Noteshelf App: My New Digital Home Binder

I am addicted to binders. I have a house organizational binder, a binder with my daughter's curriculum ideas, a binder with our FHE plans (just realized I am 2 weeks behind on those... nice!), a binder with baby educational ideas,  ... you get the idea. And then there are all the countless notebooks- containing everything from my daughters journals to the 10 I have stashed everywhere for my to do lists.

My organizational bliss needed a makeover.

And I think I found the answer in the form of an iPad app. Noteshelf.

Let me first tell you that I was not compensated for writing this review- I think this app is so amazing that I want to shout about it from the rooftops.
Noteshelf is an app that was designed for, well, taking notes! But it goes to the next level, with the ability to create custom pages (you will see much more of this feature throughout my review), exporting finished notes as pdfs, and it has the all important cute factor. Which is a big deal!

Pros:
Ability to sort notes into notebooks. And notebooks can be grouped together. Think of it this way: the groups are like your binders. And the notebooks are like the tabs within those binders.

My "Home Planner" group of notebooks

Noteshelf app front page

For example, all the items in my old home binder were sorted by tabs....now they are individual notebooks, under the "home planner"group. I can easily open up the home planner group and pull up the January notebook to see what we have going on during the month, just as easily as the old tab/binder system. 

My daughter has her own notebook group. Within her group she has two notebooks: her chore chart and journal.

My daughter's notebooks are grouped together in her own collection.

And do I worry that she might accidentally delete all her cute journal entries, since she has easy access to her notebook? No, and here's why:

Noteshelf has the ability to easily copy pages. And not only copy the page into the current notebook, but I can move the page into any other existing notebook that I created. So in my personal notebook group I have a copy of all her journal entries, safe and snug.

In the finder view you can easily see all the pages in your notebook. You can copy, move, delete, and export pages from the finder!

Boo's journal is one of my favorite notebooks. I love that she loves to write in her journal now, she has access to several ink colors/pen widths/stickers, and I can quickly type a description on the same page. I love that I can now email her journal entries- so if there is an especially cute one about grandma, I can send her a copy right away. And for those that have the iPad2 (so jealous!) you can take a pic and insert it right into the note.  Those of us with a regular iPad can insert pics from the photo album. I think my days of binding notebooks for my daughter to use as journals (and end up only using half of the notebook because it gets lost) are over. At least for now. I just love the idea of having an instant digital copy of my daughter's work. How cute would it be to make a shutterfly book of all her journal entries! Ahhhh I am rambling- back to Noteshelf....
I LOVE having my daughter's chore chart on Noteshelf. As I mentioned earlier, you have the ability to add custom pages by importing jpgs. I used the GIMP to save all my pdfs to jpgs and I was good to go! After creating the chore chart custom page, I added it to her notebook. Now she can immediately add a digital sticker to her jobs as she completes them, and when we are done for the week we can clear the page and start over! (Once you create a custom page, you can easily insert it at anytime into any notebook) No money spent on stickers- or time spent searching for those aforementioned stickers... I love it. This also works for our scripture reading chart as well!

Digital chore chart

With the ability to create custom pages, I have been able to use all my old binder planner pdfs. So nifty! My monthly menu plan, my special days lists, my birthday calendar,... everything! Just think of all the money you could save by not printing a gazillion lists! And you never have to reprint... its all digital. And no more lugging around your 2 pound binder everywhere.

The finder view of all the pages in our January notebook. You can see the variety of pages! 

A close up view of our weekly cleaning page in our January notebook. (You can download this for free- scroll down to the bottom of this post!)

Other pros: you can tag pages, so if you are looking for a page in a notebook and you don't remember where it is, you can search by the tag. And I do believe you can do a search for text, if it has been typed. You can export pages to evernote/dropbox. I don't use these services so it doesn't mean anything to me, but I know a lot of people might find this feature useful! You can send a page directly to facebook, and that might be of use someday.... Another pro is that it offers wrist protection- which basically means you can set your wrist down on your ipad while writing and the app won't think your wrist is writing too. You can password lock notebooks and notebook groups- PERFECT for your personal journal, or any notebook entitled "Gift Ideas".  You can also zoom in on your notebook for more fine tuned handwriting.

