1000 Subscribers Celebration ~ Giveaway #14

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Raising Rock Stars ~ Week 1

Our basic outline so far:

• Sunday night-introduce new Bible theme for Family Bible Time
• Daddy reads 1 book based on the theme
• We do activities together as a family (coloring, crafts, puzzles, etc.)
• Boys "preform" the previous week's memory verse for Daddy
  
• Throughout the week we work on the new memory verse, listen to our Songs for Saplings CD, and do other things to review our Bible story, including reading every book we have about it

~Week One ~

Bible Story...Creation

We studied Creation, starting off with our Sunday night Bible time. Daddy read the boys this book...

Then we worked on a family coloring book featuring the 7 days of creation. It was fun to work together, we even shared the coloring on many of the pages.During the coloring we reviewed the many details of the story, and enjoyed each other tremendously! I loved seeing Krash color along with us, he's so silly and fun to be around!
Finally we moved onto working on some simple puzzles to reinforce what we had learned. I made them easier for Krash with only one cut in most of them...I cut up a few of them for Pac Man to be a bit more challenging!We used the puzzles throughout the week also, reviewing the Creation story.


Weekly Bible Verse...Psalm 17:8
Songs for Saplings ~ Aa



We work on our verse every day during calendar time, and we also listen to the entire Songs for Saplings CD during recess at least 1-2 days per week!


Resources used this week:

• Creation Coloring Book
• Creation Puzzles
• Bible Memory Verse
• Songs for Saplings
• Creation Books (from our theme bookstore)
  

Coming Up...

• Bible Story...Creation week 2
• Memory Verse...Bb ~ John 6:48
  

Visit the Raising Rock Stars Webpage to download your own notebook pages and to see links to previous Rock Stars posts! MckLinky will be up next week for you to link up your own Raising Rock Stars post! See webpage for guidelines about linking up!

Digital Drawing with Pac Man!

As I am sure you have all figured out, I love the computer. I teach myself things, and if it is something I want to learn ~ I will learn it, somehow. Come to find out, my oldest son is much the same. Today I brought out the first of my new monster creations (which I will be sharing soon), and told Pac that I "drew" the monsters myself on the computer. He was amazed to say the least and asked if I would show him how I did it.

I didn't think he could learn so easily, but he did and created 2 cute monsters himself. I taught him how and then he went at it! I helped him edit a few minor details at the end (connecting arms closer to the body and simple things like that). These are about 95% his unique creations on his own!


Both will be featured in my new monster Tot Pack (It's got way too much for just a Tot Book!). He is very excited and even helped me decide what skills to expose using his special monsters. Who knew creating Tot Books/Packs would become a family affair?!?! I love it!

In case you're wondering, we use Microsoft Publisher, and use the little scribble tool over on the left sidebar by the shapes tools. I am NO expert by any means, but I teach him what I know!!!

Raising Rock Stars ~ Joining In

I think I finally have everything together for you to join in with me! I wanted to prepare some neat things to help keep me inspired...I really like cute things, so I knew I just had to make an entire notebook and some cute forms and such. I decided that just in case anyone else wanted them, I would go ahead and make a set that could be downloaded! Here's our notebook, which is a 1" now, but I am sure will graduate to a larger one soon!

This is the cover, their names are blocked out, and on the general cover I obviously left a pic of my kiddos off-cuz that might make your kids feel a little weird ;).

There are section pages for the 3 main sections (Bible Stories, Memory Verses, Prayer Journal). I put each of my title pages in a sheet protector.I am not following any set plan for ideas, just finding what I like and adding it in for the weekly theme. Some items I will probably make on my own, others I will find on the web.

This is the back, where I made a sheet with all of the Bible verses I mentioned in this post. I wanted to always be reminded of my goal in all of this and have the verses close to me and to be able to share repeatedly with them as they grow. You can also see the spine, I made a title, one for this size of a notebook and one for the next size ;).

Here's the webpage I set up to house all of this, you can download your own notebook files there. You'll also find forms for planning, prayer journal forms, and buttons for your blog!

