How I Limit Screen Time - A Free Printable List

I have a daily struggle in my house to balance time on screens with the rest of life. We are a family fond of electronic devices of any kind. My kids do not own phones, but we have tablets and computers and tvs and an iPod. I came across this post about the Momentum Optimization Project by Narrowback Slacker. Yes! This is what I need. I implemented it recently with tears from one kids and enthusiasm from the other. I plan to tweak this as needed, and keep it going year round. I think it will be less important to limit screen time because they will not be asking so early in the day, and hopefully this will help them find other things to do before jumping straight to computer games or tv however screen time will never be truly unlimited. Bedtime is also enforced here, even in the summer although it is generally later than through the school year.

I used the Momentum Optimization Project as a springboard but made it my own. I have two printable versions below. In the second one I took out the two things that are more likely to not apply to other families. 

Just click on the one you want for a larger graphic and right click or (CTRL + click) to save and print.

My kids have certain chores they do every morning and I'm adding on a small one: tidying the main bathroom every day. It's not my mess in there. I've made a list for tidying their rooms and for the new bathroom job loosely based again on the lists Narrowback Slacker posted regarding the Momentum Optimization Project.

Again, just click on the black and white lists below and save or print. I also printed them out on coloured paper just for fun.

I love the idea behind this and I'm hoping it sticks in our house.

What are your requirements for screen time for your kids?

How To Quickly and Easily Clean A Whiteboard!

Our whiteboard has been in use for several years now and it was time to either get it clean or get a new one. See? Before I started to clean it, that bottom part? That's as clean as the whole board would come with the eraser! Terrible.

I went looking online for how to clean it and I read a few sites that had 5 step methods or more obscure cleaners. I don't remember where I saw to use Rubbing Alcohol, and I think it was the 3rd step or the 5th but I decided to try it first. WOW!

It should say on the board when you first buy it "Just wipe clean with a soft, dry rag and Rubbing Alcohol" but it doesn't and no one I asked seemed to know a good method to clean their whiteboards either. 

Give it a try!

Best Kid Friendly YouTube Workouts To Get Your Kids Moving

This year we are going to start our day with some movement to wake us up and get the blood flowing. I also like to use the Wii to get the kids active during the day if it's rainy and cold outside, but we only have a couple games and the kids get tired of them. These videos, and more on their corresponding youtube channels will work well to keep them active after school on winter days. 

There's a lot on Youtube for free, but quite a bit of it is terrible! It's either too hard/not appropriate for kids or it's not done well. After a lot of searching I've come up with a list of workouts and that will hopefully help get your kids moving either before or after school and be fun, engaging and effective.

Lets get started!

These workout videos by BMoreFit are 3-5 minutes long, a great warm up and a lot of fun. Very doable for any age but effective too. There are workouts in different styles with different instructors on this playlist by Zedora.

These two are step aerobics and floor aerobics kids workouts from Jenny Ford and if your kids really enjoy them they could easily move up to her other workouts on her youtube channel like these marching workouts.

Power Girl Fitness is a tween girl and her two cute sidekicks who are very fit and have these videos on youtube. They're fun and energetic and while they are by kids for kids they are at the same time very well done. These workouts range from 10 minutes to 40 minutes in length.

Sweat 16 Beginner's Full Body Workout from Pretty Girls Sweat is a great workout for teen/tween girls. It's 18 mins long. 

And now for some Zumba style dance workouts, this group, REFIT Revolution is awesome! They use a mixture of popular secular and christian hits, and they have way too many videos to share here so I'll just add a 4 minute warm up and one of the dance workouts but if you like them, check out their workout playlists.

and lastly, this dance workout by Paul Eugene is simple and good for young kids. The rest of his videos are, well hilarious. Terribly so. We'll leave it at that, but Ironman enjoyed this one. It's not as hard as the ones above.

In the words of BodyBreak, (do you remember them?) Keep fit and have fun!

The Yummy Science of Baking Cookies

I've often heard how good it is for kids to bake because of the math they need to do but have you ever looked at baking from a scientific point of view? Petunia (so not her real name, you know that by now, right?) made cookies yesterday and this recipe got us wondering about what happens when you cream the butter and sugar, and why it's necessary and then from there we found out a few more new facts about baking cookies. 

