Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Homemade Corn Starch Sidewalk Chalk Recipe


Corn starch has to be one of the most versatile craft products I have ever come across. After making yarn hearts with corn starch glue, I did a little search and found out you can also make side walk chalk paint! Best of all it is so easy!
Materials Needed:
Corn Starch
Water
Bowls
Food Coloring
Procedure:
Mix 1/4 cup corn starch to 1/4 cup of water. Stir until well mixed. It it is a little tough at first so hang in there; I found a fork worked best for mixing. Add food coloring.
The "paint" will go on the sidewalk a bit watery but will soon dry into a chalky picture. The kids had fun with this for hours today! I did double the recipe because we had extra friends today, so if you have several children you may want to do the same. You might also want to double it just to store some for later use.


Monday, March 21, 2011

Review and Give Away for Artistic Pursiuits!

Congrats to Twinkle Mom! You have won your choice of books from Artistic Pursuits!

ALERT: Plagerized copies of Artistic Pursuits are currently being sold. Remeber that Artistic Pursuits is color printed through out the entire book, not just on the cover! If you have purchased a copy that turned out to be fraudulent please let Dan or Brenda at Artistic Pursuits know.

I am one of those parents. The one whose stick figures can only be recognized by turning off the lights, squinting your eyes and tilting your head slightly to the left. Ok, so maybe it isn't that bad, but I will be the first to admit, I am not an artist, which means I thought I couldn't teach art. Have you ever priced art lessons?! The few that I have found locally are close to $200 for just 2 hours. Needless to say we can't afford that for one child, much less two and a third later on. My choice was to find a great art curriculum that I could teach with no skill of my own. I also wanted it to be real art, not crafts, that incorporated a bit of art history. I found all of that in Artistic Pursuits. Brenda Ellis' art programs provide children of all age levels and abilities with a comprehensive art studies program. Students are taught the basics of art and art history while engaging in real art, hands on projects. Fresco paintings, sculpture, screen printing, water color and oil pastels are just a few of the techniques found in these books. The books are also illustrated with pictures from real children so your child will not be intimidated by a professional artists work. As your students progresses the books get more detailed. Best off there is NO teacher preparation needed! For the younger children you simply read the pages associated with the lesson. Older children can read and do the work completely independent of you! Materials can be purchased through the Artistic Pursuits site or you can do what we did and purchased as the items went on sale at our local Hobby Lobby. If you pay full price, the pricing is comparable. It just depends on if you want the convenience of purchasing all at once. Now for the fun part. Brenda at Artistic Pursuits has given me one book to give away! The winner will get to choose which ever book they want!! For one(1) entry you can "Like" Molding Minds Homeschool on Facebook. For one(1) entry you can Share On Facebook or on on your favorite social media site (to share just cut and paste this blog into your status and let me know where you shared). For one(1) entry you can follow Molding Minds on Twitter. This is a total of THREE(3) chances to win! Please post a SEPARATE COMMENT for each entry and be sure to leave an email address for me to contact you at if you win!


Winner will be draw on March 31st!

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

St Patrick's Day Crafts and Lesson Resources


Just a quickie with some links to St Patrick's Day Crafts and other resources!


DLTK's Site has resources for all ages! Crafts, songs, coloring sheets, and word searches are just a few of the resources you will find on this site!

Enchanted Kids is another great site! Check out the cute potato face craft or make a rainbow in a cup! There is also a nice number of printable worksheets and lapbook printables.




Friday, March 11, 2011

Adventures with Luke

We had quite a day today. My run of no ER worthy injuries was broken. Little man was playing outside at my parents and fell. He cut his head on a brick used to boarder flowerbeds. When it first happened I didn't actually notice the cut. My younger daughter said she thought he had been stung so I ran over to him to make sure he was ok. His foot had gotten caught and he was crying because he was stuck. I got his foot unstuck by taking it out of his shoe, checked to be sure he didn't have a leg injury and asked him if he wanted to go play. He cried for his shoe and said yes so I carried him over to the a/c unit to slide his shoe back on. It was as I was getting him off the a/c when I noticed his head bleeding. After dotting it off, I decided it was better safe than sorry and took him into the ER while my dad watched the girls.

Luke hamming it up for the camera. He was so proud of his head injury that he told just about every passing stranger about "hurting his noggin".



By the time we got to the ER he had calmed down (he was only crying because he wanted to go back to Pa's house) and within a few minutes had sweet talked a little old lady into a sucker from the gift shop. We waited, and waited and waited and finally saw the PA. Thankfully he only needed a bit of "glue" and we were out of there. In total we were there for 3 hours for a 15 minute fix.

