Morning Meditation

I love the tiles floors in our classroom. They have proved so useful this year! I use them in many ways but one way is to teach the kids to be still. For some time I taught English to students in China virtually. One of my students (11 years old) told me a technique her father used to teach her to study. He would have her sit quietly for a time appropriate to her age. When the time was up she got a treat. I started doing this with my kids at the beginning of the day. 

My children are instructed to sit in the square. No hands or feet outside the square, no talking, no playing, be a statue. SJ closes her eyes during this time to tune out her brother and will often face away from him. KJ is wiggly (which is appropriate for 4) however, he can go the entire time without talking. The time is between 2 and 4 minutes depending on our morning.

 After meditation the receive a prize. 

The objective is to teach them to be still on demand. As homeschoolers most of our day is spent up and about they are all over the classroom, the house and eventually outside. Compared to their counterparts in public school they move a lot. On Sundays at church they are in children's church so they are able to sit still for the lesson and pay attention without any problems. 

Meditation is a good practice the Bible tells us to "Meditate on the Word of God day and night." Joshua 1:8 it also says to, "Be still and know that I am God." Psalm 46:10

Shower Curtain Book Nook

I have been obsessed with all these cute book nooks and teepees. So I'd been thinking of a way to make it work for me and my kiddos. I found it! Shower curtains! Why should shower curtains be restricted to the suddy, steamy messy room that houses the commode. No! I will liberate the shower curtain! Free it from its prison and present it as an offering to my messy kids!

Its water resistant fabric makes it easy to clean and the hooks make for easy take 

down as I re-model in the future. 

Really though this was the easiest, quickest nook ever and they love it!

Cup Games for Kids

This past weekend I had the pleasure of helping my sister host a baby shower. We had some cups left over and in the blur of exhaustion set the cups down on the floor by the front door. Days later (don't judge me) I finally picked up the cups. Did I mention we have a dog, a various curious dog who I am sure put her nose in the cups. So what was I to do with these paper cups? Games!

I took the cups and put letters and numbers on them. I told the kids it was game day and I set the game rules they had a blast!

For the Math Game we used our Base Ten blocks and put the appropriate tens and ones inside the cup to make the number.

As the kids filled the cup I would stack them. They loved seeing the stack grow as a mark of their accomplishments.

We then flipped the cups over and used the letters to make words. Once the kids discovered a word I would write it on the white board. My kids are motivated by praise and a sense of accomplishment so seeing there progress is important for them.

I hope you and your kids enjoy these cup games!

DIY Bath Bombs for Kids

This past week was dubbed "Experiment Week". Day 1 was DIY Bath Bombs. 

Here is what you need:

 Empty Christmas Ornament or a Bath Bomb mold

 1 Cup Baking Soda

 3/4 Cup Epson Salt (Blended until its a fine powder)

1 Tablespoon of lemon juice

1/4 cup water

Spray bottle

Wooden spoon

Food Coloring

Essential oils

Coconut Oil

Place all the dry ingredients into a bowl and mix with a wooden spoon.

Next place the water, lemon juice, 1 tbsp coconut oil and essential oil (add per fragrance preference) into a spray bottle. Spray the liquid into the dry ingredients until the mixture has the consistency of sand. At this point we added food coloring. 

Once the mix starts to stick together start placing into the molds. Close the mod and allow to dry overnight. Due the the size of the ornament molds it took a few days to completely dry out. 

We covered the following topics: life skills, science, and math. 

Questions and discussion. 

1. Can you measure out a cup? 1/4 cup? 1/2 cup?

2. Why is it important to rest and relax?

3. What happens when the wet ingredients mix with the dry?

4. What happens when the colors mix?

Wallpaper Border Cover-Up - With Fabric

This past year we moved into our beautiful home. Unfortunately in the kids room there was this horrible wallpaper. My son loved didn't mind it but my daughter did not approve of the sports themed room. I knew I had to find a gender neutral alternative that fit both my kids personalities. 

My husband was not excited or motivated to go through the tedious process of removing the wall paper and I was not patient enough to wait so I had to come up with a solution.

I used a staple gun, scissors, and four yards of fabric. I folded the fabric in half length wise then in fours horizontally.  This gave me the width I wanted at manageable lengths. 

Here are a few project tips. 

1. Choose a fabric with little to no stretch. 

2. Choose a dark fabric that wont allow the wallpaper to show through.

3. Don't start a fabric end at the corner. Staple in the corner.

The kids loved the boarder once it was finished. Next time I do a project like this I will use a taller ladder so I can cover all the boarder at the top.

