Homeschooling My Kinetic Kids

My oldest (Dragonfly) is almost ten years old and has a lovely group of homeschooled girls she calls her friends.  To capitalize on their friendship and desire to spend time together this summer, the moms have conspired to have them read a few children's novels and meet for book club.  For the month of May, we've been reading "Strawberry Girl," which has been a very interesting and fun read aloud for the beginning of the summer.   "Strawberry Girl"  was written by Lois Lenski in 1945 and won the Newbery Award for it.  The book is set among the "Crackers," rural, poor, white families in Florida during the early 1900s.  We've found it to be a good book for reading aloud because the accent and vocabulary of the "Crackers" is very authentic and can be challenging to read at times, if you're not from that region.  The story has lots of teachable moments about respecting adults, working hard, having compassion for others, dealing with d...

Several months ago, I saw this amazing idea on Instagram that I knew I needed to make my own one day.  A mom and blogger at "The Rome Home" featured a horse learning theme with a mystery word activity called, "Stable Secrets."   From the first moment I saw the post, I was trying to find a theme to match it.  When I bought this garden clip art pack from Etsy recently, I knew I had found the perfect kit to finally do the mystery word printable! Since we're talking about words and helping kids learn to read, I thought a book list would be a good place to start.  All of these books are nonfiction resource books for learning about plants and how seeds grow.  From toddlers to upper elementary- you should be able to find the perfect book for your crew.  Click on the colored text to learn more about the books. Trees, Leaves, Flowers, and Seeds From Seed to Plant   <>  How Seeds Grow Botanicum- Welcome to the Museum Flower A...

A few weeks ago, I did my construction B and D letter sort with my two boys.  They really enjoyed the challenge and asked me to make them other themed activities with the same concept.  They're still working on letter reversal, so I thought I'd make another printable.  My kids picked the bugs and the set up of the sorting cards, too.  They love helping me with my blog projects. Get the Construction Activity It's officially springtime, which seems like good time to finally release this free printable.  Last year, I published several bug printables, but I'm not sure you can ever have too many.  Click the colored text if you're looking for life cycle printables, spider stuff, bug math, letter tracing, and more ideas for a spring theme. > > > Click Here to Download < < < To assemble the activity, click on the text and print all the sheets.  The letter cards have the option of being of double sided with a cute bug ba...

The kids and I started reading "Little House in the Big Woods" last week for the first time.  They're really enjoying hearing about life in the "old days" and all the ways that things were done differently 150 years ago.  It's been a very special time, too, because we all pile on the parents' bed for reading time and have some quiet time as part of our day.  It's been a great way to reconnect with them. Many of these ideas came from my own reading of the series; however, where possible, I've added links to give you more information about them.  Many of them can be done without extra supplies and don't involve other people, so their perfect for living "self isolated" like a pioneer. 1- Preserve Meat In my search, I found a blog and podcast called "Pioneering Today."  She has a post about salting, fermenting, and other ways to preserve meat.  The very first chapter of "The Little House in the Big Woods"...

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...

Earlier this week, I published the Montessori-inspired matching cards for the Safari Ltd Salmon life cycle figurines.  Since I already had one fish post, I thought, why not dedicate a whole week to them?  This time, we're playing around with fish eggs for some spelling practice. Did you know that salmon eggs come in many colors from pale yellow to dark reddish-orange?  Depending on the species, salmon lay eggs between July and December.  A nest of eggs is called a "redd" and a female salmon can deposit many redds during the same year.  Some salmon can lay as many as 17,000 eggs!  Most of the eggs don't survive to even hatch, and even fewer make it to maturity and lay their own eggs, which makes every nest of eggs a tiny miracle. > > > Download Printable Here < < < To use the salmon egg letter, first download them by clicking on the colored text.  Then, print them out and use scissors to cut them apart in strips.  ...

I can hardly believe that it's almost Valentine's Day already!  This year has been going very quickly (it must be all the crafting I've been doing).  Holidays are a great opportunity to infuse a bit of fun into your homeschooling or classroom.  One of my favorite ways to add something different is through math and reading. For this year's Valentine's Day printable, I created some letter tracing cards to help kids work on their handwriting.  I highly recommend printing them on cardstock, laminating them, and letting kids use white board markers to write on them over and over.  My kids like to test their muscle memory and writing skills by writing on the backside too.  In the PDF, I've included a fun "cookie" backside page, so you can make the cookies look fun on both sides. > > > Click Here to Download < < < This printable is for blog subscribers. Please enter your email into the box above for the password. ...