  Ummm... another one that we will be getting to this spring.... I figure we'll do plants and worms at the same time.  ;)



4



Simple Machines Unit Study

This is going to be SO MUCH FUN, when we actually get to it.... (Our next science unit will be weather, which I think is perfect for winter in TN.)





3



Tee to Short-all Refashion Tutorial

This was so much fun to make for my cousin's little guy.





2



Aztecs, Incas and Mayans Study Unit

I think this one was so popular because it's hard to find great resources for that topic. Not sure why... It's so interesting! So much fun to learn about!!!





Drum roll, please.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8aGlOj2VFo

1



EASY Stuffed Shark Toy Tutorial and Pattern

My very first (and really only) pattern made to share! LOL

Y'know... I never get around to making one for Colin.... Something to add to my to sew list!! Not like it isn't a mile long already!!



So, there you have it! My top 10 of 2013!!! I hope you've enjoyed them all!!! Please, stick around for 2014!!!! And invite some friends!! PLEASE!! LOL



HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

Annual Christmas Tag

I was tagged!! I was tagged!! Karen from Baking In A Tornado tagged me in the Annual Christmas Tag!! :D

Once you're tagged you answer the questions and then tag 10 more bloggers!



So here we go....



1.       What do you love the most about Christmas time?  Oh, that's easy. My kids. I love seeing my kids on Christmas morning.

2.       Do you celebrate the holiday in style or is Bah-Humbug for you? Definitely in style. The house is all decorated, we have a REAL tree, I bake cookies, we play carols and I usually make a ginormous Christmas dinner.

3.       Are you leaving anything out for Santa Claus this year so he remembers to leave your presents? Cookies and eggnog for Santa, carrots for the reindeer.

4.       What is the one gift you are most looking forward to GIVING? {It can be to your kids, another family member, etc – remember to be discreet if they read your blog!}  Well, SHHHHH!!! But we FINALLY got the kids a Wii. I have been bugging The Hubby for YEARS about getting a Wii. We have 3 PS3s, PSP, X-Box 360 and 2 DSs but no Wii! I finally talked him into this year! YIPPEE!!

5.       What is your all-time favorite Christmas movie? Can I have a 3 way tie?? A Christmas Story, It's a Wonderful Life and Christmas Vacation! OH!! 4 way tie!! Love Actually!!!

6.       What is your all-time favorite Christmas song? Carol of the Bells

7.       If given the opportunity would you participate in an “Ugly Sweater” party and what sweater would you wear?  Peruse one on the internet or even in your own closet and show us!

Oh, I would most definitely have an ugly sweater party!! I would want the one from Bridget Jones! LOL



8.       Have you started any Christmas traditions this year that you plan on carrying forward? Hmm, not that I can think of. I think we pretty much do the same things year after year.

9.       It’s Christmas morning … what does it look like outside where you live? Brown. BLECK! Lots and lots and lots of brown. Brown grass, brown trees and probably brown mud. SIGH...

10.   You just found yourself standing under the mistletoe … who comes up to give you a kiss first? THE HUBBY!!!





So, here's the part where I am supposed to name 10 more bloggers... Here's the thing.. Whenever one of these things come up it seems that the most of the bloggers I choose aren't really all that interested in participating. Sooo, here's how I like to work it.

IF YOU ARE READING THIS AND YOU ARE A BLOGGER, YOU'VE BEEN TAGGED!!! Go forth and tag on!!!



MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!!!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

Away Day

Today I am posting a little something over at Confessions of a Part-Time Working Mom for my very good friend Karen from Baking in a Tornado!! She has never had an Advent Calendar and Tamara decided to work up a very special one just for her!! I can't tell you how happy I am to be a part of it. Karen is one of my favorite people in the whole wide world!

Please, go check it out! :D

Even More Christmas Crafts for Kids

SHEW!! We have been busy little elves around here! The kids have been making things left and right! I have to keep thinking up new things to keep them busy!









We made cardboard stockings and painted them.









We made coffee filter snowflakes and decorated them with glitter glue.







We also made aluminum foil Christmas trees and painted them. That was a definite favorite!!



Then we made something very special for a friend but you won't be seeing that until next week. ;)

We also played around with cornstarch and baking soda clay but they wouldn't leave them alone long enough to dry. We ended up with crumbled messes all over the place. :(

Easy Hands On Number Activities

I bought a bag of foam pieces from the Dollar Tree a few weeks ago. We've been having some fun crafting with them, too bad someone threw those crafts away!!! ARGH!!!! Anyway, I was trying to think of some ways to improve Colin's grasp of numbers higher than 20. So, I dug out those foam pieces and started writing the numbers 0-50 on them.



Then I had him put them in order. Easy peasy!!! Cheap and fun, too!



Then I had an idea of another activity he could do with those pieces! Count out beans!! Now he can see how many the different numbers represent as well as their placement in line.

Not bad for $1!

I have found that there are a lot of things out there for numbers 1-10 and a few for 1-20 but not many for any of the higher numbers. I will be trying to think of some more ideas! Wish me luck! ;)

Christmassy Stuff and More Kids Crafts

We have been VERY busy lately with Christmassy stuff. Our tree went up the Saturday after Thanksgiving. It was a day late! LOL



I took Cailey and Colin to the Lowe's Build and Grow last Saturday. They made the cutest scratch and sniff Christmas trains!!

We missed the 2 kids workshops at Home Depot this month. :( One because of a bad tire (and NO place open to replace it) and one because of the ice storm (see yesterday's post).



We've painted ornaments for the tree. Colin decided to go with an all black snowflake. LOL That child definitely has his own opinions about everything! ;)



The Hubby and I sneaked away for a few hours to go to his company's Christmas party. It was sooo sooo sooo pretty! I was afraid that I was going to get thrown our for harassing the peacocks!



And we have been doing tons more Christmas crafts!!

You can find the template for the Christmas Tree puppet at Scholastic.









We made Rudolph with hand print antlers. Colin's is on the left and Cailey's on the right. She said she wanted hers to look like it was facing her.







We listened to The Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies from The Nutcracker and I asked Cailey and Colin to paint what it made them think of while they listened to it.







Then I let them watch it with me and paint what they thought of it after watching it.









Here we did white crayons with water color paints over it. If you look very closely you might be able to see their snowflakes. I think next time we will try construction paper instead of butcher paper.



SHEW!! And that is what we have been up to lately. I'll surely have more crafts and activities in the days to come! :D

The Ice Storm of December 2013

So you may have heard about the ice storm some of us in south received about 10 days ago. YILES!!!! Luckily we were without power for only a few hours. The roads were an absolute mess!!! There were trees down all over the place. We lost a TON of big branches.

Here are some of the pictures I took the next morning.







This is what our power lines looked like! YILES!!









































It was soooo pretty!! But I think I'll take snow instead. ;)