After School Linky Party (1-20)

Welcome to the After School Linky Party!

Each week it gets harder and harder to pick just a few activities and ideas to feature.

Rest assured, I'm up to the challenge though. (Truthfully, I love it!)

Simple Sewing ~ Constellations Wall Hanging at Creative Family Fun 

Sight Word Pop and Other Sight Word Activities at Mamas Like Me

Math Fun with Fraction Pie at B-Inspired Mama

Pocahontas Felt Necklace at Spoonful

Mastering Multiplication Math Facts at Pragmatic Mom

Free Printables

3 Boys and a Dog: Black History: MLK Cursive Worksheets (grades 3-5), Dolch Sight Words Worksheet: Week Two and FREE: Winter Woods Snow Flake Activity

3 Dinosaurs: Free Snow Learning Pack and Early Reading Printables BOB Books Set 5 Books 1 & 2

Bible Fun for Kids: Samson Part 2, The Good Samaritan

Buggy and Buddy: Plant and Seeds Homemade Valentines for Kids with Free Printables and Valentine Cards: Butterfly Pencil Valentine

Crystal & Co.: Free Printable for Heart Crayon Valentines

Every Star is Different: Extreme Weather Conditions Week 1

Growing in God's Grace: Series: Bible in a Year with Your Kids Week #15 FREE Pack

Living Montessori Now: Montessori-Inspired Arctic and Antarctic Unit

Measured Mom: Spelling ea words, Teach Measurement to Kids Using Yarn,

The Connection We Share: Sticky Valentines - How to Make DIY Window Clings

Trillium Montessori: More Winter Printables

The After School Linky is cohosted by
The Educators' Spin On It 
Afterschool for Smarty Pants 
Boy Mama Teacher Mama
Coffee Cups and Crayons 
Little Wonders' Days 
Mama Smiles 
Relentlessly Fun, Deceptively Educational
The Measured Mom 
This Reading Mama
What Do We Do All Day

We would love to have you link up your School-Age Post (Ages 5 and up) about your learning week after school including Crafts, Activities, Playtime and Adventures that you are doing to enrich your children's lives after their day at school, homeschool, or on the weekend! When linking up, please take a moment to comment on at least one post linked up before yours and grab our after school button to include a link on your post or site! By linking up you're giving permission for us to share on our After School Pinterest Board or Feature on our After School Party next week! Don't forget to follow along and join our After School Enrichment Community.

Controlling Your Kid's Electronic Time

I am no parenting expert. I make mistakes. Sometimes I'm tough when my kids need nurturing. Sometimes I'm gentle when I should be strict.

But when my husband's iPad became my oldest son's infatuation, I knew an intervention was necessary. We've tried two strategies to limit my oldest son's time with electronic devices.

Click on either of the charts below to download them free from Google Drive.

Strategy #1

The first approach was to award him a set amount of minutes every day. We chose 35 minutes, with the occasional option for him to gain 10 extra minutes. I created a chart which (like mercury in a thermometer) depleted as minutes were used. Before he could use any electronic minutes he had to eat breakfast, get dressed, and do his chores. Time was deducted for any outbursts (throwing a fit or being hurtful).

Strategy #2

Our second approach was to have our oldest son earn minutes by completing chores, being a helper, and demonstrating positive behaviors toward others. The minutes he earns today, he can use tomorrow. Our chart is populated with a long list of ideas for him (e.g. get the mail, set the table, complete your homework without being asked, write 6 sentences about your day, make someone feel special by doing something, try a new food, etc.). Most of the activities are worth 5 minutes, but a select few are worth 10.

Whatever he does, we check on the list. At the end of the day, we add up the minutes earned and write the number at the bottom of the chart, clearing the checkmarks for the next day.

Each of these strategies has worked for us but I like Strategy #2 best right now because he's mature and responsible enough to determine his own fate by earning minutes.

Both charts were printed, slipped inside a heavyweight sleeve protector with adhesive magnet tape on the back, and hung on our refrigerator with a dry-erase marker clipped to it.

Put Your Hands Together for Conjunctions

Conjunctions are joiners or connectors that bring together words, phrases, and clauses. A few of these important words follow:

And

But

Or

Nor

So

For

Until

After

Because

Since

To teach my son about how these words are used, I created an activity we'll be able to do again and again, with a template I'll use for practicing other skills too.

To get started I printed several pages of these right and left hands. Download a 1-page PDF here.

I used colored papers, but that's not necessary. After they were printed, I laminated and cut them out (including the hole inside the hand); yes, this is a bit of a pain but with a small craft knife, it went rather swiftly.

Once my hands were done, I cut some small strips of paper. Now I got busy writing parts of sentences on right and left hands with a fine-tip dry-erase marker. I also wrote the conjunction that would join them on the blank slips of paper. Here are some of the sentences I used:
During the race I swam and ran.
I got today's mail and put it on the desk.
Mom was tired after exercising at the gym.
I stayed awake until the sun came up.
Molly hated peas because they never stayed on her spoon.
Do you want popcorn or peanuts?
I do not like broccoli so I chose corn instead.

By laminating, the dry-erase markers wipe clean making the hands reusable!

