Homeschooling My Kinetic Kids

This blog post has been two years in the making.  I created this 100-chart (actually 100 plus) last summer for our homeschool classroom, but I never got around to blogging about it.  I'm glad I waited because my original poster didn't last the kids, so I am trying again this year.  All the kids are ready for the 100-chart, and we've already gotten more use out of the poster this month than we did all last year. > > > Download 30x40 Inch Poster < < < If you're in the market for a super huge poster, this 30x40 inch poster is just what you need.  I recommend getting the posters printed at your local office supply store.  Although they don't advise you to print posters in the "architectural blueprints" mode, but I've found that it works pretty well and is a lot cheaper than an official "poster" print.  Then, I have the store laminate for it for us (last year, I framed it- that was bad) and use 3M adhesive strip...

My kids are studying U.S. History this year, which I'm very excited about.  All week, I've been posting printables and ideas for making history a bit more exciting for the early elementary age grouping.  Today, I have a playable dominoes set that is designed to help kids be able to identify the 13 original colonies. Orginally, I wanted to do all 50 states, and I still might eventually, but I thought 13 was probably a good place to start.  As I said, this is a real set of dominoes, designed in the traditional way, not a simple matching game.  There are 91 pieces, which is plenty for a 6, 7, and 8 year old to learn at first.  As you can see, the very smallest players can just match colors and shapes, while the older kids can be asked to name the state before they lay down their play piece.  The printable also includes a cheat sheet with all the names of the states next to their shape. > > > Download Dominoes Game < < < This...

We recently got an Instant Ink compatible printer for our homeschooling.  I had been putting off buying ink on our old printer for several months, not wanting to put out the money to purchase new cartridges.  Then, I heard about a great deal on a new HP printer .  For the price of two cartridges for the old printer, I bought a brand new wireless printer with 10 months of free ink!  I've wanted a wireless printer for a long time, so it's even more perfect. The printer is part of HP's Instant Ink program, a subscription service where ink is automatically sent before you need it (amazing!).  When you sign up for the program, you chose how many pages of printing you think you'll use a month- 30, 100, or 300.  Every month, your printing allowance starts over.  When the cartridge gets low, HP automatically sends you new ink.                                       ...

This Friday is May the Fourth, aka Star Wars Day!  I have one child who thinks he's Darth Vader, and another who wants to take the Millennium Falcon to grandma's house.  We love the Star Wars movies, but we really like the merchandise, concepts, and spin-off movies (like Lego).  We really, really like lightsabers. Every day this week, I'm going to be posting a Star Wars themed post, counting down to the big party day.  Today, I'm giving you a free printable for preschool/kindergarten math. My boys are working on their number identification and values for 0-10, so I made this Star Wars math board for them.  At it's simplest form, the math board helps kids learn numbers by presenting the 5 or 10 frames and showing kids how those numbers fill out the frame.  For example, "number 1" would have one counter, "number 2" would have two counters, and "number 10" would fill out the frame.  I have included number cards so that kids can practice la...

I haven't been writing about homeschooling very much lately.  Part of the reason I haven't created any new printables or posted about our schooling is that we're still doing a lot of what I've already made over the last few years.  This 100-chart is a perfect example of something I started a few years ago that we weren't ready to use at the time. Dragonfly is able to count to one-hundred now and is beginning to learn the connections between the numbers.  She's recently been trying to understand even and odd numbers.  Today, we got out our 6-sided number chart and looked at the pattern. It was a great exercise for Dragonfly to put the numbers together in order.  The colors helped her to see how all the "ones" lined up on one column, all the "fours" in another, and onward.  She did great as you can see from the video below. To make your own chart, you need about 120  one-inch wood blocks  for the numbers 0-100 and the optional "number ea...

/> I haven't done a true Homemade Homeschool post in a long time.  A few weeks ago, I was thinking about how I could use my binding machine and came up with the idea of these flip books. I made the "money" one first (hundred thousand to hundredths), because I was thinking early elementary. Then, I made the decimal place one to help students with numbers smaller than one (hundreds to ten thousandths). After I made these larger ones, I realized that my kids weren't ready for either of them and would do better with a smaller flipbook only covering ones, tens, and hundreds.  The smaller book matches our place value set that I made last summer. Each of the books has been printed, laminated, and bound!  They should last us for many years.  And the kids are absolutely fascinated with them. I'm planning some CVC flip books soon! Click on the titles below to download the files. Place Value Flipper- Color Place Value Flipper- Pri...

I've been searching for a good history timeline for quite a long time.  Time is such a slippery concept that I'm sure a visual would be very helpful for all of us.  After searching Pinterest for days, I finally decided that I'm really picky.  Instead of continuing my research, I decided to turn it into a blog post.  I don't guarantee that this list is exhaustive, but they're all free! Pre-History to Modern History for K-6 I find these pictures very engaging and interesting, so I think they would be good for younger kids.  They are secular, though, and are dated to reflect that reality.  This also wouldn't be a good timeline if you want to focus on Biblical history.  I think the strength of this set is in the modern history cards. Story of the World Timeline This set seems to be very popular on the internet, especially with families who are using the Story of the World  (SOTW) Curriculum.  Each of these timeline cards is half a sheet of paper,...

{A} Apple Pie Invitation to Play ( rolling pin and  pie tins ) {B} Bricklaying ( small wood blocks ) {C} Core Sampling ( baking pan and layers of the earth model ) {D} Dinosaur Fossils ( dinosaur mega toob ) {E} Egg Engineering ( plastic eggs and play-doh ) {F} Frog Life Cycle ( frog life cycle set and google eyes ) {G} Galaxy Play Dough ( space toob and solar system set ) {H} Human Body Model ( human body model ) {I} Ice Cream Play Dough ( ice cream scoop and cups ) {J} Jelly Bean Edible Dough ( jelly beans ) {K} Kool-aid Play ( kool-aid ) {L} Letter Stamping ( Melissa and Doug Letter Stamps ) {M} Mash It ( wood hammer ) {N} Nature Stampers ( anise stars ) {O} Orange Play Dough ( orange oil ) {P } Play Dough Recipes ( corn starch and cream of tartar ) {Q} Quick Mix Recipe ( rolling pin ) {R} Robot ( paper clips and pipe cleaners ) {S} Scissors ( scissors ) {T} Travel Play Dough Kits ( tackle box ) {U} Underwater Invitation to Play ( coral reef toob and shells ) {V} Valent...