Staggering Bed Times works for me.

With 4 kids bedtime just became a big chaotic time for us.  A few months ago we started staggering bedtimes.  (Along with wake up times).   They go to bed oldest to youngest.

At first, Tommy, my oldest thought this was totally unfair.  Now he loves it.  He starts his bedtime stuff about 7:30 pm.  He is in bed by 8. He reads for a while and is normally asleep between 8:30 and 9pm.  He gets up in the  mornings around 6 am.

Emily is just a half an hour behind him.  She starts her bedtime stuff at 8pm, in bed by 8:30 and is usually asleep by 9.  She gets up about 7 am.

Katey gets in her pajamas at the same time as Emily.  She gets to come downstairs and read with me and Tyler for a while.  I usually send her up to bed to do her bedtime stuff at 8:30pm.  She is in bed by 8:45pm and usually asleep about 9.  She gets up about 8 am.

Tyler, however is my little night owl.  He stays up and hangs out with me until about 9 or sometimes 9:30pm.  He usually sleeps in until about 8:30 or 8:45 am. 

Why this works for me: 
I get alone time with each child in the morning or in the night, sometimes both. 
All the kids shower in the morning so we don’t throw that in at night. 
There is no fighting over the bathroom.  Everyone has their assigned time, same as in the morning. 
It also goes along with my children’s personalities.  Tommy has always been an early bird. 
I know that this makes our bedtime last for hours, but it is just so much calmer during bedtime.  It’s no longer a fight to see how fast I can get them all in bed. 

This is linked up to WFMW over at We Are That Family.

Bright Ideas Press~ Wonder Maps

 

 

Bright Ideas Press has a brand new product out called Wonder Maps.  Here is a video that shows you just how amazing this program is.

 

Summary of Product

Wonder Maps is a software program that you view in PDF files.  You will need Adobe Reader 9.1 which is free in order to use this software. 

You begin by choosing the type of maps you want.  Your choices are:

• The World Continents Regions Nations
• United States of America
• Historical Maps
• Thematic Maps  (some themes to choose from are American History, Native Americans, Biblical Maps, World Wars and more)  They also go along with Mystery of History or All American History Curriculum. 

Then you choose the map you would like

Then you choose to take away any layers such as

• capitals
• county names
• borders
• colors
• cities/towns
• graticules (latitude and longitude lines)
• terrain

 

These maps can be as detailed as you want or as simple.  

 

My thoughts:

Tommy is learning the European Countries and Capitals right now.  We were very excited to be able to use this.  I could print off a detailed map to teach, and then he could practice on a super simplified map of just the borders, writing in each country and capital.  

 

Honestly this is his first time with an actual geography curriculum.  I have always taught geography along with history.  I used the simple black line maps that came along with it.  That is one of the great things about this program.  The maps can be used alone or with any curriculum requiring you to use any geography.  For our history, I was able to use the simplest map for Katey and the more detailed maps for Tommy and Emily. 

 

While this program is great it is in it’s first release, so there have been some minor mistakes.   I would think that over time they will release updates whereas those will be fixed. 

 

 

My children’s thoughts:

Tommy loved this.  He is very into geography.  The program is so easy to operate, that he even had fun operating it. 

Cost $49.95 for either just the download, or you can get a download along with a cd version.

 

Bright Ideas Press is known for many homeschool resources including science, history, art, and more.  And we can’t forget Illuminations.  An all encompassing curriculum using History as it’s core.  (Which honestly is my favorite way to teach)

 

Check out the Bright Ideas Press website.

Toll-free at 877.492.8081.  Office hours are Monday—Friday. 8:30—5:00 EST.

By email: direct general inquiries to Contact (at) BrightIdeasPress.com.

By post: Bright Ideas Press PO Box 333 Cheswold, DE 19936

 

 

Others reviewed this as well check out this post to see what they had to say.

I am blessed to review many products for TOS Crew this product was one of those. 

 

{I have not or will not receive any compensation for this review.  All opinions expressed herein are my own and your experience may differ.}

Kindergarten workout

Katey loves this album from iTunes.  Mark D Pencil, Learning with Hip Hop. 

We listen to it almost daily.  It has a days of the week song, months of the year, counting, alphabet, vowels, a clean up song and our favorite, some exercise songs. 


I took some pictures of her today while listening to one of the exercise songs.  



It has her crawling, skipping, galloping, walking and more.  There is even a cool down at the end. 

It’s a great way to get the wiggles out!

Sometimes Homemade is better

I know I don’t normally post stuff like this but these recipes are just to good to share. 

First off, we love pancakes and French toast!  We go through syrup like no other.  Now I  do use coupons and can find some really amazing deals on syrup.  But none, NONE, taste this good!  I just reuse a syrup bottle that I had on hand. 