When my son came home from school we read a great book by Brian P. Cleary. I'm a huge fan of his Words are CATegorical series and this book delivered the same whimsical illustrations I expected with the simple, clear definition of conjunctions my son needed.

My son also watched Schoolhouse Rock's "Conjunction Junction" video; I remember it from when I was a kid. This little song is certainly handy (and mighty catchy too; my son was singing it later that evening)!

With the hands laid on the table, it was up to my son to determine which conjunction was missing and join the hands together by looping the paper with the conjunction through the hands and stapling it. My son made quick work of the task and was excited to have joined the sentence fragments with the correct conjunctions.

Next time, I might scramble the fragments to make the exercise more challenging for him. 

After School Linky Party (1-13)

Welcome to the After School Linky Party!

It's so impressive to see all the wildly creative, messy, and educational ideas

that are shared each week.

Here are just a few of my favorites (ya know, in case you missed 'em).

Cardboard City at Lemon Lime Adventures.

Roman Empires, Emperors and Landmarks (DIY groma and craft stick arch)

at Highhill Education.

Fine Motor Skills Wheels & Volvelle Tutorial at Lalymom.

 Moon Phases Experiment at We-Made-That.com.

Snow Ice Cream at Apron Strings & Other Things.

Free Printables

3 Boys and a Dog: 3 Little Pigs {Story Sequence} and Dolch Sight Words Worksheets: Week 1

3 Dinosaurs: Free Blank Writing Pages, Learning to Write Your Name, and Sight Word Dot Fine Motor & Free Printable

Bible Fun for Kids: Samson Part 1 and Bible Verse Printables

Boy Mama Teacher Mama: Roll a Snowman Games and FREEBIE

Buggy and Buddy: February Learning Calendar for Kids

Crystal and Co.: Printable Valentine Cards: I am a Sucker for You, Preschool Do a Dot Printables: Snowman, and Letter of the Week: A is for Alligator (Preschool Printable)

Every Star is Different: Christmas Unit Week 4: Winter

Gift of Curiosity: Winter Printable Pack {free winter printables}

Growing in God's Grace: Bible in a year with your kids week #14 FREE pack

Highhill Education: Rome Unit Study - Roman Numeral Bingo

KC Edventures: 70+ Free Winter Printable Activities for Kids

Moms & Munchkins: Printable Valentine's Day Activities

The Educators' Spin on It: Penguin Writing Prompts

The Measured Mom: Free winter spelling activity and Most Popular Printables of 2013

This Reading Mama: Inside a Writer's Notebook and Guest Post and Free Beginning Blend Bingo

Waddlee-ah-Chaa: 2014 Free Printable Calendar

Wildflower Ramblings: 24 Preschool Chants

The After School Linky is cohosted by
The Educators' Spin On It 
Afterschool for Smarty Pants 
Boy Mama Teacher Mama
Coffee Cups and Crayons 
Little Wonders' Days 
Mama Smiles 
Relentlessly Fun, Deceptively Educational
The Measured Mom 
This Reading Mama
What Do We Do All Day

We would love to have you link up your School-Age Post (Ages 5 and up) about your learning week after school including Crafts, Activities, Playtime and Adventures that you are doing to enrich your children's lives after their day at school, homeschool, or on the weekend! When linking up, please take a moment to comment on at least one post linked up before yours and grab our after school button to include a link on your post or site! By linking up you're giving permission for us to share on our After School Pinterest Board or Feature on our After School Party next week! Don't forget to follow along and join our After School Enrichment Community.

What Gets a Capital Letter? (Board Game)

It can be a real struggle to remember what to capitalize when you're eight years old. And since grammar doesn't stick like math does for my son, I wanted to find a fun way to help him learn.

The What Gets a Capital Letter game is a sneaky way to trick kids into remembering that the following are always capitalized:

Days of the Week.

Months.

Names of holidays.

Names of people and pets.

Names of places.

The beginning of a sentence.

The letter "I" when it is a word.

Download a PDF of the game for free on Google Docs here.

It's an easy game with very few rules. Game pieces (we used laminated photos inside binder clips) are placed on the START. The youngest player starts the game by drawing a card from the deck. He/she reads the card and identifies what in the sentence needs to be capitalized and why. Then, the player moves his game piece to the first occurrence of that reason on the game board.

For example, a player might draw the following card:

kiwi fruit is so delicious.

He/she would then say "kiwi needs to be capitalized; it's the beginning of a sentence," then move their game piece to the first blue box on the game board that reads "beginning of a sentence."

Now it's the opponent's turn. Play alternates between players.

If a player draws a "GO BACK" card, he/she must draw another card and instead of advancing based on the reason for capitalization, they'll retreat. If the player is too close to the start and there's no "months" box, for example, to move back to, their game piece remains in its place.

If players are near the end and draw cards with reasons for capitalization without any remaining boxes, they must still say aloud the correction and reason, but do not advance. The first player to land their game piece on the final "days of the week" box wins the game!

To accompany this game, my son read Kick Ball Capitalization by Michael Ruscoe. It covers many more reasons for capitalization in a very fun way!