update...

Well it has been some time since my last blog post...I HAVE been a busy girl getting lots of stuff done, BUT I had a dead battery in my camera and was unable to take and upload pics! So now I have fixed that problem and am now camera ready :o)

So today I did not get any sewing done. However, me and little Miss where able to get some YUMMY rainbow cupcakes made!

I counted this bit of work as credit for her towards school time today. She helped me count out the 3 eggs we needed, fill the measuring cup with 1 cup of water and mix drops of food coloring precisely to get all 6 colors of the rainbow. Then we placed the colors in rainbow order into the cupcake wrappers.

We found this idea in Family Fun Magazine--a really great source for fun stuff to do with the kiddos!

Basically it is a store bought cake mix (anyone know of a good home made white cake mix--please share!) that you separate into 6 bowls. You then dye the batter to match the colors in the rainbow. And with the help of my 4 year old--little Miss-- we spooned a dollop or two per color into the cupcake wrappers then placed them in the oven. Bake at the temp and time that your box mix calls for and walla!

Oh, and that super creamy homemade frosting is a recipe that was passed on to me by a cousin from her MIL--it is super easy and oh so yummy too!

Maybe tomorrow will grant me some sewing time??? one can hope! :o) !!!

Home School find!

I like to search the web for interesting ideas and crafts to do with the kids for school and am ready to share one of my finds now :o)

So a while back I found a very cute blog (Home School creations) that has very fun preschool printables for free! I have even subscribed to her blog in google reader (don't you just love google reader--if you don't know what I am talking about you should! check it out www.google.com/reader

so today while reading up my reader posts I saw she had posted a new bird preschool pack on her blog.

This preschool pack is a collaboration with another lady named Carisa.  I am not familiar with her work but I have printed her pack and will check it out...but looks cute so far!

I am very familiar with Jolanthe's stuff and we (me and Sophie especially) love it!

Last week we did the robot preschool pack and it was full of fun learning activities--even though she is a girl Sophie was tickled to do the robot stuff. Roger was in on the action too, even though he is way beyond preschool work, but it was nice to allow him to delve in and have fun!

My strategy for these packs is this.
1. I print out all the pages in the pack (unfortunately right now I just have a black and white printer so the ones that deal with color have to be hand colored (great coloring practice!)
2. I divide the pages into groups based their ability to be combined then place wrong sides together .
3. I place the pages into a laminating envelope and heat set it. this gives a double sided page. Some pages will not work this way, those I keep separate and laminate in a page on its own.
4. once the pages are laminated I hand over to Sophie and arm her with a bunch of dry erase pens and she goes to town!

for now we have the Robot pack printed and laminated and in use:

Roger oversees as Sophie practices her penmanship skills on a Robot activity page

soon we will have the bird pack going, so exciting! check it out and let me know what you think!

What's the number?

Today the kids and I are working on some number fun. We have created a nice chart for filling in number of various languages.

They already know how to say these numbers, now they need to spell them and this little worksheet is going to do the trick!

on one side we have the cardinal numbers listed and the answers to what's the number for each of the languages we are currently interested in.

On the back is a chart for filling in to aid memorization.

I printed out the two pages and have laminated them wrongs sides together. We use dry erase pens --just love these things! :o) to write and rewrite our numbers.

Page one:

Cardinal Number	English	Latin	Roman	German	French	Spanish
1	One	Unus	I	Eins	Un	Uno
2	Two	Duo	II	Zwei	Deux	Dos
3	Three	Tres	III	Drei	Trios	Tres
4	Four	Quattuor	IV	vier	Quatre	Cuatro
5	Five	Quinque	V	Fünf	Cinq	Cinco
6	Six	Sex	VI	Sechs	Six	Sies
7	Seven	Septem	VII	Sieben	Sept	Siete
8	Eight	Octo	VIII	Acht	Huit	Ocho
9	Nine	Novem	IX	Neun	Neuf	Nueve
10	ten	decem	X	zehn	dix	Diez

Cardinal numbers: counting numbers. Answers how many?

Ordinal numbers: tells in what order. First, second, third, etc.

Nominal numbers: don’t show number of or order. They are numbers we use to identigy things. A telephone number, a jersey number (sports) a zip code.

Page 2:

Cardinal number	Language:_____________________________________

Hope you enjoy this homeschool source!