Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Easy spring math ideas

There are so many things you can do with a spring theme! Using a little bit of scrapbook paper, some ric rac and colored bow tie pasta, here's what I came up with: Patterning with Kite colors.
Patterning with colored bow tie pasta. This is the first time I have attempted to color pasta. I used the same method that I used to color my rainbow rice here. I dabble in cake decorating so I have some gel colors - I found that the gel stayed a little sticky so next time I will use the regular liquid kind!
Ordering the kite by the length of it's tail.


Measuring how many bow ties tall each tail is.



AB pattern using colored petals.



AAB pattern using colored petals.


ABC pattern using colored petals.


Have fun coming up with some other spring math ideas - feel free to leave a link to some of your own in the comment box.


I'm going to link to link this to:



Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Spring/rain art projects

If you're looking for a cute rainy art idea, try this out. You can download my pattern here. All you need is some colored paper (I used some scrapbook paper that I had), buttons (rain) and glue.........Unless your kids are great at cutting, you'll need to do the cutting for them but putting it all together is fairly easy. I think it turned out so cute :-) Here is another art project. You'll find the little "rhyme" in my spring pack. The idea for the cute little rain guy came from my "Weather Wonders" book by Kim Jordano. This book is part of a series written by Kim which is now out of print but you can get most of them second hand through Amazon ("Stepping into standards" series if you are interested). I'm going to link this to:

Monday, March 28, 2011

Spring has sprung (a new unit)

Spring kind of snuck up on me this year.........the day after my surgery, I got hit with a horrible stomach flu which has been making its round around our house.....I am hoping that we have seen the last of it! Anyway, I am definitely READY for spring so here is a unit to unleash the spring festivities :-) This unit has a bit of everything in it and could be used for Pre-K to 1st grade. I tried to gear it more for school age kids this time since there are so many WONDERFUL spring units out there already (see links that the bottom of the page). Hopefully everyone can find something that you'll be able to use in this pack.!



Here's what you'll find inside:




See, Trace and Make cards




3 part cards




Scissor skills




Color me




Counting cards




Find the missing number




Spring jumble




Acrostic poem writing




How does your garden grow?




Size sort




Coutning mat




Come fly with me




Graph it




Pre-writing




Umbrella numbers




Alphabet letter match




Get your (ordinal) ducks in a row




Flutterby Butterfly




It's raining on the roses (comparison)




Home at last (birdhouse addition)




Raindrop romp (-at,-ap and -an word families)




Rainboots




Roses grid game




Stamp a vowel




Tales of time




Rain facts




The very adventerous kite







Thanks so much to DJ inkers for all the WONDERFUL clip art. It is designed by Dianne J. Hook and is of course copyright.


This pack will soon be available in my TPT store.


I will be posting the photo (and a pattern) for the rain facts tomorrow. Make sure you check back for lots more spring activities this week :-) I'll also (finally) be getting back to our "Trekking across the States" adventure and posting about it on Sunday. Agh - I feel like I've been away forever!!




Here are some other great Spring packs to check out:





Jolanthe @ Homeschool Creations has a Gardening unit





Dawn @ Our little Monkeys has an April Showers tot pack





Daphne @ Moo Moo's and Tutus has a Kite unit





Erica @ Confessions of a Homeschooler has a K is for Kite unit




Ana from Ingles360 has a spring pack.
Alison from Itsy Bitsy Learners has a gardening pack.









Make sure you check them out too :-)
I'm going to link this to: ABC and 123




Thursday, March 17, 2011

All is well

Hi everyone,

Thank you so much for your prayers over the last week......the surgery went well and I am feeling great today! I feel totally blessed to have so many people praying for our family.....you guys are wonderful! I'll be taking it easy over the next few days but I have been making progress on a few new units (and reading an AWESOME book that I can't put down!).
I thought I'd leave you with one of my favorite songs. Sara Graves sings it and while this is not her actual video clip, I feel like these are the words my soul sings.


Sunday, March 13, 2011

And the winner is.......


Darby, it's your lucky day!!!! Please email me so I can pass along your details to Ana :-) CONGRATULATIONS!!!!!!!!!!!!
P.S - I SO appreciate all of your lovely comments over the last few days..........it is so humbling to think that even in this circumstance God can use me to encourage some of you!! Beauty from the ashes, isn't that what God promises!!! I'm feeling pretty good today - the hardest thing so far is knowing what to wear....I don't really want to be wearing maternity clothes but don't fit into my regular clothes! Please remember to pray on Wednesday :-) Again, thanks so much for your support, it has really touched my heart!

