Pinecone and Sparkle Tutorial for Kids

This pinecone tutorial is super easy and fun for kids.  You can use your sparkly pinecones as bowl fillers or attach a ribbon on each pinecone and use them as Christmas tree ornaments.  Your kids will love to hang ornaments on the tree made by them!

You'll need:
Mod Podge or glue
small paintbrushes
pinecones
Sparkle Flakes or glitter
plastic grocery bags

Place the plastic grocery bags down on your work surface.  These bags will make clean up afterward a breeze!  Help your child to dip the paintbrush into the Mod Podge or glue and paint the Mod Podge on the pinecone where she wants it to sparkle.

Once your child is satisfied with the amount of glue that is on her pinecone, use your fingers or a spoon and sprinkle Sparkle Flakes or glitter onto the pinecone making sure to do this over the plastic bags.

Let the pinecones dry for a few hours and you're done.

Homespun Homeschool: 3 Ways to Motivate Your Child to Practice Their Instrument

I've heard a lot of moms complain about their child's instrument practice.  Sometimes it's hard to motivate a child that just doesn't want to practice.  Here are three things that work for us in motivating our children to practice their instruments.

1.  Make it fun!
Making instrument practice fun, especially for young kids, is a great way to keep them practicing. Sometimes we turn practice time into game time.  We use spinners with different dynamics on them.  If Ev spins and it lands on "forte" she'll play the next song loud.  We use rhythm dice to switch up the rhythm of the songs that she plays.  We also have Ev draw the song out of a bag so the order of songs that she practices is different each time.

2.  Practice with your child
If you are lucky enough to have two of the same instrument or can somehow practice with your child, this can be motivating.  My kids get a kick out of teaching me a song on the violin or guitar.  They are pretty good to remind me that my playing is getting a little rusty and that I need to practice more.

3.  Occasionally a little prize or treat can help
Our kids are usually pretty good to practice their instruments without complaint, but there have been times when practice seems like a punishment (for everyone). I've found that a little prize or treat once in a while for a great job practicing can be really helpful.

Homespun Homeschool: 3 Reasons Why We Don't Have a TV

Where we live we seem to be an anomaly.  We choose not to have a television.

Here are three reasons why we don't have a TV:

1.  Exposure: There are things on TV that I just don't want my kids to see or hear.  

We recently went to the dentist.  Our dentist, like most, has televisions on the ceiling to distract the patients while getting their teeth cleaned.  I was asked if Ev could watch TV while getting her dental work done.  I said it was fine, so the hygienist found a cartoon for Ev to watch.  That didn't seem like a big deal to me. We don't ban TV altogether.

However, in the 10 minutes that she watched TV at the dentist's office, she was exposed to about twelve words that we don't use in our home. They aren't horrible words, but words that we don't want our 7 year old and 3 year old saying.  

I want to be the one that filters my kids' world experience right now.  They are little and I want to protect them.

That being said, I do see the importance of my kids gaining their own filtration system.  What I mean by that is that I would like my kids to govern themselves when I'm not around. When there is something on TV or on the computer that is not appropriate, I want them to choose to turn it off.

We work on this skill right now even though we don't have a television.  We are honest about what is available on the Internet (I do let me kids play games online).  We have told them, even though they are young, that some people put inappropriate pictures, videos, and stories online.  We have also discussed with them that if they happen upon these things they close the computer, walk away and come talk to us (their parents).

2. Time: There are too many good things to do besides watch TV.

Television can be a huge time waster.  Believe me, I know.  I have been caught in the TV trap.  You sit down to watch TV just for a few minutes.  You just need a little break from reality so you can conquer the rest of your day.  Before you know it, the rest of your day has been conquered by the four reality TV shows you just finished watching.  Oh boy.

Especially now that I am a mom, and a home-school mom at that, there are too many things to do in the day to include television into my schedule. And there too many fun things for my kids to do and experience to have the TV going all day long.

Don't get me wrong, my husband and I will watch movies three or four times a month, but having some sort of show running half the day seems to fill life with unimportant things.

3.  Guilt: It's too much for me.

I won't lie, part of this no-TV thing is kind of selfish.  I feel so much guilt when my kids waste the day away watching TV or playing games on the computer.  If TV is not even an option on our home, then I don't have to feel an internal struggle wondering if my kids are rotting their brains out watching the adventures of a yellow sponge in short shorts.


So there you have it.  I'm not sure how long we'll go without a television, but we have lived without one for the last three years and have not missed it.