Running With Spears

Mom Hack - get rid of your kids' excess Halloween candy with a visit from the Great Pumpkin. :) | Running With Spears #momhack #halloween

It’s almost Halloween! We might go to a carnival this year, and we’ll definitely go trick-or-treating because our neighborhood goes all out and my girls have an absolute blast! The only problem is they end up with a TON of candy! A few years ago someone gave me an idea for a Halloween Witch who gives you gifts in exchange for candy. I loved the idea, but we decided to use “The Great Pumpkin” instead of a witch.

On Halloween I let the girls kinda go crazy eating just about as much of their candy as they want, but then they choose a small selection from their stash to keep, and put the rest in their trick-or-treat bags by the front door when they go to bed. Overnight, The Great Pumpkin replaces their candy with some small non-candy treats like stickers, modeling clay, and fun socks. They get a fun surprise the next morning, and I get to not have my kids begging me to let them lick a sucker for 2 minutes then leave it on the couch for me to sit on later every day for weeks!. Oy! 😉

OK, so if you have a toddler who likes stickers, this is for you! I basically don’t even know how I survived before I figured this out.

PEEL THE BACKGROUND PAPER OFF THE STICKER SHEET!!!!

Pardon my shouting. 😉

Mom Hack - Peel the background paper off sticker sheets so toddlers can get stickers off themselves! | Running With Spears #momhack #parenthack #toddlers

I used to spend so much time helping my toddler get sticker after sticker one at a time, while I was pretty much not able to do anything else! I mean I was lucky to even sneak in a sip of coffee between stickers. Then one day I realized the paper that was in between all the stickers could be pulled off which would make all the stickers easy enough to pull off that my toddler could do it herself!

Easiest way I’ve found to do this is to remove one sticker near the edge of the sheet first, and then peel the backing off from the edge of where the sticker was. Be sure to watch for small stickers that sometimes try to come up too.

Tah-Dah! Now you can pass the sheet to your toddler and possibly manage to sip your coffee in peace for about 37.2 seconds before whatever crisis happens next. 😉

How about you? What sanity saving brilliant ideas have you had? Throw your best Mom (or Dad) hacks at me, and I’ll share them soon!

Be sure to check out the hacks I’ve shared so far. I’ll share more tips next Mom Hack Monday in 2 weeks – right now I’m alternating with my family fun night ideas. Sign up to subscribe to my posts via e-mail (there’s a spot on the right sidebar, or below the post if you’re on a mobile device) or follow me on Facebook if you want to be sure to not miss it. 🙂

Today’s game is one of my personal favorites! Small World is a board game where the goal is to take over the world! 😀

At the beginning of the game everyone gets to pick a fantasy race to play as – your choices include dwarfs, wizards, amazons, etc. that has been randomly paired with one of 20 special powers. Then you try to take as many spots on the board as possible, making strategic choices as to whether you want to take empty spots, or a mountain spot that will be harder for other players to conquer, or attack a spot that already has another player on it.

Once your troops are spread thin, things get really interesting, because you can choose to have your first race “go into decline” (be flipped face down, not longer take new spots, but stay on the board getting you points until someone defeats and removes them) and select a new race with a new power!

There’s a lot of strategy involved, so the youngest my girls have been able to play not on a team with an adult is eight, which is still on the young side as the game says it’s for ages 10 and up. There are also a LOT of pieces, so this game can be a nightmare to try to play with littles running amok. Which means even though I love it, we rarely play it right now. But we occasionally get a chance to pull it out later at night once Smiles falls asleep.

Games to play with the whole family that are ACTUALLY fun for everyone! Small World! | Running With Spears #familytime

I love the artwork for the game…something about really nice looking pieces adds enjoyment for me. And which set of races you get to choose from at the beginning, as well as which powers they have are different each time, so the game feels fresh every time play, which I really like. And if you fall in love with it like we did, there are a bunch of expansion that add new races and powers, and an underground board to play on and all kinds of awesomesauce goodies!

