Sorting Digraphs - CH and SH

I found this really fun activity to help little V to sort digraphs. First, she had to cut the pictures  then, she started sorting the pictures that started with "CH" sounds and the ones that started with "SH" sounds.
Good and fun practice!

You can find this activity here.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by!

Vanessa Z. Pawlicki

Chicken Enchilada Soup Recipe!

I was finally able to detail with pictures my delicious Chicken Enchilada Soup recipe! I hope it will be helpful, for those who would like to try it. I did however, reduced the amount of cayenne pepper as I cannot deal well with spicy food, but feel free to add it to your taste.

Ingredients:

- 6 tbs of olive oil
- 2 lbs of cooked cubed chicken
- 2 cups of diced onions
- 2 cups of Massa Harina
- 1 can of diced tomatoes
- 1/2 lb of diced Veelveta Cheese
- 1/4 cup of chicken base (or 2 cubes of chicken bullion)
- 3-1/2 quarts of water ( 1 quart = 4 cups)
- 2 tsp of ground cumin
- 2 tsp garlic powder
- 2 tsp Chili powder
- 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
- 2 diced avocados

Directions:

Brown the cubed chicken with 3 tbs of olive oil and once it's cooked set it aside.

Mix all the dry seasonings:

2 tsp of Ground Cumin

2 tsp of Chili Powder

2 tsp of  Garlic Powder

1/4 tsp of Cayenne Pepper

Stir all the dry seasonings and set aside.

In a large and tall saucepan, add 3 tbs of olive oil, diced onions, chicken base or the chicken bullion and the mixture of spices (dry seasonings).

While you sauté the onions, mix 2 cups of Massa Harina and 1 quart of water (4 cups) and dissolve it well. 

Once the onions are soft and clear, add the Massa Harina dissolved into the saucepan.

Stir it well and bring it to a boil, then let it cook for another 3 minutes, but make sure you stir it constantly. Then add 2-1/2 quarts of water.

Add the 2-1/2 quarts of water

Stir it all together

Now, add the diced tomatoes:

Next, the avocado, then the cooked cubed chicken and the cubed Velveeta cheese:

Forgot to take a picture of when I was adding the avocado and the chicken, but you get the idea, right?

Once the cheese is melted your Chicken Enchilada Soup is ready!!!!

I like to garnish it with some green onions and serve with Tortilla Chips! I got this recipe from my Mother-in-law and she is a great and devoted cook, I do however love to cut some corners, so I use the Tortilla Chips from the store, but my Mom-in-law cut the corn tortillas and fry them... It's really good but I can do without all the oil. ;o)

Hope you like it and for the friends that already know how it taste, now you can make it!

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by!

Vanessa Z. Pawlicki

Acrylic Painting!

I love painting, there's something so calming and relaxing about it, and gladly little V shares the same feelings about painting. We have lots of fun just coloring those coloring books, but I also want her to experience different mediums, so I thought of starting off by using canvas and acrylic paint.

I found these canvas with images to color at Michael's, but unfortunately I didn't pay attention that they have for boys and girls, so I ended up getting the one for boys by mistake.

A few good reminders when working with acrylic paint:
- it dries really fast;
- it's best to start by coloring the background;
- if you add water you'll have watercolor effect;
- clean your paint brushes right away, otherwise the acrylic paint can damage your paint brushes;
- if you have some paint left-over just put it in an air-tight container

Lastly, HAVE FUN!!!

Hope you are enjoying your Winter Break! We sure are having lots of fun!

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day.

Vanessa Z. Pawlicki

Gymboree: Red Balloon Sale - Up to 75% off original price on selected styles

I do write about many products that I use with little V in school and although this post is not related to homeschool supplies or activities, I felt I needed share this sale with all of you. I'm a big fan of Gymboree clothes!! I cannot remember the last time I bought something else from another store other than Gymboree for little V. I like the quality of their clothes and I love sales (the time when I buy)!!!!

There are nice dresses, skirts, t-shirts (long and short-sleeves), accessories... and for the boys there are many cool stuff too. Plus, you get free shipping on orders over $50!!!

Now, these deals are awesome and they are valid for a limited time or while supplies last, click here and you'll be directed to the Gymboree online store. Have fun dressing your little ones with great quality clothing and the best of all, at a great price!

Have a great day!!

Vanessa Z. Pawlicki

Melting Crayon Activity!

I've seen this activity on Pinterest and decided to give it a try! Somehow we managed to have tons of extra crayons around the house. We did have lots of fun preparing it and it was quite exciting seeing the crayons melting and sort of creating the art itself.

We started by peeling off the crayons:

Then, little V chose the colors she wanted to have on her art and we lined them up on top of the paper. I glued the crayons with hot-glue.

We placed the cardstock with the crayons on the table easel, ready to start melting.

I believe normally people use a hair dryer, but we used the heat embossing machine, just thought I could control better the splattering! ;o)

Crayon melting in action:

It's really cool and get kind of excited to see how it will turn out.

