My wonderful friend Shannon is still working with me to create the Calendar Connections cards. She is a fellow inner city missionary with me and also a homeschooler {and former school teacher}.
We chose the theme of The Arctic & Antarctica for January! Good chilly fun!
The facts are written at a 3-6th grade level but you will be able to water them down for younger kids. It’s a great way to involve your entire family in exploring a particular theme.
but you could use a poster foam board and velcro to easily create your own set up. You could also use a standard pocket chart. They seem like they would fit in this calendar on Amazon but I am not certain.
I am now creating smaller sets to go along with the small pocket charts found recently in the Target $1 section. Here is what they look like…
You can use most of our Calendar Connections cards for any month! We are slowly building up what we hope will be a wide variety of themes to choose from!
While reading a magazine today, I came across a free app that has changed how I find apps! AppShopper is amazing! Go get it if you use an iPod, Phone or Pad, it’s free!
It tracks prices of apps and alerts you if the price drops! It also shows you price history for particular apps so you can see trends and what price you should wait for if you want to purchase something. Here’s one example of an app I want and have on my wish list in AppShopper; Bugs and Buttons. Right now it is listed at $2.99 but I can see that it was .99 and may go back down again so I will wait for a notification!
This is a screen shot from the web version of AppShopper, you can login on your device or on your computer using the same login info.
Here is another good example…
We have the free version of Miss Spider’s Tea Party and Ladybug LOVES it but I am not paying $4.99 for it. I saw that they have the bedtime version on sale for .99 so I bought it for her {she was so giggly and excited when I showed her!}!
I had a blast loading up my wish list and getting some free apps today. I can’t believe I had no clue this amazing tool even existed! Another COOL feature, you can publicly share your lists to easily share apps you own and your ratings for them, as well as your wish list! I am not using the apps I own feature yet, but here is my wish list: http://appshopper.com/user/1plus1plus1/wishlist for you to see! Many on that list I am just waiting to see if they ever go free, as I won’t pay for them. Some I am just waiting for a price drop. If you set up an AppShopper account, will you share links to your lists below in my comments section? I always love to see app ideas!
As for apps, I am working on an Educational iPad Apps…part 2 and hope to have it complete with lists of our new favorites soon! For now you can browse through the current list of favorite ipad apps for kids.
I am so excited to share a brand new updated Brown Bear Printable Pack with you! All clipart has been updated thanks to the adorable set I purchased from KPM Doodles. I also added in some real animal photographs to the set.
All original files have been updated with the new clipart.
I also added several new printables to the set…
3 Part Cards ~ both book characters and real photographs
We are enjoying some down time after a busy few days of celebrating with family. We pray you all had a wonderful time celebrating too! Ours has been a bit busy and off. Many details behind the scenes have made this a year that has gone not-as-expected. We have learned to make the most of what we have been given and not to dwell to much on expectations not being met. We are grateful for so many wonderful blessings, it is hard to get too upset about details that really don’t matter. One of our surprises this year was Daddy getting sick with a very high fever on Christmas Eve and spending almost the entire evening in bed and much of Christmas Day {he is recovering now}.
Years ago I would have been an emotional mess but thankfully God has brought me to a place of peace in dealing with unmet expectations.
A few of Ladybug’s gifts…
The magnetic pattern blocks have been on my wish list for awhile now! Scrabble Alphabet Scoop is more for manipulative fun at this stage. She was so excited about the cardboard house to color on and has played with Minnie many times already {I love the Minnie set, if you have a Minnie fan-it’s SO cute!!} The color changing cars are awesome for fine motor skills, She has already spent about an hour “painting” them with water!
She also got many books and a few coloring books, which she loved!
Did your tot receive any fun Tot School tools? Feel free to share gifts your tot got if you don’t have a normal Tot School post to link up! Did you do anything fun with your tot to make the holiday more meaningful? Feel free to share and link up!
How do I Link up to Tot School? Please be sure to read this BEFORE you link up for the first time!!! If your blog is not linked back here to Tot School {within your post, not just on your sidebar}, and/or your post is not specifically a Tot School post, your link will be deleted to help Tot School surfing moms. If your link was deleted, please email if you don’t know why.
Please put your tot's age (in months) after it, like this: 1+1+1=1 (41 mos)
I am honored to be one of the breakout speakers for the brand new 2:1 conference in April!
Tickets are on sale now and are regularly priced at $259 each, BUT for a few more days {through December 31, 2011}, they are only $199 each if you use the code:2to1christmas at checkout to receive the discount! I hope to meet some of you there this spring!
If you want early access to printables beyond what I have blogged about, you can see info about purchasing here! Currently I have units Aa-Ll available in the early access section. I plan to complete many more units over the Christmas break!
