Teachers Pay Teachers is one of my absolutely favorite places to find creative printables to go along with our homeschool! Whether it's a holiday-themed activity or something to complement a book study, I always jump on there if I need an additional resource. 

Do you have a little detective in the house? My son dreams of being a spy or detective when he grows up! He's always asking for a new spy costume or spy gear. In fact, you can often find him sporting a fake mustache or holding a little notepad in which he's taking notes on. He even loved when Encyclopedia Brown was our read aloud, etc. You can only imagine the excitement he had when we took him to the Spy Museum in DC! 

Well, with Caleb being my detective-loving son, I brought out an old set of printables that I had made years ago for a co-op class I was teaching and it was the perfect fit! 

I had originally made this as a fun way for my students to work on their grammar skills that we had just reviewed. Talk about the perfect match for my son, ha! His obsession with being a detective/spy made this activity exciting for him -- way more than his typical workbook assignment!

And because I love going down memory lane, here's a photo of my oldest working on this same activity way back when I taught in that co-op. Ahhh...it seems like just yesterday!

If this sounds like something your kids might enjoy, be sure to click here...

Four years ago, while sitting in a hotel after a long day of exploring Yellowstone National Park, I received a call from my sister back in Indiana asking if I could make her a printable for her first day as a preschool teacher. Happy to do so, I sat there while my boys chilled in front of the hotel TV and created her this printable -- not thinking about anything more it than it benefiting my sister and her new class...

Fast forward to now and this little printable is the best selling printable I've ever made! Funny how things happen like that! Over time, this has also led to me making other handprint craft printables for various holidays, etc. If my boys were still little, you'd better believe I'd be doing these with them -- I miss seeing those sweet little hands! 

I receive comments all the time about how much the parents love receiving these crafts as gifts -- I was the same way when my boys were little! Give me a thumbprint piece of art, a hand, a foot...you name it. Anything to document their size at that time and I was in love! I mean...now I look at my oldest and he's on the verge of wearing clothes from the Men's section! (insert tears)

If you're like me -- a sentimental momma with kids that are growing up WAY too fast -- grab this or make one that fits your needs. You won't regret it when they start to have hands the same size as you and you begin to miss those days of having little ones. It's super fun watching my boys grow up and see the little men they're becoming, but the days when they were little sure were fun! I love that I have various crafts to remember them by!

So I don't know about you, but we go through a LOT of bookmarks. I don't know what it is, but my boys just destroy them. They don't mean to, but it happens. That, or they lose them. Either way, they're always looking for a bookmark, ha. 

So as I've been sitting here updating a couple old printables, I decided to make them some fun, Minecraft-themed bookmarks. Sure enough, the boys love them! If you have a Minecraft fan, they may be a fun addition to your school supply list this fall. I just print and laminate them and they're ready to go!

I don't know about you, but I love documenting little things about my boys at each stage. I love getting those Mother's Day questionnaires with their sweet thoughts, and I especially love seeing their thoughts when each new school year comes around!

Since I'm always randomly searching for a new one each year, I decided to just make one this year. If this is something you might enjoy, be sure to click on the image below!

I'll try to upload an image soon of the sweet thoughts my boys wrote down... ;)

To some, it may seem crazy, but after 2 months off, we are now back into the swing of things with our new school year! I've heard of so many homeschoolers that love the 6 weeks on - 1 week off schedule that we decided we're going to give it a try. Surprisingly, the boys were in pretty good spirits about starting school in the beginning of July -- I suppose the idea of constant 1 week breaks helped with that, ha! We're now done with our 1st week and things are going great! There has been very little resistance and thanks to some of our curriculum choices, the boys have actually requested to do extra at times -- total win!

So...I don't think I've mentioned it yet, but in addition to homeschooling my own children this year, I also added on the job of teaching others as well. I'm helping teach the 1st and 2nd graders at the weekly class my son has been going to for the last 2 years. It wasn't something I had originally planned to do, but I'm glad it worked out! With this new job, I will most likely start creating printables to go along with our lessons in class. With that being said, I wanted to share one that we used during our first week in class!

Our goal is to complete an experiment in class every week. What better way to learn about science than to get your hands dirty and play?!

For our first week in class, we covered the Water Cycle. We watched a video (see below), sang the song together (lyrics are linked below), and completed an experiment that helps kids see how it works.

So, as you may have noticed, it's been a little quiet around here...

I've started several blog posts, but I (sadly) haven't had a chance to finish any of them lately. We've been in school a month now and things have been unexpectedly hectic! Gosh, I can't believe it's been a month already! Well, while we've been busy trying to get back into the groove of things, something unexpected happened. I was offered a teaching position at the weekly homeschool class my son's been attending for the last two years. I'm not sure what you'd call it. I don't think you technically call it a co-op since we drop the students off? Whatever you want to call it, my son has been going one day a week for science and social studies/language arts since kinder. He LOVES it! It adds a fun/hands-on day to the mix while still doing our curriculum at home.

So with this said class, apparently the Grade 1/2 class roster grew larger than anticipated over the summer, so they decided to split it into two and needed an additional teacher. It came out of left field when I got the call asking if I'd be interested, but I'm excited about the challenge ahead! It's a good thing we started school early, because I don't think we did a single thing for a week while I was trying to prepare for this new additional aspect of our school year. Ha! I'm looking forward to it, though. I think it's going to be a great year for my son (who happens to be in 2nd Grade now) and the rest of the students!

So why am I writing?

With this new position, I'll be making various printables that we plan to use for our classroom activities. I thought I'd share some of them as they come. Today's post is a freebie and I hope others can enjoy it! It's simple, but fun enough to possibly motivate students. (I hope?!)

So without further ado...

Both of my boys LOVE Mo Willems. If he's written a book, you better believe we've read it -- especially Elephant and Piggie books!!!

With Tuesday being our first class of the semester, I decided to make it a fun one during our reading/writing block and do an Elephant and Piggie theme. We'll start the year with My New Friend Is So Fun! Considering it's the first day, with lots of new kids in the class, I thought this particular book was fitting...


My hope is that most of the kids can read this book, but if not, it's simple enough that we can hopefully get through it without much effort. I found a couple fun activities to do after we read it, but I also wanted to encourage some freewriting. If you've read anything I've had to say about Brave Writer, you know how big Freewrite Friday is in that circle! I love it! Not only do I want to encourage pressure-free, fun, writing, but I also want to see where each of my students are in their ability to write. My hope is that by allowing them to write whatever they wish, we'll see where to go from there.

This Elephant and Piggie printable can be used in a variety of ways. I'm going to use it as an intro during our transition to our writing block. There are three images of the famous pair. I'm going to instruct them to write whatever they want about what they see on the paper. If you think it might interested you, click on the image below for the free download...

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