Are your kids as obsessed with Elephant & Piggie as mine are? All of our boys from ages 2 through 8 get a kick out of these cute characters! We decided to have a fun crafting day and create a pig footprint craft to celebrate the release of the latest book in the series.
Do you guys read the Mo Willems books? It’s Pigeon’s 16th birthday this month! Or BIRD-day. Hehe. We’re working with Disney Book Group to bring you a fun Mo Willems Pigeon costume to help celebrate.
Free time, family connection and deeper learning opportunities are things we get to enjoy with our kids at home. Here’s a detailed list of our reasons to homeschool.
Do you read the Artemis Fowl series with your kids? Our oldest son is totally obsessed, so we’re working with Disney Book Group today to create an Artemis Fowl printable fairy book that gets the whole family in on the action!
I’ll never forget the day that my oldest son’s preschool called me in to talk about addressing his “learning differences.” As an involved parent and a former teacher, I was acutely aware from infancy that he processed things differently than his peers. I was just surprised to hear someone else acknowledge it. Worry wasn’t top of mind during that conversation, when they suggested we have him assessed by the county for an IEP and start making minor adjustments to his day at the learning center.
I was relieved to be getting help.
Sidekick is going from transitional kindergarten (TK) into kindergarten this year, and I couldn’t possibly be more excited! TK was an amazing opportunity for him to get a jump on school. He knows his first 100 sight words, and he can sound out ones he doesn’t know.
Living in Southern California, we’re big movie buffs. I used to teach the children of movie stars when I worked at elementary schools in Los Angeles. My own kids have been immersed in Hollywood through numerous trips and even had a couple cameos in commercials. As viewers, we absolutely love film, so learning with movies is just one of the many ways we use our kids’ passions to broaden their horizons.
The boys have hit that point in school where they start learning about money. Instead of adding ones and tens, they’ve started calculating pennies and dimes. Naturally, this prompted ALL sorts of questions. The day our 1st grader asked if he could purchase a house with a handful of change, Nate and I realized it was time to show them that coins are more than just numbers and placeholders. How to teach kids the value of money? For us, a piggy bank was the obvious first step!
With all our independent study lately, the big kid has been looking for ways to dig through a book as a group when he doesn’t have access to the reading circles that are often found in a classroom. We read one-on-one, but a ton of learning and connection comes from reading with your peers. A kids book club was needed to help him solidify what he was reading and and really get engaged!
People often ask how we juggle the kids’ school work when we travel so much. Living in California, we’re able to do a blended approach with independent study AND local elementary school enrollment. I’ve explained a bit about how we meet our children where they are in the learning process and supplement with different tools at home. An online tool is actually what helped our son breakthrough and figure out phoneme blending when his school’s traditional approach failed!