Borrowed Ideas from the Blogosphere: Part 1

I find that when I wander into the blogosphere, I have to remain very conscious of my time.  It is SO easy to follow one blog to another blog to another blog.  Some days, I follow this strange rabbit trail, and I find all I've really done is waste time, but other times I find a tremendous jewel, and I'm glad I wandered.  It's almost like mining.  ;)

So, here is part 1 of the jewels that I recently discovered and plan to incorporate into my school year this year.  I will do my best to give credit where it is due, which isn't always easy in out in the blogosphere.  If you see that I made a mistake, please comment on this post and I will correct it to the best of my ability.  I do not want to claim credit for other people's idea's nor do I wish to give credit to the wrong blogger.

The first idea is a morning board.  My dear friend had done something similar, on a small scale on her partial wall in her kitchen where she teaches her children.  I too have a partial wall in my kitchen, but it's bigger and my stuff looked so small on it (except the paper Christmas tree, but we won't go there!), I couldn't make it fit what I saw in my head.  Then, I came across this post on a blog.  Her calendar and printables led me to this post.  These things got my gears turning!  This weekend, I made my own morning board. I bought a display board from Hobby Lobby...purple, of course, because that is my favorite color. 

In the upper left is a "Days in School" chart from Jolanthe at Homeschool Creations.  The coolest thing about this chart is that it is color coded to match the place values for Math-U-See!  I laminated her chart and added the color coded pockets.  I printed those from Homeschool Share, the small ones on colored paper, available here.  They print 2 to a page, so that was perfect.  One for the words and one for the numbers for each place value.

Under the "Days in School" chart is the "Make the Date" chart from Carisa at 1+1+1=1.  I printed it twice to have the box on colored paper.  This uses coins to make the date.  Today is the 11th, so there is a dime and a penny to make 11.  This is a fun way to teach the kids the values of each coin.  The pocket beside it holds the extra coins.

Under that is the temperature chart from Jolanthe at Homeschool Creations.  Again, I printed it twice.  I cut out the white thermometer and glued it to the colored paper so it would show up better.  Beside that is a ring of prayer cards from the International Mission Board.  We use these cards during our morning prayer time.  You can find them here.

Front and Center are the Months of the Year and Days of the Week Charts from Carisa at 1+1+1=1.  Days of the week and months of the year are things that Smiley has not gotten the hang of yet, and Little Man has not yet mastered them.

I found this calendar in the dollar bins at Target.  The month was $1.00 and the dates were $1.00.  They also had the month titles for a dollar and the "Today is..., Yesterday was..., Tomorrow will be..." charts, but I don't really need those and the ones from Carisa at 1+1+1=1.

This weather and season chart is from Carisa at 1+1+1=1.  Again this is something that Little Man and Smiley are mastering...knowing each season and what order they come in.  Next to these are two pockets of the extra dates for the calendar.

This is blank still, but in geography, we will study one country a month.  The top chart will have a small print out of the country we are studying and next to it will go the continent it is on.  I will probably just google the country image, but the continent printable will probably be the continents from Continent Hop available at Spell Outloud.  Under is the poster for our Artist and Composer of the semester.  We have always had great intentions regarding (and spent a decent amount of money purchasing supplies to teach) the fine arts.  If it is on the morning board, there is added accountability.  We will probably study Beethoven and Mary Cassatt this semester.

In the bottom right hand corner is another date chart from Carisa at 1+1+1=1.  I just used the bottom half of that printable since the top was similar to the days in school chart.  Under that is a skip counting flip chart from Jolanthe at Homeschool Creations.  I printed these two to a page, laminated, hole punched and put them on a ring.  We will go through one each day.  It goes all the way up to the 12's.  Skip counting helps them memorize multiplication facts.

Stay tuned...tomorrow I'll post another gem I found and have already incorporated from Jolanthe's blog at Homeschool Creations!