Saturday, March 17, 2018

Do You Hate Easter Grass?

Do you hate Easter grass...with a passion? Were you still de-tangling the stuff from your vacuum for months after Easter last year? 

(That pic above affiliate links to Amazon, 
where you can buy the cursed stuff if you want...
but seriously, don't do it!   That stuff is AWFUL!!).


Do you want a a better alternative?  Well, one day in March  I stumbled onto a brilliant solution!   Do you see the basket below?  Does that look like Easter grass?  Well, it's not! 




That grass is made from this....


Yep, a fuzzy green wig is GREAT for alternative Easter grass.  I picked up mine on sale right after St. Patrick's day.  It doesn't get all over your house, and it can be re-used year after year too!



Plus, my kids loved playing with the wigs afterwards.
BONUS POINTS FOR COOLNESS!

If you can't find one at your local store, you can also get one online.

(Yes, that's an affiliate link which earns me money if you buy through that...but seriously, those after St. Patties sales are great...try there first!)


This is so far my favorite Easter grass alternative, but if it's not for you,
another fun idea I've seen is growing your own, real, live Easter grass.   It's a little more challenging, but also practically free and sounds fun.




Pinnable Image Below...





Friday, March 16, 2018

Child's Discovery




Fruit like molecules
Clustered together
Science in a bowl 


A little poem I made (not a haiku...just a poem) after my son told me he thought the fruit in the bowls looked like "cells."     






Linking up today on...
 

Friday, March 9, 2018

Friday Funnies, Flops and Fails: Word Play

One of these things is not like the others,
one of these things just isn't the same...



So, when we practice spelling words we take turns...I do a word, then he does a word, then I do a word, etc.   It started a while back when one day he asked if he could quiz me on some of the spelling words, too.  I like it because it gives him some extra practice reading these words, and reading is not his favorite subject, so getting him to read is always a plus.

So, the first word on line three was mine...and it was NOT Barack Obama.   Can you guess what it was?  

...broke.   
It was broke.

Hey, I spell it like I hear it!   And I clearly heard "Bar - ock."  (Obama was added for emphasis).   My kid thought this was hilarious.  It became the running joke for the next few days every time that spelling word came up.

But what's especially cool about this, is that being silly took the sting out of the  mistake (and my kiddo is usually pretty sensitive to mistakes).   It gave me a chance to talk about his pronunciation of "br" without him feeling bad about himself.   That mistake was actually the highlight of our homeschool day.  




Taking part in...
Friday Funnies, Flops and Fails
(cause homeschooling isn't perfect, and we need to see that too)

Plus...
Homeschool Highlights
Littles Learning Link Up


 



Tuesday, March 6, 2018

Free Shamrock Coloring Page



Here's a free Shamrock coloring page I made.  Click Here to Download.

These are fun for kids and challenging enough for adults (who says grown-ups can't color!). I'd love to see how you and your kids decorate these printouts! If you would like to share what you did, snap a picture of your finished coloring page and e-mail it to me at ecarian@yahoo.com -- I might post it up on the blog for others to see too! Thanks!

St. Patrick's Day Trivia:  Legend says St. Patrick used the three leaves of a clover or shamrock to explain the three parts of the Holy Trinity: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Just as the three separate leaves of the shamrock are part of one leaf, the three persons of the trinity are separate yet one. While the shamrock has long been considered a symbol of luck, to those who believe in providence it can be a reminder of the ONE who guides what seems like chance. May God Bless you this Saint Patrick's Day and the rest of the year.  

See this design on printed products at my Zazzle Shop...

Friday, March 2, 2018

Moving While Homeschooling....

The cute kid in the pic above isn't mine.  I try to keep my kiddo anonymous on my blog, for privacy reasons.  Thanks Pixabay, for the public domain pic!


We just went through a move, so I really appreciated the great tips on how to homeschool during a move I just read over at the Homeschool Review Crew.    Our homeschooling just sort of fizzled out during the move, and it took us so long to get back into the swing of things again afterwards.  I could have benefited from a few of those tips.

I do have three extra tips she didn't mention--mostly in the "don't make these mistakes I did" category.

Carry Curriculum On You
Pack the most important curriculum  in a bag or box you take with you (not in the big moving van...but in the bags that go with you in the car if you're driving, or what you carry with you on the plane.    If you can't take everything on your person, take the essential subjects (reading, writing, math)...the things you do every day and that your child will struggle with most if there's a gap in your daily practice.  I was glad for the materials I did pack, because it made it easier to start on those subjects when we got to our destination.


Clearly Mark Homeschool Stuff 
AND Communicate With Your Packers/Movers
If you're like our family, not all your homeschooling materials will be able to fit in a carry on (or even in the trunk of your car).   I wasn't able to take history with me on the plane because I just have too many books to carry through an airport.   I thought I was being smart by putting them in clear plastic containers that I could easily find.   But the company that packed us, I didn't realized, would just stack the plastic containers in their own larger boxes...making it NOT easier to find.  But what's worse, the specific large plastic container with my history books was, I gather, too heavy.  I didn't see them pack it because I was in another room, but they moved all the books into other boxes and put some lighter toys and other things in that plastic box.   So, it took me a while to find my history materials.   I wish I had talked to the movers ahead of time about those materials so they wouldn't have done that OR at least I would have been able to more clearly mark the boxes they moved those materials into (they were marked "books" but I have so many books that wasn't very helpful, and it was a while before we were able to find all the materials to start history).


Print Out Stuff Beforehand

I also thought the printable stuff would be safe in the move...you know, because it was on the computer, which surely would get set up immediately by my techie husband.    NOPE.   An essential cable got lost in the move.   And, getting THIS computer, it turns out, up and running was not such a high priority as I thought for him.   He had his work laptop, and he figured out how to get the video games and netflix hooked up with just our monitor, which is the main thing he uses our main computer for...so I was without those files for weeks!    I really should have printed off a few weeks of work beforehand, and carried that with me on the plane with the other curriculum I brought.  I mean, it's lucky that it wasn't the whole computer that was lost or broken..    At very least I should have kept a back up of important printables (and irreplaceable things like photos) on a flash drive that went with me.  Next time I will!



So, that's what I learned "by experience."    How was your last move?



Shared on Friday Funnies, Flops and Fails and Homeschool Review Crew Link-Up