Why do we cream the butter and sugar?

The recipe for Chocolate Chip Cookes from Cloud 9 Bakery we used had us cream the butter and sugar and then let it rest 3 times! It really helped to make these gluten free cookies light and fluffy but we wondered why.

The best explanation for what happens that I could find was on Paula Dean's website. She says,

"When butter and sugar are creamed together, the rough sugar crystals cut into the fat, creating air bubbles that are held in by it. These small air bubbles serve as a nuclei for leavening gases and steam. If the fat and sugar is creamed correctly, the entrapped air is more evenly dispersed around the fat leading to more even rising.

It’s important to remember that leaveners simply enlarge the air bubbles that already exist in the batter; they do not create more. A cookie or cake will rise when leaveners, such as baking soda and/or baking powder, are moistened and heated. They release carbon dioxide which gravitate to the air bubbles and expand them like very small balloons."

What else did we learn?

I stumbled on this great little animated video by Stephanie Warren. It's part of a TedEd Lesson. Have you seen that website yet? Great resource for homeschoolers! This lesson

Now take the review here and if you are still hungry for more there are also ways to Dig Deeper. 


Check out more of the You Are What You Eat series on TEDEd.

Happy Baking my scientist friends!

A Learn To Sew Project - A Doll Dress

My oldest daughter is nearly 10 and is learning to sew. I've found it daunting to try to teach her the basics and then find projects that are fun and interesting for her but don't frustrate the heck out of both of us. This little dress worked out well. She was able to make it with minimal help from me.

We followed a Pillowcase Dress with Ribbon Trim for 18" Doll Tutorial by Leigh Laurel Studios. There's a very simple downloadable pattern and the instructions are very clear and easy to follow.

This is definitely something to keep in mind next time we need a birthday gift for a friend.

Teaching Kids To Use Computers - A Good Place To Start

My daughter is in grade 4 and is beginning to do some school assignments on the computer, such as typing out a good copy of a written assignment. She's also beginning to use email. I've decided to make it part of her homeschool day to learn how to properly use the computer and understand how it functions. She's proficient on both Apple and Android devices but other than accessing a few websites and games that are allowed, she doesn't know much about using the computer. 

I want her to be able to run any word processor, save her work and find it again, edit a photo or make a collage either in Photoshop Elements or online somewhere like PicMonkey. Make a powerpoint type presentation for a school project, install and uninstall programs and troubleshoot minor wifi trouble. That sort of thing. We have a Mac that she will be doing most of this on, but we also have a Windows PC that a lot of this will translate to because once you know some you can figure the rest out - or ask Google. :)

To start, I came across this section of BBC Bitesize. If you homeschool and you haven't explored this site, you need to. It's terrific. We've used it mostly for supplementing science. What was I saying? Oh yes, the ICT or Information & Communications Technology section in BBC Bitesize KS3. 

There are five sections under KS3 ICT - Data and information, Software Applications, Multimedia, The history and impact of ICT and Evaluation.

Under each category are lessons with coordinating activities (animated videos in this case) and multiple choice tests.

I was fortunate to learn to run computers early on and I've never been afraid to try to figure out new technology, and when it was difficult to just sit and figure it out, I took courses or read books and as the internet has become more informative, I search it often to see how my latest problems are solved. Printing in black and white on a Mac was a real problem for me when I switched over. Of all the crazy little things. That's an example of a minor thing that way too many people I know simply can't solve without help. They are lacking the basic understanding of how all computers and operating systems and software work.

This is easy to add into the day because it's something my daughter can go off and do on her own. I watch her test results but it doesn't really add anything to my homeschool day at this point. I've found a few more tutorials for the Mac and PicMonkey and will share them as we test them.

10 Fantastic Free Android Apps for Kids

Last January I did a post on iOS Educational Apps, but now that I've crossed over the dark side - er, gone Android, I thought I would do another list. Besides that, a lot changes in a year in regards to apps.

These are our favourites and they are all free!

