Free complete upper body circuit workout with dumbbells. All you need are free weights and these 6 exercises to tone and tighten upper body muscles.

Homeschooling won't just happen! We need to make time for it. To set aside a balanced amount of teaching time, consider the suggested time

Zacchaeus is a short lesson (the shortest in this series). Information and a poster about tax collectors is included. Luke 19:10 is a great memory verse! The following information Anchor charts, worksheets and more are in the lesson and application pack.  This flow chart is an easy discussion starter to talk about the events learned about Zacchaeus. Sorry, this has to be downloaded by itself. It is not in the application pack. Click here to download the flow charts.   This is the cut and glue sequencing timeline. There is a completed worksheet that can be used as a teacher's visual and reference and for student's notebooks. Click here to download the lesson, posters and application worksheets. Click here to see the money bag review game created for this lesson. stand-ups, easy foldable booklet and Sycamore trees  Click here to see these printables. Scripture Reference Luke 18:31 Jesus & His disciples were traveling to Jerusalem Luke 19: in Jericho, Zacchaeus was a chief tax collector Luke 19:2 he was not tall Luke 19:4 he climbed a sycamore tree Luke 19:10 Jesus came to seek and save the lost Click here to download the visuals. Click here to download the pictures to color. (They are the same as the visuals, but black & white.) Click here to see this Zacchaeus pack. Some of the tax collector information found @ Jackson, Wayne. "What Is a Publican in the New Testament?" ChristianCourier.com. Access date: January 21, 2019. https://www.christiancourier.com/articles/897-what-is-a-publican-in-the-new-testament

"This will cure your writer's block" - she said "I promise it's very healing" - she said

Practicing short vowels with your students - both articulating them clearly, and 'hearing' (identifying) them - will help so much with early reading and writing skills. Today I'dm excited to share an engaging activity to help with identifying short vowel sounds in words. But there are no cute pictures to cut. No glue or scissors. Just listening with ears. Fancy that! Mouse House Printable Freebie If you love a good visual, you can print the little reminder sheet poster from Google Drive HERE Tell your little learners that they will be listening for the short vowel sound in each word that you say. Finding words with feature short vowels If you're anything like me, and are really thinking about a hot cup of tea and a bathroom break often mentally challenged when trying to quickly select a good variety of interesting and appropriate words for language activities - you may like this little file from my TpT store. The cover says 'Kindergarten' but it is also good for first and second grade. It contains practical word lists for various phonetic focus categories. You can flip to the page of a sound your are working on, and have a selection of appropriate words at your fingertips! How to Play the Mouse House Game So, let's get back to it shall we? Read (from the teacher word book), or think of some words with a variety of short vowel sounds. Your students listen to the word, Your students then show that they can identify the short vowel sound within the word by doing a hand signal to match it. For short vowel 'a' sound - for example, you may have called out the words 'cat' Hand signal for Short a Sound Your students each make a house with one hand, and put the other hand (the mouse) AT the side of the house. Hand signal for Short e Sound For words with the 'e' sound - students put their mouse on the EDGE of the house. Hand signal for Short i Sound For words with an 'i' sound, students put their mouse IN the mouse house door! Hand signal for Short o Sound For words with a short 'o' sound, your students will put their mouse ON the house. Hand signal for Short u Sound And under the house for words with a short u sound. Getting harder Start this game by using simple short cvc words, and make it more challenging by adding longer harder words that contain blends, digraphs and tricky sounds (also in the Teacher Word Book)! Thank you so much for stopping by today - have fun with short vowels!

Writer Wednesday series - meet the travel writers behind the great travel reads. This weeks Writer Wednesday is Clara Bensen author of No Baggage.

Happy March 1st! And because it is the first Wednesday in March, we are once again opening our monthly theme for the Modern Quilt Along series that we are doing in 2017. If you need a refresher of what this series is, go HERE to read the introduction post on the why’s and how’s. The theme […]

Writing Worksheet – Who Knows What When (PDF) I’ve covered plot holes before, but this worksheet is to help you specifically with the type of chronological lacuna that I fall into most often: mistakes arising from remembering which characters know what when. These errors are difficult to spot and can have some profound effects on the plot, so…

Use simple objects such as socks and cookies to teach children about respecting the rights of others. What does the Bible say about our rights?