I will post our week 1 later today or tomorrow and will include a MckLinky NEXT week for anyone who decides to join me. You do NOT have to do things the same way as I am by any means, although you are welcome to copy anything I do. All I ask is that if you do want to link up, you use the button in your post, linking it back here (if you copy the html code on the webpage it will do that automatically). You can share in your post about whatever you are doing to raise your own little Rock Stars in your home! I hope to make this a weekly feature each Tuesday, starting next Tuesday!

~Before you add your link next week, please be sure to read my beliefs here. I do ask that if you do not believe the same things I believe that you do not add your link. I will politely remove a link if it does not line up with my faith beliefs. I pray that those of you who believe differently can understand my heart and know that I am not trying to be rude at all. I just want to be sure any ideas shared are teaching the same truths that I personally hold dear to me.

Any questions, please email me or comment (be sure your email is enabled so I can email you back easily)!

Tot School

~Krash is currently 40 months old~

** links to all toys and books are at the bottom of the post

Learning Toys...

Krash was finally interested in these great wooden word puzzles. We have had them for awhile now and I could barely get him to do them, but this day he did one after another and really seemed to enjoy them! I LOVE these because they use lowercase letters, something you rarely find in this type of toy for this age group.
He asked me if he could play with our Monkey Math toy-which wasn't on his trays, and I got it down for him~I'm flexible like that.
This simple $1 store Cars puzzle is and has been a hit for a long time with both boys. This week they made car ramps out of it, numerous times. They practiced their new word "hypothesis" (thanks Dinosaur Train), as they tried to create different ramps and see if the car would go over them hill they made.
See, different clothes...he played with this a lot!
The cheap-o Oreo shape toys came out and this time he made tall towers.


Alphabet...

We made a Pp this week, for piano, inspired from No Time For Flashcards!After making the Pp, and playing with some P stuff, we of course had to play our piano!

Theme...Monsters!!

I am very flexible when it comes to plans for Tot School. I had an entirely different plan for the week, but Target had cute monster stuff in their dollar section, so I bought a few items and made it monster week at our house! We got out our cute monster books and read them each day and did a different monster activity each day! It was so much fun, we're extending our monster theme through this next week and I made him a new Tot Book/Pack!!! Stay tuned, I promise to share the files this week!

We created monsters with stickers...
Afterwards, K just wanted to read his book again, how sweet is that? ;)We colored a velvet poster together, this was a fabulous opportunity for Pac Man to learn some life skills. It was a group project and I coached him through accepting his brother's 3 year old artwork. Krash colored all over Pac Man's monster and at first Pac was upset but I used it to teach patience, and by the end Pac was extremely encouraging to his little brother and we were proud of our group creation!!!
The HIT was this puzzle. We began by introducing it to K one day as a group activity after reading one day. He was instantly drawn in and did a good job with it...
I added it to his trays and he went back to it every day. He did this puzzle probably at least 20 times. He got so good at it, and I really enjoyed watching his skills progress as he did it again and again. We worked on lots of language development as he worked through it, I was blown away by the end of the week listening to him describe things as he was trying to work it.


Photo Learning Book...Colors!

We completed these colors this week and had a blast!!!


Recess/Life School...

Recess this week was outside mostly with the highlight being our fuzzy friend they boys found one day...

Just in case you think I am engaging my children in meaningful activities all day long, I present you with this amazing shot...
Yup, they're all watching Baby Newton, learning shapes, while I clean the kitchen. I am so blessed that my 7 yr old still enjoys these movies too ;).

A little roller blading in his boxers ;)...
Daddy and K played guitar together one night and it was the cutest thing. Here K is belting out one of his VBS songs ("You're Powerful" for anyone who did Crocodile Dock)...


Mommy's Favorites...

Seriously, how could these not be my favorites.
Melt my heart these 2. Drive me nutso, and melt my heart. Love them.

• Are you wondering where to start with Tot School? Read here!
• Read more about Tot Trays here
• Visit Totally Tots!!!
• Want to see more Tot School posts? Click HERE
• Visit our Tot School Webpage HERE
• Visit our Tot School Tools store HERE
• Tools for Tots HERE
  

If you have a tot (approximately ages 1-3) at home, join in the fun and share what you're doing with your tot! Here's how to get started if you're new... If you've never read this: Go HERE 1st for more details- please do!!! Then if you have any ideas you'd like to share, link up your exact post to MckLinky (if you have questions about how to do that, let me know in a comment or email-links to homepages will automatically be deleted).