	Kids Video Player For Youtube
	This is a video player, with child lock,  made for kids and toddlers to watch vidoes on YouTube on your android devices. This app allows you to search video from YouTube using safety mode so inappropriate videos are not returned in search results. You can create a playlist of Kids YouTube videos in the app so that kids can only watch your approved videos on YouTube. UPDATE: Ya, not so good. The child lock you have to insinstall fornit to work is so jot worth the grief and pain it causes me! Scratch this app off the list.
	BrainPop Jr Movie of the Week
	The free BrainPOP Jr. Movie of the Week app delivers a different animated movie every week - plus related quizzes and educational activities. If you’ve already got a BrainPOP Jr. username and password, you can log in and access all BrainPOP Jr. content directly from the app at no additional cost.  Ideal for kids in Kindergarten through grade 3, the BrainPOP Jr. Movie of the Week app spans topics across Science, Social Studies, Reading, Writing, Math, Health, Arts, and Technology.
	AIO Audio Player
	This sweet app lets you listen to free episodes and podcasts from Focus on the Family's "Adventures in Odyssey" Radio Drama. It's very professionally done. You can find out more about Adventures in Odyssey  at http://www.whitsend.org.
	Superbook Bible, Video and Games
	Bring the Bible to life with this videos from the Emmy Nominated animated series, Superbook. There's also games and trivia. There are videos and interactive content embedded in the Bible, and profiles on people, places and artifacts found in the Bible.
	Bible for Kids
	New from You Version is this dandy Bible app for little ones. Interactive adventures and beautiful animations allow kids to explore the big stories of the Bible. It's easy to navigate and the fun facts and interactive animations keep kids engaged and help them remember what they learn.
	Duolingo
	The most fun way to learn Spanish, French, German, Portuguese, Italian, or English. Do quizzes, play games and earn shiny rewards for answering correctly.
	Madagascar Math Ops Free
	The Zoosters, Alex, Marty, Melman and Gloria, are in trouble, and it’s up to the Penguins to save the day! Skipper, Kowalski, Private, and Rico need your help as they embark on a wild mathematical covert operation to free their friends from the enemy agents!  The Penguins will use soda pop powered jetpacks in an aerial assault, in order to bust the Madagascar Zoosters out of their cages!
	10monkeys Multiplication
	This is a great app for practicing multiplication. You need to free the trapped monkeys using your multiplication skills, while mastering the multiplication tables from 2 - 10.
	LEGO® App4+
	For kids age 4-7 or just a playful spirit. Build your own truck (helicopter blades or legs for wheels optional), bring your cargo to its right destination, and collect coins to earn more parts.
	Stickman Soccer
	Fast paced action, smooth animations and simple controls make this soccer game a winner. Choose your favorite national soccer team from more than 32 different skilled teams and lead them to victory.

Experimenting with Invisible Ink

The kids and I tested 3 kinds of invisible ink today. Two of them were abysmal failures and one worked pretty well. In any case it was fun. Which of the above three ingredients do you think was the winner?

1. LEMON JUICE

Squeeze the juice from a couple lemons into a small bowl. Apply with a toothpick or small paintbrush. Let dry. Use heat to reveal message.

Note to self: use real lemons next time! That might work, but the lemon juice didn't really. It stained the paper right away, and didn't really change colour with heat applied. I'm not too sure how detailed a picture was on these two pages anyways. The lemon juice is very watery so I think it was hard for them to control where it went on the page, even with a small paintbrush.

2.  CORNSTARCH

Cook 2 TBSP cornstarch and 4 TBSP water in a small pot until it makes a gravy. Do not overcook. Let dry. Apply with a toothpick or small paintbrush. Let dry. Use a mixture of 1 part iodine to 10 parts water to reveal message.

It took more water than that before it could be mixed for me and it still wasn't 'gravy', and the results weren't stellar. Our iodine mixture may have been to blame but since it didn't work at all, I can't say what the problem was. The colour on the pages is just them painting on the iodine after.

Are you ready for the one that DID work now?

TA DA! This one you should try!

3. BAKING SODA

Mix equal parts baking soda and water. Stir vigorously, and apply with a toothpick or small paintbrush. Let dry. Use heat to reveal message.

