DIY Crayon Circles

We pick up crayons from everywhere! Back to school sales, dollar stores, restaurants, if they are offered to us or are being sold at a great price then we are getting them. This has led to an abundance of broken crayons. My son KJ has a real problem with things that are broken (though breaking things is his specialty) so he fights against using crayons that don't meet his standards.

This activity was fairly easy to prep. I took all the crayons and put them in a pile on the table. I asked the kids to remove the wrappers which proved tedious so K and I joined in. After the crayons were unwrapped I had the kids sort them using disposable cupcake pans.

I then baked the crayons in the cupcake plans on 300 degrees for about 15 min. Once the crayons were completely melted I took them out the oven and put them into the freezer to harden. They easily popped out of the tins and the kids enjoyed being able to use them right away.

A Day at The Farm

Last week SJ was out of town. She got back Saturday night, we went to church Sunday and started up with school again Monday. She was pretty wiped out and after a week of informal school with KJ we needed something to look forward to. So we told the kids we would go on a field trip and today we went to Riley Farms.

It was really fun. We took a nice hike from the main cabin where we picked up a map to the apple orchards. The hike was less than a mile and the kids got to learn the proper way to pick apples. Once the apples were picked they were weighed and we paid for them.

The grounds are really neat. They have sheep on property, colonial toys, a bakery, even a cabin. The kids and I finished reading Meet Addy which takes place during the colonial era and so we got to go inside the cabin giving them a visual to a setting similar to the cabin in the book.

It was a fun, informative day, and its only 15 minutes from our house so I see many visits to this farm in the near future.

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. 

Daddy Does School and FREE Phonics Resources

Every now and then my wonderful husband helps with homeschooling. On this particular day AJ (5 mos) was giving me a hard time. She wanted to nurse and sleep in my arms and ONLY nurse and sleep in my arms so it was a long day. Thankfully daddy stepped in and tried to follow my schedule. I battled on wither or not to post this picture since SJ's hair isn't done but then I figured, hey this is real everyday life!

As you can see K is teaching the kids sight words. I have have found two amazing sites that I use for phonics and literacy. The first is Progressive Phonics. My kiddos love that these book allow them to read with me. There are words throughout the printable books that are red, these are the words the student reads while the teacher reads the words that are in black. This is a great way to reinforce independent study. I will often give the printed book to SJ(5) and ask her how many of "mommy's words" she knows.

The next site I use to identify popular sight words for SJ's age. This is based on American standards. In some other countries children are reading fluently around 4 so I introduce both the previous books mentioned as well as the sight words to KJ (3). I use Dolch Sight Words which is a free site that gives you sight words by grade. They also have printable books.

As the kids are learning and growing I am having a lot of fun seeing what works and what doesn't. I have found that for us it works best for me if I have general standards or goals I want to reach. I refer to the common core standards for my state. If you are interested you can find yours here. I have not decided to stick to the standards but I do like to have an idea of what others in my daughters age range are learning.

I've also learned to go with the flow when it comes to teaching. My kids don't care what the common core standards are, they don't want to stick to my objectives for the month, week, or day they just want to discover something awesome, and we get to teach them.