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Before I dive into our TGIF Linky Party, I have a treat for you! I am premiering a new series – A Day in the Life of Another Mom! This series will be moving to Saturdays, but I wanted to kick it off with my fabulous party friends! 

I don’t know about you, but there are days when I wish I could be a fly on the wall in someone else’s home. Is that Mom always that put together? What time do they get up? Do the kids ever fight…. and how does she deal with fighting? Does she do crafts every day?  I think we all have a natural curiosity of what other families are like.  We want to see what we already know – no family is perfect. AND we want to glean tips and strategies to make our days more effective, fun, and intentional.

So with that in mind I am starting a new series – A Day in Life of Another Mom. So prepare to be a fly on the wall as you see what a day is like for another Mom. And to get things started, I thought I would go first =-)

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A Day in the Life of a Homeschooling Mom with Little Ones by Yours Truly =-)

Bright & Early
My day starts at 5am. Go ahead and gasp!  My kids are early risers so if I am going to get anything done…. I have to get up even earlier! Sometimes I may grab a cup of coffee (we have a Keurig my hubby got for Christmas a couple years ago), but I am not a habitual coffee drinker so it is anyone’s guess if I will or not that day. Next I have been going through a Proverbs 31 study in the morning. Then I check and respond to personal & blog related emails. I work on any posts I have in process and share my post for the day on Twitter, Facebook, and KBN Pinterest Board.

The Pitter Patter of Little Feet
If I’m so lucky, I won’t here the pitter patter of little feet until 6:30am.  Sometimes they creep down the stairs BEFORE 6! Way too early. If they get up before 6 they are sent back to bed! So now it is time to give my kiddos my full attention:  morning hugs & kisses, get the kids dressed, brush Minnie’s hair (usually with some complaints that it hurts. Sometimes it is more dramatic than others. (I found that if I can style it while she watches 5 minutes of Curious George, Mickey Mouse, or another favorite show she doesn’t complain at all!) At this point I usually call my husband’s cell phone to remind him to stop working (he gets in some extra work time in his basement office in the morning) and come upstairs.

Breakfast Time & Morning Walk
We usually eat breakfast about 7am. Today we are eating Honey Nut Cheerios. Many days we just have cereal or homemade oatmeal (a favorite in our house – especially with fresh fruit!). Sometimes I am on the ball and will make eggs or muffins.   So glad everyone is cheerful and there is time for our  family morning walk today. I love this time to get out and get some fresh air, stretch my legs, help the kids get some exercise, and chat with my hubby while the kids run ahead.  We are not diehards though, if it is really hot and muggy or in the winter we do not walk. But if it is 50-84 degrees we will walk.

Daddy Departs & Mickey Mouse time!
At 8am my hubby kisses the kids and goes to work (in the basement – so blessed with the short commute!) I plop the kids in front of the TV at this point to watch 30 minutes of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. This is my “prep period.” I quickly pop out front to water our hanging baskets and then check the calendar to see if there is anything on the calendar for the day – today is Big Balloon Dinner at the library.

Our Morning
At 8:30 on the dot the kids are running in the other room announcing the show is done and asking what we are going to do now. Since the weather is nice we pop out back and survey our garden. The kids each bring a bowl to collect blackberries from our bushes.  We use the other bowl to collect about 6 cucumbers – I’ll need to make time to make pickles today or tomorrow.  Goofy runs off to play castle and Minnie goes into our play house to make some tea. Tinker Bell (as per usual) wants to be pushed in the swing. No big craft project today – I am actually a little glad I don’t have to clean up from it. 

It’s 10:30 now and  time to get ready for the library. We start looking around for library books to return. The kids use the bathroom and we spend about 10 minutes looking for a missing shoe (does that ever happen at your house?!) We are finally ready to go… running later than I wanted so I hurry the kids. I really don’t like being late. We get to the show just as the doors are opening. The show is AMAZING and I thoroughly enjoy watching the kids giggle at the balloon artist. We are so blessed to have such a good public library.

Lunch Time
We get home shortly before noon so I decide to pop some potatoes in the microwave. No fancy lunch today! Daddy joins us for baked potatoes with cheese & chives and an apple. The kids each get to pick a favorite story and I read 3 books. Then the two older kiddos are left with instructions to clean the ‘school room’ while I put Tinker Bell down for a nap.

School Time
For the next 3 hours (give or take) we have school time in our house. Minnie works through the days workbox showing me each activity as she finishes. She LOVES doing school. Big brother gets a little frustrated that Minnie does more “fun” things that he does…. but he keeps going. We spend about 30 minutes doing Language Arts, 30 minutes for Math, 5 minutes looking at new postcards we got in the mail for our USA Postcard Swap, 30 minutes reading books and doing a craft for our Westward Expansion Unit, and 20 minutes or so in Music (Color the Classics). Then, we cuddle up on the couch for me to read a couple school related books to the kids and for Goofy to read to us.

