Loving Our Learning Resources Shape Templates

Posted on December 8, 2015 by ofamily

We have been lucky to work with three wonderful Occupational Therapists over the years. All three have at some stage mentioned to me how great stencils are for the kids to use. They are great at encouraging the kids to use their two hands together, something which my daughter has really battled with, even now when she is writing I have to encourage her to engage her “helping hand” yet when she works with stencils her “helping hand” is always working. We bought some lovely basic animal stencils years ago which the kids have used but a few weeks ago I bought these Learning Resources Primary Shapes Template Set (affiliate link). It was not actually a planned purchase but I am so glad that I did buy them.

For the last 3 weeks the stencils have barely left our kitchen table. My kids enjoy sitting at the table doodling or doing an art activity while I bake or cook our dinner. And honestly these stencils have been used and used and used over the past 3 weeks.

They first spent ages just tracing the shapes onto pages and pages over and over again.

Then my daughter started using the circle stencil to draw people and then houses and trees.

And now the kids play a game. They draw a picture with the stencils and then they tell the other an elaborate (and I do mean elaborate) story based on the pictures. My son’s stories have involved Dinosaurs moving into a house with a little boy and the dinosaur ends up destroying the garden which apparently upset the parents.

We also have used out stencils for some modern art. We traced a bunch of shapes onto the page – making sure the shapes overlapped.

Then we used our oil pastels to fill in the shapes.

And one of the finished pages

Really simple but it was a fun art project and nice and easy and quick to set up.

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Posted in Art and Craft Ideas | 2 Comments

Christmas Tree cards

Posted on December 6, 2015 by ofamily

Over easter we made some really cute easter egg cards that my daughter loved so we thought we would try to use the same the idea for some Christmas tree cards.

We used our new favourite Free to download Christmas tree template from Activity village. We used the template to trace the shape onto a number of different pieces of paper and then cut the trees out. (UPDATE – when I initially wrote this post the Activity Village page that we used was free to download but the Activity Village website has since changed and the page can now only be downloaded if you are a member.)

We folded each tree shape in half.

Then we glued the first half of the first tree to the card (line up the middle fold of the tree with the middle fold in your card).

You then glue the free half of the first tree to the next half of the second tree and continue doing this until you get to the last tree. With the last tree you need to glue the second half back onto the card. That way when you open your card up the trees fans out nicely.

I think it makes a very effective card. I like the look of using the plain coloured trees.

The kids also coloured and decorated some of the trees. So their second card looked like this

I think the grandparents will enjoy these !!

If you missed my earlier post about starting our Christmas cards here is the link – Starting our Christmas cards (more ideas on using Activity Village pages for easy child-made Christmas cards)

The scissors that my kids use are these – Westcott 5 inch Soft Grip Kids Scissor – Pink – and other styles. We have tried a few different types and these are by far the most popular with both my kiddies.

I have included Affiliate links. If you follow an affiliate link and go on to purchase that product, I will be paid a very small commission, however your cost will remain the same.

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Christmas present writing practice

Posted on December 4, 2015 by ofamily

My youngest is still working on his letter formation but he hates doing lines of letter practice and he is desperate to spell words.

We have come up with an activity for him where he uses his letter formation pages to spell out his words. He asks me how to spell a word eg dad, then I spell it out for him and he traces over the letters on his letter formation page to make the word. He actually really likes doing this and often asks if he can do this activity while he his sister is busy with something else.

So when I spotted these Christmas present pages FREE from Twinkl with the colour words written on them I immediately thought we could use these as a combination of practicing our letter formation and his desire to spell words. I printed them out so that they were 4 presents on a page. That way the letters where just the right size for him, not too big and not too small.

I also laminated our pages so that we could use them more than once. And he was off.

He did all of the colours in one go. I love the fact that he matched the colour of his pencils to the colour of the presents (we use our STABILO 3-in-1 pencils on our laminated pages as they wipe off nicely, are the right size for his hands and they have a great range of colours – yes yes we love these pencils).

On his second day of doing his colour words he asked if he could use one of his laminated letter formation pages with them. He started off by choosing a card and tracing over the word on the present and then he went to his letter formation sheet and repeated his word again tracing over the letters.

As often happens in our house when one sibling is enjoying an activity it is not long before the other also wants a go. His sister asked if she could do something like this (but she wanted her own version with harder words) and since we have started learning how to spell the months of the year I gave her these cute Presents with the months of the year on for her to trace over (also FREE to download from Twinkl)

Twinkl have a large range of display posters most of which can be modified for the kids to trace over letters and words like we do and the graphics are always lovely.