Cool, right?

If you decide to give it a try, let us know how it turned out!

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day.

Vanessa Z. Pawlicki

Melissa and Doug - Necklace Kit

I will try to share or these next 2 week, fun activities we will be also doing during our Winter Break. We love Melissa & Doug products and sometimes they run some great deals, so we take advantage of these deals!

We saw this kit and of course, as a girly girl that little V is she got all excited. We have this for a while now, and she comes up with new different styles, new patterns which is fun and at the same time she is working so many skills, such as: fine motor skills, hand-eye coordination, building patterns and also she feels very confident to wear something beautiful made by her own hands. We love handmade things in general!!

Choosing the beads...

String into the bead... very focused!

Happy and proud of the final product!

We also have lots of fun creating bracelets to match the necklaces.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by!

Vanessa Z. Pawlicki

Homemade Shea Butter Soap!

We saw lots of Homeschooling blogs making their homemade soaps for Christmas' gifts, and we really liked the idea but as we don't celebrate Christmas, we decided to make something simpler and yet cool to have in the house and to also give as gifts to our friends.

Material needed:

- Shea butter Soap Base (we used 1/4 of the 2 lbs block) - I saw other types of soap base that you could use like goat's milk base.
- Soap Colorant (we bought a set with 3 colors - red, blue and yellow)
- Essential Oil Blend Fragrance (for soap making)
- Soap mold
- Microwave safe measuring cup
- Wooden stirring tool (toothpick or wooden/bamboo skewers)

Cut the soap base in smaller parts, to fit in the microwave safe measuring cup. I used only two rows of the base (it gave me 3 soaps).

Put the soap to melt in the microwave in 30 seconds increments, until you have all the soap melted (it took us 2 minutes total). 

Once the soap base is completely melted, add the essential oil you like, mix it well into the melted soap base. Now, pour some into the soap mold, then add some coloring, use a toothpick or wooden/bamboo skewer to make swirls with the soap coloring. *** Do not use food coloring as it will stain the skin. 

Now set it aside and let it rest so the soap gets firmer again, it will take about 40-50 minutes.

Once they are firmer, you can take them out of the mold and tie a pretty knot (we used natural raffia), add a tag if you are going to gift it, or even make a nice box for it!

Cool and easy project, right?

So, as soon as our school day ends today, we are starting our Winter Break, therefore I'll be posting only 3 days a week for the next 2 weeks, but on January 5th we are back with our regular schedule and lots of new posts! We won't be doing anything special, just relaxing and enjoying those days that Daddy will be off from work!

Enjoy your Winter Break as well!

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by!

Vanessa Z. Pawlicki

Dental Hygiene Week - Activities and Book Used

Since I reduced Science lessons from 3 times to 2 times a week, now after we finish a Scientist Unit, I add a theme week. We had a week theme about Dental Hygiene, where we learned about the different types of teeth and their specific function.
We also learned how a cavity develops and what we need to do to prevent cavities. We used the book Open Wide: tooth school inside, as a guide for the informative lessons. In order to review what we learned I designed an activity sheet with word search box and a multiple choice small questionnaire.

For arts and crafts, we decorated these cute teeth! Basically, I drew the shape of a tooth on a foam sheet and then we used other crafts supplies we already had in the house. As you can see these are healthy teeth so they are happy and they also have lots of glitter because they shine!

** The yellow crown is not because the tooth wasn't healthy, it's because it's a princess tooth therefore it needs a crown! Can you tell who decorated that one? ;o)

Hope you enjoyed our post.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by.

Vanessa Z. Pawlicki

Homeschooling Challenge - English as a Second Language

Some of you know that I'm originally from Brazil, so Portuguese is my native tongue, therefore English is my second language. Does it affect my Homeschooling? NO, because I prepare a lot! Yes I do commit grammar mistakes here and there, but raise your hands if you who has English as a mother tongue doesn't!!!

I make extensive use of online dictionaries and in case you wonder why online dictionaries? Because it can also teach me how to correctly pronounce a word and gives me a list of synonyms, which is very helpful to improve my vocabulary as well, and avoid repeating the same words. Consider also the fact that it's much faster to type the words you need in a search box than to find it on the regular dictionary book.

I prepare in advance before teaching little V her lessons. If there are words I don't know I make sure I check their meaning and make notes.

My reading routine goes beyond just preparing the lesson for little V. As one of Jehovah's Witnesses we have plenty of Bible related literature to read and I simply love reading, so I must say I do a lot of reading as well.

I consider my choices of Spelling and Reading program to be another big contributor to our Homeschooling success, and to help me to overcome any problem while teaching my little one when having English as a second language. We simply love All About Reading and All About Spelling program and they make my life so much easier. I'm actually also learning when I'm teaching!

You'll will see that little V's progress speaks for itself  if having English as a second language affect or not my ability to Homeschooling my daughter.

Reading one of All About Reading books.

