Scarf Making Mania

So, I think I am addicted to Pinterest and I also think I am becoming addicted to making scarves! I am not usually one to wear scarves, but these t-shirt scarves are SO easy to make that I might just have to start wearing them. You can see my first t-shirt scarf here.

Now, I have found an even easier version of the t-shirt scarf. I forgot to take pictures all the way through, but here's a quick tutorial:

Find an old t-shirt that you don't wear anymore. Cut the hem off the bottom and then cut several strips (cut through both layers of the shirt) about 1 1/2 inches wide. In the picture here you can see the shirt with the strips already gone. I got seven strips from this shirt before I got to the design that is on the front (saved the design for another project).


Now stretch the strips/circles as much as you can. They will curl up around the edge. Then you will have circles that look like this:


Put them all together and you have this


You can wear it like this:


Or like this:


Super easy and fun! It would make a great gift for your tween/teen girls to make for their friends!

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2011 Homeschool Blog Awards!

My blog was nominated for "Best Homeschool Mom Blog"!!!! I am honored to be nominated, so THANK YOU, to whoever nominated me!

If you would like to vote go here

There are lots of categories and lots of nominees so if you have a few minutes take a look around, there are some great blogs nominated this year!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Ooka Island Adventure - a review

As I have mentioned before Molly is really dying to learn to read proficiently.  She is constantly asking me to help her with reading and writing.  So, when the opportunity came along to review a 3-D adventure computer program for learning how to read we were more than happy to give it a shot.  Ooka Island is designed for pre-K through 2nd graders who are developing their reading skills.

"The Ooka Method combines phonological development and language-rich text with comprehension activities so that children have the opporunity to achieve effortless reading."

When your child signs in to Ooka Island for the first time they will create an avatar that will then help them around the island, along with "Zobot".  In each lesson your child will go through various activities teaching new sounds.  The first couple of sounds were just basic letter sounds but then they very quickly moved in to special sounds, such as "sh" "ee" and "oo".   I found that interesting and wasn't sure if that was the best thing for Molly.  Afterall, everyone else learns the 26 basic letter sounds first and then moves on to the special sounds and various phonograms.  However, Molly loved it, because it helped her to read even more words more quickly.  For Molly she knows her letter sounds already so to jump right in and learn a few other sounds worked for her.  

The activities are carefully planned to teach many different reading skills in one session.  In each session the student works through the following activities.

The Cave of Sounds: Auditory recognition of sounds, letter sound correspondence, identifying initial and final consonant sounds

Popcorn Library: Reading Comprehension and fluency skills

Alphabet Mountain: Identifying and sequencing upper and lower case letters

Bubbly Trubbly: letter-sound correspondence

The Cake Factory: Letter-sound correspondence, segmenting, blending and decoding

Submarine Listening: Identifying vowels in initial, middle, and final positions

Word Ball: Auditory discrimination between syllables and words, decoding

Clumsy-Wacky Moving Company: Blending onset and rime, Blending sounds into words, Rhyming

After 20 minutes of guided play the student is then given 8 minutes of free play in the "Pencil Playground."

Molly really enjoyed all of the activities as well as the free play in "Pencil Playground".  Since she is only 4 I did need to be close by for the first few sessions to make sure she understood how everything worked, but after that she was great to play on her own.  She would play for as long as I let her and asked for "Ooka Island" daily.  It has been a great tool for her as well as a great way for her to work on even more reading skills when I can't be working directly with her.  Ooka Island makes learning to read fun.

You can get a subscription to Ooka Island for the prices listed below:

They are currently running a special for 30% off the monthly subscription.

Ooka Island also offers corresponding books that would work great with the computer program.  You can take a look at all they have to offer here.

You can take a look at what other Crew Members have to say here.

Disclosure-We were given a subscription to Ooka Island for review purposes. All opinions expressed are my own honest opinion. No other compensation was given for this review.

My first Pinterest Project!!

I have recently been introduced to Pinterest, and WOW is about all I can say! So many great ideas! I am totally floored at the talent that is it there!

Anyway, I have pinned a few things and came up with lots of good Christmas ideas! So, wheni had a spare 30 minutes this afternoon I decided to give the t-shirt scarf a try! It was SUPER easy and cost me nothing except for an old t-shirt I didn't wear anymore! Since this one was just practice I wasn't picky about the color.

A quick tutorial...

Find an old t-shirt, a XL will work best. All I had was a large, but I made it work just to see if I like the idea.


Use a 9 inch plate and draw circles to be cut out on the shirt. These didn't show up in the picture but I made 4 circles on each side.



