End of Year Teacher Card

It's finally the end of the year! Emmy is finishing 1st grade in about two weeks. I made this little card for her to fill out to give her teacher. I printed mine on cardstock. Then I used a hole punch and made a simple bow at the top.

Click here to download your own. Just trim the edges and have your child fill it out.

Enjoy!

Movable Alphabet

If you're familiar with the Montessori method, you know all about the movable alphabet. My daughter attended a Montessori school and I found this to be a fantastic way to teach reading. My kids are both in public school now, so I made my own to teach my son how to read.

A movable alphabet is basically loose letters that the kids can use to build words on a board or even on the floor. I used mine even with Emmy now that she's in First grade. I think she likes hunting for the letters and seeing if she can spell the difficult words I give her. I try to make it more like a game instead of a "learning activity".

If you can shop, you can make one for yourself; there is no crafting involved here.

What you'll need:

1. Loose Alphabet Tiles - you can buy them plain or with magnets on the back. I bought
                                          mine with the magnets so they would stay put on my board.
                                          I bought mine on Amazon here:
       http://www.amazon.com/Educational-Insights-1986-Magnetic-Teaching/dp/B000FA6AY0/ref=sr_1_2?s=toys-and-games&ie=UTF8&qid=1366920095&sr=1-2&keywords=letter+tiles

2. 11x14 Magnetic Board - really you can use any size but I think this one is a perfect fit
                                          for little kids or you could even use a Dollar Store cheapo cookie sheet
                                          I bought mine on Amazon here:
          http://www.amazon.com/Educational-Insights-Pupil-Magnetic-Board-14inx11in/dp/B000F8XC9S/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1366920030&sr=8-1&keywords=educational+insights+magnetic+board

3. Picture Cards - I bought my colorful cards a few years ago at Walgreen's but you can find
                                         these in pretty much any educational section. You can also draw
                                         your own simple pics on unruled notecards.

4. Carrying Case - You'll need some sort of divided container. I found mine at Joann's.

Some tips for success:

• Start with simple CVC (consonant vowel consonant) words like car, sun, dog
• Then start adding some blends like ship, shop shut 
• Keep adding more and more blends and reviewing ones they've already mastered
• A great way to reinforce spelling is to have your child write each word they've made on paper

To Do Board for Work

I have spent a long time working out the best system of staying organized at work. It can be very challenging because like many people, my job is constantly changing, and I'm always switching gears. One thing I've found really useful is this giant dry erase board that I keep above my desk. I use it to keep my weekly and monthly projects tracked. I was finding I was getting sidetracked with other unexpected projects and my weekly to do's kept getting pushed back. Now I have a list of things I MUST do for the week and then I can fill in with some of the monthly tasks.

The nine motivators at the top of the board are from a TED talk online that I found really interesting. It was about the qualities of successful people and I thought it might make a good reminder. Of course, like everything else on the board, I change out the motivators as needed.

How to Make Your Kids Want to Read

This Summer I started a Summer Reading List with my kids. I was trying to think of a way to get them more excited about books and reading. We have a lot of garage sale books at home, but we've read most of them many times and the kids are getting bored with them.

So I decided to check out our local library and create a book list so the kids could see a concrete list of books we've read.

First, I bought 2 book bags. You can make one easily or buy one to decorate at Michael's or Hobby Lobby. I bought Ryan a red crab bag and Emerson this monkey bag. I bought them both from Walmart. Each was only $5.00 in the women's purse department.

Then I bought some small envelope pockets at Joann Fabrics in the teacher supplies section.

I created a little card to fit into the pocket just like you would get at the library. We used it to list all of the books we read on this card.

Then I stapled the pocket to the bag. If you don't want to do this, just put your card in a Ziploc bag and keep it in your book bag.

There you have it, a Summer Reading Book Bag! The kids like taking their bag to the library and picking their books and adding the books to their list.

 If you want to print out your own Summer Reading List Card, you can get it here:

 

Click here to download your own Summer Reading List Card 

I know Summer is almost over so here is a link to a plain year round reading card.

Click here to download your own Everyday Reading List Card

Have a great end of your Summer and a great year reading!!

Kate & Macy Jewelry Christmas in July

The Summer Shows are coming...

When I go to Atlanta, we'll be introducing a lot of new product. Giftware companies always introduce all of their holiday designs in the Summer and we have a ton coming out. We'll now have a full display unit of just our holiday designs.

These designs are the most fun for me to design because they can never be too cute or too whimsical. The themes are endless and I know my customers will love them because I was asked all year for more holiday... more holiday... more holiday!

Here's one of the new designs, "Snowy Friends". I love it so much because it features cute snowmen in colors you can wear all Winter long. All the beads are hand painted glass and they sparkle with rhinestone accents.

If you're buying for your store in Atlanta this July, come say "hi" to me in The Rep Connection Room showroom #1407, in Building 2 at the Merchandise Mart.

Free Digital Cupcake Pick Topper Template

I've never made or used cupcake picks before, but after this project, I can see the sky will be the limit with these fun little toppers! I created these blank circles for the kids to fill out with any kind of picture they wanted. Since they are kind of small circles, you may want to stick to pens and markers. You can do a theme (draw all faces, animals, flowers, bugs) for kids or, if you have a more grown up party, write words that have meaning to the event or party recipient. This is the page I gave each of them to fill out.

Click here to download your own free cupcake pick template!

I just printed out two and let them have at it! Emmy was happy to pose with her's. Ryan, well...not so much.

 

Then we cut out all of the circles and attached them with a piece of tape to a straw. You can then hold them up to a finished cupcake to determine how long you want to keep the straw and then trim it.