We used unit 14 from You Can Read. Here’s a glimpse into some of the You Can Read work he did. He dislikes the making words activity but I know it really helps him so I make him do it! You can see his words in his Education Cubes up top.
We are enjoying lots of Christmas themed work around here these days! We all love our Little People Christmas toys, both this train and our Nativity are big favorites.
Krash loves the Play Dough box almost as much as Ladybug does!
Krash is the biggest fan of our Christmas Sensory Bin, here he dumped out the entire box and sorted it all on his own!
I sounded out nativity animals for him and he had to blend my word to find the correct animal. {the printables are from Musings of Me-I got them last year but can’t find them on her blog this year-sorry!}
We began reviewing All About Reading Level 1 a few weeks ago, and Krash has completed 10 lessons so far. You can read more about why we are choosing to review this homeschool reading program here in our “Current Curriculum” post {see FAQ}.
We are loving it. But let me explain loving it. I LOVE teaching reading, and Krash loves learning to read. But he does not love taking time to sit still and do the lessons. He does it and he likes it, but he would rather be jumping around. But since he has the drive to learn to read, he does well. I hope that makes sense. I don’t want you to think my wild child eagerly comes over for his reading lesson daily-he doesn’t.
But, he enjoys most of it once he gets there AND he is learning and growing tremendously. If you asked K if he loves All About Reading, I am not sure what he would say. He doesn’t “love” anything to do with school, but he loves learning. Funny how those totally contradict each other, but it’s just the truth. I am not sure how else to explain him-he is a unique student!
Daddy really enjoyed coming home one day right in time for his reading lesson, and it was a day that Krash was assigned 2 stories from the book. Krash likes the book a lot and giggles often!
A huge part of AAR is review, so we review our word card stack daily-which sometimes brings on the grumps. One day I changed things up and we used the iPad to review, using the wonderful app, Montessori Crossword. As he taps the letters, the app says the correct sound and then he blends it.
Since the idea of the lessons is a bit of a struggle for him, I decided to give him a little reward for completing every 10 lessons-we even added prize smiley faces to the check off sheet so he can visually see how close he is to the prize. We got to lesson 10 and he was beyond excited! He chose a Cars 2 car for his prize {we keep a small toy supply to use as prizes for things like this, but haven’t used the basket in a long time}.
![Tot-Books-10052222222222222222222222[1]](http://lh5.ggpht.com/-rW0STiqW_qs/Tvjo7Kao4XI/AAAAAAAAl7Q/oLm8LLKBSvY/Tot-Books-10052222222222222222222222%25255B1%25255D%25255B2%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800 "Tot-Books-10052222222222222222222222[1]")
![Tot-Trays-10052222222222222222222222[1]](http://lh5.ggpht.com/-ddi90Cas1xs/Tvjo9EcAm4I/AAAAAAAAl7g/fo4vq_wy9Rk/Tot-Trays-10052222222222222222222222%25255B1%25255D%25255B2%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800 "Tot-Trays-10052222222222222222222222[1]")
![smaller-rectangle-blog-button6222222[1]](http://lh6.ggpht.com/-u_gdUNddTMc/Tvjo9oXvHRI/AAAAAAAAl7w/t2dUJ7TVijo/smaller-rectangle-blog-button6222222%25255B1%25255D%25255B2%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800 "smaller-rectangle-blog-button6222222[1]")
![K-with-Krash2_thumb112222222[2]](http://lh5.ggpht.com/-QxtBVFgXK5I/Tu-7pxFCNmI/AAAAAAAAlxs/vMrMqlJk4LI/K-with-Krash2_thumb11222222222.jpg?imgmax=800 "K-with-Krash2_thumb112222222[2]")
![RRRSK-header-copy222[2]](http://lh5.ggpht.com/-AMhWzuySL6A/Tu-7qLKVK2I/AAAAAAAAlx0/AU-3nThNV1c/RRRSK-header-copy22222.jpg?imgmax=800 "RRRSK-header-copy222[2]")
![You-Can-Read-Button-200x20061222[2]](http://lh5.ggpht.com/-lxRUPA-rmwM/Tu-7sF755pI/AAAAAAAAlyU/ILhfoEi-R6g/You-Can-Read-Button-200x2006122222.jpg?imgmax=800 "You-Can-Read-Button-200x20061222[2]")
![Word-Play-rectangle4122222[2]](http://lh3.ggpht.com/-_M4aBJ9b8WY/Tu-7vsIle3I/AAAAAAAAlzM/Hq8cN1UTDbQ/Word-Play-rectangle412222222.jpg?imgmax=800 "Word-Play-rectangle4122222[2]")