Get hair inspiration from Jenna Ortega! Explore her stunning hair transformations and learn how to achieve her iconic looks for yourself.

Do you have any favourite historical biographies for kids or adults that you'd recommend? Share them and I'll add them to my library request list.

What is Biblical worship? How are believers supposed to worship? What does the Bible say about worship? Learn about worship and become more worshipful!

Not all crawlies are bad for your garden. If you are seasoned gardener, you know what we are talking about. Nature’s first gardeners, as they are called, worms are one of the reasons for a healthy garden. So don’t panic when you see something wiggling in your soil. This means you have a healthy soil and your plants actually getting nourished. As these worms move around in the soil in the garden, they create small tunnels which helps get the air and water to the roots of the plant. Similar to what we do when we till our garden occasionally in order to let it breathe and water. Almost all soil has earthworms. There are four common types of earth worms; Red worms, Garden worms, manure worms and night crawlers. The worms eat the organic matter like dead leaves and dirt and after they digest their food, they excrete the worm poo called as castings which is full of nutrients like calcium, magnesium, phosphorus etc. which are all very important for the growth of plants to stay healthy. Can I add worms if they are not in my garden soil? Yes, most certainly, you can and you should. To do this though, you probably need some preparation. You can just dump some worms into the soil and hope for the best. One needs to check the right environment for those worms to live there. For that, you need to add some manure, garden compost or leaves and mix it in the soil of your garden and let it mature for a few months at least and then add introduce worms to the soil. Alternately, you can get a garden mix soil which already has all these things mixed in and then introduce worms to it, if you don’t want to wait for months. How to do it? Again, you cannot just dump them on top of the soil and assume that they will burrow their way down. For many reasons, primarily, you are creating a treat for the birds. Also, the worms might just go to places, you don’t want them to and will be lost, wasting your time and money. You need to create a holes in the soils and add some water and compost may be and then drop some worms in and cover it with soil. Do the same thing for as many holes you create for your garden. It’s always a good idea to spread them around in a bunch than all in one place. What to avoid to keep the worms thriving in the soil? 1.) Worms don’t like disturbance. So, avoid digging. This is possible when it’s flowers but for vegetable beds, you may need to dig a little. Keeping it minimum or as much a needed. The more the worms, the less the need to dig other than when we are planting new plants. 2.) Keep adding mulch for the worms to thrive. 3.) This is very important for your plants as well as worms – No chemical sprays. Spring is the season when we are actively planting and working in the garden. So, if you haven’t done it till now, this is the time to get into the wiggly territory and introduce some friends for your plants and help them help you in growing a healthier garden.

Before I was born, my parents spent just over a year living in Papua New Guinea. They packed up my older sisters—a toddler and a preschooler—and moved to an outpost in the middle of the jungle wher…

Way back in 2009 I received a copy of the pilot episode of a new series that was debuting on ABC. The show was called The Middle. The series premiered on September 30, 2009. If you would like to read my original review you can find it here - The Middle – New on ABC this Fall. Since that day my family and I have made it a point to never miss an episode. We might miss and episode from time to time (parent/teacher nights always seem to happen on Wednesday nights - ugh!), but not if we can help it.

Basic vocabulary, like knowing prepositions, is necessary for beginning readers. Teach prepositions with this simple game.

This packet has everything you need to teach LIttle Flap Learns to Fly, as found in the Reading Wonders' second grade series. A structured weekly reading routine may include: Monday: Complete a whole group reading of the story and vocabulary review/organizer practice. Tuesday: Reread the story, review vocabulary, and complete the story map. Wednesday: Reread the story, review vocabulary, and complete the comprehension lesson. Thursday: Partner read the story, complete study guide with partners, and review the study guide as a whole group. Friday: Take the reading test. Printables Included: · Genre Anchor Chart · Vocabulary Anchor Charts · Vocabulary Graphic Organizer Practice · Story Map · Comprehension Lesson · Writing Activity · Study Guide · Reading Test Just copy and use! No other preparation is needed. Thanks bunches, and enjoy! :) ~Mindi

