Homeschooling My Kinetic Kids

So, I totally missed National Ice Cream Day, which was earlier this week on July 19th.  Since July is still Ice Cream month and summer is an entire season of frozen food time, I thought I could still share this free printable.  It's just a simple collection, just like all my other letter cards ( see them here ), but there are still several uses for them. One of my favorite ways to practice handwriting is with sensory writing trays.   This is a modern take on the Montessori salt tray, which can be customized for many different themes or events.  If you click the colored text to see several examples from this blog and to get more printable letter cards.  They're so fun, and I've found that their almost irresistible to kids. You can use whatever you have on hand to set up your sensory tray.  In the past, I've used lids, paper plates, and trays.  My favorite option is a plastic  8x10 plastic tray , as it seems to give kids a good amount of ...

I've been waiting to publish this printable for a really long time, because I kept thinking I would do something more interesting with the blog post besides just giving you the PDF.  Then, when I went to write this post, I realized that the digital scrapbook file had been corrupted, and I no longer had the original file.  As a result, the printable in the link is NOT an exact copy of the ones displayed in the picture.  Sorry.  I've done my best to remake them and added a few more options than I had before (so that's good). > > > Click Here to Get the Printable < < < Like all of my letter cards, these can be downloaded by clicking on the colored text under the picture.  Print them on cardstock for the most durability.  If you're wanting to use them for spelling, printing 2-3 copies might be a good idea.  You can organize the letters in small zip top bags to make finding the one you want a lot easier.  Cut out the eggs...

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...

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'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...

I'm squeaking this out at the last minute, but I wanted to get these Valentine's Day heart cookie movable alphabet cards out to you before we tuck the holiday in for another year.  Movable alphabets are the Montessori way of allowing kids to practice letter identification and spelling before they are physically able to read or write.  One of my children is actually learning how to read through spelling, which makes these movable alphabet cards even more fun.  Scroll down to the bottom of the post for more card themes for every occasion. > > > Click Here to Download < < < Click the link to download the cards.  The PDF is arranged so that you have one page of letter cards and one page of "cookie" background for printing on the backside of the cards.  I recommend printing on cardstock so the paper can handle all the extra ink.  The cards can then be used to play matching games with the background helping to ensure that the front ...

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. ...

// When moon hits the sky like a big pizza pie that's amore // National Pizza Day is on February 9th, just between Super Bowl Sunday and Valentine's Day.  It's a great time of year for a full moon pizza shared with the people you sort of tolerate.  It's also a great excuse to dig out the pizza learning activities (like my Pizza Fractions 3-part cards) to entice kids to work on some skill that they've gotten tired of rehearsing.  Today's free printable focuses on the alphabet! As I'm sure readers to this blog have seen, I LOVE making Montessori-inspired movable alphabets (by the way- the different spellings I use for "moveable" is the fault of my British scrapbook program as it uses the "ea" instead of the American way).  The letter cards and wood disks are great for letter identification, sorting, fine motor skill building, and spelling.  They allow a child to work with letters without being about to correctly write th...