Blog Make Over

Well, friends, what do you think about the new look?

I have spent the past few days staring at this silly computer screen for hours on end.  I have laughed and cried at mistakes I've made.  I've been a little huffy and even have done a little yelling. God certainly revealed the idol of control in my heart this week; especially when I could not figure out how to rewrite my html codes to create a drop down menu.  Finally, I just decided on a completely new template. I am hoping that you all enjoy the new look and more importantly I hope it is much easier to navigate through my blog to find exactly what you're looking for.

What I'm MOST excited about, is the new section I am adding to my blog specifically on Spiritual Growth.  Under that heading will be several different sections called Moments with Mommies, Recommended Readings, and Little Lessons which will all debut very soon!  So, get excited!

With that being said...I also want to apologize.  For some reason I thought it would be wise to go ahead and start the giveaway for my blog, but hindsight is 20/20!  While I was spending the past three days trying to reconfigure my blog many of you were trying to read posts and complete the tasks necessary to enter your name into the drawing for the Busy Bags Giveaway.  Several of you emailed me saying you were unable to access my blog or even specific posts.  I am so sorry.  Please try again!  In fact, I want to extend the time before the drawing so everyone is given adequate time to complete as many steps as they want.  The new drawing will take place on Thursday, March 7th and I will announce the winners on Friday, March 8th.  Thanks for understanding.

Now, go enjoy the new features and let me know what you think!

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The Secret to Being "Book Smart"

A friend and I were talking the other day about different types of workbooks you can buy to give your child practice with different skills. They have workbooks on just about any topic ranging from colors, shapes, letters, math skills, or whatever else you can possibly imagine.  They have them for preschoolers.  They have them for high schoolers.  There are hundreds of styles and formats by numerous different publishers.   Some are pretty expensive costing as much as $15-20 and others you can find at the Dollar Store.  My friend was telling me how she would like to expose her son to educational activities and not just coloring books; however, she really has a hard time investing in them.  She hates buying workbooks because her son doesn't know how to read and therefore it's difficult for him to understand the directions or expectations of the activity unless she is sitting right beside him.  She spoke about how they seem to go through these books in hardly no time because he will "complete" five or six pages (or more) in one sitting.  She also said that once he has finished a page (whether it's done correctly or not) it ends up in the trash and she feels like they are wasting so much paper because of how quickly they go through these books.  No matter how you look at it, buying these workbooks can get really expensive, especially if your child enjoys completing multiple pages a day.

It was then that I realized that not everyone knew the secret I had been told a few years ago.  At the time I was told, I didn't know it was a secret.  In fact, I felt so silly because I thought I was the only one who hadn't heard of it before.  Imagine my relief when I shared these tips with my frustrated friend.


The secret?  Are you ready?  Well, here it is...you get your kid to REUSE the same pages over and over again.  Simple enough, right? But then, how do you do that when there is marker, crayons, and color pencil all over the page?  Well friends, it's all about prepping the pages BEFORE your kid uses it the first time.  Here are several tips that have helped me and hopefully they can help you too:

Round up your resources!  

Find any and every activity book you have and make one large pile.  My grandmother found a few preschool workbooks on sale at Costco and they have tons of great activities in them.  In addition, I have found partially used books at yard sales for a quarter (or less).  Sometimes people are so desperate to get rid of these types of book they will just give them to you.  I have friends who have older kids and they are always trying to clean out the "junk"they don't need anymore.  I was given four like-new workbooks absolutely free.

Tear up your books!  

That's right.  You heard me.  Forget what your momma told you and for a brief moment, be a rebel!  Any page in any of the books that you think might possibly be usable, tear it out!  As you are doing this, begin to look for themes and create piles.  Some of the piles I created when I sorted through our books included shapes, colors, Dot-to-Dot letter activities, Dot-to-Dot number activities, mazes, and more.  I sorted every letter of the alphabet into separate piles so that when we did our Letter of the Week series I had several handwriting and practice sheets for that particular week.

As you can see in the picture below, you can end up with a ton of the same type of activity from many different books.  Then, as your child goes through a stage where he or she really enjoys that particular type of activity you have an overabundance of resources to choose from.

Protect and preserve!  

Depending on the type of activity, you need to decide on what will be the most efficient and cost effective way to preserve that particular resource.  For example, my preference is to either laminate or use sheet protectors depending on the activity.  Lamination and sheet protectors both protect the original document and allow your child to complete the activity over and over again as many times as they would like by simply using a dry erase marker or a crayon!  And, it's just as easy to clean up.  I use a wet paper towel to wipe and then follow with a dry paper towel.  Here are the pros and cons to each method I use as well as a few examples.

• Lamination- Lamination is a beter option if you are looking to make something sturdy, if you plan to use the item more than 2-3 times, or if your goal is semi-permant durability.  Lamination can be cumbersome and costly.  An inexpensive lamination machine can be found for $25 and the lamination pouches cost anywhere from $10 and up depending on the quantity you want and the thickness of paper.  I choose to laminate worksheets that I know I will use on a fairly frequent basis, such as beginners handwriting activities.  I also choose to laminate activities that are oddly shaped, because I can cut around the edges to make the activity look much nicer.

• Sheet Protectors (pocket protectors)- These are essentially a sleeve of plastic that remains open at one end, which allows you to slide any paper in and out.  They are reusable and will keep your papers pristine.  They are much more cost effective since you can purchase a pack of 25 for as little as $3.  One minor drawback to sheet protectors is that sometimes the paper slides back and forth and what was written on the outside will not actually match up with the worksheet.  Again, this is minor and if you are using it for a very short time, it will not really matter.

Think outside the box!  

