Tuesday, June 19, 2012

Canada Day Word Search

As many of you know, my husband is Canadian and we try to celebrate Canada Day no matter where we live. It's a fun little family tradition we have and it helps our children to learn about their heritage. Click on the picture below to be taken to my other website (Mixminder) where you can download this Free Canada Day word search. Also, make sure you check out my TPT store for more great French, Spanish, Math and Writing lessons!

Monday, June 18, 2012

Free French Color by Number Worksheet

Ahhhh, finally the birds are singing here in the Normandy region of France. I had no idea how cold and rainy this area would be when we first moved here. It's amazing that we've been in France for 1 year and 5 months. Time flies when you are busy eating pastries! We've been in Normandy for about 9 months now. Only 2.5 more weeks of school and then we get 2 months vacation. I'm going to try to find my children some good activities to do in the summer so that they don't lose their French. They've come so far and their French is so great that I don't want them to have to play catch up in September. That has to be stressful for them. Luckily they will be running to the same small school that they are attending now.
I created a fun French color by Number Freebie and put it up at my other website. Just click the picture below to be taken to that site to download the freebie! Enjoy!

Friday, June 15, 2012

Are you looking for ways to grow your blog?

Have you thought about starting a teaching blog or a homeschool blog? Or do you already have one but you feel like no one is reading what you are spending a lot of time on? Check out a post that my husband wrote at our other website.
This article will give you five tips to gain a nice following to your blog. I know a lot of people are caught up with how many people follow their blog and how many people 'like' their FB page, but I think if you focus on content, and put out great content, eventually you'll be found!

Thursday, June 14, 2012

Mini-Reader Freebie from Teach 123

I found another great freebie from a friend of mine at Teach 123. It's a really cute activity that my daughter loved doing! It's a cute little booklet that you can download by going to Teach123. My daughter got to practice some English grammar (which I'm always interested in doing with her since she doesn't learn it in school here France). And the best part for my daughter was the fact that she got to make her own illustrations for her book. Another idea you can do with this booklet is to have your children read the booklet outloud to you while you videotape them. My daughter really loves it if I videotape her. She wants to watch herself over and over again. And since we're in France, I plan on videotaping her and putting it on YouTube so we can stay better connected with our relatives in the United States. She likes being on YouTube! And if you are worried about YouTube, there are settings where you can set it to private. I hope you enjoy the freebie! Also check out Teach123's website for more freebies and great teaching posts!
Teach 123
P.S. I would've shown you pictures of my daughter doing the activity, but she wasn't ready for her work to be captured on film today. She wanted her drawings to be just right! The joy of a 6 year old, sometimes she wants her picture taken and other times she refuses! Now I'm off to find more great freebies!!!

Wednesday, June 13, 2012

Free Graphic Organizer Packet - Focus on Writing

As many of you know, I used to homeschool my children until we moved to France. However, since the French school system has soooooo many days off and I don't want my children to lose their English skills, I still homeschool them on Wednesdays of every week when we don't have school and during their many 2 week holidays throughout the school year. I'm constantly trying to find great freebies that I can use with them to help them learn skills that they don't learn in school here, but things that I know they will need to know when we move back to the USA. I found this great freebie by Best Practices 4 Teaching. You can download the freebie at TeachersPayTeachers by clicking here. Since writing style is so different in France (in fact so many things besides writing are so different), this packet really helped my son gather his thoughts together when he was ready to write. Be sure to check out Best Practices 4 Teaching for more great freebies and blog posts!
Best Practices 4 Teaching

Tuesday, June 12, 2012

HoJo's Magic Squares

The other evening, my daughter was bored to tears and I was running out of ideas of games for her to play. There were about 45 minutes until bedtime and I needed to fill them with something so that I could finish up my work. I stumbled upon this great game - Math Magic Square Freebie - adding with 0 to 12. I printed it out hoping that it would be fun for my daughter and it far exceeded my expectations. My daughter absolutely loved playing this game. Then, my son came over and he wanted to join in the fun, so I found some that were more advanced for him. My children love puzzles and they love games, so this really combines the two nicely while reviewing math skills with some sets and language arts skills with other sets. As you can see by the pictures below, my kids were really into it! You can check Hojo's blog by going here to see other great ideas she has for kids:
HoJo's Teaching Adventures

Sunday, June 3, 2012

Summer in French

Hi everyone! I just released Summer in French onto TPT and on TN. Summer in French is a booklet that focuses on the names of different summer items in French like swimsuit, sun, swimming pool, etc. Included: 12 full color pages of summer vocabulary with a pronunciation guide for your students 3 worksheets to reinforce the names of spring items 6 copywork pages (manuscript and cursive) 1 bingo game with 33 unique cards 1 matching game 1 completion certificate All artwork is original and created by myself. I also created this booklet for Spanish too! So make sure to check that one out here. I hope everyone has a great summer!