I-Spy Bottle

Like most small kids, sometimes Squirt needs something to keep him quiet and entertained. This can be the case when I am trying to help an older child with schoolwork. I don't mind him watching some television shows on Netflix, because there is benefit to some that are educational, but a line does have to be drawn at some point or else he would sit and watch shows all day.

He got a small I-Spy beanbag last year, but that has lost some of its luster, and I figured he would appreciate that same idea on a larger scale.

The bottle I used is a Voss water bottle. It is rather expensive water, but the bottle is really neat. I picked this one up at the nearby health food store while grabbing some vegan cheese.

Things you will need:

• Water bottle (emptied and dried)
• Small, interesting items
• Poly-pellets or rice
• Hot glue gun complete with a glue stick

First, use a knife to scrap off all the branding on the bottle. It comes off quite easily, even if the noise is a little unpleasant. After having Gizmo take a picture of me doing this, I realized I was completely ignoring the primary safety rule of not pulling the knife towards you. And of course, I realized this after I was done, so there was nothing else to photograph. Oops. Scrape safely out there, folks. Do as I say, not as I do.

Next thing to do is to find yourself a bunch of small items. I was being super-cheap with this project, so I just scoured the house. The craft room and the bottoms of the children's toy boxes seemed to give me the largest pay-off. It is best to use items that will hold their shape. I briefly though about using a strip of ribbon, but then realized it would not ever show up well in the bottle.

These are the items I used.

I tried to find a variety of sizes and colors, but sticking to a certain theme could be really fun as well. I began thinking of ideas using all one color, or using all pirate or princess type items. I am planning on having the picture of the items printed out and laminated, so that the kids could cross out the items they have found using a dry erase marker.

The Nemo in the items is a sticker that I put on cardstock and cut out. It was my own geeky joke for "Finding Nemo."

Fold a paper into a basic funnel shape and pour in whatever you choose for a filler. Rice would work well; I am just a little weird-ed out by having a food item in the bottle. I used Poly-pellets, which can be purchased at a craft store. They are normally used for making stuffed animals and weighting the legs or bottom. Leave about an inch at the top left unfilled. I screwed on the top and twist and turned the bottle to test the if the amount of poly-pellets was what I wanted.

To make sure that no kid can get the bottle open, squeeze a large amount of hot glue all around the threads at the mouth of the bottle. While it is still hot, hurry and twist the top on. Decorate as desired. I had envisioned adding a cute ribbon around the top, but nothing of the sort has happened since Squirt gleefully took the bottle from me as soon as it was finished. Decoration or not, it seems to be a kid pleaser.

Young Entrepreneur Fair

Gizmo and Spike recently had an opportunity to participate in a young entrepreneur fair held in our area. They had to choose what their "store" would sell, figure out the profit and pricing, produce the item, and then set up a stand to sell their wares at the gymnasium where the even took place. Me and Brady felt that it was very important that the kids paid for all their materials and ingredients, and subsequently keep all the money they might make,  so that they would better grasp the risks and benefits of starting a business.

Gizmo made a variety of cute soaps, and even some tub crayons, while Spike had some gluten and dairy free baked goods. We worked on figuring out how much each item cost them to produce, and then decided on what would be a good price to sell it for. Although I knew it was a great opportunity even if they didn't earn any money, I was pretty nervous that it would be a sad drive home. However, they both made a profit!They both learned a lot about what worked and what did not, and since the mom who organized the event would like to make it a bi-yearly thing, they will hopefully be able to test out those lessons sometime in the late fall.

To explain the method of figuring out how much the items cost them to make, I first started by just showing them the series of math problems needed on a piece of scratch paper. It quickly became apparent that it was not making clear sense to them. I think that having a very visual way of laying something out often makes things easier to understand, so I made a couple of worksheets for them.

The first is a graph used to find out cost of materials in the amounts used, such as how much is an ounce of flour or soap base.
Cost of Materials

The second is the process of adding up all the costs involved, dividing by the amount produced, and then figuring out how much profit will be made.
Cost per Item

Hopefully they can help someone else out as well. :)

Will Learn Times Tables for Ice Cream...

I felt that Gizmo and Spike needed to work on their multiplication facts a bit this year. Gizmo has had them down pretty good in the past, but Summer break does take its toll, and a refresher course never hurt anyone as far as I know. Especially when the reward for doing so is a banana split. For each set of times tables that they pass off to me, they get to color that corresponding portion of the worksheet. Every number has a designated item, whether it be a scoop of ice cream, a banana, or even the bowl. Since Princess is learning her numbers, she gets to color the numbers that she has mastered. I have heard of similar ideas to this before, but didn't see anything online. What is a homeschooling mom to do? Draw one, of course. This was the result...

The date for our Sundae Party is October 15 and they can have whatever they have earned, so I am excited to see if they will be able to do everything.

Learning Photoshop

It will come to no surprise to anyone who knows us that our kids are pretty tech savvy. Even Squirt loves to play on my iPad. And so, taking their interest in computers in mind, Brady got them a super cool surprise for this school year by ordering Adobe CS5 master suite.

The suite includes many adobe programs, like Illustrator, Premiere, and Photoshop, which is what I chose to start with. We have our digital art and photography day once a week, and the kids really look forward to it. Adobe has a wonderful website with many tutorials. These have been really nice for teaching the kids the basics. We also got a subscription to a Photoshop magazine, but we are not ready for that quite yet. It has been a blast so far and I really look forward to seeing what the kids can do over the school year.

I usually have them work on the example photo from the video, and then on one of their own. For today's lesson, we started to learn about adjustment layers. The kids were to add a black and white layer to their photos, change the opacity of the layer, and then chose some area to mask the layer. Spike was giggling while working on the lesson photo as he made the mans head the only thing colored in the photo.

Here are their pictures before and after editing.

Gizmo

Spike

Just for fun, Gizmo decided to play around with Photoshop and do another picture.

First Day of School

Yesterday was our first day of homeschooling for this year. Gizmo is now in 6th grade (typing that out makes it even scarier), Spike is in 4th grade, and Princess is starting more structured preschooling this year. I was determined to try and make the new beginning as fun as possible, so I woke them to the smell of bacon, eggs, and hash browns cooking.

Something new that I have decided to implement this year is worksheets at the breakfast table. I have been calling them "brain starters." In the past, the kids get dressed and make their way down to the table, only to sit and tiredly watch me make breakfast. Although I was a little apprehensive about how they would react to the news that they would have a worksheet to do first thing in the morning, they all really liked the idea. The first day of school Gizmo and Spike had word searches customized with their spelling lists, which I made up on this website, and Princess had some tracing worksheets which I pulled from one of the workbooks I have for her. Today both of the big kids did a cryptogram involving facts about the planets, which they loved, and Princess did some simple mazes.

My idea is that the worksheets will be for reinforcing things already learned and encouraging reasoning skills. I am planning to include brain teasers and puzzles along with spelling activities, math worksheets, and fun stuff to go along with whatever they are studying in history or science.

Tomorrow, Gizmo and Spike will be working on composition worksheets which I printed from education.com. The website has hundreds of free worksheets available, which can be searched by grade level and subject. The grades span from preschool to high school. An account is required, which I usually hate, but I have found it to be worth it in this case.

We will see how things go, but I may have to start doing something similar at lunch.