Zoom feature for handwritten text

And those lucky ipad2 folks can take pics of children's calendars from school or other important notes and send them directly into a notebook so you can truly be paper free!

Cons: I have to mention a few. First, I would love the ability to import pdfs directly, instead of having to save them as a jpg. I don't mind the extra work because I love the result, but it would make life a bit easier. I would also love to see the ability to insert links and images directly from the internet. I created a Pinterest page with the projects I want to work on during the month, but I had to save the pics of each project to my ipad before importing them into the notebook.

Pinterest notebook page- A great place to add pics and text of potential projects for the month.

Also, I would really like to be able to make custom notebook covers. And it would be cool to have that handwriting to text conversion that I have seen in other notebook apps. None of those are deal breakers for me- it is pretty nitty gritty stuff.

Here is a free download you can import right away as a custom page in your Noteshelf app(or you can print it, I won't mind)

When all is said and done, this app is a must have. Let the trend of digital binders begin!!!

Happy TECHing! (and yes, I left the "a" out on purpose!)

Chinese New Year Fun

Yesterday was Chinese New Year and I thought I would share with you all some of the fun things we did to celebrate!

-We played dragon tag. Basically it was regular tag, but the "it"person was called the dragon instead. So creative, I know. :)

-My daughter and I made several paper lanterns and hung them throughout the house. They are SO easy and added such a festive flair!

-Boo also wore a chinese butterfly dress we picked up in Toronto when she was 18 months. It's a size 2, and she's 4.... so yes, it was super tight. But she wanted to wear "her super flyer dress".

-Watched the Chinese New Year episode of Kai Lan. Riveting entertainment right there.

-We ate Chinese food, of course! I have been on a mission to find the perfect orange chicken recipe. This was attempt #2- not bad, but not quite perfection. I also whipped up (ha- I mean slaved over!!) some ham fried rice that was super yummy.

-My daughter helped me make fortune cookies. I had no idea they were so tricky to make! Geez!

Boo wrote the fortunes- well, scribbled them. She told me that all the fortunes said "Do what ever your child says". I think she is trying to tell us something, wouldn't you agree? :)

I thought I would be clever and write one fortune "Lucky you! You get to do the dishes!" And guess who ended up getting THAT fortune cookie. Me. My super plan to get someone else on dish duty backfired. Luckily my family helped anyway :)

-We also played the Chinese New Year level on Angry Birds Seasons. Cuz we are SO techy like that. Those frustrated feathered friends are the center of one too many of our family night activities.

Hope you all had a wonderful Chinese New Year. Bring on Valentines Day! :)
Happy Teaching!

Valentine Mailboxes

Valentines Day is coming up! Yes, I am excited!!! And not because I am expecting flowers or chocolate (although hubby if you are reading this post I would love them!) I absolutely love celebrating the holidays with children. There are so many fun ideas and creative projects that are out there (thank you Pinterest), and I delight in seeing the excitement in my daughter's eyes.

We have LOTS of Valentines plans this year. One of the new traditions we are starting is sending each other love notes throughout the month of February. I found these cute mailboxes in the dollar section at Target and I already had the pink mailbox letters.

Although the letters have a sticky back, I added a little krazy glue to ensure they would stay. So far so good....

I put the finished mailboxes on some candlestick holders. I think they turned out really cute and I am excited to start using them! And the entire project cost me three bucks- while the messages that will be left inside of them will be priceless :) 

Cheesy, I know.

Happy Valentines Day!

Human Body: Circulatory System

It's time for another post on the human body! Today we talked about the circulatory system.... more specifically the heart, arteries, veins, and lungs. Before we set out for our activities I had two goals: First, I wanted my daughter to know that the red arteries deliver oxygen, while the blue veins carry out the "garbage" (the term carbon dioxide was not part of today's lesson!!) The second goal was to add the circulatory system to our human body.

