One of the areas that my daughter is really working hard on is her spelling. Learning spelling can be quite boring at times (yes we do play lots of word games but still) so we thought it might be fun to custom make a few writing pages for her to use when she practices writing out her spelling words.
She wanted something colourful and pretty but with lines on and something that she can use her STABILO 3-in-1 pencils on (they wipe off laminated pages which is one of the reasons why she loves using them).
We started off creating the colourful pages. We tried two different methods – first we tried some bleeding tissue paper. We have done this a few times before so the kids know what to do. We add some tissue paper to card (we prefer using card for this as my son can be a bit over generous when he adds the water), then the kids dip their paint brushes in some water and “paint ” over the tissue paper so it is wet and the colours bleeds into the page. We leave it to dry and they peel off the dry tissue paper.
My son managed one large A3 page before he had enough but my daughter did page after page (she says she likes how pretty the paper looks afterwards).
We also had a go at using our STABILO Cappi felt pens and letting the colours run – by adding water. In the past I have done a version of this with the kids where they drew or coloured in pictures with felt tip pens and then we added some water using paint brushes. But this time we tried a slightly different version (thanks to Kirby from Jump Out The Box who showed us this new method). You use your felt tip pens to colour on a plastic ziplock bag (sandwich bag), use a paint brush to add some water to the colour on the sandwich bag and then turn the bag over and press it down onto some paper – we swished ours around on the paper (just because it was fun) and got this stunning result.
As we wanted to use these pages for spelling practice we drew some lines on them and then laminated the pages. I must admit something, I was a bit nervous about laminating these pages as I was worried that the colours might get ruined but all the pages came out perfectly and just to show well these pages laminated – here is a photo of one of the pages going in and coming out.
And we have already started using them (well my daughter has). She has used them to write out the spelling words that she is learning and she has used them for a sentence writing activity that she does with her brother (they each get a card with a word on and then they have to create a sentence with the word and she writes out the sentence).
And in case you are wondering the STABILO 3-in-1 pencils that she uses to write on the laminated pages – just wipes off with a tissue (bit of an action shot photo but proof that they pencils wipe off easily).
Fellowes kindly gave us our A3 laminator so I could use it when making our home-ed goodies.
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and our 
set for that. It helps me to think ahead so that I can spend some time researching and finding the manipulatives that best suit our learning style. I do not buy lots of different manipulative for the kids to use so I like to make sure that when I do get something new it will be something that is good quality and will last for both kids. Both our snap cubes and Base 10 set have been items that I bought years ago and have been excellent value for money (we have honestly used them so many times and we are nowhere near finished with them). I have a feeling that our new equivalent fraction tower is also going to become one of our much-loved and much-used Maths items. A friend kindly gave us the 
a few months ago and my kids have really been using them to play word games (they create their own word games). I am planning on using these with my son in the upcoming months as a fun way to encourage his reading.
Both my kids and I highly recommend this sweet Minibeast book and I have a feeling that we might still be inspired by this book – my kids are talking about doing a minibeast collage.
ofamily learning together 