It Really is Easy Peasy!!

Easy Peasy All-in-One Homeschool is a free, online, Christian homeschool curriculum that is made available for anyone and everyone who needs quality, inexpensive curriculum for their homeschool. I have known about Easy Peasy for quite some time, and I've even linked to her website in previous blogs; but to be honest, I have never used it. Not until this week. No, I have actually felt... get this... GUILTY for wanting to try it! Like I will somehow be cheating or be lazy by using a curriculum that is already planned, outlined, and ready to use! I know, I'm crazy :)

 

But I finally decided to give it a try this week...

 

And it really is easy peasy!! Even at dinner tonight my daughter prayed, "Jesus, thank You for this food, thank You for this wonderful day, and thank You that we found Easy Peasy. Amen!" Amen is right! So I thought I'd fill y'all in on how we are going to be using Easy Peasy in our homeschool and encourage you to check it out if you haven't already!

 

I started Samuel(4) on the level "Getting Ready 1" (Day 172) which is for Kindergartners who have never used Easy Peasy before. He'll do 8 days worth of "Getty Ready 1" and then he'll move on to "Getting Ready 2." For his school day, he does reading, math, Bible, and science. He is also doing beginners Spanish. Since he is not able to write yet, I sit next to him and I keep an "Easy Peasy Journal" for him.

 

This is Day 172 (which is actually our first day) in his journal. You can see I just keep it dated, with a heading for each subject and a general idea of what he studied that day. This way I can have a good record of what he's learning for myself, as well as for evaluating him at the end of the year (Note: My county does not require evaluations until children are 6yrs old so he will not have an official annual evaluation but I will be assessing him on my own to help him in areas that he is struggling or advance him in areas that he excels). The curriculum does not provide science until 1st grade but I decided to teach it to them at the same time and it has worked pretty well. It's slightly advanced for him but he seems interested in it (we are doing elementary Biology) and can answer questions orally. I am also teaching them the beginners Spanish together. She has a link to online Spanish 101 that is very simple and they really enjoyed it. (By the way... this is a really nice compromise for Samuel because he HATES doing book work but he LOVES using the computer!!)

 

I started Savanna(6) on Day 1 of the Second level which is geared for 2nd grade. Although she's been doing 2nd grade curriculum for several months, I felt like it was best to start her at the beginning because she's a newbie to the online system. Besides, the material presented isn't exactly what I've used so she's likely to learn many things that I have not taught her. For her school day, she does reading, science, math, Bible, history, and spelling. She also does art, music, computer, writing, thinking skills, and Spanish periodically throughout the week (perhaps once or twice a week). She also has an "Easy Peasy Journal" that she writes in each day. I make her write down all the answers and keep track of what she's done. This is part of that "to-do" list she likes to do and it also helps her practice her penmanship and grammar. It helps her stay on task and stay focused as well! 

 

I am still using my post-it board. I wrote down for each
day which "day" they are supposed to do and which
electives to do. It helps me stay on track with what
they are doing.

At first it may seem like A LOT of work but it really isn't. I have Savanna read a book of her choosing and log it in her reading journal while I work with Samuel on his reading and math. Then we do Bible and science together. Then I let Samuel go play while Savanna does the rest of her work. We're usually done by lunch!! It's been very nice, easy, interesting, and the kids love it! It's really great for the older children who like to work at their own pace and be more independent. It's also not hard for momma to sit right next to the younger ones and help read all the instructions (there are a lot of written instructions) and encourage them to stay on task. It really is easy peasy!

 

I am choosing to still use other teaching aids as well like lapbooks, science experiments, field trips, games, additional reading materials, etc. (although supplements are not required if you don't have the time or resources) just because I like them to be away from the computer now and then :) But I plan to continue to use this curriculum and I do THANK GOD that He gave Mrs. Lee a wonderful mission to share her resources and talents with all of us other mommas and help make this adventure we call homeschooling just a little easier!!

 

Bye for now,

Kristina

 

 

 

All About Compound Words

We had so much fun learning all about compound words and I hope your child enjoys these activities and projects as much as Savanna has!

One of the neat things I love about compound words (other than the fact that it's usually two totally random words that you put together to make another word! I mean, who would've thought to create the word butterfly?) is that you'll continue to teach them throughout your child's education. It's something they start learning in early elementary and just keep adding to their vocabulary as the years go by. So check out these activities that are great for elementary students 1st-5th grade...

Seek & Find


Simple, yet effective. Print a list of compound words, cut them between the words, separate and place them in random order, and have your child find the matches. Easy peasy. I have a List of Compound Words that you can use for this activity and for others listed.




