Fabby Find Friday

I have been laminating like crazy--and using binding rings to keep a lot of my things easy to find. But when I ran out of binding rings, I discovered how expensive those little buggers are--even when ordering from EBAY or Oriental Trading Company! I need the larger ones (at least 1") which means you get less in a package for your money...so I priced them and priced them...

And then I went to the bathroom and inspiration struck! Okay, let me explain, I was in the bathroom giving the boys a bath--and I was pulling on the curtain and went

I had recently replaced my old shower curtain rings with some metal ones--and I knew I had an extra package of them!

 They are shaped like a light bulb with an opening very similar to a binding clip--but they are thinner and bigger--PERFECT for hanging multiple sheets on...or a package of flashcards! AND you get 12 for just one dollar!

Now I have these clips loaded with things hanging on my cabinet handles until I buy some plastic hooks and move them.

I'm going to be grabbing some more when I go out today--and I totally recommend that anyone who needs "rings" to hold something together consider using this little suckers!

Mother Goose Math

I love it when I find something out of the blue that ends up being amazing--don't you? Well I have one to share. When Scholastic Teacher Express had their Dollar Days I went crazy and snagged SOOOOOOOOO many things. I've been going thru all the things I snagged and checking them out one by one in detail now. I *bought* quite a few math resources since that is always an area that tends to be less *fun* and I really wanted to make sure that Little Britches ENJOYS it. 

One of the resources I snagged was Mother Goose Math--an Ebook that uses Mother Goose nursery rhymes and turns them into math story problems and games. It's regularly $11.95, but I got it FREE during Dollar Deals week! How cool is that? I was "flipping" thru it yesterday and saw a game that went with "Little Bo Peep" so I printed it off, colored it (I LOVE TO COLOR!) and then laminated all the parts.

Today is a relaxed game/art/PE day since we just finished a unit, so I decided to try out the game today.

It's very basic. Each player has 3 "sheep" and *hides* them on the game board in a gridbox. Then you take turns calling out coordinates (A3, D4, B1, ect) and if the player *hid* a sheep there they go "baaaaaaa!" If not, they just say "try again!" and then it's the next players turn. Because this was laminated, I gave Little Britches a Dry Erase marker to put dots on the boxes after he asked them so he wouldn't double/triple/quadruple (LOL!) his guessing. MUCH easier! We played twice and each won once! I love that he's learning coordinate geometry--but he thinks it's just a fun game! He picked up on reading the grid on the very first time I explained it which was wonderful!

We are leaving Monday to head to Virginia Beach, VA to observe The Feast of Tabernacles with about 500 other brethren. I'm figuring out what school stuff to take and Little Britches wants me to take this game with us to play with my mom--so I'll definitely tuck it in!

Odds and Ends

It's been a week of odds and ends when it comes to school. Monday we started REALLY late because it was my hubby's birthday and his present to himself was to go in late to work (yes he works on Labor Day!)...so we enjoyed time with him Monday morning. So we did a really relaxed schedule the rest of that school day. Tuesday was back to normal and we went to the library to find books relating to our Ll-Leaf unit. I will go more into that in my MFW-K Highlights post on Monday.

Weatherwise, we have been jolted into the middle of fall! We had 100 degrees on Friday and Saturday...then it started going down and by Monday it was rainy and a mere 57 degrees! Talk about flipping the switch! As luck would have it our unit had a lot more outdoor activities for the week, so we just put on the rubber books and the raincoats and went outside anyway!

Today was off because I had a much anticipated hair appointment at 9am! Ahh....the joys of someone else messing with my hair! I needed my hair cut and colored pretty bad so it was a must have! The hubby was home and "managed" to take care of the boys for the 3 hours I was gone...then after we ate lunch we did our school.

But the best part of the week was a fabulous win of a giveaway and some fabby finds!

I was blessed to win one of the giveaways by Thanks, Mail Carrier! I won the 3D Feel and Find World Icons by Guidecraft! There were 1063 or so entries...so for me to be the randomly draw winner is amazing! I'm so excited to get these for my boys! Xenia has giveaways going ALL THE TIME so make sure you get entered into them if you can!

Now to my frugal finds...I always visit our local Goodwill because you never know what you will find...I love to dig in their books and then just wander...I'm sure glad I did this week! Here are my finds from Tuesday...

Those are 3 great books to add to the collection (A Richard Scary, Amelia Bedelia and a 2nd level reader) and then my best find--sticker shapes for patterns and such! Think sticker Tangrams! 

Each color has a different shape and as you can see only a few were missing from the sheet! I'm so excited about this! What a great find for..did you see it? $1.15!! I spent $2.65 for all of that...

And then I went to the local Dollar General and found this great foam number puzzle...here is Baby Britches enjoying it...

He enjoyed gnawing on them before trying to put them back in their holes...now they all have many teeth marks! LOL! I better go back and get him his own set...I mean, why not when it was only $1! I love that it came with the +, - and = signs too! Great for future math problems! I also snagged a package of fake $$$ bills since we will be starting a mini money unit soon--also $1!

So it was an excellent week of randomness!

Tune in tomorrow for my Five Question Friday post!

$1 Find Fun!

I totally love the Dollar Bins at Target! They have some awesome things to use for homeschooling and we've been enjoying the things I've picked up the last two times. We've been working on matching our uppercase and lowercase letters, so instead of what we've been doing for a couple days, I pulled out one of my $1 bin finds and let Little Britches play!

These are two piece puzzles with the uppercase letter on one and the lowercase letter on the other. The colors are bright and the pictures are cute. He knew he had matches when both pictures started with the same letter AND when both colors were the same.

I timed him privately to see how long it would take him. I'll be curious to see how he does next time--he didn't get any wrong--because he would try something and then if he saw his mistake later, he'd fix it! He really enjoyed doing this and I could hear him saying "_ is for __ and __" once he got each letter matched. He also enjoyed being on the floor--which I try to let him do to mix it up and keep him from thinking school has to be in his desk.

I totally recommend this cheap little puzzle to anyone on a small budget for homeschooling--or even if you have a big one!