I'm glad that adventure is over and I hope not to have another like it.






Thursday, March 10, 2011

Seventh Generation Amazon Deals


Got an email this morning with a code that could translate into some great deals when combined with subscribe and save!


Exclusive Savings for Amazon Mom Members: Get 15% off the select Seventh Generation products when you use the code SEVCLEAN (details and restrictions) plus another 15% off when you sign up for Subscribe & Save. (restrictions apply). (Applies only to products sold by Amazon.com. Does not apply to products sold by third-party merchants and other sellers through the Amazon.com site.) Offer expires April 10, 2011. Participation in Subscribe & Save not required to use the promo code.

Here are a few of my favorites. All deal prices include discount code and subscribe and save discount.

Seventh Generation 45 oz dishwasher gel (4 pack)-$18.51


Seventh Generation 25 oz dish soap (6 pack)-$12.64


Seventh Generation Toilet Bowl Cleaner, Emerald Cypress & Fir Scent, 32-Ounces Bottle (Pack of 8) -$22.37

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

The Homeschool Exchange and K'nex Giveaway!

Congrats Jessica!!! You are the winner for this giveaway!

I looked around facebook to see if there was a group for trading and selling homeschool curriculum and there was not so I started one! Come check it out and post your no longer needed homeschool resources! To get it jumpstarted I am going to do a little giveaway. I have 4 boxes of K'nex to giveaway!! K'nex are a great building toy that will keep your child busy for hours while they Imagine, Build and Play!


One lucky winner will recieve one each of the following K'nex model building sets:Collect and build Back Hoe, Collect and Build Front Loader, Collect and Build Excavator and Fire Rescue with working motor! All you have to do to enter is Like The Homeschool Exchange! That's it for this one! Please leave a comment with an email contact after you have met the requirements.


Winner will be contacted via email and will have 72 hours to respond. US residents only.

Monday, March 7, 2011

Alpha Omega The Weaver Curriculum Review


My good friend over at Hearts4Home did an excellent review of Weaver Volume 1. Since we are considering giving it a try, I thought I would share her very comprehensive review:



It just isn't possible to sum up The Weaver in a paragraph. So I suggest that
you grab a cup of tea or some chocolate and put your feet up for a few minutes
while I tell you our experience thus far! We've not been using it that long, but
I have to share what a blessing it has been for our family!

When I first
started homeschooling my preschooler in 2004, I was drawn to the idea of a Unit
Study approach. I loved the idea that I could teach both kids on the same topic
but at their own level. I looked over some types of Unit Studies and just didn't
feel like God was opening the door for me to use any of them. Either it was
clearly not for our family, or it was so overwhelming to me that I couldn't
picture how to make it work. I tried various styles of learning, and all of them
were wonderful in their own way. But something still seemed to be missing and my
longing for unit studies didn't go away.

Unit studies have a base that
all other subjects are centered around. For example, many are history based. As
the student learns a new part of history, all the other school subjects deal
with the same topic. Some are based on science. But still, none of them stood
out.

Now, if you have read my article My Foundation for Homeschooling
you will understand where I was coming from. I didn't want to just have 'Bible
time' as part of our day. I wanted every part of our education to point our eyes
to our Creator. And, it is sad to say, sometimes Bible time would get left out
of our day because we ran out of time.

No matter how good my boys are
(and I do think they are pretty good kids), they had many days where apathy was
the attitude toward their school work. I know that we had the curriculum we had
because I prayed and felt so certain in what I bought. And I still feel certain,
I believe God had us where He wanted us, using what we were supposed to use.

In the late fall of 2010, I once again found myself asking the Lord if
there was something else I had missed. I truly don't recall where The Weaver
first popped up. But it was online somewhere. One reference lead to another. I
was getting very curious and excited!

I wasn't looking to change things
THIS year. I was thinking ahead to next year. But along came a sweet woman who
happened to have an extra set of Weaver volume 1. I didn't expect to see it come
so soon, but the mail moved FAST and it was at my home in a matter of a few
days. I tore open the box and started to devour the information inside! It was
as if this was written just for us!

What is it that makes me love it so?
First, this curriculum is based in Scripture. So let's say that today we read
about the Tower of Babylon. We'll then start learning about architecture. Then
we'll build some sugar cube buildings. You can see how that little project
turned out on my article
http://hearts4home.blogspot.com/2011/01/new-year-goals-weight-lifting.html New
Year Goals. With that in mind, you will never run out of time for Bible, because
it all STARTS in the Bible! You can't do any other school work without opening
in the Word


To read the rest visit HERE....