More Play Time
It’s 4pm now – how Tinker bell sure took a long nap today – she must be growing! I can hear her mobile on – that is how she ‘announces’ to us she is awake. So I get her and then we work on making cards for Grandma’s birthday. The big 70 this year! It is dreadfully muggy outside so we decide to play games inside until dinner. We play one of our favorites Curious George Visits the Zoo. Now it’s time for me to make dinner. Since Goofy did so well at school today I let him play some educational games on the ipad while the girls play kitchen. I have to referee one girl took the other girls pretend food, but no major calamities today =-)

Dinner Time – Come and Get it!
We call Daddy up and eat dinner about 5:30. I grilled for super tonight: grilled chicken, zucchini & yellow squash packet (from our garden), and homemade potato fries. It is so nice not to heat up the house on hot days like today! I also use our 3 ingredient recipe to make ice cream and turn it on just before I call everyone to the table – that way it will be ready just in time for dessert.  After dinner we all pile in the car and pop over to Target  to pick up a couple odds & ends we are missing. So glad Target has the big carts! We of course stop to browse in the dollar section – my favorite place to find treasures to tuck away for vacation gifts or school prizes!

Bed Time
We get back form Target about 7:20 and put away the groceries.  Everyone goes upstairs to brush teeth and get ready for bed. Then everyone piles on our bed as I read one of our favorite books Tippy, Tippy, Tippy Hide! Then we have our family devotion time (currently from one of Kenneth Taylor’s book), we read from the Bible, sing, and pray together. I have the kids tell me their favorite thing they did that day. After we all share the kiddos get tucked in bed and drift to sleep listening to a Disney CD story. Usually Goofy gets  to stay up later and read to Daddy, but it is almost 8pm – so not tonight.

My time!
Usually at this point my hubby & I cuddle up on the couch to stream a TV show (we tend not to watch things live because of timing and cutting out commercials), but he has to finish up a couple things for work. So I take the time to finish up a Preschool Pack I was working on – Egypt.  It is now 9pm and I finally get some time to cuddle up on the couch with my hubby!  My hubby is feeling a little under the weather so he ends up falling asleep as we watch Falling Skies (we love Sci Fi). Then it is up to bed to fold some laundry and then drift to sleep watching reruns of The Big Bang Theory. And we are drifting to sleep by 10:30pm…. Good Night! ~Beth

What is your day like?

Would you like to contribute to A Day in the Life of Another Mom? We’d love to read about your day! This series will be ongoing as long as there are people willing to give us all a glimpse into their lives. If you would like to share A Day in Your Life please email me your day to livinglifeintentionallyblog (at) gmail.com. Feel free to include a picture (s).  I will let you know when it will be posted. (If you have a blog please let me know as I will include a link to your blog in the post.)

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Now on to our weekly TGIF Linky Party!!

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Believe it or not, we had yet to try water beads - the rage around popular kids blogs for months. So we added them to our summer bucket list. Boy am I glad we did! They are so cool!  So basically you put a pack of mustard-seed-size balls in water and 1-4 hours later you have marble size, water-filled, flexible balls!

Being a homeschooling Mom I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to squeeze in some learning too!  So we worked through the Scientific Method:







We also observed how the mass changed as they sat in water longer. But no matter how long they stayed in water after 3 hours they remained  the same. (Don’t they look like marbles!)

Then it was time to let the kids explore & PLAY! They had hours of fun scooping, sorting, and feeling the unique texture.  All the kiddos (and Mom) played, but these pictures of Tinker Bell are my favorites =-)

Note: I do want to point out that although water beads are a LOT of fun & a great sensory experience, they are not intended for children. They are actually for flowers. My kids were closely supervised during our playtime and we carefully looked for any stray bead before finishing the activity. Please use your best judgment if this is a good activity for your child.
What’s your favorite thing to do with water beads?

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In preparation for next year’s study of the USA I am creating State Printable Packs for our unit – From Sea to Shinning Sea! Studying the US States is a great way to get to know our great country, meet famous Americans, learn about natural habitats & their animals, famous landmarks, history, and have LOTS of fun!! I am thrilled that my Preschooler & 1st grader can learn side-by-side! The packs have lots of activities suitable for kids Preschool – 5th+ grade! Did I mention it is FREE!!

