Shoe Box Weaving

We've been doing some weaving with shoeboxes this year for our handicrafts class. I found several great video tutorials on youtube (embedded below), but I made a loom on a shoebox instead of a flat piece of cardboard (as shown in the video). Mostly we've just been experimenting with techniques and having lots of fun doing it.

Printable Thank You Cards

We've been talking about gratitude at our house this year, as you may remember from this recent printable gratitude unit. A big part of that is remembering to write thank you notes for kindness and things we receive from others. After I used up my stash of thank you notes, I made this little bundle of printable notes, so that I would always have some handy. I am finding it very helpful for me, maybe more so than the children, to take a few quiet minutes and reflect on the kindness of dear friends in our life and to make that gratitude tangible.

This bundle has 4 simple designs of hand drawn illustrations of some beautiful things in our home: origami butterflies, our new little budgie, an antique globe, and a pinwheel. I made the cards print black and whit, two to a page, to conserve ink. You can print them blank inside, or with fill in the blanks for children who may appreciate writing prompts (as mine do).

I printed them on 60lb paper. This has a really nice feel, but goes through my printer more easily than heavy cardstock. Since they are black and white, I used colored paper, and added a few touches with colored pencils and metallic pens to make them a wee bit fancier.

The kids balked at writing thank you notes for all of their gifts at first, but they have grown to enjoy it - especially with the fill in the blanks and coloring cards. These make them a little fun without being as much work as making a whole card from nothing. 

The printable bundle is available in my shop.

Paper Crafts

My oldest loves crafts of any kind, but especially paper crafts with cutting, folding, glueing, painting. I've been keeping a pinterest board of paper crafts this year for and we've had a lot of fun with many things on the board. Some of these we've incorporated into our schooling, but others have just been for fun. Follow my board for more great ideas!

Source

Idea Source

Source

Source

Little House Lemonade

We're reading the Little House books, and not too long ago we made lemonade to compare it to the powder kind. Man, its better! This Little House Cookbook has been a wonderful accompaniment to the books. It includes a lot of history of food as well as recipes for all the foods in Laura's books. 

Landscape Play Mat

This is a playmat I made last year to represent different animal habitats. We have tons of those little plastic animals, which my kids love, and this is a fun way to play with them. This was one of those ideas that was just in my head for so long, until I finally sat down to do it unplanned. If I were to do it again I'd make a few things different, especially making the landscapes seamless. There are quite a few nice ones on pinterest, of course. 

Teaching Gratitude to Kids Printable Unit

Printable Gratitude Bundle

We've been working on gratitude at our house, and so I've developed a teaching unit "Learning to Give Thanks." The unit pdf include a list of activities with brief instructions for using the printables with each activity, and 24 pages of printables. The bundle includes: 

• two kinds of thank you cards with an option of fill in the blank text inside for younger writers or blank inside for older kids
• tokens of gratitude (with game instructions)
• gratitude journal pages for writing or drawing a daily thankful
• We're thankful for you! Posters
• Where did that come from? Game
• Good manners and Chore Chart
• Matching stationary for other writing projects
• Posters of Quotes and Poems about Gratitude

stationary

drawing journal

Tokens of Gratitude

thank you cards

Games and Charts and Instructions

The bundle is available in my shop for a small fee. Check it out!