Here's what all of our finished cupcake picks looked like.

 

We finished all the cupcake picks and frosted the cupcakes. I got out all of my many many many jars of sprinkles and let the kids go crazy. They didn't turn out really fancy, but the kids loved explaining all of the pictures to their Dad when he saw them.

Enjoy your cupcake picks!!

Download a Free Digital Gift Card Holder Template

With Sean's birthday on the way, I wanted to make him a custom gift card holder because he will be getting....a gift card! Actually, as Florida residents, we get season passes to Sea World with one day's admission so we'll probably go there to celebrate his birthday. Because his birthday is so close to Father's Day, it's hard to come up with something good to get him so I'm going with the never fail gift card! I designed this custom holder just to make it a little more fun and personal. I'm also going to bake some cupcakes and grab some sprinkles and let the kids decorate them instead of a big cake.

This is how you assemble it:
See #1. - fold these tabs and put a small piece of double stick tape to close the sides
See #2. - fold this tab and put a small piece of double stick tape to close your card holder

 

Click here to download your own birthday gift card holder 

After you download your plain gift card holder, you can personalize it by adding your own photo or type. You can leave the circle on the back blank or type in the gift card amount. 

Hope you enjoy!

Happy Birthday Card

Sean is having a birthday this weekend and I was trying to come up with something nice to give him from the kids. I made up this form and asked the kids the questions and filled it out. It's funny to see how they answer each one. I was really curious to see what my four-year-old son, Ryan would say his Dad's job was since Ryan rarely comes to work. His answer was, "Daddy's job is clipping coupons". This was really funny because I don't know that Sean has ever clipped a coupon in his life, and I don't really spend any time clipping coupons. Maybe we need to bring him in more often!

 

Click here to download your own!

Things to do with the Kids This Summer

I've been thinking about what I'm going to do to keep the Peanuts busy this Summer. I made a huge list of things we can do when they start getting bored. It's kind of my master go to activity list.

We've got a lot of local things planned this Summer but I'm posting a more generic list that you can do no matter where you live. Kids are happy to do anything as long as it's labeled an activity! So grab a watermelon, turn on the sprinklers and get ready for some Summer Fun!!!

Wacky Hair and T-Shirt Day

As school is wrapping up for Emmy, she's having lots of fun activities at school. Hard to believe she'll be a First Grader next year. This week was wacky hair and wacky t-shirt day.

She goes to vision therapy in Orlando tonight so I didn't want to spray paint her hair or anything too crazy. I sectioned her hair into 8 pigtails, braided them and then looped them and rubber banded them. It created this looped look. She really liked it and I hope she doesn't want it in her normal rotation of hairdos!

Now on to the t-shirt. I just bought a plain white shirt and grabbed some bright fabric markers. I had her pick 3 little mini Beanie Babies I had from McDonald's. I bought a massive box of these at a yard sale for $5.00. They're running out from birthday goody bags, and I don't know what I'll do when they're gone! So I hot glued the animals on the shirt and made sure they wouldn't easily fall off. Then I used my fabric markers to write all kinds of animal jokes for kids.

Here's a few:

What happens when it rains cats and dogs? You step in poodles.

Why don't they take tests in the jungle? Too many cheetahs.


Where do cows go on Saturday night? To the moovies.

So here is the finished shirt. She liked it, especially the koala on the front with the caption,             "Help! I can't hang on!"

Parts of Speech Activity

I am teaching Emerson all about the different parts of speech. We're starting with:

Nouns ~ person, place or thing words

Verbs ~ action or doing words

Adjectives ~ describing words

I bought these 3 brightly colored metal containers at Michael's on sale for $3.00 each.
I labeled each bin with a different part of speech.

Then I took 3x5" index cards and wrote down lots of words for her to sort in the bins. I picked words that she could read and I felt confident she would be able to sort. You'll want to create cards that are at your own child's level.

Emerson enjoyed the game and it quickly became very easy for her. Sometimes it's good to break away from basic worksheets. You can then use your bins for other learning activities!

Summer Vacation

It's Summer! Now that Emerson is completing Kindergarten, Summer has the same feeling as it did for me when I was a child and school let out for 2 fun filled months!

This is a favorite photo of my kids because they're so happy and happy together! It pretty much sums up how I'd love for my Summer to go. I'm dreaming of lots of swimming, days at the theme parks, popsicles and lazy weekend afternoons...

But....here's the reality of my Summer {ha ha}. Ryan is in his self-imposed uniform of every four-year-old boy (Spiderman costume), both acting silly and being little monkeys! Oh well, sometimes reality is better!

Chocolate Muffins Made with Pumpkin

I have a great recipe for guilt-free chocolate muffins! It's only 3 ingredients (yippee!!). The canned pumpkin replaces all of the oil and eggs. So yummy and you'll never even taste the pumpkin!

Here's the recipe:

1 16oz can of pumpkin puree (don't confuse this with pumpkin pie filling)

1 Box of Chocolate Cake Mix (I just get the generic at Aldi's)

1/2 cup of water

Preheat your oven to 350. Mix all three ingredients well. Your mix will not be the same consistency as a regular cake batter; it will be much thicker. Just do your best to blend it as well as you can. If you need to, you can add a little more water.

Spray a muffin pan with PAM. Fill each cup 3/4. Should make around 15-18 muffins depending on how full you fill each cup. Bake for 16 min. or until springy to the touch.

I never frost these like cupcakes and I don't use paper liners. I always use a fork to remove them from the pan to keep them intact. 

You can also use a spice cake mix and your home will smell amazing as they bake!

 

click on the image to download