Homeschooling My Kinetic Kids

It's a new school year, so it's time for some new printables!  I have lots of math helpers and manipulatives on this blog, but I'm not sure I'll ever reach a point where I can say that I have too many.  I was chatting with some other moms this morning in a Gameschooling group (homeschooling through game playing), and one of the moms mentioned she was looking for a pizza fraction game.  I've been spending so much time working on my small business that I haven't been posting to this blog very often, so I thought this was a great opportunity make a new printable! Is there any American kid who doesn't love pizza?  It doesn't matter what time of the day or how often we've eaten the food, the kids are always game for another pie.  With so many varieties available from savory to sweet, there are so many options for chowing down on it too.  If your kids enjoy pizza like mine do, they might enjoy these other fun pizza themed toys and books.  Check t...

I don't often write about the specific curriculum choices that we've been using, because I never feel like I have a firm enough grip on their success to justify putting them into the blog.  We are relaxed homeschoolers, which means that we don't use a lot of curriculum in the first place, but we also have some special needs in our family.  It's been an experiment to try to find what works for us.  For the first time in years, I feel very confident with our current set up enough to share it. Dragonfly (9) We've been struggling with Horizons Math workbooks for years with Dragonfly.  Finally, this spring, I switched her to Khan Academy.   I also had her start over with kindergarten work, since Khan is common core, which is different from Horizons.  Khan Academy is also FREE, which made it a very easy switch, even as an experiment.  I also like that Khan is set up more like a traditional classroom with very simple text and pictures, not animatio...

I've never been very excited about botany or plant life cycles.  I prefer biology instead, and this blog reflects that in a big way (even though my kids are always telling me what animals I'm still missing).  With everyone in isolation for the virus, my FB and Instagram feed are filled with people setting up gardens with their kids.  Although I still have no desire to plant my own garden, I've caught the bug in form of lots of gardening-themed printables to be released this month. Last year, I went nuts with the battleship style math games with several different themes. I have ones for rubber duckies, penguins, oreos, star wars, dinosaurs, and multiplication.  Since I'm crazy about this fun garden clip art pack from Etsy now, I decided that I need to make a garden one too.  And who are the enemies of the garden?  Adorable bunnies, of course! The Tale of Peter Rabbit book   <>   Peter Rabbit Toy It's Not Easy Being a Bu...

I'm continuing the garden theme this week (I promised to go all month) with several games that you can play with your kids to sneak in some great learning in a fun way.  Today, we have more math activities to work on some basics- a Make 10 Game!  It's a super easy game to play with early elementary aged kids, but there are also lots of other things you can do with the set too.  The set features 100 wood disks (I bought mine from Etsy) made into 100 fruit and vegetable rounds with numbers 1-9 and bunnies on the opposite side. To assemble your Make 10 game, print the entire PDF single-sided on cardstock.  You'll also need the  100 wood disks , packing tape, and a glue stick.  Each wood disk will have a fruit or veggie one side and a number 1-9 or bunny on the other side.  I recommend working with one fruit or veggie at at time, cutting them out by strips (2 for each one) and covering the front side of the printable with packing tape.  The...

It's SPRING!!!!  Even though it's snowed every day this week, it's now April and time for spring activities like gardening.  Since I tend to kill every plant I touch, I bought this garden clip art pack to create some themed learning printables instead.  I have lots of fun plans for the whole month, covering many different subjects. Even though I have a "brown thumb," I still fully support kids playing with garden toys, planting their own gardens, and learning about plants.  This is a great time of the year to try some kitchen scrap replanting or starting seeds to transfer outside when it gets warmer.  Check out this list of fun garden tools below and click the colored text to read more. Kid-Sized Picnic Table and Umbrella Veggie Sort Game   <>  Kid Planting Table Farmer's Market Color Sort Toy Plant Life Cycle Figurines   <>  Butterfly Garden Fairy Garden Planter and Accessories Pizza Herb Garden ...

I realized recently that I have done a lot of printables using wood disks.  Particularly, the  1 inch ones , which seem to be the right size to add some fine motor skill building to our homeschool.  They're also just super adorable when paired with fun themes.  Since I had the posts scattered all over my blog, I decided to organize them all together here.  You can click on any of the pictures to go to the post and grab the free printable. My favorite method of preparing these 1 inch wood disks is to cover the front side in packing tape and glue the backside to the circles.  I used to use modge podge, but it doesn't work as well with water-based inks and tend to get sticky if they're exposed to moisture.  An even more water resistant way to do the disks would be to laminate the printable and hot glue them onto the wood.  I also love that the disks are small enough to fit in an Altoid tin, which makes them great for roadschooling (traveling...

I've been over my head in pies lately, having just completed an order of eighteen mini pie fascinator hats and several larger pies for my new Etsy shop .  I'm either thinking about pie, crafting pies, or working with pie images all the time!  All this pie stuff reminded me that it's almost PI Day (March 14)- the day we celebrate the PI sign, learn about circles, and eat pie. Of course, just because a day is focused on math doesn't mean that it's not a good day for some fun reading activities!  As readers of my blog know, I'm crazy about Montessori-inspired movable alphabet  sets.  I have almost created one for every theme!  Just this month, I've added a Valentine's Day cookie set and a pizza disk printable!  Kids love having new letter learning resources when they're trying to master the alphabet.  These disks are also great for spelling games! > > > Click Here to Download the Letters < < < This printable is...