Picture Flap Diagrams

Savanna loved this activity and it takes very little prep work. Take a sheet of white construction paper cut it in half (length-wise). Then fold in each side to the middle so you are left with 2 front flaps that open to reveal a center square. I did this with about 8 sheets of paper so she had 16 picture flap diagrams to do.
Using the compound words that you already printed and cut for the Seek & Find activity, have your child pick their favorite compound words. Savanna chose words like butterfly, cupcake, daylight, fireman, football, snowman, etc. She enjoyed picking which ones she wanted to do because we posted them on our bulletin board :) 

Have your child glue the first word on the left front flap (ie. "foot"), and the second word on the right front flap (ie. "ball"). Then have her illustrate each word. On the inside, have her illustrate the compound word. For example, Savanna drew a foot and a ball on the front two flaps shown here, and then football players on the inside center square shown.

Front of Picture Flap Diagram
for "football"

Inside of Picture Flap Diagram
for "football"

Her cupcake :)

 

Compound Word Mix-Up with Plastic Eggs

 

This is FUN! See my blog Egg-Citing Activities for greater details on how to make these eggs. In short, write the first word on the top half of the egg and the second word on the bottom half of the egg, separate them, mix them up, and have her find the matches. It's easy, fun, and a great way to practice those wonderful compound words :) 

 

 

Compound Clothes Pins

You can buy a bag of 100 clothes pins at Wal-Mart for about $2 and it will be well worth it (I will be posting another blog soon about the fun learning activities you can do with clothes pins). For now, I took 24 clothes pins to write 12 compound words on. I wrote the first part of each word on a pin with the opening facing the right and the second part of each word on another pin with the opening facing the left. Do this for all 12 words (or however many you choose to do). Set the first words in random order on the left side of a ruler and the second words in random order the right. Have your child match up the words and clip them to the ruler as shown below. This is VERY simple and a fun way to practice!



Here is a Compound Word Addition worksheet I created where your child can add two words together to create a new word. I left this in a word document form so you can change out the words and reuse this as often as you'd like.

We also try to notice whenever we hear a compound word in conversations and we make note of it. Savanna has really enjoyed this study and I hope your children do as well :)

Bye for now,
Kristina

Egg-citing Activities for PK - 5th Grade

I am so egg-cited to share these quick, easy, and inexpensive activities with you using... you guessed it... plastic eggs! I saw an idea on Pinterest (thanks Pinterst!) and I just rolled with it :) And what a great time of year to try these ideas, as there is ample supply of plastic eggs in stores right now! Here is what we are using our plastic eggs for:

Letter Matching (Pk & K)

1) You will need 26 plastic eggs with the connector cut off each egg (so you can pull them apart and mix them up) and a gallon size Ziploc bag.
2) Using a permanent marker, write an uppercase letter on the top half of the egg and its corresponding lower case letter on the bottom half of the egg.
3) Disconnect the eggs and mix them up using a Ziploc bag (this will be your storage for the eggs as well).
4) Dump out the eggs and have your child match up the uppercase letters with their corresponding lowercase letters by putting the eggs back together.

Twist on Phonics (K & 1st)

Each egg should be able to
twist freely to each letter,
creating a new phonics word

1) You will need several plastic eggs with the connector cut off each egg (so you can twist them freely while still keeping the egg closed) and a gallon size Ziploc bag.
2) Using a permanent marker, write the ending phonic sound on the top half of the egg. For example, you could make an egg for each of the following sounds: an, at, it, ig, et, en, ox, op, ug, ut.
3) On the bottom half of the egg, write single letters or double letters to spell a word corresponding to your phonic sound. For example, for the "an" sound you could write letters m, p, f, and c. This would give you the words man, pan, fan, and can on this egg.
4) Give you child an egg and let him twist the egg to create new words and have fun while learning phonics. You can do this as a free activity using all the eggs, or you can use specific eggs during specific studies, ie. ig and it eggs on short i day.
5) This can also be a good review for 1st graders to just practice speed reading without having to sound out the letters.



Compound Word Mix-Up (2nd - 5th)

1) You will need several plastic eggs with the connector cut off each egg (so you can pull them apart and mix them up) and a gallon size Ziploc bag.
2) Using a permanent marker, write the first word of the compound word on the top half of the egg. Then write the second word of the compound word on the bottom half of the egg. For example, you might write "pea" on the top and "nut" on the bottom, creating the word "peanut" on the egg.
3) You can make as many or as little eggs as you'd like. The neat thing about this activity is kids are learning new compound words all the way through 12th grade so this is something you can do for several years. I put 2nd-5th grade because I assume older children may not find this as amusing as younger ones. (Note: I will be posting another blog all about compound words for 2nd grade which will include a large word list. Keep an eye out for it!)
4) Disconnect the eggs and mix them up using a Ziploc bag (this will be your storage for the eggs as well).
5) Dump out the eggs and have your child match up first word with its corresponding second word to create compound words and putting the eggs back together.

