Have you ever made a photo book on an online site?  It’s basically a hardcover book with pages filled with your photos. I rarely get my 4 x 6’s processed anymore. But, I still love holding the photos in my hands sometimes, so that’s what I love about photo books. I’ve gotten in the habit of making one of my family about every six months. I label the spine with “Spring/Summer 2013”, etc.

I also love giving them as gifts. It’s a nice, personal birthday or Christmas gift. In the above picture, the four books on the left are some of the photo books I’ve made online, while all the albums on the right are from the past.

The top 3 reasons I love making online photo books:

1. They take up less room than regular photo albums (see above picture).

2. You can make some photos small and some large. Sometimes if you have a picture of a whole room, it looks great when it takes up a whole page. And if you have a close-up of someone, you can make that 1 of 4 pictures on a page, etc. The large picture in the book below is my husband and daughter flying a kite.

3. You can put pictures side by side that show growth really easily.  One of my favorites is the page below where it shows a picture of me holding my son when he was about three days old and then a picture right beside it with me holding him when he was about a year old.

The two sites I’ve used the most are Shutterfly and Snapfish. I’ve used them because I’ve been able to score a lot of free books by collecting points through My Coke Rewards, Pampers Points, and other reward programs. Also, sometimes Snapfish, Shutterfly, and other photo book companies will send you codes to make free books. If you get a code from them, you just usually have to pay shipping, which averages around $7 per book. Even if you have to pay full price, I think it’s worth it to make these books!

~Carrie

 

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Ding dong! We love having a “No Soliciting” sign near our door. It saves us time answering the door and talking to solicitors. It also comes in handy if you have a baby who may wake up with the sound of a doorbell or a dog barking to the sound of the bell. I hope you enjoy this free printable!

 

I “laminated” it by attaching a piece of wide clear tape to both the front and back of the little sign.

Download the “No Soliciting” sign here

Directions:
1. Cut out your sign.
2. Laminate or attach clear tape to both the front and back of the sign. I used the clear tape and it worked well. I just had to trim it a bit.
3. Hang the sign up by your doorbell using rolled duct tape, sticky tack, or whatever you think will work to keep it attached.
4. Enjoy!

~Carrie

p.s. if someone can confirm in the comments that the download works, that would be great! Thanks!

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If I were to ever vote for “Top Toy” my vote would go with Magna-Tiles (squares and triangles with magnets on the sides that attach together).

Here are 10 reasons why they’re one of the top toys in our house.

1. Both of my kids have played with them almost every day for over two years.

2. The tiles are sturdy.

3. So many things can be done with them. They can be laid flat to create roads or dance floors or they can be built up vertically. It’s fun to drive cars on them or make houses for animals. There are so many options for creative and educational play.

4. They’re perfect for both girls and boys.

5. Friends who come over seem to enjoy playing with them.

 

6. Sometimes their creations break and kids will get upset. But, maybe it’s also a good lesson on dealing with life’s frustrations at a young age.

7. They’re easy to clean up because you stack them on top of each other.

8. They are pricey. But, they’re worth it because of the hours and hours that kids play independently with them.

9. They’re a great birthday or Christmas gift. If grandparents are wondering what to get your child and they’re willing to spend $50-$100, these would be great! Amazon is a good place to start in terms of finding them online. But, I’m sure other sites have them too. Just make sure they’re the actual “Magna-Tile” brand.

10. If I am blessed with grandkids, I have a feeling they’ll be playing with these same Magna-Tiles!

What toy(s) do you have now that you have a feeling future generations will be playing with? What are your experiences with Magna-Tiles?

~Carrie

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This is a slide I made in honor of Back to School (dedicated to everyone).
~Carrie

Are you looking for a great way to help your kiddos practice their comprehension skills? I’m happy to be reviewing Comprehension Connection’s recently-released Reading Comprehension Learning Mats. The first thing I noticed about this product were the fun fonts and borders. I also enjoyed the truly unique ways kids can show their comprehension skills, such as tree and chain graphic organizers.

These mats are designed for you to laminate and make a spiral bound book that can be used over and over. I love that once you make the books, you can use them with different reading groups. Also, it’ll surely save you a lot of paper and time making copies! You’ll just need fine point dry erase markers and a tissue to erase.

Some of the mats, like the visualizing and making inferences mats, are great for kids to use items like unifix cubes, etc. to show their thinking. This is definitely one thing I want to highlight about this product because I like how interactive and simple it is. They would just simply put their unifix cube(s) on the word(s) that they thought represented one of the characters.

A total of 16 different mats cover a variety of comprehension concepts. They include character, setting, plot, conflict, main idea, inferencing, and facts from nonfiction texts, etc. This product would be ideal for 2nd grade and above, since some of the mats have a variety of written responses. These mats can be used for any book (guided reading, read aloud, independent reading), so they’re very flexible.

View the full product in Comprehension Connection’s TpT store. Also, here is the link to Carla’s Comprehension Connection blog, where you can find a sneak peak of her classroom decor, as well as other great teaching tidbits!

~Carrie