When you add your name(blog name) to MckLinky will you put your tot's age (in months) after it, like this: 1+1+1=1 (36 mos)? I think this will help new readers a lot as they look for ideas for their specific aged tot!

If you are NEW will you please add the word NEW to your link so I can be sure to welcome you? My memory is failing me now with so many wonderful links!!!! I am excited to see Tot School growing like it is and want to be sure to visit each one of you at some point.

Future Reviews/Giveaways?

So, I have had fun with this whole giveaway thing, I wasn't quite sure if I would continue at all after the 1000 Subscribers Celebration, and am in prayer about it now.

I do already have a few baby giveaways lined up on my other blog, but as for more than that, I am not entirely decided. I would love some feedback from you.

I will never be hosting reviews/giveaways on the main portion of this blog (where you are reading now), I set up the alternate link to host just the giveaways and reviews, that way those of you who aren't interested, won't feel like this blog has changed much at all--still the same type of content.

Here's the decisions I am toying with in my head...

1. NO more giveaways at all? Focus on other things with my blogging?
   
2. Only host giveaways for items my family could use (since we are blessed with a free review item), and that I think would bless the winner? Basically be very picky about what we choose to spend time reviewing and giving away (the posts take a ton of time to prep).
   
3. Keep all reviews/giveaways hosted on the sister site I have now, including the ones I have lined up that are baby-related?
   
4. Should I do a "teaser post" to let you know over here that there is a new giveaway, like the ones I am doing now?
5. Should I keep the current giveaways listed at the top of the posting section like I am now?
   
6. Should I keep only tot and older kid friendly giveaways and reviews there and start keep the baby-related things on my Lil' Ladybug blog?

I put up a little poll on the sidebar for your input. I'd love to know if you are enjoying the giveaways and want me to continue or if you're not really interested. I only started doing the reviews and giveaways in honor of you, so it is only natural that I ask you for some input! It has been so exciting to bless some of you with the winning items, I love the fact that I recognize the names of most of the winners as regular readers!!!!

If you have thoughts, you can comment them, or just vote in my poll (you can vote for more than 1 answer in the poll too).

Thanks!!!!

1000 Subscribers Celebration ~ Giveaway # 13

What are they watching? Head on over to see what it is and how 12 of you can WIN!!!

Raising Rocks Stars

It's official, I have decided to make my *vision* a new weekly feature here on 1+1+1=1. I have been talking it over with my husband and sharing my thoughts with him. I was sharing with him about the blog and that if I started a weekly feature, it would hold me accountable to preparing these things for our kiddos each week. Just knowing I am going to share here with other moms makes me a better mom! I love that about my blog--I am such a better mom because of this blog.

We had already started a weekly family Bible time and family morning prayer, so it seems God might have been preparing me for this!

I want to raise my own ROCK STARS, and I want to do a good job of planning for this each week, so... I am going to begin sharing each week! We actually already started, so I am going to try and have my week 1 post up this week, and I will decide on a weekly posting day.

I even made a snazzy notebook, which I will share also, in case any of you are interested in joining us! Stay tuned for another post soon with details about how you can join in! For now, I will share my basic plans of what I will be sharing each week.

Our Raising Rock Stars Plans

• Weekly Bible Theme focused on Krash (simple themes, starting with Creation), I am involving Pac Man too.
  
• Weekly Bible Verse (all ages) starting with Songs for Saplings ABCs CD verses.
• Weekly Family Bible Time...Sunday nights with Daddy we will read a Bible story all together (based on our weekly tot theme), and do a family activity (or a few).
• Daily Family Prayer...praying together as an entire family each morning before Daddy leaves for work, also keeping a prayer journal.

Each week I will share what we did the week prior, and share links to any resources we used. I will also post my plans for the upcoming week. I will also post a tentative monthly schedule ahead of time so you can see where we are headed.

Farm Tot Book...finally!!!

I finally have a Farm Tot Book for you!!! A huge thanks to Lil' Ms. P, from A Mommy Talks for working with me to create this (honestly she did most of the work). I have had it on my to-do list for months now and just couldn't get around to it!!!

You can find it here!

1000 Subscribers Celebration ~ Giveaway #12

Love gadgets? Yeah, me too. Wanna win this cool gadget? Head on over to enter!!!