For the Kids Friday #9

So.... I'm trying to pack for our first trip to China.  We are leaving in the middle of the night to drive for 12 hours to Gramma and Papa's house so the kids can spend time with them while we are exploring our soon-to-be home.  Instead of getting ready for this trip, we've spent this last week getting our house ready to put up for sale.  Needless to say, this week has been insanely busy!

Because of that, I haven't been the best host.  I didn't have a chance to check out each link from last week, and I feel bad about that.  I did go through and select my top picks for the week.  Thanks again for all of you who come to link up each week!  I just LOVE seeing what you all are doing, and it is a great place for inspiration!  You are all amazing!!!

Here are my picks for this week... Wow!  What awesome ideas!

Featured below?

If so... grab this button to share on your blog!

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Manfred Tooth Pillow Patternat Just Another Hang Up

Fabric Mâché Bowlat Red Tag Art

Sunny Cupcakeat It's Sew For You

Eggs - Full of Soundat Sweet & Simple Things

Glue Batik Easter Fabricat Come Together Kids

Fairy Villageat Bristling Acres



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1)  I would LOVE for you to first be a follower of my blog.  (And why wouldn't you want to be?!)

2)  Grab my For the Kids Fridays Button and place it somewhere on your blog.  Be sure to link back to me!

3)  Link up as many KID-RELATED activities, games, recipes, parties, gifts, clothing you've created, crafts, traditions, lessons, and so on... that you would like to share.  Please add a different link each week.  They can be old or new... this is just a place to share ideas for our kids to enjoy.  Bonus points to those that serve some educational purpose too!  Link must be to the specific post, and not your general blog page.  Please don't link to your store.

4)  Share the love and comment on at least one other link.  Everyone loves to get feedback.

That's it!  Have fun, and thanks so much for participating!

Special Offer - Now Closed

This special offer has expired...

but, you are still able to purchase my program!

Make summer vacation fun and educational!

I've done all the work for you, creating a program that even the busiest parent or caregiver can fit into their schedule.

Want to learn more about my program?

Click HERE

Want to check it out before you buy?

Click HERE

Thanks for helping me celebrate today!

Big Sister, Big Brother, Little Sister Shirts

Easter is now behind us, and Mother's Day will be here before you know it!

Because my life is getting crazier by the day, I thought I would share one of my favorite projects from a while back.

Aren't they sweet?  Where does the time go?!!

In honor of Mother's Day...

These are the shirts that my daughter and I made for the birth of my youngest daughter, Tatum.

and the back...

Charlotte, my oldest, has loved to draw since she was very young.

For these shirts, I had her draw me a picture (on paper) of her, her brother, and her new baby sister.  She was just about 4 years old at the time... so her drawings were very simple, but so cute.

I then went over her lines with a black Sharpie.

I printed in large, bold print, the words "big sister", "big brother", and "little sister" on another piece of paper.

Then, using a window with some good sun shining through, I placed the drawing underneath the front of the shirt where I wanted it, held it to the light, and traced it onto the shirt.  I did the same for the lettering.

I then went over my traced lines with fabric markers.

They made great shirts for this special day...

 Too bad you can't see the shirts here.  But they were wearing them with pride.  :)

They make a special keepsake as well.

One of my favorites...

Linking up at: TCB, and THESE other awesome link parties!

Happy Easter - Egg Decorating

Happy Easter Everyone!

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend with your families!

I thought I would share with you the Easter Eggs we decorated this year.

I can't wait to see where the bunny hides them tomorrow!

We thought it would be fun to dye our eggs with Kool-Aid.

So we chose four different flavors, added the packets to a small bowl with water and some vinegar, and stirred.

Of course... we had to make a bit of a mess, right?

Then we started to dip our eggs (we used blown eggs... I love to save a bunch each year).

We found that of the four we chose, the Black Cherry (red) and Wild Berry (blue) worked the best.

They love this!

And here is our tray full of colored eggs.

But we wanted to do more....

So we placed a few in a colander on top of a bowl, and dropped a couple drops of food coloring on top.

Swirled around a bit, then transfered to the rack to dry.

Then our eggs looked like this.

ok... so that still wasn't enough for us...

So I used some Modge Podge and some colored, fine glitter, and created this!

So now we have a very pretty, colorful collection of eggs.

I love them!

And even better.. the kids do too!

Happy Easter!

For the Kids Friday #8

Ok... I was going to start off our party this week with the Sun Scholar Summer Program winners, but that was proving to be WAY longer of a post then I thought it should be.  If you missed the post, you can find it HERE.

