Things I Love

I wanted to share a few things that I have found to be wonderful and helpful with the kids.

The first is this playdough recipe. I have tried too many playdough recipes to count and this one far exceeds the others. It actually stays moist for about a month, if stored in a zip lock baggy. And the second big perk to this one is that it smells wonderful. I like the smell of playdough, but this one smells fruity, depending on the flavoring you choose. So here is my recipe:

2 cups flour
1 cup salt
4 tsp. cream of tartar
2 cups water
1 pkg. unsweetened drink mix (Kool Aid), any flavor/color you like
2 T. oil

Mix everything together in a non-stick pan and cook over medium heat until it forms a hard ball. It will start to pull away from the sides of the pan and you will know it is done. Then kneed it out for smoother consistency and put into bags. You can add glitter while you are kneeding it out if you want glitter dough- the girls love this!

The second is a Corn Starch concoction. This sounds weird and I don't know really how to describe it but you have to try it! Mix corn starch with water to form a paste. That's it. It's that simple. Hand a bowl of it to your children and watch as amazement takes over their eyes. It is a runny consistency when left alone in the bowl. You squeeze it in your hand and it becomes a hard ball. Leave it in your hand and don't move, it will return to liquid state and run out of your hand. This has provided hours and hours of amusement for my children. I often do this when I have something I am working on and need them to be content for a while.


The third is mini offices. This is a homeschool miracle for my children. We use the kitchen table as our school room so the children sit close to eachother and this sometimes poses problems with distraction. I found these mini offices to solve my problem. It is essentially a few file folders glued together and then I copied some of their reference material onto them. On top of helping with distraction it also makes some of their reference charts right in front of them so it cuts down on the repetitious questions that we have each day. One side is Math and Language reference charts and the other is Science and History. I got some of my ideas from busy teachers cafe, K2 Printables, and teaching heart. So if you homeschool at the table and have trouble with distracted children then these might be a good answer for you.


And the last thing is the books read file. I try to keep track of what the girls read and I usually have them do either an oral or written report on each book completed. I discovered an easy way for me to track this was with index cards. I have a recipe box with a tab for each of the girls on it. As they finish their book they write the title, author and give me a short description on the index card. On the back they sometimes draw a little picture for me from the story. Then they file it into the recipe box. This is a nice way of logging how many books they have read.

So there are my helpful things!