Other uses for plastic eggs (I am planning to do these but didn't get to it last night):

• Capitals Game (2nd): Top half of the egg has the state capital (Lincoln), bottom half has the state (Nebraska).
• Multiplication Mix-up (2nd-5th): Top half of the egg has the problem (3x5), bottom half of the egg has the solution (15).
• Addition/Subtraction Matching (K-2nd): Top half of the egg has the problem (10-8), bottom half of the egg has the solution (2).
• Twist on Blends (1st & 2nd): Bottom half of the egg has the blend (TH), top half of the egg has several endings (ink, at, is).
• Twist on Long Vowel Practice (1st & 2nd): Top half of the egg has a long vowel ending (ike), bottom half of the egg has several beginning letters (b, h, str, l).
• Twist on Rhyming (PK-1st): Top half of the egg has an ending sound (ook), bottom half of the egg has several beginning letters (b, l, h, sh).

And don't forget you can use any of these egg ideas to have egg hunts as an added bonus to your lessons!

There's just so many neat ways to use plastic eggs in your classroom and the great news is they are cheap!! I bought 100 eggs for about $5 at Wal-Mart. I'm planning to go back after Easter and stock up on some more (they do break easily but are also easy to replace)!

Have fun with it!
Bye for now,
Kristina 

Fun & Easy Tie-Dye Project

Oh Tie-Dye, how I've missed you! I remember wearing Tie-Dye shirts as a kid and I'm so excited they are coming back in style! This is such a fun activity but can be pricey too! My kids are having a big 4-in-1 birthday bash in a few weeks and they wanted to have matching Tie-Dye shirts. After seeing the prices at the local craft store for kits, I decided to do some experimenting at home and found a less expensive way to make Tie-Dye apparel.

 

Materials needed:

• Plain t-shirt (white shows up best but my oldest insisted on colored shirts)
• Permanent markers (we had Sharpies but off-brands will do)
• Rubber bands
• Febreze

Step 1: Choose a point on the shirt where you'd like your "burst" to start. Pinch the shirt in that spot, twist, and band with a rubber band.

 

Step 2: Continue twisting the shirt and placing the rubber bands about 1" apart until the entire shirt is banded.

Step 3: Color the space between the bands, alternating colors. Be sure to color all the creases. The darker and more complete you color each section, the better it turns out. The kids didn't color quite as dark as mine but they still turned out cute! This is where your kids can get as creative as they'd like. My son did a lot of black (he really likes black lately) and my daughter added polka dots and rainbow colors.

 

Step 4: Use the febreze to soak the shirt (while still banded). Once you've soaked it, use your fingers to rub in the colors and you'll see them start to smear just a little. Tip: For inexpensive Febreze, you can pour a cap full of fabric softener into a spray bottle, fill with water, and go. Smells great too!

 

Step 5: Toss the shirts into the dryer (make sure there are NO OTHER CLOTHES first). Once the shirts are completely dry, remove the bands to reveal your new Tie-Dye creation! 

 





 

We put their ages on the back for the party.
Savanna will be turning 6, Samuel 4, and
Gideon & Gracie 1 :)

 

Go Tie-Dye!

 

Bye for now,

Kristina

 

 

 

 

 

 



Plans, Glorious Plans!

If you're anything like me, when you decided you were going to be a homeschooling momma you had great ambitions of planning amazing lessons, crafts, and fun projects... only to see your plans crumble into a pile of unfulfilled ideas! You bought a wonderful little lesson planner and you filled it with all your grand plans because you just knew that you could stay on top of everything and that your sweet, little angel would be able to complete all the tasks you were going to assign because... well... she's a genius! And nothing could possibly come up that would interrupt your plans, right!? Or maybe that's just me. Maybe I'm the only mom who had all these plans, glorious plans, only to fail at implementing them! But I think, or at least I hope, I am not alone in this and that you may be in need of some encouragement. If so, this blog is for you :)

 

There's a verse in Scripture that I find very interesting. Proverbs 19:21 says, "Many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the Lord that will stand." If I could rewrite this verse, it'd say Many are the lesson plans in the mind of a homeschooling momma, but it is the purpose of the Lord that will stand. It's not just BIG plans that fall to the wayside, but little plans too. Even lesson plans. But do not be dismayed. There is hope.