With that aside... thank you all for another awesome week of awesome ideas for the kids in your life.  I absolutely LOVE seeing what you are up to.  Here are some of my favorites from last week.  But, I do have to say, I think you all ROCK!  :)  I'm just tickled to have you here.

Featured below?

If so... grab this button to share on your blog!

<center><a href="http://sunscholars.blogspot.com/"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWSEyWzK838dQIm7cg1x-bHmGnXnIT72BusUV_zUMtuLvYeufSo9xz_mws-PfELuJfS34umP3eBj8ppQXVM3jTzxmr1TZKHjYBoS1S4NYTSyP_ewoovJVa9aVhCac4XRL2yO9TBgOTeBSy/s150/apple-5.jpg"/></a></center>

Scrabble Activities

at Fryman Four

Egg Shaped Lanterns

at Chocolate Muffin Tree

I Know An Old Teacher Book Prompts & Printable

at My Shae Noel

Stained Glass Easter Egg Placemat

at Addicted to Tutes

What If Matchboxes

at Inspiration Surrounds Creativity Abounds

And now time to party!!!

<center><a href="http://sunscholars.blogspot.com/"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwVPR1jPujlHhbK75qo3avncQ_EjrLpGoiURDGw4Qgf-s1194bXE3C8bk17IAsl4wbMDUBaiVsYqdSvTXp9NjiTtSDaj1t3CFqRGEGOvI-Wy6bod8BDyC45XEIgGuauuL5jRnnEvAA_Cww/s250/apple-1.jpg"/></a></center>

1)  I would LOVE for you to first be a follower of my blog.  (And why wouldn't you want to be?!)

2)  Grab my For the Kids Fridays Button and place it somewhere on your blog.  Be sure to link back to me!

3)  Link up as many KID-RELATED activities, games, recipes, parties, gifts, clothing you've created, crafts, traditions, lessons, and so on... that you would like to share.  Please add a different link each week.  They can be old or new... this is just a place to share ideas for our kids to enjoy.  Bonus points to those that serve some educational purpose too!  Link must be to the specific post, and not your general blog page.  Please don't link to your store.

4)  Share the love and comment on at least one other link.  Everyone loves to get feedback.

That's it!  Have fun, and thanks so much for participating!

Summer Program Winners

I have some winners to announce!!

Boy, has this been hard!  I have had to read and re-read all of your notes trying to narrow it down to just four of you.  Not an easy task, and I have to admit, I really feel bad leaving anyone out.  This program is so special to me, and I really want to share it with everyone!

So I first was going to select 3... then thought 4 would be better.  As hard as I tried, I couldn't narrow it down to less than five... ha ha 

So here you have it...

The FIVE winners of the Sun Scholars Summer Program!

in no particular order

#1 Heather Johnson said...

Hi Rachel,

We would love to try the Sun Scholars Program with our children. I know we would be a great fit. 

A little about us. I am the mother to 3 children (our son who is 9, and two girls, ages 6, and 2.5) We also have another little girl on the way.

I am also a professor at Brigham Young University where I teach Family Psychology. I help students understand how to have stronger families and be dedicated parents.

I have fun writing my blog, http://familyvolley.blogspot.com. Where I answer readers questions about parenting, families, marriage, etc. Anything goes. And have an opportunity to share all that I teach and believe in.

With kids at all different ages, our family could offer great insight into the benefits of the program for different ages, and different genders. 

It would be great to highlight our adventures with the Sun Scholars program on Family Volley each week also. I have wonderful faithful readers that are always looking for ways to teach, enlighten and uplift their children's learning. 

I hope we can work together. Thank you for the great opportunity.

Heather Johnson

blog.familyvolley@gmail.com

#2 Mitchell Family said...

I love your blog. We've tried lots of the fun projects you post. My kiddos and I would love to be a part of your summer program. I am a mom of 2 sets of twins: 7 year old (boy & girl)and soon to be 3 year old boys.

My 7 year olds are just finishing 1st grade, are at the top of their class and love to learn, read, craft, play, etc. I have been teaching my little ones at home and they are doing great!!

While I LOVE having my kids home during the summer, I dread the loss of knowledge and skills that comes with it. I plan fun learning activities for the summer but I love the versatility and adaptability of your program.
I try to keep our learning activities FUN, so the kids look forward to them and keep that love of learning. Your program seems like a perfect fit. I love the mix of reading, crafts, math, excercise, and more. You fit it all together so well. And it so easily fits kids of all ages.

