How to go camping with kids (the easy way)

Awe the joys of summer are here! One of our families favorite things to do is, go camping and fishing together. I want to share with you my packing list for camping and, tips and tricks to help you have an enjoyable time with kids as well. It is A LOT of work to get everything all ready to go on a camping trip so, I hope my tips and tricks will help your family as it has helped mine.

First print off my camp packing list HERE, it is free!

Get everything you need on the list (these are just what works for our family, I would love to here other ideas that work for your family)

Some of the MUST NEEDS on my list that I think everyone needs are as follows:

Hand washing unit (LOVE THIS, LOVE THIS) we also use it to clean our dishes (thank you pintrest for the post HERE where I got this idea)

Carpet squares for in front of tent. I got mine at my dollar tree $1.00 store. They are heavy so they don't blow away which is perfect! You want at least 4 squares so you can have your kids have room to sit down and take their shoes off before entering the tent. You want you tent as clean as you can keep it since you will be sleeping in it :)

2 pop up hampers (also from the $1.00 store) for inside of the tent. These are AWESOME because you don't have to put your dirty clothes back in with your clean clothes or leave them all over the tent, and it makes finding all your laundry that much easier. They fold up in a small circle when done for easy storage.

You have to bring things for kids to entertain themselves and have fun at the same time. Here are some things that we bring and guess what? All but my paper, sunscreen and homemade play dough came from our $1.00 store! Bug catchers, bubbles, glow sticks for night time, bug catcher kits with tweezers, magnifying glass, cards, crayons, pencils and sharpener.

Homemade play dough is nice and cheap to bring camping. It is super cheap to make and if it gets dirt and sticks in it, it's OK.  Have the kids find rocks and make things out of the play dough.  My boys chose to make blow fish out of rocks with their play dough.

 

Go on a nature scavenger hunt with them. Download my FREE one HERE

 

The paper is nice to let them draw in nature and do tree rubbings, trace leafs and such. Bring crayons to have them find rocks and color on them as well. They will LOVE it!

Encourage them and let them have an imagination.

Try to go camping in a place that has somewhere to go fishing close by. If you have boys, let them touch and hold the fish you catch. They think it is so cool. Girls on the other hand might not care to do this part :)

 You can even go find some Crawfish to boil up (this was a first for us, they are really tasty) just eat the meat in the pincher's and tail. Boil in salt water for about 5 mins.

A good camp stove with propane. This is the one we have Coleman even temp 3 burner stove. I highly recommend investing in a good one because they will be great to use in an emergency to cook for your family and not just for camping.

You must always enjoy some junk food and, some S'mores with kids while camping.

Have your kids fall asleep one night on you sitting by the camp fire telling stories and singing songs.

Yes,camping is a lot of work and takes a lot of prep but, I encourage you to go camping and start building memories with your children. Kids love to be outside and have fun with Dad and Mom. I hope you enjoy my tips and tricks and again, if you have some ideas I would love for you to leave a comment and share yours with me :)

Don't forget to follow my blog, new followers make me super happy!!

 Have a great day!

Beads, Beads, Beads

Beads are not just for girls to make bracelets or necklaces. They are great for fine motor skills, counting, color sorting etc.. Today I will share with you what my boys like to do with their beads, which all have great learning skills involved.

1) Sorting the colors of beads into a muffin tin

2) Have them count each color and find out which one has the most once they are done sorting all the colors

3) Their favorite, take any toys or stuff animals and trace them with the beads when you pick the object up when you are all done and you have an outline of which ever toy you used. They think it is pretty cool.

4) Add with them. 5+10= and so on

5) Graph them on paper. Have them roll a dice and whatever number is on the dice they get to put that number of beads on the graph paper.

Kids Summer Journal Craft

Summertime is almost here and at our house we like to document in different ways what fun things we do or some of our favorite memories. Today I have some templates I made for a Summer journal. Kids can document any way they like whether it is drawing pictures, using stickers etc.. Let them be creative and see what they come up with.

What you need is:
Download one of my templates either the girl one or the boy one
5 pieces of white computer paper for the center
1 piece of white card stock to print the cover on
Stapler
Markers, crayons

Just fold and staple the paper inside the journal cover
Let your kid(s) decorate the front how they want
Put their name on the front
Start recording your memories :-)
DOWNLOAD HERE GIRL
DOWNLOAD HERE BOY

Enjoy and have a great day!

