Muffin Tin Phonics {A Pinteresting Project}

Leave a reply

pinteresting project logo

Click this image for more “Pinteresting” Projects!


I love Pinterest for ideas for education and fun! I really do not consider myself a crafty person, so when Pinterest was new, I thought I should avoid it. I figured there was nothing simple enough for me.
How wrong I was! I love all of the ideas for learning and playing that I stumble upon on Pinterest.
Today I’m sharing an idea I found for a learning game using a muffin tin.
Here was the pin I stumbled upon:


It came from Growing Book by Book, where Jodie also shared two other games with muffin tins. Continue reading →

Adding a Weather Bear to Preschool Calendar or Circle Time

9 Replies

Enter: The Reid School’s new weather bear! A weather bear is a fun addition to our daily calendar time as we track the weather day by day and practice putting the correct clothing on Berry the Bear.

When my husband was young, his mother taught preschool. One thing he mentioned remembering was a weather bear in their basement classroom. A few months after we had a conversation about his childhood weather bear, his mother sent it to me!

But after 30 years of life, Grandma’s Weather Bear was definitely past his prime. The seal of the lamination no longer was tight. The Velcro tape had come off the back, and the sticky residue had somehow left stains that seeped through to the visible side of the bear. It was time for Grandma’s Weather Bear to retire.

Setting Up the Weather Bear

We call our weather bear “Berry.” I bought a large set of bear plus clothes clip art to dress our dear Berry, created by Teacher Laura. We printed off our favorite clothes (sized just right for Berry). I planned to use small Velcro dots (affiliate links throughout this post) to attach the clothing and felt to attach the bear to the felt board. Magnets could also work for this, if I had a magnet board!

I decided to create her by printing on light fabric transfer paper and ironing it directly on to felt. I printed a lot of clothes for Berry. Right now I keep her clothes in a small box next to the weather bear board.

As my kids and I put Berry together, I started to thinking about you, my blog readers! While I obviously can’t include all the clothing options for all of you (WAY too many!), I wanted to share some with you. This free download for blog list subscribers includes the weather bear and clothes for five different kinds of weather.

Extending the Learning with Weather Bear

With my preschooler and her Spanish preschool class, I also developed some more for weather learning fun. I include seasons and weather cards (in both
English and Spanish!), cards to practice the vocabulary for clothing, and also some places we can use to sort clothes: what do we wear to the beach? What do we wear to the mountain top? What do we wear in the pool?

In my Spanish class we also played listening games. I described the clothes of a child in a photograph, as well as the location, and they had to figure out which picture i was describing. It was amazing how much Spanish those little preschoolers have learned in the past 6 months!

I put all these items (the weather bear and clothes, the photograph discussion images, and the vocabulary/weather cards) together for those who would like a more complete weather set for their home or school. Get the full Weather Bear set at my Shop or TeachersPayTeachers.

[product id=”45151″]Whether you decide to buy the more complete product or you simply enjoy the subscriber freebie, I hope you and your kids have a fun time tracking the weather in your school or home!

Do you track daily weather with your toddler or preschooler?

Get access!

Weather bear sampler

This will be sent directly to your email address!

LDS Temples Lapbook Freebie

Leave a reply

Today’s freebie is something I made for my son. I’ve mentioned before that we start our day with a devotional. A few weeks ago, my husband (aka, the principal) gave Raisin an additional assignment: find out how our home is like a temple.
I put all the information that we found together into an LDS Temples lapbook and we searched for images on the LDS Media Library page.  Scroll down to get your own copy of the flip-flaps for your own LDS Temples lapbook!lds temples2 Continue reading →

Second Grade Curricula

Leave a reply

It’s hard to believe, but I’m ready to share my curricula for my son’s grade year. My daughter, at age 2, is going to be enjoying learning too, but I don’t have anything formal for her this year! From ancient and medieval history to Logic of English, here’s what we will be doing this year.

curricula

Continue reading →

Listening to God’s Will as a Parent

1 Reply

Many of my educational philosophies are secular, and especially on this blog, I share learning ideas that would work for people of all faiths. But it is true that I chose to homeschool initially because God asked me too!
Today I’m blogging on All Done Monkey for her Parenting and Faith series. Here’s how I start my post:

When Leanna asked how our faith influences our parenting, I could not help but recognize that my own understanding of my role as a mother came as a direct result of my faith.