Two ways to teach your child about the circulatory system:
I drew an enormous chalk figure of the human body in our unfinished basement, and made sure to include the trachea, lungs, heart, arteries, and veins. I also pulled out my red and blue unifix cubes for the blood. I also grabbed some cans of silly string we had sitting around.
Example #1: We tossed all the red cubes in a ginormous dump truck from my daughter's sandbox. I told Boo that the blood goes to the lungs to get air, then we blew on the red blocks. We delivered red oxygenated blood by "driving" the truck down the arteries and tossing red blocks throughout the body.

Dispersing the oxygenated blood by driving the truck down the artery path.

The dump truck then turned around, and drove up the veins while Boo picked up the blue blocks- AKA garbage (for older kids I would use the term carbon dioxide!).

Collecting the garbage (carbon dioxide) into the dump truck and driving it back to the heart up the vein path.

When the truck got back to the lungs, it dumped out the garbage, then we ran it up the trachea and breathed it out! I know a lot of the technical stuff may not be remembered, but we had fun...and at the end of the day, thats what counts.

Example #2:  We cleaned up the blocks and played the game again, but this time we used silly string. And it was a lot more captivating. We started at the heart, went to the lungs to get our air, then back down the heart and into the arteries. My daughter enjoyed squirting the silly string throughout the body, although she had a difficult time pushing down on the valve. The silly string...I mean oxygen.... was picked up in the trusty dump truck along the vein path and hauled away to the lungs, were it was exhaled.

After picking up the carbon dioxide (silly string), Boo dumped it into the lungs. Right after doing this,  she picked up the silly string and exhaled it by running up the trachea and out the mouth.

After our kinesthetic illustrations of the circulatory system, we went upstairs and added the components to our human body chart. The heart was printed out from this site, and the veins and arteries were pieces of old embroidery floss (yarn would work just as well).

Look at our body develop- this is turning out to be such a fun project!!

We had plans to make a stethoscope and listen to our heart beats, but that didn't happen.... we were able to  feel our heart beats with our hands before and after running around. This is a great time to discuss why our heart beats increase when we exercise and the importance of oxygen to our muscles.

I couldn't resist adding this cute School House Rock video on the circulatory system. It's classic, educational film at it's best.


For more ideas on the human body, follow my board on pinterest!

Happy Teaching!

Dollar Store Valentine Handprint Plate

I am really excited for Valentines Day! My daughter and I recently made a handprint heart plate. It is super easy, cheap, and I think it looks pretty darn cute!

Materials:

• red paint
• white paper
• pink tissue paper squares
• glass plate from the dollar store
• modpodge/ foam brush

Using red paint, have your child stamp their handprints in a heart shape. Then cut out the paper in the shape of a heart.

Turn the plate over (so the back is facing you). Put the heart facedown on the back of the plate. Then modpodge it on until the heart sticks to the plate.

Modpodge the tissue paper squares on to the back of the plate to fill in the gaps. Be careful not to rip or tear the tissue paper during this process.

After the plate was covered in tissue paper squares, I modpodged a paper on the back of the heart that has my daughter's name and age.

Follow my handprint art board on Pinterest for more ideas:

It is always so fun to craft with my Boo and make something that will always remind me of her. :)

Happy Teaching!

SOPA

Valentine Apothecary Jars

I had to do a quick post on our Valentine Apothecary jars. You can read more about them here. Despite the fact that it is still the middle of January, I was antsy to decorate with hearts! And all the items I used to fill the jars was purchased at the dollar store. :) I bought conversation hearts, cherry gummy hearts (YUM), and little plastic heart boxes. Oh and the ribbon was from the dollar store, too! Yay for a good deal!

I just love how they look all snuggled in my mantle nook. 

Do you see those red mailboxes on the right? They are our next family craft project- I will have to post more about that when we are done!

For more ideas on how to decorate apothecary jars, click on the pic below to go to my Pinterest board dedicated to this subject. 

 Happy Teaching!

Human Body: Respiratory System

The past couple of days we tackled the respiratory system. It was a bit of a challenge to get Boo excited to learn about lungs... honestly, how many four year olds are excited to learn about lungs! And although she was convinced our lung activities would be boring, we ended up having a pretty good time. And I think we actually learned a few things along the way!!!