I will share more about how we are using them later, but basically we have BIG binders with a tab for each state. Each state pack has:

• State Fact sheet (blank & filled in – I suggest using the blank one for older children and the filled in one for younger children who do not have the skills or patience to fill it in)
  • Nickname
  • Capital
  • Chief Products
  • Brief History
  • Things to Sea
  • Weather
• State Fact Sheet #2
  • Where is the state in the US?
  • Longitude & Latitude Map Skills
  • Math Activity as you travel from state to state
  • Did you Know section
  • Population & Size Graphs
• Map Work (including time zone activity)
• Number practice (from 1-50) – practice writing and counting
• Plant Cards (common to the state)
• Animal Cards (common to the state)
• Practice writing letters A to Z –twice
• OTHER – You will find about 20 sheets of other activities. These will incorporate educational skills with facts about the state. For example you may use a measure to see how tall the Missouri Gateway Arch is compared to the Willis Tower. Or you may learn skip counting with the Wright brothers. Play a KFC Chicken Sight Reading Game when learning about Kentucky or roll your Way through the Indianapolis Speedway. Learn about Nocturnal animals and coal. Or build a shape car while learning about Michigan’s Henry Ford. Each pack is different in this area – so browse for the activities that fit your child’s needs, interests, and skills.

Grab your {free} Michigan State Printables by clicking on the image below.

Do you live in this state? If you live here & notice I missed a major thing from your state PLEASE let me know! I do research, but if I miss something big about your state please shoot me an email and I will add it to the pack =-)

For more {free} US State printables and information about this From Sea to Shinning Sea Unit click on the image below:

These units do take time to prepare in a thoughtful, fun, educational way. I am grateful for your kind comments and encouragement as I continue to provide free printables for everyone to enjoy! Thank you! And happy learning!

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Next week you are in for a treat! I will be premiering A Day in the Life of Another Mom right here on TGIF!  By linking up you give me permission to use a picture from your post to feature you. Pictures will only be used to feature you above and will always contain a link directly to your blog.

This post may contain referral links. Here’s my full disclosure policy

In this freebie you will find 5” x 8” shape wall cards to help your kids reference easily. You will also find matching 3” x 5” flashcards perfect for sorting, going on a shape scavenger hunt, tracing with their fingers, or a myriad of other ideas.
Here are other {free} Wallcards & Flashcards I’ve made:

• Alphabet
• Shapes
• Colors
• Numbers
• Name & Address

I hope this blesses your family and can save you some time & money! If this resource was helpful, I’d love it if you took a moment to let me know =-)

This post may contain referral links. Here’s my full disclosure policy

Here is the indoor Bug Sensory Bin I created to go along with our Bug study & Minnie’s I is for Insect week in preschool. The main substance is black beans. I found fun bugs, magnifying glass, and rulers to add.

I love these Fandex Family Field Guides! I stuck our Bug one in the box for the kids to try to identify our bugs. Even Mommy had fun identifying bugs with it!

The main substance to the sensory box was black beans. It looked just like dirt but made a great sound when scooped!  Plus added a different tactile experience from our outdoor dirt bug box.

Minnie really liked our ladybug themed bug collector. It had a built in magnifying glass that worked REALLY well! She stuck our Life Cycle Stage Ants to observe up close.  

We have an outdoor bug sensory area too! We created our Outdoor Playscape this spring. It  has a garden filled with fun bugs! So the kids got to have buggy fun in & out!

 

I made the Bug Sensory Bin to go along with our Bugs Unit on:

• Ants
• Spiders
• Bees (coming soon)
• Worms (coming soon)
• Butterflies (including free printable!)

And if you are looking for more Sensory ideas – check out my sensory page!

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Minnie has been loving learning to read! We have been using Reading the Easy Way and it has been a perfect fit for us! She loves the worksheets, color by sight word, word searches, readers, and the many games to play. Her favorite games are Word Round-up & Flip the Pancake.  Goofy (7) has really enjoyed & benefited from playing (practicing) with us too!

If you have a

• 3-4 year old and are looking for a way to begin learning to read key sight words
• 5-7 year old and are looking for some additional practice with these key Dolch Pre-Primer Sight Words

This program will help your child master these 40 words and develop fluency.  Reading the Easy Way is a 12 week program with 82+ pages loaded with a wide variety of activities, worksheets, games, and sequential readers!! Here is a sample of what is included. Click here to read more or order your own copy for only $10.

 

Recently we were at the store and Minnie was eyeing a Tangled & Brave early reader. Unfortunately, they only came at a Level 2 and she most definitely doesn’t know all those words. Since I want to continue encouraging her reading and keep her practicing, I decided to whip up these two books for her. If you are using Reading the Easy Way as well, these books incorporate words from weeks #1-5 – perfect for the first Review Week =-)

Click here to download the {free} Tangled & Brave Pre-Primer Readers

Images are from Disney-Clipart.com and remain copyright of The Walt Disney Word Company.

If these were helpful to you I’d love it if you’d take a minute to let me know! I truly read and appreciate each and every comment!!

Could you take 3 minutes and help me out? I am gathering some demographics & reader preferences so I can serve you better! Click here to take the VERY short survey. All answers are anonymous!