I am not naturally a patient person. When my son entered the difficult toddler age, I found myself at my wits end most days. My husband frequently traveled, and my son stopped napping, so I felt there was never a respite from motherhood!

I could not wait for him to go off to school so I would not be frustrated all day long.

But my perspective changed when he was four. This was when I was guided in a completely different direction as a mother. I let myself listen to God’s will.

Read more of Listening to God’s Will as a Parent at All Done Monkey! 

Do you feel like you homeschool for similar reasons?

Pioneer Week: Covered Wagons Craft at Life Over C’s

3 Replies


Today I get to share a fun pioneer covered wagon craft at my friend Kim’s blog!
When I think of Life Over C’s, I think of hands-on learning. I decided we’d share how we made a covered wagon with her readers. Click over to see how I put together the milk carton covered wagon. Continue reading →

Family History Research: Exploring Pioneers

5 Replies
pioneers week

As we learn about the pioneers of history, I decided to focus on a different kinds of pioneers in our family histories today. As we do personal family history research, we find fascinating stories of pioneering.

Merriam-Webster defines pioneer as follows:

: a person who helps create or develop new ideas, methods, etc.

: someone who is one of the first people to move to and live in a new area

I love how the definitions include pioneers in the traditional sense, but also pioneers in terms of creativity and methods. My ancestors were pioneers in many different ways.

Continue reading →

A Free, Simple Template for How to Pray in Spanish

4 Replies

It’s never easy to get a my resistant child to practice speaking in a foreign language, so one thing I like to do is move Spanish-language speaking into our familiar, daily use with getting in the habit of using certain words and phrases. Learning to pray in Spanish is one way we can put that practice into our daily lives.
Every day, we pray together three times (or more). We pray before every meal. What could be better than blending a little bit of Spanish practice in to such a familiar activity?! Learning to pray in Spanish has been a fun way to keep Spanish vocabulary in our daily routines.pray-in-spanish Continue reading →

3 Ways To Reinvent Family Dynamics

Leave a reply

reinventing familyAs local schools get out, I’ve heard friends exclaiming their frustration with how to get their kids to stop fighting, how to get their kids to stop acting bored, and how they are going to keep kids busy for a summer.
I was delighting in the fact that nothing has changed for us, since homeschooling means my kids already are used to each other, finding things to do, and enjoying being home.
But then I realized how wrong that was. It always changes for us too. September, November, February, then, May: we must constantly reinvent our family dynamics as a stay-at-home homeschooling family.  Continue reading →

The Summer of Creativity

1 Reply

summer of creativity
He pauses from taking a bite of his sandwich and stares out the window. “Wow, Mom,” he says, returning to our world. “I just keep thinking of ideas for stories!”
I had given him access to a recording program so he could dictate the story he had told me the day before. He had spent an hour narrating the story on to the record. I’d promised to type up his stories when he was done. He could edit his stories as he recorded them.
This is the child who has resisted any type of writing in my own co-op class this year. And this is the boy I remember from the past: full of stories and ideas.
Later, he kneels on the driveway, chalk in hand, drawing only he knows what on the pavement. I think it is a town for his bike to drive through, because as we go inside two hours later, he says, “I hope it does not rain tonight!”
As his little sister climbs to the play house on top of the slide, she reaches for the tree branches hanging just over the side. “Ooooo, yummy apples!” She declares, biting in to an invisible fruit. “You want some?” She holds out her chubby arm, inviting me to take an invisible apple of my own.
Dirt, everywhere. This is the result of not having sand under the slide. Strawberry digs in the dirt. For more than an hour.
This is summer.
This summer is going to be a time of learning. But it will also be a time of exploration and creativity. It is time to embrace our creative sides. This will be our summer of creativity.
This week has been a relief to me. Although we have not finished all of our formal curricula, I’m pretty certain I’m done with the official school days. Co-op is over. Our park district weekly P.E. class is finished. Next year, since my son will be seven, we’ll have to track more carefully. But this year, first grade is complete.
We have worked hard. Now it is time to play.
Image by Nattu