The trees are up in the kids bedrooms and they are ornament obsessed! They decorate their bedrooms trees with homemade ornaments each year and have been asking to make more ornaments since we made our angel ornaments last week. So yesterday we made popsicle stick snowflake ornaments! We started by gluing three craft sticks on top of each other (above) to form the snowflake shape. We used these funky shaped ones we had leftover from making mini … [Read more...]
Math Fact Practice: Flashcard Passport Game
My first grader has to learn all sorts of math facts this year and so far this fall has been working on addition. The kids study their flashcards throughout the month and their parents are supposed to quiz them periodically and sign whether or not they can answer them quickly and accurately on their homework sheet. Holding up flashcards got boring very quickly so last month we played a fire hose game to "put out" the correct answers. It was a hit … [Read more...]
Spoon Feelings Activity for Kids
We have been having so much fun participating in the Virtual Book Club for Kids! This month's author, Amy Krouse Rosenthal, was new to us and we excited to see her book Spoon in the Scholastic book order last month. (affiliate link) Spoon is the story of a little spoon who begins to fret that his friends, Knife, Fork, and Chopsticks, have it so much better than him. His friends think he is the lucky one, but he can only see the things that … [Read more...]
Practice Questioning with a Question Ball
Good readers need to be able to recall and make sense of, or comprehend, what they read. One of the best ways to increase comprehension in readers of any age is with the Questioning Strategy. In order to better understand the text kids learn how to create teacher-like questions about what they have read. Sounds simple, right? All it takes is practice! This is where the Question Ball comes in! How to use a Question Ball to increase reading … [Read more...]
Kid Drawn Pet Portraits
We finally joined in the fun at Kids Get Arty and I cannot believe we have waited this long! The artist we chose to study is Brooke Churchill who does these crazy cool pet portraits in a style she calls her Signature Mosaic Technique. If you've never seen any of her work you have to go and check out her website--the whimsical details in her work are simply amazing! We spent a lot of time looking at the different pet portraits she has on her site … [Read more...]
Hunger Heroes: A Food Drive Play Date
Last week we went orange for No Kid Hungry by inviting our friends to the park for a Hunger Heroes play date! Everyone was asked to bring food donations for our local food bank and we were so excited that over 30 of our little friends showed up with enough food to fill 3 large boxes. Each of the Hunger Heroes received a "today I helped end childhood hunger" sticker and an orange super hero cape to signify their good deed. The kids also drew … [Read more...]
Go Orange for Hunger: Super Hero Capes
Today we have invited all of our friends to a Hunger Hero play date at the park in support of No Kid Hungry's Go Orange days. All of the kids are bringing food donations for our local food bank--and turning into Hunger Heroes! I made bright orange capes for all of our Hunger Heroes to wear out of plastic tablecloths from the Dollar store. They were super easy to make! You can get 8 capes out of 1 108 inch table cloth. I began by unfolding the … [Read more...]
First Day of School: Photos and Emotions!
All three of the kiddos started school last week! My oldest had been waiting all summer and was so excited to finally be a first grader. First grader sounds so crazy to me. On one hand she is more than ready for this chapter, but on the other I'm not even ready for her to be in kindergarten yet, much less first grade! The elementary kids start an hour before the preschoolers, but I could not pass up an opportunity for a group shot! (How much … [Read more...]