 For my first time on a project like this I think it went well. 

Money Math

Today we had some fun with money! SJ(5) is currently working her way through Horizons 1 work book. She learned about money while working through the Horizons K book but for this level they are relating money to place value. 

This was the perfect excuse to pull out the base ten manipulatives. For this activity we used pennies, nickles and dimes. Though she uses quarters, half dollars and dollars in her math book. I think we will wait a little while to introduce them using base ten. 

I placed the money in different increments in front of SJ and she used the manipulative to assign the money value. 

We didn't leave out KJ(3) though. I just used pennies with him and it was a great chance for him to practice counting and writing. He is having a hard time, confidence wise, writing without assistance but my husband and I have decided not to give in to his fussing about needing help at all. We have seen him control his pencil and though we don't expect his work to be perfect we do expect him to try. When he is successful, which so far has been every time, he is so proud of himself. 

This was a great activity, the kids really enjoyed it and I think the younger children are comfortable with money they better they will be managing it in the future. 

Coding for Kids

One of the many benifits of homeschooling is the ability to teach your kids random, awesome things like...CODING!!. I stumbled upon this awesome website that teaches children code. 

My kids LOVE it. The teaching is broken into age groups the first group is geared towards kids who are ages 3 to 5. The first few lessons are simple things like teaching children to reach an objective. 

The first activity was about 4 squares. The objective was to move the character to the left one square. Once they saw an example the grid got bigger and I even threw in a few obstacles. You can see in the picture above that it took SJ and KJ the same amount of moves to reach their goal. Which was a lesson on taking different paths to reach the same objective. 

After the kids got the hang of it on the white board we decided to act it out. 

I printed out pictures of SJ and KJ's favorite characters. I then had one child go into the living room while we placed the character face down along with some blank white pages.  

The child who placed the character had to direct the child who had just come back from the other room to their character using the sign below. They could rotate the sign to reach their objective but could not point to the picture. 

My kids are 5 and 3 and they really enjoyed this game. The next day when they got to start writing code on the computer they were able to follow along easily. We really enjoyed using www.coding.org and I believe my days will be filled with my children exploring new ways to make things happen. 

Sight Word Sticker Box

This past week my little ones have been having a hard time sitting still during our morning reading time. It was time to switch it up. We have been working quite a bit on sight words so this morning I decided to try an activity that would allow them to create. 

I found these letter and number craft stickers at Target a while back. I put them in a bin so the kids would have to hunt for the letters. They got to pick a sight word card, find the stickers then tell me the word.

SJ (5) ended up doing five words in the 20 min time frame. KJ(2) did two. Both had a good time but towards the end it got a little competitive since SJ found more words. 

Click here for another sight word game my kiddos love to play. 

Tile Floor Learning Games

I am loving the tile floor in our classroom and all the cool new ways I am learning to utilize it. This past week I used it for both a sight word and math drill. I define drill as anything I want the kids to answer at a rapid pace.


For our sight word drill, I placed one flash card per tile. The flashcards are double sided. One side is written in blue the other in red. I placed the cards red side up.

When I say the word the kids run to that word and flip it to the blue side. I had to do one child at a time because my kids are so competitive. Once all the cards were flipped to blue I would say the blue word and they got to pick the card up.

For the math drill I allowed both kids to play simultaneously. SJ (5) worked independently since she can count in her head. KJ (3) and I worked together since he still uses his fingers for math.

 I placed one equation per tile square on the floor and I gave each kid a stack of cards raging 1 through 10.

I had 30 equations and 20 answer cards so we had to improvise and double up some of the tiles. This is a game we will play often I'm sure.

This game could use any equations, so it is something that is easy to utilize as a learning tool that grows with the kids.

You can also use puzzle mat pieces to play tile learning games, check them out here!

For more math game ideas click here!

Puzzle Mat Fun

I love to combine subjects. The easiest subject to combine with another is reading or phonics. This puzzle mat game allows my kids to use phonics and science to identify and place animals according to their name. In a previous post I told you about finding these wonderful mats at the dollar store. They are awesome!


We have a tile floor so I had the kids place one letter per tile all across the classroom floor.

I then stacked all the animal squares. Each child got a stack.

I had them match the first letter of the animal name with the corresponding tile. 