 

I believe God gave me a little epiphany about all my failed attempts to keep up with my lesson plans. STOP WRITING THEM. OK, say what now? That's right. Stop writing all those expectations only to see them scratched out or incomplete. There's something a little more practical that we can do. I'm not saying don't ever plan. That would be total chaos. But I am saying that this hyper-planning, guilt-driven, failing way of homeschooling just doesn't work for me and all it does is frustrate me. So here's the compromise the Lord showed me...

 

I took a large poster board and split it into a 6-square grid. On one square I wrote "Daily" and on the other 5 squares I wrote Monday through Friday. On the "Daily" square I wrote the things that I want to do with my children everyday, without fail; those things include prayer, Bible study, exercise or physical activity, and reading. Notice I did not write anything about math, English, science, or history :) In the remaining five squares I wrote nothing. They are blank. Here's where the compromise comes in. On Saturdays I am going to sit down and write out assignments or points of study on sticky notes that I hope to do with the children, and place them on my chart. For example, I may write, "Savanna: write a letter to pen pal..." and place it on Monday's square. And "Samuel: practice ABC's using flashcards..." and place it on Thursday's square. The nice thing about writing it on a sticky note is that I can move it to another square if a certain assignment takes longer than planned or if something unexpected comes up. I can also add sticky notes at the end of the day for anything that we may have done that was not listed on the board, ie. a spontaneous game of "Speed Letters" at the dinner table. At the end of the week, I print out my Blank Lesson Plan Sheets for each child and fill in what's written on my sticky notes. This way each week I have an accurate portrayal of what we did that I can keep in each child's portfolio along with any completed work! It also really boosts your confidence if you see a lesson plan that was actually fulfilled :)

 

At the end of the day, I may not complete all my glorious plans, but I can rest assured knowing that the Lord's purposes will stand. The Lord has purposed in our hearts to homeschool our children and that will stand. So I'm trying out a new style of homeschooling; one that I should've been doing all along... rely more on the Lord's purposes and less on my own plans! This might actually work.

 

Bye for now,

Kristina

Growing in Faith & Love

What kid doesn't love to be measured? They ask you to measure them today, even if you measured them yesterday. It's so sweet to hear my children's desire to grow big and tall and strong, "just like Daddy!"

Since my oldest, Savanna, was big enough to stand on her own, we've measured her little frame with pencil against a finger-smudged walls. When we moved to our current house, my husband and I talked about how we want to stay here for a long time. We've moved around so much and we'd love to see the kids grow up here and graduate. So we had no qualms about starting a new growth chart on a similar finger-smudged wall. We happen to have a small wall in the kitchen that wasn't being used for anything and so that's where we started. We've been putting pencil marks on the wall since we moved in May and I just felt like I wanted to do something more permanent. Something nicer that would be a sweet memory of the kids stretching their necks and standing on tippy-toes to try to gain an extra inch.

But I wanted it to be more than that. Sure it's important to help them grow in stature, having healthy bones and a sound mind. We feed them veggies and proteins (or at least attempt to) and we make sure they get plenty of physical activity. But we should also want to feed their soul and help them grow in faith and love as well. And then I found this verse:

"We ought always to give thanks to God for you... your faith is growing abundantly, and the love of each of you is increasing." 2 Thessalonians 1:3

God isn't concerned as much about our physical growth as He is about our spiritual growth. After all, if they grow as tall as David Robinson and have not love, they have nothing (for those of you who miss that reference, he is a former basketball player for the San Antonio Spurs and is a solid Christian). So we made our new growth chart (more like a mural) and as we worked on it together, I talked to the kids about how God wants our faith and love to grow. I showed them how tall Daddy and I are on the wall and explained to them that we are not going to grow any taller but we can keep growing in our faith and love forever and ever. They thought that was pretty cool. 

So if you're looking for a simple project to both spruce up your classroom area and offer you a teaching opportunity EVERY time you measure your child, here's what we did :)

I measured the wall and put a dot for each inch from 24" to 72" (2ft to 6ft). Then I wrote the inches at each foot marker. We already had some pencil markings that I traced over with colorful sharpies. We made an accent for each foot marker as well and then wrote our Scripture verse (2 Thess 1:3) on the wall. You can do whatever design you like. This was a simple design we could all do and it only took about 30 minutes. So be creative and have fun!


I am excited to see how much my children will grow over the years. Will they hit 6ft? I don't know. But I'm even more excited to see them grow in faith and love.

Bye for now,
Kristina