Webkinz Jr. Party and playtime

Today is another fun Hip Homeschool Hop so I thought I would post a quick review from our 5th year old Nathan's birthday party last week.  We were blessed to be chosen to host a Webkinz Jr. Party as part of MomSelect. About 2 weeks before the party I received an email about the party (I honestly had totally forgotten I even applied), then I received this huge box via UPS. Inside the box was party supplies, ideas, and 10 goody bag complete with coloring books, song CD's, stickers, and Webkinz jr. pets.

Nathan picked out an adorable puppy.

and Cameron selected a cute white mouse.

Both little critters are super soft and each comes with a code to set up Webkinz Jr. activities online

This week we set up the boys' webkinz jr. accounts and let them play. The website is geared toward ages 3-6 but Cameron who is 7 1/2 still had fun. The games are fun , colorful and educational. There is a parent's area as well where you can view , set up and change your children's accounts, send them cards, and if you choose to go with the deluze memership you can even print out activities that match the monthy themes. ( I'm still trying to decide on the deluze membership as we are already signed up with a couple other online activities).

Anyway, I handed out all 10 of the critters (2 stayed at our house), so far the kids that got the critters are loving them, I even received the cutest voicemail from my 3 year old nephew telling me how much fun he was having with Ohso (his giraffe) and the coloring book.

I am planning on adding a Webkinz jr. Card to Nathan's workbox activities  as we add more boxes and activiites for the year.

If you have Webkinz I would love to hear your opinion especially on how a little boy age 7 1/2 would enjoy it... (He really is too old for the .jr edition). and if you stopped here from the Hip Homeschool Hop, let me know.

Have a great day!

Summer balancing act...

Its another Hip Homeschool Hop! I thought I would share my summer balancing act with you all.

We live in a rural farming community so there aren't a lot of kids/ neighbors and this is harvest season so there is a lot of activty outside.. We aren't farmers but all our neighbors are... One neighbor up the road as 4 kids on rotating weeks... My boys love to play with the kids, but now that we are back in school it is hard to balance the summer playdate mentality with our school schedule.. So, this week we are perfecting said balancing act!

Today, Cameron had a shortened load, 1 Math-U-See lesson and 1 Houghton Mifflin Phonics/ Spelling lesson. He was told if he got dressed, ate his breakfast, and got his school work done his friends could come over at 11:00 for 2 hours.. He got it all done with only a little whining... so for 2 hours we had 3 extra kiddos... Feed everyone lunch (Thank goodness for homemade mac and cheese and garden fresh cabbage salad!!).

Tomorrow will be the big day... The kids will arrive at 10:15 tomorrow and instead of regular school lessons for my boys, we will do a mini Vacation Bible School; crafts, music, games, etc...

I attended a training conference this weekend for our youth group and got a wonderful idea for scented water color paint that we will be using. 1 package of Kool-Aid powder (without sugar) and 2 Tbsp water... mix and paint... when it dries it smells like the kool aid flavor... We stopped by our local Win-Co and picked up 6 packages of kool-aid for painting... should be fun!

We are also going to do chalk art (sidewalk chalk and large sheets of paper).. The kids can draw or do rubbings, and then I spray them with hairspray.

How do you balance the homeschool schedule with Public School friends?

Hio Homeschool Blog Hop and building project

So many people know I have been wanting a larger wipe off / magnetic board for the classroom. Well after endless stops and phone calls trying to figure out something I ended up at Salem Heating and Sheet Metal. I purchased a 3' x 4' piece of heaver gauge sheet metal ($16) to put into an old chalkboard frame.

Got it home to find it was 1" too large one direction and 2 1/2 " too large the otheer directio. Mike set me up with tin snips to cut one edge.. Ok note to shelf my hands are too small for tin snips in gloves.

After I finished the one edge, we smoothed it out and then sanded down the edge of the old chalkboard and slid the 2 pieces back into the frame. I then learned how to use the air tools, specifically the grinder... what a fun tool!!! I ground off the 1" side and smoothed it with sanding wheel... we nailed it into the frame and brought it into the classroom where it is mounted on the wall... Magnets are hanging on it, waiting for the workbox charts and calendar and lists to join them.  I will post pictures later, now I'm off to a tweet chat with Hip Homeschool Chick

[caption id="attachment_616" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="finished magnetic wipe off board"][/caption]

Staples and Back to School

If you are a Staples customer then you know what I am talking about. Staples has some of the most awesome deals for Back-to-School. This week I picked up 2 reams of regular copy paper that after rebate will have cost me just $0.01 each and 2 8 GB USB thumb drives that after rebate will be $14.99 each (not the best deal but still a good deal). I also picked up pocket folders during a previous trip that were $0.01 each and with my teacher rewards card I was able to get 25... I had to spend $5.00 to get the deal but that wasn't a problem as I was able to pick up a couple packs of CD sleeves to stick in some books as well as a few other bits and pieces.  It is silly but I look forward to the Back-to-School extreme deals Staples does.

Note to Self

This morning I am tackling a project.

I am clearing out my inbox. For the last 18 months, yes 18 months I have been storing stuff in my email inbox. I decided all these wonderful resources were doing me no good sitting in the inbox so starting last night I began the arduious task of cleaning out the inbox, saving files I will use , deleting old messages, replying to the last month of messages that I hadn't gotten to, and finally deleting files I won't use.

I started with 1.96 gigabytes of stuff and as of 10:00 a.m. I have deleted down to 1.5 gigabytes... What the heck??? less than .5 gigabytes cleared out... UGH!!!

I am finding some wonderful resources that I can use for workboxes, story bags, and co-op sharing so it is worth it.

Later this morning N and I are going to purge some of the classroom and bring in some of the new fun treasures we picked up yesterday at Walmart and Staples. I still need a large White Board that is magnetic. Hopefully I can get one before the end of August (I keep hoping one goes on sale for less than $20 as I can't spend more than that)

Old Schoolhouse Magazine Holiday Deal Hurry!

The Old Schoolhosue Magazine is a great resource! I loved rereading articles
for hints and tips and as a new homeschooler and still enjoy the magazine's
articles and ideas 2 years later.  This is a wonderful deal that they just
published for the upcoming Holiday weekend, a great opportunity to get a
great deal!
Hope you enjoy your 4th of July Holiday weekend and the rest of your summer.

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Workbox Expansion

So I decided that I am expanding the boys' workboxes to include their fun activities and games. With that I had to come up with 1 more cube for each of them which meant purging more of my craft area.
I now have an empty space on my office (don't worry it will fill up fast with other stuff.)
Now each of the boys have 12 slots available for workboxes. 1 slot will be their return box for finished work, while the other 3 slots will be home to fun desk activities and games they can choose to play (logic puzzles, wordgames, mazes, geoboards , etc..)

Of course now I have to come up with 6 more ITSO wide trays, oh how I wish Target would put them on sale soon.. at $4.99 a piece it will be a while before I can get them, still they are perfect for workboxes in our cubbies (JetMax Cubes). They are also the perfect depth for some of our larger activities (Reading Rods and such)

I'll try and get a picture posted later tonight. I'm thinking of hanging their white baord workbox schedules on the side of the cubbie wall, so we will play with that too.