Spelling phrases with the letter tiles from All About Spelling and All About Reading.

If you're a parent who also has English as a second language, or a parent who thinks your English isn't as good as you wanted it to be, don't be discouraged or rule out the possibility of Homeschooling your child for that reason. There are many helpful tools and just teaching your child is already a way of learning for yourself.

Have a great day and thank you for stopping by.

Vanessa Z. Pawlicki

Snow Man Chain for Winter Break Countdown!

Friday is fast approaching for an adult standpoint, but for my little V, Winter Break is "just taking forever". When I worked at the Mental Health Hospital we did many times the countdown paper chain to help the patients to stop or at least reduce the obsessing as to when will the parents arrived, when is my last day in here...this visual aid was very helpful.

I thought it would be a good idea to use it with V, both for arts and crafts activity and also as a visual aid to help her to see how many days she still needs to wait for the so expected Wineter Break of hers. I wasn't sure of what theme to do, so I saw this cute and fun idea from fromabcstoacts.com and decided to give it  a try!

Material Needed:

- White Cardstock (8-1/2" x 11")
- Black Cardstock (8-1/2" x 11")
- Black and orange markers
- Glue
- Scissors
- something round and big enough to make the base of the hat (we used one of the little tea cup saucer)

Directions:

Cut 2" stripes of the white cardstock to make the chains, we used 2 full sheets of the white cardstock.

Cut a 1-1/2" stripe of black cardstock to make the hat, and draw a circle big enough to be the hat base, then cut it. Adhere the the black hoop/ring made with the black stripe to the base of the hat.

Link 3 paper rings to make the base of the snowman then, keep on linking the paper rings to attain the desired number for your countdown. We have only a week to go, so we used 5 rings, one for each day of the week.

On each ring I wrote the day of the week.

Project all done, now time to find the right place to hang the snowman paper chain! 

Hubby said a real snowman has 3 parts, but we made ours with only two, so it's up to you if you want to make your with the parts then attach the rest of the paper rings.

Feel free to share pictures of your snowman if you decided to give this project a try. If you have any questions, feel free to ask either at the comment section below or through the contact form.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by.

Vanessa Z. Pawlicki

Extra Math Activity - Number Mazes

I really like to add some more fun activities to our Math curriculum, and I simply love these Number Mazes from Confessions of a Homeschooler. We started using the mazes counting by ones's as you can see in the picture below and now we are using the skipping counting by 2's and by 10's which is little V has already learned with the Math U See Curriculum.

In order to re-utilize the same activity we use these colored tokens that I purchased at The Chalkboard.

This activity keeps little V focused and as you can see it really makes her think about the order of the numbers, almost like the alphabetizing in section, here she is finding a section of numbers from 1-100 and following the order to complete the maze.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by.

Vanessa Z. Pawlicki

Counting Syllables Made Easy!

When I saw that the curriculum included lessons on counting syllables, I must confess I felt uneasy. All my memories about it aren't the best ones, all I could think about was my dreadful 4th grade teacher and how much she made me hate grammar lessons. All changed many years later when I finally had a nice and awesome teacher.
That being said, I prayed about it because I felt I needed to put my bad experience aside if I was to be of any help to my daughter.
I first asked little V to underline the vowels of the word, then we worked on the fact that each syllable has a vowel. Quite simple, right?

But what about those words with two vowels together? Well, those two vowels work together to make one long vowel sound!

That simple and little V quickly and easily got it! Thanks to All About Spelling. If you want to learn a few more hints about spelling click here.

Hope you have a great weekend and thanks for stopping by.

Vanessa Z. Pawlicki

Our Favorites Books!!

You know that book that you little one simply cannot put down and read them over and over again? Well, we have a whole collection of them!

We are currently reading for school Farmer Boy by Laura Ingalls and for fun reading we became addicted to the series Mr. Putter and Tabby.

Mr. Putter is an old man and his has an old cat named Tabby. They live close to Mrs. Teaberry and her good dog Zeke. I'll tell you these books are much fun!

Our Winter Break is fast approaching so we made sure we have a good supply of books to read. We already read all the books from this series, but we decided to make some fun activities of our favorite stories - a play, puppet show... we will figure it out during our break!

Do you have favorite series of books? A very special book you would like to recommend? Tell us, share with us we like reading new things!

Have a great day!

Vanessa Z. Pawlicki

Domino Math!

This is a really cool idea to make addition fun. I've seen a few activities similar to this one on Pinterest, but this specific one where little V is working on, is from the Confessions of a Homeschooler, and it's also part of the K4 Curriculum that she offers.

This picture isn't the best, but you can get an idea of the activity. Cool, right? I found these little dominoes at Lakeshore Learning, they are super cute and little V has lots of fun working with them. I do place them with face/dots down, so she won't get smart and choose the easy ones. ;o)

How do I wish I could go back in time and have this much fun learning!

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by!

Vanessa Z. Pawlicki