Saturday, March 12, 2011

A little news

I was so excited about writing this post! Today I was going to the doctors for my 12 week (although I was 13 weeks) prenatal visit!! Yay!!! I was going to announce it and share the good news (plus the reason I am so behind in posts and things - I had been feeling so sick!).....however, I don't get to write that post!
Instead, I have to write the post that says that when the doctor tried to find the heartbeat, he couldn't and after 3 ultra sounds, it was determined that our newest little family member had actually gone to live in heaven a few weeks ago. I had stopped feeling sick a few weeks ago and had worriedly called the doctor (as we had a similar experience before we had Channing) but they said not to worry, it was normal to stop feeling sick around that time.............sad of course that I'll never get to kiss those cute little toes and hear it's "little lamb" cry.....but rejoicing in the fact that right now, our precious baby is being held by its creator!! AMAZING!!!

Some cool things have happened today too......two people that know us but we're not particularly close to had randomly let us know that the Lord had asked them to pray for us today and they had! I am so glad for their willingness to listen to the Lord - for me, it just shows that God knew what a rough day this was going to be and He already had people praying for us!
Another very cool thing that happened is that I was sitting on my bed with Sully tonight and he pointed to my belly and said "baby"......so I said to him "the baby's gone to live with Jesus" and he VERY CLEARLY said "Jesus here!" and pointed right next to us - out of the mouth of babes!!!

I have to have surgery on Wednesday, so I'd appreciate some prayer for that. We also found out today that Sully has asthma! (what a day, I know!) so the first few treatments have been particularly traumatic for him.....please pray that he gets used to it and it gets a little easier.

Thursday, March 10, 2011

EIEIO - Farm Fun pack

I had so much fun with this pack! I have some other great activities that I'll include in another post (most are pictures) but take a look at what you'll find:



See, trace and make cards


3part cards


scissor skills


counting cards


Find the missing numbers


Farmyard jumble


Tic, Tac,Toe


Graph it


Lacing card


Roll a barn game


Size sort


Hurry to the hen house game


Counting mat


Pre-writing


Get to the cow


Chicken coop numbers


Read and do


Number clip cards


Farmyard puzzle


Upper/lower case letter match


Alphabet writing


Number writing


Magnet page


Build your barn game


Letter sort


Patterns


Missing letters



This will soon be available in my TPT store.

All graphics used to make this pack are copyright!

I have used:

DJInkers - designed by Dianne J. Hook

Digi Scrap Kits - Designed by Alice Smith





abc button

Wednesday, March 9, 2011

An awesome Easter give away!




I know it's a little early to be thinking about Easter but I wanted to give you guys a head start on some planning. Ana from Ingles 360 has once again created a wonderful Easter pack that she'd love to share with one of you lucky readers! Every time I see a pack of Ana's. I amazed at her creativity.

If you win, you'll be receiving the Easter thematic pack (picture at the top of the post)....how cute is it!?!



A number sorting activity




and another pack! This one is the J is for Jesus pack - the whole reason for Easter!


Here's how you can enter:

*Please complete the task and then leave a comment telling me that you have. Leave a separate comment for each task.


1/. Follow Ingles 360 on facebook

2/. Sign up for the Ingles360 Newsletter

3/. Ana has opened a new store at Sunday Scholar, please go there and let me know what activity you'd be interested in having!


A winner will be chosen on Sunday 13th March using a random number generator!


Monday, March 7, 2011

CSN Winner

Thank you so much to everyone that entered the CSN giveaway! Here are the results:


That means that Julie from over at Three Queens and a King is the winner!!! Congratulations! I hope you get something really cool :-) I'll be emailing you some more details soon.

Wednesday, March 2, 2011

CSN give away

I was totally ecstatic last week when I got an email from CSN offering one of my readers a 35 dollar gift certificate!
CSN stores sell pretty much anything you can imagine. Right now, they have some awesome flat panel TV stands that would be perfect for a living room re-do! They have different stands to suit any decorating style so head on over and check them out.
We bought all of Channing's "big boy" bedding and decorations from CSN and most recently, I did lots of Christmas shopping with them.

Here's how you can win the 35 dollar gift certificate:
1/. Follow my blog ( 1 entry).
2/. Go to CSN and tell me what you'd like to buy ( 1 entry).
3/. Blog about this give away (1 entry).

Please leave a separate comment for each entry. I will pick a random winner using random.org next Monday (February 7th) at 7pm.

May the luck of the Irish be with you!

Tuesday, March 1, 2011

St. Patricks Day Teachers Pack

This is my first pack for teachers!! Yay! I figured that since I will be going back to teaching soon enough, I would start creating things that I can use in the classroom. They would definitely suit a k-2 class.

Here is what you'll find inside:


A secret code message

Creative writing opportunities

Comparing

Writing descriptions

Counting activities

Games

Time

Tally marks

Money

Measuring

High frequency words

Silly Sentences

and MUCH more


All clip art used to make this pack is copyright and designed by Dianne J Hook. It is used with the permission of DJ Inkers. Thanks guys!

This pack will soon be available in my TPT store.
I am going to link this to:





Making