I've read the other comments and can't imagine how hard it will be to pick just three. We would love to be one of your pilot families and hope to enjoy this program with you! Thanks for all your fun ideas & projects.

The Mitchell Family

#3 melismama said...

Hi Rachel,

I am so happy you are offering this to the world. We need more like YOU! I think we would be a great family to try it out...As you know we are homeschoolers (Joys of Home Educating) and we school year round. I was looking for something to take us thru our Summer weeks where we are a little lighter on school, but something that incorporated different subjects into 1 topic. This sounds exactly what we are looking for!

If you are familiar with our blog, you know I am always taking pictures, posting sometimes 3 times a day as to what we are doing. I have a 6 1/2 yr old, a 4 yr old and a 2 yr old at home that are all homeschooled. From reading your program it seems that there would be something for everyone tucked in there! What a relief off my plate if we were to get this program...seems you have done all the leg work for us!

I have your button on my side bar since the 1st time I saw your blog...love your crafts! I link back to you also (see blog post from today even...lol)

Either way, if it's God's will it will happen! Peace to your night and YOU ROCK!

Melissa
http://just-starting-out.blogspot.com/

#4 d8196d96-434e-11e0-9f48-000bcdca4d7a said...

I would love to be able to use this wonderful Sun Scholar Summer program! I will be taking care of my two school-aged grandchildren this summer as my daughter is finishing her Education courses this summer in preparation for student teaching next fall. And her husband was just deployed to Iraq with a Reserve Unit out of Kansas. My grandson is in third and has been having concentration issues this year(I think having his father gone is a major disruption for him) and this program would bring fun back into learning and give him a jumpstart on next year! And my granddaughter will be entering Kindergarten next fall. Not only giving her a step up from preschool, this program would help the transition by giving her more confidence. I think mastering skills builds that confidence for all children. They have twin one-year-old brother and sister and since I will only have the older two, it will be our time..a big kid, fun summer of reading and learning!
I appreciate just the chance to win!
Thanks, Julie

#5 Emily said...

I would love to be a part of your program, the sample week is awesome. We're going to try it out next week, my kids are going to be trilled. I'm a stay at home mom with a handful of kids that love learning. Their ages are 8, 5,4,2, and a 6 month old, (The two youngest just like to be where the others are.) My oldest is in second grade and wants to know everything. She loves to do homework, unfortunately for her she finishes most of it at school. So she spends her “homework” time teaching my son what she has learned in school that day. My son will be going into kindergarten this fall. He loves to learn and is just soaking up what I or my daughter teaches him. He is reading and loves to do math games, what a blessing my daughter is. My four year old is trying to do what his brother does and be different at the same time. I'm so impressed with my kids but I feel very overwhelmed trying to teach them.

I love your sample week because of all the activities and things for the kids to learn. We have a “School Time” where I sit with the kids and do activities I find from the computer or workbooks from the store. I really like your sample week for the actual lesson plans (what a good idea!) and because it's stuff I have around the house plus the kids will be so excited to do something different. I love my kids and I know they would love your summer program. So Please Pick Me!! Please!

Congratulations to a you all!

And a huge thank you to you all for participating in my first give-away!

If your post is shared above, please contact me via e-mail with your e-mail address so that I know where to send the Summer Program Packet.  I am SO excited to work with you all, and more excited to share in the fun with your kids!

YEAH!!!!

Mother's Day Gift Inspirations

Sooooo... I know we haven't even made it past Easter here, but I'm already planning for the next holiday!  My girl scout troop is meeting next week and we will be making our moms something special for Mother's Day.  I'm on the hunt for a fun, fairly easy, and inexpensive project for my girls.  Of course, we want mom to LOVE it, right?

Here are the ideas I've collected.

Got something great to add?  Let me know!  I'm always happy to add to my Inspirations!!

Lemon Sugar Hand Scrub

at Ozona

Artwork Candles

at Come Together Kids

Fabric Flower Bracelet

at Jewell Box Ballerina

Homemade Bath Salts

at Celtic Mommy

Flowers for Mother's Day

(flower pens)

at Charlotte's Fancy

Rice Heat Therapy Bag

at Sew, Mama, Sew!

Mother's Day Newspaper

at Martha Stewart

Mother's Day Tote Bag

at Martha Stewart

Mom's Day Cookie Jar

at I am Baker

Mother's Day Bath Tea

at Soap Queen

Willy Nilly Bracelet

at Flamingo Toes

Recycled Spoon Garden Markers

at Domestic Simplicity

Tender Tea Tags

at Musing with Kim K.

I think I've got a pretty good collection here.

Now to narrow it down!