Homeschooling in a Small Space

We recently moved into a studio from a house where we had a designated homeschool room. As much as I love having less material things and having everything at arm's reach, I miss having the wall space for things such as weather charts, calenders and vocab words. I had to get creative. After going over my options, I finally decided on using those tri-fold science project boards and white foam boards for our calender time and vocab words. I will update this post as I make more boards. I will also link the free printables I used for these as time goes on.

Here is our morning board...

Overview of our morning board.

Outside flap. Months in order, laminated on velcro.

Today's temperature.

Money charts with cute poems.

Counting to 100 by ones, tens, twos and fives.

Calendar. The bottom pocket holds extra #'s & seasons.

We are official homeschoolers!

So little man is officially a Kindergartner! We had our first day of school on September 15, 2014. It was a little hectic so I only got one photo. 

His shirt says his name and "Class of 2027". It's a size x-large and he will use it every year for "first day of school" photos. It shouls fit him better by senior year. ;p

Vegan Rice Crispy Treats

Simple. Fast. So yummy! Just three ingredients. Lets get started.

You'll need:

-vegan butter

-vegan marshmallows (10 oz bag)

-rice puffs (this one has just one ingredient. score!) 6 cups

Melt 3 tablespoons of your vegan butter over medium heat.

Next add the whole bag of marshmallows and stir constantly until it is fully melted.

Then add in your puffed rice cereal a cup at a time. 

 Mix until the cereal is fully combined with your marshmallow/butter mixture.

Take it off the stove and press into a 13x9 ' pan (or slightly smaller) with parchment paper.

Cut and try not to eat them all at once.

St. Patrick's Day Crafts

Here are our St. Patrick's Day Crafts for 2014!

Hand print "Pot O' Gold" at the end of the rainbow

Hand print rainbow

Hand print four leaf clover

Hand print leprechaun

Our holiday art wall

Photo banner I designed and printed. Spring themed.

Stay tuned for our how-to video! Coming soon!

To view our other holiday wall art, CLICK HERE!

Mango Banana Ice Cream

This morning, Trey asked for ice cream. I told him, "why not?"

You're probably thinking, "She let her 4 year old have ice cream for breakfast?!" Yup. I did. But it's not the sugary, heavy, dairy filled goop you're probably envisioning. This ice cream, (the raw vegan world calls it nice cream) has just two ingredients. Frozen bananas and frozen organic mangoes. So simple. Two pure ingredients. No added sugar. No additives. Yeah, you could probably just eat the bananas and mangoes and who doesn't love the novelty of making and then eating homemade ice cream. We don't use recipes in my house, we pretty much make things up as we go along and then just "eyeball" the ingredients. Bare with me, use your own taste and texture preferences here:)

At least a day before, get very ripe (I'm talking loaded with brown spots) bananas, peel, cut and freeze them in a glass container.

The next day, get your frozen bananas and frozen mangoes (Costco has a huge bag of organic frozen mangoes for less than $10)

Stick them in your blender and pulse until most fruit chunks are no longer chunks. Then blend. If needed, take breaks in between to push down the sides with a spoon. Try not to add any liquid. You want the ice cream to be thick. Like sorbet. If you have to, you can add a tablespoon r two of water. I'd recommend a high powered blender for this. No, it doesn't have to be a vitamix. A Ninja will work fine. Other blenders will work, you'll just have to have more patience with them:)

Now scoop into a nice glass and garnish with some fruit. There ya go. Super fast, super easy. Healthy and not filled with sugar, fat or GMO's.

Hallway Decor- Valentine's Day

Better late than never, right?! This was our hallway decor for Valentine's Day. 

Overview

Hand and foot print LOVE

Hand print heart

Hand print tulips

  

Finger print tree

Handmade gifts for his "Hamma" (my mom)

It's hand print tulips and over that, Trey wrote,

"These flowers last forever, just like my love for you."

 Trey's gift to my sister,

I love you with his hands as a heart.

 And for his daddy,

his hand print and a poem that reads:

Sometimes you get discouraged
Because I am so small
And always leave my finger prints
On furniture and walls.

But every day I'm growing...
I'll be grown up someday
And all those tiny handprints
Will surely fade away.

So here's a tiny handprint
Just so you can recall
Exactly how my fingers looked
When I was 4 years small.

To view our other holiday wall art, CLICK HERE!

Organic Gardening Update

So we had a family of piggies devour our first garden. Yup. Everything but the tomatoes. Which, by the way, we got more than 300 tomatoes from! (YAY!) Four weeks ago, we started all over and planted some seeds.

Quick flashback to January 21, 2014

Putting the seeds into the soil.

We planted Japanese cucumbers, sweet peppers, cherry tomatoes, zucchini, carrots, beets, radish, kale, blue kale, spinach, arugula, eggplant, cantaloupe, honeydew melon, watermelon, corn, peas, cucumbers, bush beans, green beans. All GMO-free and organic.

UPDATE: February 18, 2014
Here is what are garden looks like after 4 weeks.

Today, we transplanted the plants that were outgrowing their pots. We also made a little area for our beans, peas, cucumbers, zucchini and corn.