Elf on the Shelf Ideas

I hope everyone has had a wonderful Holiday Season! :-) I sure have, I have so much to be thankful for in my life. Today I wanted to share with you some fun Elf on the shelf ideas. Some of them are my ideas and some of them are my sister in laws that she used. She was ever so kind to let me use some of her pictures. It is funny because we have the same elf and didn't even know it. I wanted a cuter elf then the original Elf on the shelf and so did she, low and behold we ended up getting the same one. She has great taste hehe! Anyways here is what our Elf's were up to this year.
I didn't take a picture of a couple of the days but I explain everything we did down below. ENJOY!!

1) Our elf made his appearance with a note and some green pee in the toilet :-)
2) Having fun with woody playing the fishing game (this was a big hit for my boys)
3) Making Santa's sleigh with cars and a reindeer and a pirate ship
4) He turned our milk green
5) Made the boys noses red like Rudolph
6) Hanging on the ceiling fan
7) Drinking hot coco and he brought some for everyone else too
8) Getting ready to clean up the reindeer poop (red and green M&M's)
9) Bringing a stocking for himself
10) Brought a nut cracker
11) Making snow angels
12) My boys got a naughty letter from our Elf and Santa (worked like a charm )
13) Making snowmen and brought a bag for each of my boys to make their own
14) Riding on the train around the Christmas tree
15) Toilet papering the tree
16) Having a sick day
17) You could do the Snowmen in the freezer too ;)
18) Oops I put the same photo on here twice :( this day you could have a Christ centered one with your elf by the manger with a note saying this is what Christmas really is about :)
19) Room filled with white balloons to go sledding in
20) Slinky races down the stairs
21) If you have a sick kid make a nice note from your elf
22) I caught Santa for you! Naughty Elf :)
23) This day we were gone so, if you are gone have the elf sleep in your kids beds with some toys with a note saying I miss you come back soon!
24) Bring new PJ's from your elf on Christmas Eve
25) One last day with your elf before he goes back to see Santa ( you can tell them they still have to be good so that they can keep all their fun toys)

Homeschool Room Make Over

The before pictures are horrible and messy, this was my throw everything in my misc room, I knew I wanted it to be a school room eventually, but yes it was a MESS pretty much all the time until.....

I painted the walls, (I used taupe)

 I cut out the ABC's with my wonderful Silhouette SD, I found this wonderful huge map at a yard sale for $1.00, SCORE!!

TA DA, I am in love with this room. Everything in this room was either things I had already or, from Yard Sales this summer or the Goodwill. My green and blue bins came from the Dollar store. My books are all in sections for different learning along with all my Curriculum.

 In the awesome blue and green bins from the dollar store I have things like, links for counting and colors, pattern blocks etc..

 Crayons and all the fun Art supplies

 How to tell time (sorry these wont turn the right way for some reason)

I love my calendar set I got, I have all boys so I had to have something kind of girly. This was perfect for me :)

Every binder for every letter of the alphabet with all my different activities. (I got this idea from http://www.confessionsofahomeschooler.com/) I love her site it is AWESOME. I have purchased a lot of her print ables and sets for homeschooling.

 My board, I switch it out and add things to it but this is what is always on it for the most part.

Pledge of allegiance, questions to ponder, rules, weekly activities, Not pictured (address, and phone number for them to practice)

I use these to organize all of my handouts and papers for each subject. I still have a lot to get printed off but, you get the idea.

I am going to start Homeschooling my kids……Was homeschooling something I had always knew I would do? That would be a big fat NO!  Yes; Yes I know people will think I am crazy and that it’s a bad idea. I don’t care though, I didn’t just wake up one morning and say, “Hey I think I will try Homeschool”. I have been seriously thinking about it for a little over a year now. With much prayer and consideration of it all, I AM DOING IT!!! Wish me luck :-) My husband wasn’t too keen on the idea at first, but he is on board 100% with me now. His main concern was socialization and sports.  The first question out of almost everyone’s mouth when you mention the fact that you are homeschooling is, "What about the socialization?"  If you are a social person, your children will be social. There are many opportunities for socialization at church, sports, reading groups, and other midweek activities. If you are social yourself and are interacting with other human beings on a regular basis, this is not really going to be an issue...   “The world will teach our children if we do not.” The public school system puts together a one-size-fits-all education when really; learning should be more perfectly fitted to the individual. To be honest, the only things I remember from school are the things I was interested in. If I was forced to learn it, I retained the information long enough to pass the test and then it was gone. Here’s an interesting tidbit of info for you. Did you know that public schools are only between 150 and 200 years old? And that they were formed for the benefit of poor people who were unable to afford material to educate their children at home or a private tutor to educate their children. Over the years, it just became a convenience for most people to send their children to the public school no matter what their status was. And I’m pretty sure that 200 years ago, before public school, there wasn’t a socialization crisis!