We started our breathing exploration playing a fun game called Oxygen Cycle. I adapted the game I found at PE Central to meet the needs of my four year old. To play this game I drew an outline of a person with sidewalk chalk... making sure to add a mouth, trachea, lungs, and muscles. The only supplies you need are beanbags. The oxygen (pile of beanbags) started out at the mouth. Boo would run to the mouth, get some oxygen, run down the trachea path, through the lungs, and then to a muscle. When she got to the muscle she would have to perform a little exercise- like arm circles, jump in place, etc- until she ran out of oxygen. Then it was back through the lungs, trachea, and to the mouth to get more oxygen and repeat the process. And while we were playing Boo made some adjustments- like deciding it was much more efficient to ride her bike down the trachea path instead of running. And then piling her bike with ALL the beanbags instead of going back and forth. :) We both had a good time, and that's what counts!

We watched an episode of Blue's Clue's that talks about taking a deep breath when you feel frustrated. Not that my Sweet Pea is ever frustrated- ha! Good lesson on how deep breathing relaxes our body. (For those that are curious and want to watch this with your little ones it is Season 2 Episode 18)

Our little family spent an evening doing various lung activities (found here). We took a straw and taped string on the end. Boo blew into the straw and watched the string elevate. The longer/deeper the breaths were, the longer the string would float. 

 The same concept was also illustrated by blowing into a harmonica. Deeper breaths would play longer notes, and shorter breaths would play shorter notes.

 We practiced blowing feathers with deep/short breaths.

And then we made a lung! It was SO much fun! A must-do if you are planning on teaching your child about the respiratory system. I followed the steps found here and it worked perfectly. A great visual of the trachea, lungs, and diaphragm. And how the diaphragm contracts during the breathing process. Boo  was able to see that the diaphragm goes down to create room for the lungs as they expand.

We couldn't forget to add lungs to our body (Boo has named her Bony. What a name, right?)

 We glued some bubble wrap on top of the lung picture (since there is air in our lungs) and added a diaphragm.

Last but not least... a great resource in teaching kids yoga breathing techniques (as well as lots of other yoga poses). 

For more ideas check out my Pinterest board on the human body:

Tomorrow we talk about the circulatory system! Boo told me tonight she wants to add meat to her body chart...any suggestions? :)
Happy Teaching!

Human Body: Lymphatic System

What child isn't fascinated with germs? Today we talked about the lymphatic system- more specifically how our body gets rid of those germy bugs!

Disclaimer: I am not in the medical field and I hope what I am teaching my daughter is somewhat accurate!! Ha! 

We looked at the lymph nodes in our human body encyclopedia (my daughter refers to the nodes as "beans", which makes sense because they are so small!). We talked about white blood cells: how they are the guys that fight the germies and that some of these cells are stored in the lymph nodes.  

I then had a visual to show my daughter why lymph nodes get swollen. We inserted white blood cells (aka cotton balls) into the lymph node (aka balloon). The more white blood cells, the bigger the balloon got! 

We then pulled out our body chart.  Lymph nodes were added using green thumbprints- and although they are found throughout the entire body, we just stuck them in a few spots.

We couldn't forget to add white blood cells- little dots of white paint with a q-tip.

Boo decided it was time for a break.....

 Then it was back to work taping on the lymph vessels using green embroidery floss.

The last thing we added was the spleen. We talked about how one of the jobs of the spleen (referred to as the "big bean") is to store extra white blood cells. We might go back tomorrow and actually paint some cells on the spleen!

Boo and I played a quick game of Germ Attack... germs entered various parts of the body and the white blood cells (cotton balls) raced along the lymph vessel to attack the germs!

We tried watching the Once Upon a Time video on the lymphatic system- but we only got through the first part (it's a three part series). This would be much more entertaining for an older child!

Here is a closer look at our body with the lymphatic system:

For more ideas check out my Pinterest board on the human body:

Happy Teaching!