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Tot School

10 Busy Bags I Want to Make

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10 Busy Bags I Want NEED to Make

Making your own busy bags can save SOOO much money and frustration! If you have a toddler or preschooler who you have to take with you to the doctor’s, ballet class, or homeschool group and they need to be kept occupied, then busy bags are the answer!

10 Busy Bags I Need to Make
I tried to find 10 busy bags that I already had the supplies for, but had not had the time to create,yet.  I do use the zippered pencil pouches that fit into 3-ring binder on a jumbo ring for on the go.  These are great for in the car or when we have to go somewhere unexpected. I am going to start childcare for a local Classical Conversation group next week and wanted to switch out our busy bags so Lil’ Red would have something new to explore if he got bored with the kids or the selection of toys.

[Tweet “Need some simple yet educational ways to keep your kids busy? #toddler #preschool”]

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School Room-What does your school room look like?

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We usually start school in the kitchen or on the couch, but if the weather is really nice on the 1st day of school we try to do something outside or go to a nature park or play park or something FUN to kick off the new school year!
I decided taking some pictures would be the best way to show you our space-

Kitchen Table with USA Maps (found at dollar store), ASL/Signing Time printable practice cards and Bible verse copywork, Calendar Connections, 2012 Art Calendar:

Small Table, Calendar, and Lil’ Red’s Workspace:

TOT SCHOOL SHELF for Lil’ Red:
 

I’ll be honest we did not get the desk in our kitchen cleaned off or the desktop computer desk area in Princess’ room so those pics will be left out, lol. We also use a laptop, e-reader, and other portable learning tools.

Our outdoor space looks like this:

Thanks for stopping by and peeking into our homeschool world. As we get more organized and use some of our NEW things and find some OLD things we will post them to share.

Please join my blog email list found on right side bar below Lil’ Red’s pic:)

Calendar Replacement Parts- Works for Me Wednesday

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Okay, if you know me you know that I am a bargain shopper. I went to a huge community garage sale and found this calendar for .50.

 Yes, that’s right a savings of $26.49!  The big kids love it and will help to teach Lil’ Red during Tot School! The only problem is that it is missing some things like: Thursday, Rainy, Sunny, Windy, September, and years 2013+. Realizing it’s August and we are starting school soon made we want to get this calendar complete!

So I set out to make the missing pieces myself. Matching fonts tended to be the trickiest part, but I was successful. I used Word with clip art and text boxes. Text Box instructions over graphics:

1. Select graphic or clip-art. Resize to what you need.

2. Create a text box. Adjust font to Century font size 28. Type in text.

3. Format text box. Select No fill and No outline.

4. Format image with Text Wrapping- Select In Front of Text.

5. Drag text box onto image and adjust to where you want your words to be!

Viola you should have something wonderful like this

Now the fun part of printing the images on a transparency and using it like a rub-on to transfer onto fabric since I’m too cheap to buy fabric that is thin enough to send through my printer:) Will show pics of the next steps of printing, rub-on transfers, and sewing backs with soft velco or thin flannel.

Note: printing in reverse took my over an hour to figure out:( Newer Word and printer drivers do not allow mirror image printing like they used to. I could do it on my laptop within WORKS, but never in WORD.

Here’s how it’s done. You have to create a word art and you can play around with fill/outline/shape to get it to look “normal” and match the calendar. Then under format tab you can flip to create reverse image. I printed on the SHINY side of a transparency and laid on top of fabric (old pair of white pants- see I told you I was cheap frugal!) Rubbed while I held transparency taunt. VIOLA! a pretty decent transfer. Princess helped me and then used a fine tip sharpie to go over the letters to darker them:)

Linking up with Works for Me Wednesday!

What are your MUST HAVE School supplies?

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You know the ones that you MUST buy for your children ‘cause you love them and you want them to have an awesome year! Not required necessarily, but a little something special or extra ‘cause you now they will need it Maybe it is an item on the “school supply” list that really isn’t requested enough of (like glue sticks or report folders) and you ALWAYS run out and have to pay FULL Price (gasp) in the middle of the year.

Does anyone else over stock on school supplies for Christmas stocking stuffer? How about Operation Christmas Child? What about .25 or .50 flipflops on clearance? Those make great items for shoe boxes at Christmas time since lots of countries receiving them are in hot climates.

Our MUST HAVES:

Lots and lots of glue sticks for lapbooks and TOT SCHOOL                                                               Tons of notebooks– spiral or composition                                                                                                   BLANK journals/ Sketch pads– anything you can create comics on                                                  Colored pencils-crayons are NOT allowed in our cars. We prefer twistables!                                                                                                                                               Mechanical pencils– mostly for mom and dad for college                                                                   3-ring binders– never can have enough of these in 1”, 2” or 3”                                                  Index cards– blank or lined                                                                                                                   New socks and underwear-hopefully on sale and with a coupon or special deal!                 New shoes– my oldest has holes in his soles of both pairs he has been wearing all summer long. Now to scour clearance racks to find new ones!                                                                  Foam core board or Science Tri-fold board– just in case we need it for Homeschool Art Display or for stop motion videos or some other creative project. Those guys are way too expensive to buy after sales are over unless one sneaks into a clearance isle somewhere, lol.

What are your must have school supplies? I would love to hear what unusual things your family needs or thinks of?