Be sure to check out the other games I’ve shared!

I plan to share another game we love next Family Fun Friday – which will probably be in 2 weeks, right now I’m alternating with my “Mom Hacks” posts. Sign up to subscribe to my posts via e-mail (there’s a spot on the right sidebar, or below the post if you’re on a mobile device) or follow me on Facebook if you want to be sure not to miss it. 🙂

For the past month or so Boo has been using the Ultimate Phonics Reading Program from Spencer Learning to help her learn to read.

spencer learning ultimate phonics reading program

What it is:

The Ultimate Phonics Reading Program is downloadable software that can be used by everyone in our household. It is designed to teach or strengthen reading skills for everyone from beginning readers to struggling readers of all ages, as well as those with dyslexia and anyone learning English as a second language. It is specifically created with a simple, straightforward design so that it won’t feel little kid-ish if an older child or adult is using the program. It includes 262 lessons that proceed from basic to advanced. For beginning readers, the program is intended to be started once a child knows her letters and some letter sounds. By the end of the final lesson, that child should have the skills necessary to read at an advanced level.

How we use it:

sat Boo, who just started first grade, has been using the Ultimate Phonics Reading Program as another tool in her belt to help her learn to read. My plan was to use it to supplement another program that she’s been enjoying, but we ended up just taking a few weeks off from that and focusing on this so she could start from the beginning and work her way through. They do have a “find” option that we can use to reinforce skills she’s working on in another program, though. For example, she has been working on letter blends with her other program, and I could look up the sets of letter blends she’s focusing on and have her work on words with that letter blend in the Ultimate Phonics Reading Program.

word-list She’s supposed to review the words in each lesson herself using the app and then read them out loud to me. Lesson 1 reviewed the letters and their sounds and introduced the sight words a and the. Lesson 2 moved on to a set of 24 words for her to sound out and read in sentences by the end of the lesson. This was simply too much for her. She was nowhere near ready to sound out so many words, even right after seeing each of them broken down into individual letters and sounded out. According to the overview from Spencer Learning, the lessons isn’t successfully completed until she can read out loud all the words in the lesson. However, repeating the lesson over and over until such a time (if ever – kidding…I think. Maybe?) that she could actually read the words felt like it would be overly frustrating and discouraging for her, and as far as me fighting her about doing that, well, I just can’t even. So she went ahead and continued working through the program, hopefully gaining some benefit from working through more and more words, even if she can’t read them herself yet.

What we think:

All in all, this program isn’t really a good fit for Boo right now. She says she enjoys the “stories” (sentences) at the end of the lessons. I was pleasantly surprised that she didn’t object to the fact that it was purely direct instruction without any cute graphics or stars to earn or anything, though I think she might have enjoyed it more had there been. I think this program would be a better fit for older kids who would appreciate the fact that it didn’t feel like a young child’s reading program. It also seemed to move too quickly for Boo. I think she might have been able to remember how to sound out the words she was working on if they were presented a couple at a time, rather than so many in one lesson (but then again, maybe not). I think this might be a great resource for kids who have already basically learned to read but are struggling to read well, or for a child who is really ready to read and is thus able to pick it up much more quickly than Boo. Boo also seems to benefit from having activities as part of her reading lessons, such as finding all the pictures that begin with the letter blends she’s working on. As the Ultimate Phonics Reading Program doesn’t include any activities, I think Boo and I might be happier if I start truly using it as a supplement, taking advantage of the “find” option to add additional practice to what she’s working on elsewhere.

Be sure to check out what other reviewers are saying over at the Homeschool Review Crew link-up!

disclaimer

Hi guys! Just wanted to throw up a quick post to let you know that the educational app Orphs of the Woodlands at Tangletree that I reviewed back in July (and Artist had a great time playing) is currently FREE in the app store! Yayness! 😀

It’s a fun app without annoying ads or in-game purchases like most of the stuff that you can find for free, so you should totally snag it while you can! I totally would if I didn’t already have it.