Feature Yourself Friday: Meet Nicole

Happy Friday Everyone!
I'm Nicole from Journey To Josie.

I'm a Northern Girl turned Southern Belle. Married to my Waffle Man, raising my Answered Prayer, and navigating the Foster Care System.

These are my Sidekicks:
Josie Kat

And Baby Gabe

I started Journey To Josie to document our journey to adopt our first child.

Turned out our journey only last 3 days and she was home! (Read her amazing story right here)

So Journey To Josie turned into a Life Blog and nowadays it seems to be a little bit crafty, a little bit foster care, and a whole lotta Preschool!

I believe in hands on parenting and teaching through everyday life.

We just started our official homeschool journey this Fall and have been having a ball!

Like the day we made our Family Tree:

Or our Super Cute Lightning Bugs we made for our Annual Kumbaya Night

Not only do we do a lot of crafts, but we do lots of hands on learning too.

Every Thursday we get together with some of our favorite 3 year olds and have Little School! We do a different theme every week and it is always a blast!

I blog all about everything in my crazy life. Stop by and check us out!

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How to Make Musical Instruments

Welcome! New to ABC and 123? Please check out our FAQ in the sidebar.

Ready for a little noise in your life?? Here's a melodious round up of make 'em yourself musical instruments.

The stringed Guitar or Harp from Homeschooling Mommies would be a lovely addition to your in house concert.

DSO Kids love string instruments. Do yours? They also share instructions on making coffee pot drums, clay pot chimes, and a xylophone.

This Bottle Rattle is from Craftbits.

Bagpipes are a unique instrument to try in your garage band. This idea is from Crayola.

Family Fun is familiar to many of you, but we had to draw your attention to their fun bottle cap tamborines.

Family Corner features 9 different make it yourself musical instrument crafts.

All Kids Network has a Kazoo that will work for you.

If you love the sound of wind chims you will appreicate these cutlery wind chimes from Kinderart.

Make your own Balloon Drums by following the instructions on BalloonDrum.com

Sippy Cup Central Mom has fashioned a tamborine out of paper bowls.

An empty wrapping paper roll becomes a rainstick at Flipflops and Applesauce.

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Apple Art & Activities

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It's the best time of year for "an apple a day..."

Superheroes and Princesses made their own apple dolls. Clever!

The Crafty Penguin explains how to make these yummy pocket apple pies.

Naturally Educational put together a Four Seasons of the Apple Tree using handprints.


Try putting together this fun Ten Apples on Top activity, from I Can Teach My Child, to practice counting.


Here is A Mommy's Adventures paper towel tube apple tree craft .

I Can Teach My Child made an adorable apple garland that serves as a reminder of the fruits of the Spirit.




Growing Up Our Style has a post full of apple-y ideas. She shares three book ideas and instruction on making a paper plate pie.


Here is an apple snack time activity, from Quirky Momma. A fun and edible way to learn about fractions.


This apple activity post was submitted by Sippy Cup Central. They also made apple mosaics, apple sauce, and apple pie playdough.

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Show and Tell #31

Wow! Do you know how exciting it is for us to check out last week's Show and Tell and see 60 fantastic activities! How fun. Thank you all for your amazing participation. Last week's links featured MANY pumpkin themed ideas that you might want to fit in to your last minute plans for this week, if you have a chance. Here are three holiday themed features:

Little Wonders Day put together a few Halloween themed instruments for some spooky shake, rattle, and roll. This is a perfect teaser for our post later this week that will feature many make them yourself instruments.


Daphne at Moo Moos & Tutus has shared several free printables of Halloween themed games. This is a perfect link if you are in charge of planning a classroom party and still need entertainment.

The Swan Dive put together some great collaged jack o lanterns.


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Please remember these rules:

~Post an "Ah Ha Moment," favorite lesson, experiment, learning game, field trip, whatever you're currently working on, or your child's fridge worthy artwork, handmade gifts or anything holiday related.

~Direct link to your post, not your home page.

~Include a link back to us or our link button in your post.

~If you come back and your link is missing, double check to make sure you've followed the directions!

~Lastly, please try to visit and comment on, at least three links. Spread the comment love and make someone's day!

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Play to Learn ~ ABC Crafts

Welcome to this week’s Play To Learn where I’m sharing some of our fun letter crafts that we make each week. As we go through the alphabet we are creating these cute little foam crafts to put in an Alphabet Binder. Later we can flip through the binder and review our sounds and letters.

