Hansel and Gretel Sticker Houses

Here is another candy house project we did to go with our Hansel and Gretel unit. This particular craft came in kit form from http://www.orientaltradingcompany.com/.  All pieces are precut and the kids loved the ease of the foam stickers to decorate their houses. The kids are 9, 9, 5 and 3 and all 4 gave this activity two thumbs up. Mom (me) gives it two thumbs up for ease of project and relatively no mess or clean-up. No compensation was received for this review.

TIP: Sticker activities, like this one,  are an easy and fun fine motor practice activity for kids with fine motor deficits.

Jan Brett

Jan Brett is one of our favorite children's authors and illustrators. We love using her books in our homeschool. Hew newest book just came out and is in time for Easter.  It is titled, what else...The Easter Egg.

TIP: Jan Brett's website, http://www.janbrett.com/ contains great free handouts and activities you can print out to go along with all of her books. This makes it a great  economical resource when you are planning themes and activities.

Fairy Tale Unit Books: Rapunzel

Here are some of the books we are using with Rapunzel. I love it when you can find books that tell different versions of the same classic story. It provides a great opportunity for the kids to compare and contrast the different versions. This is a great way to introduce simple venn diagrams to kids that are kindergarten level, which is a state standard here in AZ.

Fairy Tale Witches

We have been discussing common elements of Fairy tales, including that there usually are "good" characters and "evil" characters.  To go with our Hansel and Gretel week, the kids made witches as an example of the "evil" character in the story.

TIP:  I find these crafts go very smoothly and the boys are able to do them with more independence if there is an example already made that they can look at during the project.

Where does the time go...

Today, the kids and I wrapped up a weekly religion study on baptism and John baptizing Jesus. After finishing the worksheets and reading the bible story again we concluded the lesson by sitting on the couch together and looking at scrapbooks of their baptisms. The kids enjoyed seeing the pictures of their own baptism and of themselves when they were babies, but I just sat there in awe that so much time had passed, and how quickly those years had went.

Happy and Homeschooling

Our twin sons with special needs had dismal experiences their last year in public school. Over the course of that year, they both went from being my happy guys to pretty sullen elementary schoolers. This was one of the myriad of reasons I took homeschooling the boys, special needs and all, on. I wasn't quite sure how I was going to accomplish this task when we started, but knew in my heart it was not okay or normal for 8 year olds (at the time) to be so unhappy.

 Yesterday, a girlfriend came over for a visit who hadn't been at the house in awhile. Within the first 30 minutes she was here she exclaimed "the boys just seem so happy". Sometimes, the right environment makes all the difference.

TIP:  Though the idea of it can seem daunting, homeschooling can be a viable and successful option for kids with special needs.  There are less distractions than a public school setting and kids can be taught more specifically to their own learning style.  While there are more considerations (legal requirements, aquiring needed therapies, documentation, etc) all kids, including those with special needs, thrive in an environment where their program is tailored to their specific strengths and abilities.

From the bookshelf: February

                                                                                                  




I love the Start of a new month. Along with what is happening on the calendar (President's Day, Groundhog 
Day and St. Valentine's Day) we like to pick at least one month long unit of study.

This month we are doing Fairy Tales.We are doing a fairy tale a week, starting wtih Hansel and Gretel.  Fairy tales are a great way to introduce young children to the literary concepts of title, setting and character. Along with reading the story and doing the Hansel and Gretel activities from the Evan-Moor theme pockets book, we are also netflixing two different versions of this tale to watch that we can compare and contrast and building a candy house as our art project (a great way to use a gingerbread house kit from Christmas that I forgot I had!).