Persuasive writing is one of my all-time favorite writing units!! There are so many fun activities to do and persuasion comes so naturally for the kids (you know they try to persuade their parents for things ALL the time!) I begin this unit by having students "Take a Stand" and make a choice between several pairs of options - McDonald's or Burger King, Disney or Nickelodeon, etc. Once they've made their choice they have to support it and tell why that is the better option. This is a great way to kick off the unit. Once we've modeled several together, I partner them up for writing discussions, give them a set of "Take a Stand" cards and let them continue practicing. After discussions, they're ready to move to the writing stage and we learn to write opinion pieces with supporting reasons and then on to lots of other persuasive pieces. Read-Alouds Some of my FAVORITE books to use during this unit include... I told you that I LOVE this book and double dip with it in my letter writing and persuasive writing units. We especially focus on the closings of the letters and notice how the word choice was carefully selected to help with the persuasion. Immediately after this book we also read... After reading this book, students think of an unusual animal that they would like to have as a pet. They brainstorm ways their animal could be useful/helpful and then write a persuasive letter to their parents to convince them to let them have the pet. They turn out SO CUTE!! Students turn their letters into the animal they chose for a display....precious!! Some of the other books we read during this unit are... This is a GREAT book to read and then have your students write from the perspective of the "bad" character from a fairytale having him/her convince readers that he/she was just misunderstood and is not a bad guy after all! Speaking of perspective, I also have my kids write a persuasive letter to THEMSELVES from an inanimate object. I model doing this using my purse (it tries to persuade me to keep it neater) or my high heels (they try to persuade me to give them a break and wear tennis shoes for a day). With a lot of modeling and brainstorming they really get the hang of this and GO ALL OUT with creative ideas and voice galore! Activities Some of my other favorite activities in this unit include... Book Persuasions Students create new book covers for one of their favorite books and try to persuade their friends to read the book. Persuasive Animal Dialogues After reading Hey, Little Ant students are paired as ants/anteaters and write persuasive dialogues where the ant is trying to persuade the anteater not to eat him and the anteater is trying to persuade the ant that he must! After modeling these, students select another pair of animals (predator/prey) to create original persuasive dialogues to perform for the class. Classroom Mascot Students choose an animal they think would best represent our class and write a persuasive speech on why it should be our mascot. They present these speeches to the class and then the class votes for a mascot! Celebration This unit integrates with our social studies Economics unit for the celebration. Students create products (I require them to make something that only uses PAPER to make it fair for all students) that they will sell at our class store. Then they write commercials to persuade their classmates to buy their products. Before writing these commercials, we watch lots of examples of cereal and toy commercials from the 80s/90s at http://www.retrojunk.com/content/sort/commercial/list/category/1/cereal and discuss persuasion techniques used in them. I film students presenting their commercials individually, create a mini-movie of them and we watch them all together! We then hold our store and students actually purchase products (with Madden Money, of course!) Afterwards, they hold reflections about supply/demand and how their commercials affected their sales. Find these Persuasive Writing activities at Teacher's Clubhouse. What are your favorite activities or books to use for teaching persuasive writing? There's only a couple of days left to win the HearALL Assessment Recorder - Enter Now! Also, visit Lightbulb Minds' Facebook page and leave a comment telling the ONE thing that would make this coming school year the best school year ever and you could win a FREE UNIT! All posts in this series: #1 - Writers' Notebooks #2 - Writing Workshop Schedule & Story Tees #3 - Publishing #4 - Friendly Letters #5 - How-To Writing #6 - Persuasive Writing #7 - Writing Memoirs/Personal Narratives

I love to stumble upon a great children’s book that I’ve never even heard of and have it become one of our favorites. I came upon this book when I was reviewing resources from Moving Beyond the Page.The younger girls and I used a unit study for Poppy during the review, and we loved the

Wild About Books Wednesday is FINALLY back and just in time for one of my favorite seasons – fall! The beginning of the school year has been so hectic and I’m finally getting a spare moment to resurrect my little blog series. If you’re new around here, each Wednesday I’ll be sharing a book and ... Read More about When the Leaf Blew In (Freebie!)

Free complete upper body circuit workout with dumbbells. All you need are free weights and these 6 exercises to tone and tighten upper body muscles.