A is for Apple

This year as you can see we are doing lowercase letters, last year we did uppercase letters. I get most of my ideas from the wonderful ladies at Totally Tots, but I am trying to change them to match our curriculum theme as well. Here are some of our samples thus far…

B is for Butterfly

C is for Caterpillar

E is for Elephant

F is for Fish

These alphabet crafts are super easy to pull together! All you need is a pack of colored foam sheets, a bag of googly eyes, a little creativity and you’re all set! To see more alphabet foam crafts visit Totally Tots!

Those are just some ideas to make the alphabet fun! If you have more ideas to share, or would like to be included in future “Play To Learn” posts, please email me at homeschoolerconfessions {at} gmail {dot} com, we’d love to hear from you!

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Feature Yourself Friday: Meet Jane

Good morning, folks! I’m Esmé’s mom, and we blog together at Mozi Esmé. Actually, I’ve been doing most of the work ever since the very big three-and-a-half-year-old started Esmé’s Very Own Blog. But she still remains the inspiration of the posts.


Our family lives in rural Oregon on the beautiful North Umpqua river. We’ve been doing school since birth, which is primarily a “Mommy and Me” time – an outlet to keep me focused, creative, and engaged in my daughter’s life. At 15 months, we started Alphabet School. We’ve moved on to literature-based themes, and this year we’ve added geography and some additional math and phonics challenges.

We started off this school year with a focus on the book Pinkalicious by Victoria Kann – and all things pink and princessy. I think it went over rather well! Here is the princess coordinating a pink taste test of grapefruit juice, raspberry lemonade, and fruit punch.


That was followed by a Mary Had a Little Lamb farm theme, which has a ridiculously enormous amount of possible activities. Meet one of many little lambs created by Miss Esmé.


Did I mention we love science? Three is the perfect age to be fascinated by the natural world. I use a “Motion, Matter, Mitosis, and Me” rotation to randomly explore different types of science concepts.

A huge recent hit was magnetic force. First we made paperclips dance by moving a magnet under a chair with the paperclips on top. Then we tested the magnetic properties of a number of little items. Very cool!


A few real encounters with snakes created a real fascination with the topic. We created these rattlers – which Esmé wants to recreate every time paper plates are available. Draw a snake head (including tongue) and rattle in the middle of the plate, then draw a spiral from the head to the edge the plate to create a coiled snake look. Staple another plate to the bottom, pouring in a big handful of beans before finishing the last couple of staples.


We love the ideas we find on ABC and 123! Thanks for this opportunity to meet with you all today. We’d love to have you come and visit us at Mozi Esmé.

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Pumpkins and Jack-O-Lanterns

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We love this tangled yarn pumpkin craft idea from I Can Teach My Child. After creating a pumpkin, enjoy eating a pumpkin - a grilled cheese pumpkin!

Put together your own pumpkin bowling game with this idea from Ten Kids and a Dog.

This pumpkin plate collage from Pinky's Please Touch Museum is sure to bring a smile.

Ten Kids and a Dog crafted a giant orange jack o lantern windsock out of yarn.

Pumpkin Songs, Rhymes, and Fingerplays from Teaching Heart.

Playing with Pumpkins: Educational Activities for Toddlers from Suite 101

Apples and Jammies has posted a pumpkin unit including math and science activities, and a pumpkin themed book list.

Your Therapy Source has a suggestion for a fine motor pumpkin activity.

These peanut butter pumpkins from Children's Learning Activities look pumpkin-y delicious.

Here is our own round up of Halloween and Pumpkin Themed books from October 2009.

Also, we have shared many pumpkin crafts, pumpkin math, pumpkin recipes, and a few pumpkin experiments.

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Leaf Activities

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Mama Jenn explains how to use your beautiful fall leaves to make coasters.

This Fall Handprint Tree with Tissue Paper Leaves is great for little ones who aren't ready for the scissors yet.

Handprint and Footprint Art also suggests a cute Handprint Leaf.

This leaf mosaic, made with beans, is an excellent fine motor skills activity.

A Mommy's Adventures collected fall leaves and made a collage to go with the book Clifford's First Autumn.

Ten Kids and a Dog made beautiful fall luminaires.

I Can Teach My Child shared a link to the leaf bracelets they put together.

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