This is not to say that all kids in the public school system are improperly socialized and taught or, that my kids are somehow going to be better off in life than yours. As I’ve said before, this is a lifestyle choice and it is definitely NOT for everyone.  It is just a personal choice either way our choice is Homeschooling. I know there will be hard days and some days I will want to pull my hair out. I know a lot of people that homeschool their kids and every one of them say it is worth it.

“People are more influenced by love than anything else.”

Like I said before Homeschooling was NEVER something I ever thought I would do with my kids. I am not looking back only forward to all the blessings I will have to teach my children and love them while I do it. I am looking forward to it so much!!!

I couldn't be happier with my new room here is the before and after next to each other :-)

 

FREE Subway Art

I hope you are all having a fabulous day. Here is a FREE Subway Art I made, you can put it in the play room, classroom, or wherever. If you print one, they can only be for your own personal use. If you have a blog and want one please share it and link it back to my blog. Click on the image and save the picture and you can print it out that way either on paper or photo paper (I take mine to Wal-Mart for 1 hour photo). I will put a picture of how I used mine and what I did. Let me know if you have problems getting it. Have a happy blogging day. Enjoy!

Fun Indoor Activities For Kids

Here are just a few of our favorite things to do inside if its too hot or cold to be outside. Enjoy! I would love to hear some of your ideas as well.

1. Build a fort out of blankets and pillows (my boys love this one)
2. Finger paint with pudding
3. Playdough- use rolling pins and cookie cutters
4. Dance PARTY...Turn on some fun music and be silly with your kids
5. Look at photo albums
6. Paint- use my glue paints click here
7. Play with matchbox cars (invest in a fun floor rug)
8. Face paint their faces
9. Make paper bag puppets (use a bunch of fun things like yarn for hair, etc.)
10. Bake cookies or anything for that matter kids love to cook
11. Play hide and seek
12. Play red light, green light
13. Indoor snowball fight with cotton balls or marsh mellows
14. Write letters to Grandma and Grandpa
15. Read their favorite book to them
16. Make  learning flash cards
17. Put shaving cream on a cookie sheet and let them play in it
18. Go on an adventure, let you kids decide on where you are going and how. Let there imagination run wild.
19. Put them in the bath with no water and let them paint with colored shaving cream or pudding.
20. Teach teach teach, up to age 8 kids are a HUGE sponge and learn so fast so take advantage of it, make it fun.

Turn Glue Into Cheap Paint

Right now with all the sales on School supplies you can get a lot of things for almost nothing. A little while ago I got Elmer's glue for .10 cents each. So I thought I could use some of my acrylic paints to put in the glue to make some paints for my boys. The best part is, that there isn't a lot of mess involved. All they have to do it squeeze the glue bottle to draw pictures, no paint everywhere. Great right? So here is what I did to make this supper cheap paint.

 Get whatever colors you want to make and some white Elmer's glue

You have to dump our some of the glue to make it easy to mix. I dump it about to the top of the triangle with the label "Elmer's" in it.

 (You need to shake like crazy to get it mixed, get ready for an arm workout)

Finished now you have some fun, cheap paints for your kids. The fun part is when the paint dries it is raised a little. Your kids will love painting and drawing things with these. Don't forget to follow my blog I will return the favor :)

Something Every Couple needs

These are something every couple should get. My good friend Jackie used these on our car when we got married. It comes off really easy. She gave them to us after she used them on our car. My wonderful, romantic husband started writing me love notes on our bathroom mirror right after we got married. To this day we still write love notes back and forth on our mirror. It is so fun to wake up or go to bed with a note from my awesome husband. He has never repeated himself.  Even though you have to clean your mirror a lot you wont get sick of it. Try it, it is so much fun!!! It can be fun for kids too.

Drawer Organizing

Folding t-shirts in a drawer in horizontal rows instead of vertical ones so you can actually see all of your t-shirts, pants at once. I KNOW. CRAZY.
 Here is the before and after, once I dumped out my kids drawers and tried it out:

Over 30 shirts all in one drawer nice and neat!

It's ideal to have the pattern of the shirt facing up so you can distinguish between them. Here's a handy-dandy folding chart so you can learn how to organize your drawers, too!

1. Lay out your shirt with the print facing up.

2. Fold the shirt in half length-wise, print still facing up.

3. Fold in your sleeves (this takes an extra fold with long-sleeved shirts)

4. Fold the bottom half of the shirt up

5. Fold the top of the shirt down, that simple. Now put it in the drawer with the pictures or text showing on top. You will always know where every pair of clothing is because it’s not stuffed under everything. Pretty cool, huh?

Organized bliss. :)

As you can see I don't fold button up collar shirts this way in my boy’s drawers. They don't handle the fold as well. You will be surprised that the shirts don't get any more wrinkled then folding them the regular way.