Our Review of Tinker Crate

   I gotta tell you I have worked hard the last 6-10 years getting my kids interested in all things STEM, Science, Technologies, Engineering, and Math. I will continue to do what I can to keep them interested because science is important. Heck, not only is it important but it can also be loads of fun. Also as a public school parent I believe it is important to continue educating my offsprings even when they aren't at school because, well, they are kinda my responsibility and all.

  Anyway back to the point of this post, I finally ordered my kids a Tinker Crate, it is a monthly science kit delivered to our mailbox, after debating on it for several months and seeing cool projects they had sent out like a hydraulic arm or a motor that the kids can build themselves with the help of a blueprint included.

Well we received our first one yesterday and the girls were super excited. Our first kit was a build your own drip irrigation system with an information book on the many different forms of irrigation used for farming. This kit had perfect timing because we recently moved to a new house and were able to plant our first real garden a few weeks ago. Now they have a small garden in their bedroom with sunflowers, watermelon, peas, and wheat grass. Hopefully their watermelon will sprout well and make a good replacement for the one I may or may not have killed in the big garden.

If you are interested in trying out the Tinker Crate you can receive $10 off here.











I was not compensated for this post in any way, These are my own opinions, I really just like the product from what I have seen so far

Update: less than a week later 

TEAcher Appreciation Craft and Printable

  It's hard to believe just how fast this year is flying by, my youngest is graduating kindergarten this next week and my oldest will be in 5th grade next year! My parents warned me about how fast they grow but you know, I'm still their kid so of course I didn't listen ; )

  Anyway my girls wanted to do something for the last day of school for their teachers so we went to Michaels and picked up a few supplies costing less than 8 bucks total.

  We got some small unfinished little crate boxes for $1 each and little wooden birds to apply for $1 and some paints and paintbrushes. The paintbrushes were the most expensive at $4 something but most of the craft stores including Michaels have up 40% off coupons on Retailmenot.com and you can scan it from your phone.

  The kids did all the painting themselves because that was kind of the whole point of this gift and picked out some teas to include. Click Here For The Free Printable Gift Tags

Upcycled Painted Dresser

   

My cheap old thrift store dresser really needed a bit of a face lift so I finally got around to sanding and painting it using a couple cans of Valspar Color Radiance in Blindfold. It's a really nice bluish grey then I sealed it with a clear coat and added a vinyl cut out I made. I really liked using Valspar for this project because the sprayer on their cans are bigger and didn't hurt my finger (Gah! pesky bones aging!) near as much as the little ones on other cans and made the task a lot easier. 

Home School Fridays

   So because we just moved to a very small town apparently their budget only allows them to have school four days a week so the kids now get three day weekends. Well that just didn't sit right with me and as I thought more about it the more OK I became with it because guess what? I am their parent and I can make sure they are still learning on Friday and everyday for that matter. It is not the sole responsibility of the public school system to teach my children. So here we are with Home School Fridays. I think we will mostly be focusing on science and space for the time being. We will learn about NASA through their fun website set up for kids http://spaceplace.nasa.gov and I will be ordering these fun Tinker Crates where it is a monthly experiment in a box delivered to your home where you explore science, engineering, and technology.
 

 

If you follow my link to TinkerCrate you can receive $10 off your first month.

Our First Garden

   Well we recently had to move and ended up going for a rental home in small town Idaho to be closer to our grandbabies. It was quite the adventure making the transition from one home to the next because there was a gap between when we had to be out of one and when we could get into the next. We had to move everything we owned into a storage unit and stay in our overcab truck camper with two kids, two dogs, and two cats.

The girls were so excited to be "camping" till we finally got the ok to move in. The house is beautiful and newly remodeled with a large upstairs balcony with a cat door 😻 and a huge back yard with an area already spaced out for a garden. We have always wanted a vegetable garden so we decided to go all out since it is spring now and we have the space and time.

There was plenty of weeds to pull out wich was pretty easy once we got the dirt tilled. 

Then we put up a short garden fence just tall enough to keep the dogs out and made enough rows in the garden to plant everything I could possibly want. We are starting some from seeds and some already growing from the store. Right now we have planted giant sunflowers, corn, tomatoes, various peppers, cabbage, carrots, spinach, onions, strawberries, small and big watermelons, cantaloupe, squash,zuhchini, and pumpkin oh and catnip on the other side of the fence. Like I said, all or nothing baby. I can't wait to see what we get out of all our hard work put in.