As I mentioned this was for practice so I didn't worry that I included the "tag less tag" on the shirt or the fact that the front of the shirt had a print on it. The circles don't have to be perfect either, so that's an extra bonus and saves a little time.


Then you just spiral cut the circles and you have 8 long squiggly pieces of fabric




Put them all together, tie in a loose not around the neck and "ta-da" a "shabby-chic" scarf. Now, next time I will use bigger circles (the instructions i have seem say use a 9-inch plate but since I had a smaller shirt I used a smaller circle. I will also cut the fabric wider to make it a bit bulkier. But I was happy with the results. I also put a pin that I had in the middle but I tried it later without the pin and it looked good that way too. I think I am going to try a punk and black version next, I'll be sure and blog about the outcome of that one.






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Memoria Press - Phonics and Reading - A Review

Molly is dying to learn how to read.  She says "I am the 'onwy' one that can't "wead' in our family".  She picks up everything and tries to read it.  She loves to sit in the library area of the house and "read" her books.  She loves to be read to, and loves to listen to books on tape.  So, my biggest goal for her this year is for her to learn to read.

We started out the school year with the same curriculum the boys used in 4-year preschool (the boys both attended preschool at out church school).  It's a great curriculum, but it was a bit slow for her.  So, I was looking  for a more advanced K-4 program or a K-5 program that I could slow-down a tiny bit for her.  Then, as God always does, He worked it out and we were given the opportunity to review Memoria Press' Kindergarten phonics curriculum!  

We were asked to review the "First Start Reading" Program as well as "Classical Phonics"

"First Start Reading" comes with a Teacher's Guide and 3 books for the student to work through.  The three books combined cover consonant and vowel sounds, 45 common words, and manuscript writing. When moving in to later lessons simple dictation is begun as well. 

In the previous program we used Molly was not happy because it took so long for her to be reading real words--after 2 months she was still going over blends.  After the first lesson in "First Start Reading" she was reading real words.  We are taking this book very slow, and in 6 weeks time we are only on lesson 15.  Molly is only 4 1/2 so I am wanting to make sure we have a solid foundation with lots of time for review and game playing, but she is happy because she is READING!  At this stage she is reading sentences such as "A fat rat sat".  Another aspect I really like about this program is that it does not use the "ladder approach" of consonant-vowel blending, but instead uses word families and vowel-consonant blending.  The other approach worked fine for the boys but Molly is really flourishing with the word family approach, and I feel it helps her read more quickly, which is what she needed.  "First Start Reading" offers lots of built in review and I love the fact that it is also our writing program--one book and one lesson and we have gotten in phonics and handwriting for the day.  At this young age short lessons are best.    By the end of the program the student will be reading stories such as the following:

Here is the queen!  The queen has come home.  Do you see the queen?  What does the queen do? The queen sees her pets.  Her pets are Gus the dog and Tom the cat.  What does the queen have?  She has figs and nuts and jam.  She has ham and yams.

Do you see the queen? The queen met her ten men.  Her ten men are Ron and Don, Bob and Rob, Dan and Hal, Ned and Ted, and Rex and Tex.  They fix and mop and wax her home.  Then they rest.

Do you see the queen?  She sits in the sun.  She said "I have come home to see the pets and ten men.  Here they are.  Yes, they are the best." 

"First Start Reading" is very simple without lots of colorful pictures to distract the child.  There are pages for the student to color and places for them to draw and color their own pictures.  We are thoroughly enjoying this program and are so thankful for the blessing of reviewing this!  The curriculum is available here for a very reasonable $29.95.

There are sample pages available here:

Sample Pages for Book A 

Sample Pages for Book B

The other book we received for review was "Classical Phonics" also published by Memoria Press.  This is a simple book that works well with any phonics program.  In the first section each letter is introduced with the letter and a few simple pictures that start with that letter. 

As letters and their sounds are introduced word lists are added at the bottom of the page.  After all the letters are shown there are pages of word lists that go with phonics rules.  This book is meant as a supplement and it does that very well.  It is great practice for reviewing the sounds we have already learned.  I have also used it with Zach to review phonics rules.  For example there is a list of silent letter words.  

This book can be used all the way from first learning to read until about second grade.  It covers almost all of the phonograms taught through second grade.  The lists are very effective in making sure that your child knows the rules, since there aren't any picture clues for the words.  This simple, but extremely effective and important book can be purchased here for only $14.95.

Memoria Press offers a wide assortment of homeschool material such as Latin, Greek, Logic, Literature and much more.  Some members of the Crew were given the opportunity to review the Latin program as well as the Phonics Program above.  You can take a look at what others had to say about these programs here.

Disclosure-These products were given to me for review purposes. All opinions expressed are my own honest opinion. No other compensation was given for this review.