So here is the recipe. 
1 cup white sugar
1 cup brown sugar
4 cups starchy water (can be potato water, pasta water, this makes the syrup thicken)
1/2 tsp vanilla
a few shakes of cinnamon


Boil and melt sugar together, stir it up. 

Let it cool and put in container.   
Enjoy.
This syrup is so flavorful and you may never go back to buying syrup again!   I figure that one bottle costs about 10-25 cents. 


The next thing I make is laundry soap,  Yes that’s right I make my own laundry soap.  I have for quite some time.  I only need to make a new batch about once every 3 months.  It only takes about 15 minutes total.  I honestly feel like it works better and my daughter with sensitive skin doesn’t have any reactions.

I use the recipe from Tip Junkie.
I noticed that the texture of the soap depends on how hard your water is.  Before we moved here, our water was hard, and it had more of a chunky texture.  Now our water is much softer and it has a texture more of what you would find in a store bought soap. 
I only use Ivory Soap. 

Crafts for older kids.

When we moved one of Emily’s friends gave her a very cute flower hair clip, made out of Duck Tape. 

I have finally got around to researching some projects. 

On the Duck Tape website there is a whole bunch of Ducktivities to choose from. 
 
Emily chose to do a rose.  It was a fairly easy project. 

Tommy made a wallet.

Here they are with their finished projects.

Emily attached her flower to a pencil. 

Tommy and his wallet.  (He is also doing my favorite thing with the tape, just kidding)

Katey lost her first……..

 

Tooth!

 

We were playing a card game, about a week ago, I noticed what I thought looked like a loose tooth, so I asked her about it and it was loose. She started crying, she said they were tears of happiness.

 

Ever since then she has been checking it every day.  On Saturday we had corn on the cob – her favorite food, and she couldn’t eat it, she said it hurt to bad. 

 

There was leftover corn on the cob in the fridge and Katey just couldn’t take it anymore.  She asked me to heat her up a piece. I did.  She ate it and then asked for another, she got it.  A few minutes later she came to me and said I think something is stuck in it.  I said lets go floss it, and it came out as I was flossing it.  

She started crying again tears of joy!  She called Daddy to tell him all about it.  She woke up Tommy who had been in bed for about an hour to tell him.  She told Emily who was up reading.  She asked me to take her to the park the next day to show all her friends. 

 

She told us she thinks the Tooth Fairy will bring her $2000 for it. 

 

Let me just say- I hope she does!  If that happens I will be crying tears of joy. 

Top Ten ways to get to know your kids.

 

Here we go!  It’s Tuesday what better day to give my (writing) hand a try at this. 

 

 

Top ten ways to get to know your kids.

 

1-  Play a game with them.  Tag, Basketball, Catch, Hide and Seek, Checkers, Chess, or even Video games. 

 

2- Read a book with them.  Let them pick a book then you pick the next one.  If your kids are older, you can both read the same book individually and have a mini book club discussion as you read it.

 

3- Take them out on dates.  I like to do one on one dates to help us connect.  You can take them out to dinner, take them to a park, get spa treatments, test drive a truck (that can get expensive, if you know what I mean), go to a museum, or shopping, you can even just take a walk.

{Here are the kids getting ready to wrestle Paul, (little did he know).  What a way to wake up from a Sunday afternoon nap.  LOL.}

4- Coach or volunteer to help in their activities.

 

5- Just talk to them, ask them specific questions often.   Let them know you are proud of them.  Talk to them about specific things you are proud of.

6- Cook together, let them help with the planning, shopping, preparing and clean up of a meal.  Enjoy your time together.

 

7- I like to have a special “thing” with each kid.  I don’t know how to explain it other than with what we do.  With Tommy- We coupon shop together.  I match the ads, he cuts the coupons, he always goes with me.  With Emily- We play Words With Friends with each other all the time.  With Katey- We play card games together.  Right now her favorite is war. With Tyler- He gets to stay up later than all the other kids, on purpose, so I get special alone time with him (and so he will sleep in, causing our mornings to go smoother).

{Just family bubble blowing time in the back yard.}

8- Take a family road trip – plan it together- hold scheduled family meetings to plan and discuss.  We don’t hold anything back, we discuss everything from when to where to budgeting. 

9- Leave notes for your children.  They can be as simple as “Have a great day!” or a complex clue hunt that ends with a cookie or a hug.

 

10- Do something that neither of you have ever done before, together for the first time.  It can be going somewhere new or maybe even rock climbing or skydiving.

{Family hike}

 

I enjoy finding new ways to reconnect with my children.  I love to spend time with them as a family and individually as well. 

 

This is my top ten list!  Check out more at Oh Amanda.