Posted in Homeschooling | Tagged Christmas ideas, free printables, homeschooling, letter formation, spelling, Twinkl, writing | Leave a comment

Starting our Christmas cards

Posted on December 2, 2015 by ofamily

We have quite a busy Christmas period coming up, lots of family time and lots of travelling so as the kids like giving home-made Christmas cards I thought we would take advantage of a few sick days in the house and start making some.

As everyone in the house was feeling a bit miserable we kept our first batch of cards nice and easy.

My daughter started with this lovely colouring Christmas card from Activity village (the homeschooling mom in me loves the fact that the kids are colouring in words).

We thought it might be fun to add a border to the card. So we trimmed the edges of the card and stuck it down on a sheet of thick green paper.

My daughter liked this idea so much that we also added some red paper.

I really like the effect of the extra border.

My youngest has also been colouring in more of the lovely Santa’s from Activity village (Father Christmas tree decorations ), so he used some of those on a card (I did do the cutting for him). He calls it his Jolly Santa card.

We also made some more of our Tissue art cards. The kids have made a number of these Tissue cards in the past so they are becoming experts at making their own tissue sheets. We normally just use a piece of A4 paper and then the kids glue down bits of tissue paper onto the sheet. We have found it better to glue the sheet of paper and then stick the tissue paper onto it, if you try to glue the actual tissue paper it often tears and crumples up. We also find that for tissue art projects it is often more effective to stick to a colour scheme per sheet of paper – we often do a sheet in cool colours and a sheet in warm colours.

This time I thought it might be fun to use one of the tree templates from the activity village website. I printed the template on card (I think we might use it for a few other activities so I thought if it was on card it would last better). My daughter cut them out.

We then used the templates to trace the shapes onto the back of our tissue sheet.

And then the kids cut out their trees and stuck them onto thick coloured paper to make their cards.

A small first batch it does feel good to get all the card making started.

UPDATE – when I initially wrote this post the Activity Village pages that we used were free to download but the Activity Village website has since changed and the pages can now only be downloaded if you are a member.

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Posted in Homeschooling | Tagged activity village, children's craft, Christmas cards, Christmas ideas, homeschooling, tissue art trees | 1 Comment

A Homeschooling mom’s letter to Santa

Posted on November 30, 2015 by ofamily

It is that time of the year where everyone is busy planning what Christmas pressies to buy and what to include in their letters to Father Christmas. As most homeschooling moms I have a never-ending Amazon wish list that just keeps growing so just as something fun I wondered what would a letter from this homeschooling mom look like.

Dear Santa

What I would really love more anything is a never-ending supply of ink for my printer and a cleaning fairy who quietly cleans and packs away all the laundry in the middle of the night but from what my friends have told me these are unrealistic requests to include in a letter to Santa. Really ? So here are a few of my more realistic requests for a Christmas pressie, any one would make this homeschooling mom very happy.

A box of art kits for the days when I am feeling exhausted and not very creative. I am not fussy which art kits just something to keep the kids busy and give me chance to catch my breath. Maybe the Rainbow weaving kit or the mosaic foam coaster kit for those days in February when we just do not want to leave the warmth of our house.

Usborne Look Inside or Usborne See Inside books. And let be frank here any book in this series is bound to be a big hit with both my kids so you can choose. If you find choosing the correct book a bit too stressful a gift voucher to almost any store would be welcome as well (just trying to be helpful).

An extension of my Twinkl subscription would also be most appreciated. Did you know that you could give one as a Christmas pressie – I would really like the Platinum Plus please but Platinum would also do.

Could I also get an endless supply of latte’s delivered to the house ? No ! Okay is there a coffee mug that is homeschooling mom safe – will not spill on any of my papers or my computer (hubbie in case you read this – that never happened to me – well not really anyway………..) and will keep my coffee warm while I get distracted doing a project with the kids? I am not fussed by colour.

Some more Safari Toob’s. My kids love being able to hold 3 dimensional items in their hands while we are learning and these are just fab. I have been eyeing out the Dinosaur Skulls for some time but the fossil bag and the Prehistoric Life set also look amazing. Honestly any one of these would be a welcome sight under my tree.

I am still after the perfect pair of jeans. Nothing fancy just a pair that hides that fact that I did indulge in my daughters latest baked goods. So magic jeans they have invented those right?

Speaking of baked goods, is there a way of working some Christmas magic over my Pinterest boards so that all the best recipes magically appear on my baking with kids board?

Two happy, smiling, laughing, fill of questions kiddies who love each other. Oh wait, I have that, so Santa, it is okay I have everything that this homeschooling mom could possibly need on Christmas morning, Thanks anyway.