The baking soda ink was also the most invisible once applied.

Here's an article on how invisible ink works.

10 Online (+ App) Homeschool Lesson Planners

I've used a lesson planner, and then not, and now I want to again because I like to know if we are where we need to be, and have an idea when our year is going to end. Not that we finish everything all the time, but it's nice to know we're on track at Christmas. It's also nice to be able to generate reports for our support teacher.  So, I've been researching online and app lesson planners. There seems to be quite a few more than when I last looked three years ago.

I will start with the ones I've tried out first and then list a few more options afterwards. Some of them are even either entirely free or free to try!

The OLLY homeschool app is available for Mac and the iPad. This is the planner I decided to go with because of a couple key features: the ablility to generate lesson plans without having to type in every lesson for every resource in every course, and being able to 'bump' a lesson ahead to the next day and have the rest of the lessons in that lesson plan follow suit. They even automatically skip holidays that you've already created. 

It's a new app, so there are a few things to work out but there's a great forum and support gets back to you quickly with an answer to your question or problem. It's $40, and there is a free one month trial available from their website.

See a video overview of the OLLY app here

Homeschool Minder is an online lesson planner and record keeper. I really like the look of this one. It's clean and simple, but really nice. My favourite as far as design so far. I also really like some of their features, like the book list, for example. Their reports look fantastic, and this program is online instead of being confined to the computer or device you install them on. 

The two big problems I had with them was not really being able to generate multiple lesson plans (instead of typing in each and every lesson) and only being able to bump one lesson ahead, instead of the whole rest of the course going forward one day if we miss say, Math, one day. Generating lessons should get easier in the next month and bumping calendar events ahead should be available by next year. They are also reasonably priced at $4.99/mo or $39.99/yr. I guess the one disadvantage of being online is that you do have to pay every year instead of just buying it outright.

I used Homeschool Skedtrack a few years ago and it worked pretty well for me. This one is FREE as well. I found it a little tricky to learn but once you get the hang of entering things it can go quite quickly as you can copy one assignment multiple times and just change some of the text very easily. There are helpful video tutorials available to help you get started. This is still the one I would have used this year if I hadn't found the OLLY app. 

My Mardel Homeschool is the online version of the very popular paper based A Simple Plan homeschool lesson planners. It's FREE, which is nice. I couldn't find any screenshots, youtube videos, or much of anything about it but since it's free I signed up to try it out. It looks fine, but just a bit awkward for entering assignments. I think it would work well if you were wanting to enter lesson plans and assignments at the beginning of each week instead of all at once at the beginning of the year. It's still in beta, so I'm sure there will be improvements made for a while to come. 

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Those are the ones I've personally tried. These next ones I have not.

HSTOnline stands for Homeschool Tracker Online. I have played around with the basic free downloadable Homeschool Tracker and I did not like it. I wasn't impressed at all, it seemed old and outdated. However, when I watched the video demo of HSTOnline, I thought it definitely would merit another look. Especially when I saw the part about adding multiple assignments. (Can you see my obsession with this yet?) It's a bit pricier, at $60/yr.

Homeschool Planet from the Homeschool Buyers Co-op is touted as being more of a whole family planner, with more than just homeschool in mind. It also does lesson planning, but it's a big all in one for your family. Keep up to date with email or text reminders. More than I need. It's $65/yr. You can read this informative review from examiner.com or watch the video demo. I'd love to know what you think of it if you've tried it.

Scholaric is another online option. I really don't know much about it, but here is a video on creating lessons. It's $65/yr.

The Homeschool Helper App is available for a variety of tablets. It's only $4.99, and looks pretty slick. It has a fun, planner book interface and looks easy to use. I wonder about entering very much data on a tablet, but it might be ok. It would be great if you wanted to keep track of attendance, field trips, etc but not necessarily daily assignments.

View the trailer.

There are two more FREE online planners, Lesson Minder and PER from Homeschool Inc, but I really don't know anything about them. I just know they exist. 

What do you use? Do you prefer a paper planner or an online planner? 

If you know of any others, please leave a link in the comments. :)