They had a blast!This is something you can use for beginning and and end sounds of the animal names. I then had them put the mat back together in order. This required them remembering where each letter went as well as working together.

This quick, easy, cheap game was a great way to reinforce their letters, and phonics.

Outside School

Last night was crazy! I didn't get home from church until late, I barely made it home without falling asleep. I went straight to bed and woke up at almost 8 this morning! School starts at 9 ya'll! So I make breakfast (eggs, potatoes, and tomatoes) and sent my husband to the store. We were out of many things but the most important thing we were missing was coffee. I managed to start school on time but without my daily devotion time AND coffee I'm all out of sorts.

After our daily review the kids wanted to play outside because starting late this morning also meant they lost out on their morning playtime. So we took school outside. The kids used chalk to write their letters. I was pleasantly surprised that KJ could write so well.

We then gathered leaves, glued them to a paper then talked about what was the same and what was different about the leaves. Even Princess AJ joined us!

We ventured back in the house worked on some sight words, read a few books and the kids worked in their math books. Before I knew it, it was noon. I instituted quiet time for an hour and the rest of the day the kids get to play.

I did not follow the lesson plan for today but after writing it I guess we got more done than I realized. I'm getting used to going with the flow when it comes to my children's education. I want them to learn the way they learn so that means being unconventional with their learning.

Good Intentions

As  I am visiting with a friend I hear the water running outside
I yell out the screen door. "KJ turn off that water!" "Okay mom!" He replies and I hear the faucet is being shut off. A few minutes later I hear the water running again.
"KJ!"
"Yes mommy?"
"Is that water back on?"
"Yes." He sighs knowing he is in big trouble.
"Come inside and go get in the bed until I come talk to you."
"I was just trying to water the grass," he mumbles as he comes in and goes to his room.

I turn to my friend an explain to her KJ's position.

"I was just trying to water the grass, after all in the heat of summer the grass is now in patches in the backyard. The grass needed water. What was the big deal? I was being helpful. I was doing what needed to be done. I took initiative and now I am being punished for it. I don't understand."

As I went on and on she stopped me and said, "Okay, okay I get it."

See this is how we are when it comes to things that God tells us not to do. We hear it all the time, "the road to hell is paved with good intentions." In fact that is one of my favorite quotes. The problem wasn't that he was watering the grass. He was being disobedient. He thought he could see and understand things I couldn't. He was mistaken. Isn't this how we are with God. We see an opportunity and though God tells us to stop, wait, or move we decide on our own. We know He is older than us, wiser than us, stronger than us but we still want to do what we feel is right based on the information we have on hand. Isaiah 55:8-9

My sweet boy had forgotten that just a few days earlier as soon as the sprinklers were turned off a very large snake crossed the yard. He does not realize that our state is in a drought and he has absolutely no idea that the water he is frivolously using is a utility that needs to be paid for. In his mind he was doing the right thing.

It blesses me so much when God allows me to see myself in my children, because once I see myself in them I am better able to respond to them as close as I can to the way God responds to me.

Potatoes and Eggs

My SJ is a STEM girl through and through and I unfortunately am not.  I see I am going to have to keep up with programs and classes in our area as she gets older. Today she was asking to do an experiment. I really like to give them some room to participate in what we learn. Since there is no (or very minimal) common core directives for science in kindergarten this is a great place to let the kids flex their freedom.

First we defined experiment. SJ said it was trying something for the first time. KJ said its going faster and slower. Um....okay. I explained that an experiment is a test to see if something is true.

We decided to see what would happen if you boiled an egg. We also wanted to know what happens when you boil a potato. 

I let the kids handle both them state their hypothesis.  As you can see KJ though they would both be soft and SJ thought they would both end up hard. 

I let the kids prepare the experiment. The more hands on they are the more they retain. 

They waited a whole 20 minutes which is really long when you are 3 and 5. As soon as the potato was soft I removed it from the heat and put in on a plate to cool. 

The kids got to squeeze the potato and peel the egg. 

The kids were excited to see that the proteins in the egg bind together when heated and the starches in the potato break down. I then let them act it out. When I yelled protein they stuck together. When I yelled starch they ran away from each other. Both my kids have a hard time staying still and since science is at the end of our day I try to limit frustrations from all parties by keeping them up and moving as much as I can.  

We had cooked potato and cooked egg the natural progression was to let the kids make their own lunch. Potato salad! They loved being able to cook for themselves. 

All in all it was a great day!