Thursday, May 29, 2014

Rit to the Rescue!

Whether you are having your third baby and your white onsies and burp rags aren't quite so white any more, or you have some brand new whites you want to make look cuter... it's Rit Dye to the rescue! Today's post isn't a rocket science project. It's just a quick little fix-up that gave new life to our third-time-around baby whites.

A lot of our white baby onsies and burp rags were all splotched up with yellow stains. I dyed the mostly-white looking whites "Aquamarine" and I dyed the ones with yellow-stains on them "Apple Green." I hoped that since green has yellow in it that it would hide the stains better, and I have to say that I am pretty pleased with how they came out. Not a stain in sight! And now they're so pretty! I wish I would have dyed at least the burp rags the first time around.

While I was at it, I also threw in a pink shirt of mine from Old Navy to turn it purple, but it didn't absorb any of the blue dye!

I don't know WHAT Old Navy did to that shirt to make it so resistant to dye, but if it is half as resistant to baby spit up, then it just may be my new favorite! :)

Monday, May 26, 2014

My Printable Passport! (A free geography printable!)

I've been working on getting everything planned, made, and printed for school next year so that when our baby's born I'll be truly "off" for the summer (well, as "off duty" as any mother ever is) and in the Fall I'll already have everything we need for home schooling sitting on the shelf waiting for me to just pick up and start using. One of the things I made is a printable passport, which we'll start using next year along with our Geography studies.

Friday, May 23, 2014

Free Printables for Kindergarten Letter Units

Today I'm sharing the last of my Kindergarten Printables. I made these to go along with our ABC Letter Units.

Sea Turtles Game Cards... I made these game cards based on the suggestion of a mom on the MFW Kindergarten boards who made up a Sea Turtles Race. This is my version of the game, including instructions and printable game cards. We used it during our Turtle unit, and it was a really fun game enacting the various perils that sea turtles face from the time they hatch to the time they get to the sea.  It goes perfectly along with the book "Turtle, Turtle, Watch Out," which is one of my boys' favorites. 

Wednesday, May 21, 2014

Free Kindergarten Printables and Downloads!

Here are a few printable files I made for our Kindergarten year. You're welcome to download them for personal use, or link back to this post. Please don't link directly to the file or post it as your own.

Here's our 100 Chart, which we used in math...

Sunday, May 18, 2014

We Finished Kindergarten!

Woo hoo! Since last fall our little man finished a year of Kindergarten, learned to READ and add and started telling time. Somehow between moving, unpacking, painting & settling in we also managed to potty train little brother (well, mostly) AND read 380+ books together (less than a month after moving, the librarians knew us all by name). Several people have asked me about what we do and what materials we use, so that's what today's post is about. Ready? Here it goes...

Reading - We started out using the My Father's World reading program but it was way too easy so we switched to my own lessons using the Bob Books. I based my lessons on the ones I found on the Teaching Reading with Bob Books blog. This was a really good fit for him, and right on his level. Now that he's finished the entire Bob series, he works his way through other easy readers and story books. I'd recommend the Bob Books for anyone (home school or not) whose child knows their letter sounds and is ready to start blending sounds together into short words. You can read about them here and purchase them here.

Thursday, May 8, 2014

Make Your Own Natural, Powerful Antihistamine!

Did you know you can make your own antihistamine? It's natural, it's powerful, and it works! It consists of equal parts lemon, lavender, and peppermint essential oils, and is referred to as LLP.  You can use it in a variety of ways...

ROLL-ON... This combination (equal parts of Lemon, Lavender and Peppermint) may be used topically. Here are the LLP roll-ons I made. Since they're for my kids I diluted it by using 5 drops each of Lemon, Lavender & Peppermint essential oils, then filling the rest of the 5mL roller bottle up with olive oil. I made this particularly for my 3-year-old with allergies to use when his nose is running and he's sniffling. I roll it on the base of his toes, but you could also put it on the base of the neck, the thymus, or under the nose. If you have sensitive skin, you may need to dilute it more or only use it on your toes.