Finally, look for things that are free or that you can get extremely cheap and use them in new or different ways.  I have gotten many partially used word search or sudoku books that I use for letter or number lessons.  One of Addi's favorite activities is to use a Do-A-Dot marker and find her Letter of the Week in a word search puzzle.  She doesn't have to find the words that are actually hidden in the puzzle, all she knows to do at her age is to look for her special letter of the week.  For her, it's great fun.  And, for me...it's free fun!

Now, the last thing to consider when planning with all of this is the time it takes.  Time is money right?  So, you need to think through if taking apart your books, organizing, and laminating is worth it in comparison to the amount of money you would be spending on new workbooks.  Everyone is different and the only right answer is to identify what works best for you.  I've only just shared my opinion.

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Busy Bag Organization

Several ladies have asked me how I organize and store our busy bags.  Great question!  When we first started making them last year and after one or two busy bag swaps I realized how quickly they became a cluttered pile of confusion.  I asked another lady who I had swapped with and she said she just kept them in a box in their coat closet so they were easily assessable to the kids but out of the way.  Great idea I thought, until I realized, oh yeah...we don't have a coat closet (or any kid-friendly closet).  I considered Addi and Josiah's closets, but then I realized how much I didn't want them to pull out the busy bags unsupervised because some of them do have smaller pieces.

Next I researched what other blogging busy bag moms have done to keep them organized. Testy yet Trying used 3 ring binder pencil pouches with a clear plastic front.  Because they are all the same shape and size she is able to store them neatly in cardboard boxes.  I found myself wishing I could afford a bajillion pretty 3 ring binder pencil holders, and then soon realized that I would be spending more more on the busy bag holders than the actual activity itself.  Ha, never mind!  I think my ziplock bags will work just fine (even if they don't stand up neatly in a box).  I also thought about that the old phrase "out of site, out of mind." If I were to place all the busy bags in neat boxes and store them somewhere I would probably be less likely to pull them out as often.  I imagined myself telling Addi she couldn't play with her games because I didn't want to fool with the hassle of pulling out a box.  Or even worse, I imagined that Addilyn and I both would forget she even had the games to play with.

Finally I decided I was going to set them out in some orderly way in our laundry room (closest thing I have to a closet in the front of our house).  I tried multiple ways before I finally found a method that worked for us.  My favorite failed attempt was to replicate the method used by  We Love Being Moms. They used shower curtain rings and clips to display all their busy bags from a wire shelf in a closet.  Well I wan't about to purchase and install a wire shelf in my laundry room (because I already have great cabinets and there would not have been any room); however, I thought I might be able to improvise.  I Found a tension rod that we had used in our previous home and I tried securing it in multiple locations (under one of the cabinets, in-between two shelves, and another that wouldn't make any sense even if I tried to describe it to you).  However, by the time I added the shower curtain rings and one or two of the busy bags the rod would slip loose and fall.  I tried this over and over again tightening the tension rod each time.  With each failed attempt I became more and more angry.  I soon realized I was a living example of the quote, "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results." I finally came to my senses and decided to start back at square one.

As, I was putting back the tension rod in this small nook with the other odds and ends we used at our old house I came across a over-the-door hanging shelf.  We had used it on our pantry door to create more "shelving" and here it was just waiting to be put to use once again.  The notches in it were the perfect size for a clothespin so I decided to give it a try.  Perfect!

Each bag is hung up by a single clothespin and I have enough spaces to hang approximately 30 bags.  In addition the heavier bags can sit on the actual shelves directly behind the clothes pins.

This has worked so well for us.  First, it is neatly put "away" in the laundry room so that when we have guests they are not seeing tons of bags laying in a basket or a box on the floor.  Secondly, it is still placed in a area that I see every day so that we don't forget we have them.  Third, they are organized so the kids can see many options of games, but they are high enough on the door so they can't get them down without my help.  Finally, they are extremely easy to get out and put away (it really is as simple as squeezing a clothes pin).

And, for all the ones that don't fit, I pack them away for a  month or two and then trade them out with the ones the kids have been playing with.  It's the "put some of the toys in the attic" trick; except in this case, I use clear plastic storage bins next to my dryer.  I have one bin for seasonal busy bags (i.e. Christmas, Valentines, etc.) and another one for year-round games I can pull out for just any old reason.  I've found that the ones that have been put away for a little while are also good for road trips or doctors visits!

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Children's Book Organizational System

Ahh books...we have a ton in our house for which I am VERY thankful.  However, many days it's also a curse.  Instead of them being neatly on the shelf they end up all over the floor in every room of the house.  I saw an idea on Pinterest for school teachers where you label your books with a number and have corresponding baskets for the books to go into.  Great idea!  I gathered every children's book we had in the house and began sorting.  Talk about a big project.  I ended up packing away over half of them.  I bought baskets at the Dollar Tree and made toddler friendly labels.  Put the books in the basket and showed Addi the new system.  I instructed her that we were only allowed to pull out one basket at a time and then  I taught her how to look for the label on the book and to match it with the label on the basket.  Excellent!

The only thing is...it only lasted for a day.  Yep, that night when we put Addilyn to bed she pulled every basket out and dumped all the books in one pile in the floor.  Most of the books didn't even have labels the next morning because she had peeled them off.  Did I learn my lesson?  Of course not.  Over the course of 3-4 days I resorted and relabeled all the books; however, I moved the book shelf into her closet which was protected (or so I thought) by the child-proof doorknob covers.  No, my little girl is too smart for her own good.  A few nights later she figured out how to pop the plastic door knob cover off and again dumped out all the books and peeled off their labels.  All this to say, it's a great idea if your kids are older and at least I have pictures so I can try to implement it again in a year or so.  Ha ha ha.

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