Simply Singer

  Ultimate Guide to Free Summer Reading Programs for Kids & Teens (2025 Edition) Summer is the perfect time to encourage reading while earning fun rewards. Many organizations offer free summer reading programs that include books, prizes, and even free pizza. Whether your child loves adventure stories, mysteries, or graphic novels, these programs help make reading exciting all summer long. Here’s a list of national and local summer reading programs where kids and teens can earn freebies and rewards just for diving into great books.  National Free Summer Reading Programs (2025 Edition) Barnes & Noble Summer Reading Program Kids read eight books and record them in a reading journal ( Link to the Journal ) Prize: A free book from a selected list More details at Barnes & Noble  or Summer Reading Program   Books-A-Million Summer Reading Adventure Read four books from their website and fill out the  reading list ...

  This is a cute and quick one! I am starting to see most of these are mainly taking less than 30 minutes to prep and complete!  What you need: - template or a plain piece of paper - pink or your choice of color paint - watch the  tutorial video ! Directions: 1. print the template OR draw  the stems and leaves with the green paint  2. paint your child's hand pink (or whatever color you chose) and place on top of the stem, let dry 3. And voila, tour done!!  Check out our other Hands on Learning and Learning Through Play craft links: Magic Paper Towel Paintings   Handprint Mother's Day Flower Bouquet Handprint Flower Pots Handprint Cactus   Summer Lemon and Lime Craft  

Geez, I feel like every day I am so busy I have no time for much of anything! Lets see, we will just sum up 2024 as we have had a few changes. Reading is one of the thing I try to do as much as I can! I love to read thrillers, my recs are here ! I am always updating it, or check out the Amazon list of books I keep as well for some great recs! This year I only read 17 books.  Camping season was a bit slow this year. Our pup, purebred Black Lab, tore her ACL and had surgery. HOWEVER, they did not tell us how extensive the recovery would be so we did it not too far into camping season so we ended up missing a lot! I am praying next year is better for us! Our business,  SingerWoodcraft , has been having an amazing year! We have met many goals!! We have also launched our TikTok shop which I am still learning!  Overall, the year has had its ups and downs but we managed and here we are! We have had so much fund and such a great year! Here to the next!

  This is a cute and quick one for Thanksgiving! I am starting to see most of these are mainly taking less than 30 minutes to prep and complete!  What you need: - piece of plain paper - green, brown, red, orange, yellow paint - googly eyes !  - watch the  tutorial video ! Directions: 1. paint your child's hand brown and each finger a different color then place in the center/towards the bottom of the paper, let dry 2. after its dry, either use a googly eye or paint a black spot for the eye, add the feet, beak and waddler 3. AND your done! Check out our other Hands on Learning and Learning Through Play craft links: Magic Paper Towel Paintings   Handprint Mother's Day Flower Bouquet Handprint Flower Pots Handprint Cactus   Summer Lemon and Lime Craft  

  This is a simple and quick one! Takes less than 30 minutes to prep and complete! You can do either paint or construction paper like we did! (If you do paint, use white paint to make the cactus markings when dry) Some of our other Hands on Learning and Learning Through Play Videos: Magic Paper Towel Paintings   Handprint Mother's Day Flower Bouquet Handprint Flower Pots What you need: - piece of plain paper, green Constuction paper (we use two shades) and a brown piece of paper - glue stick - white colored pencil - #2 pencil for tracing - scissors  - watch the  tutorial video ! Directions: 1. start by tracing your child's hand on the green construction paper, we made 4 but used 3 2. cut out the hand prints and cut out pots for the cactus to sit in 3. draw designs on the cactus (stars, dots, lines, x's) using the white colored pencil 4. glue the cactus down, then glue to pot covering a bit of the bottom.

  This is a cute and quick one! I am starting to see most of these are mainly taking less than 30 minutes to prep and complete! We do have this template available on our TPT site! (That is until we figure out a better way to make them available!) Some of our other Hands on Learning and Learning Through Play craft links: Magic Paper Towel Paintings   Handprint Mother's Day Flower Bouquet Handprint Flower Pots What you need: - piece of plain paper (or our template from TPT here ) - yellow and green paint - green/black marker for the stem and leaf - watch the  tutorial video ! Directions: 1. print out the template paper "Squeeze the most out of summer" or grab a solid sheet of paper 2. paint your child's hand yellow/green and place on one side (or if using the template, under the stem/leaf) 3. using the green/black markers, draw in the leaf and stem (if not using the template) 4. voila!  Templates available for purchase on our TPT site! ( https://www.teacherspayteachers...

This is a simple and quick one! Takes less than 10 minutes to complete! We did it for Mother's Day, but it can be for anything! We have done a few of these over the years! Some of our other Hands on Learning and Learning Through Play Videos: Magic Paper Towel Paintings   Handprint Mother's Day Flower Bouquet Handprint Flower Pots What you need: - piece of plain paper  -  finger paint   - paint brushes - paper towels to wipe feet - watch the  tutorial video !  Directions: 1. draw the body of the butterfly in the middle of the page 2. using whatever color they want and paint their feet 3. place their foot opposite to the butterfly to create the wings of the butterfly 4. let it dry then add eyes and a smile!

Alright so I know you have heard of dig kits before! But what are they? Watch the kids here or for the shark teeth, here and find out! Spoiler: They are various small clay figures that you dig into for treasure!   There are so many out there! We have done quite a few of them! Here are some of our favorites: Dino dig kits Mermaid dig kits Sea animal dig kits Shark teeth dig kits Gemstone dig kits Fossil dig kits While these are only a select few of the ones we have done, Amazon has so many options! OR basically any store (Target, Michaels, Walmart, Hobby Lobby) you enter, they most likely have something similar! Lets get messy!

This is a simple and quick one! Takes less than 30 minutes to prep and complete! We did it for Mother's Day, but it can be for anything! Some of our other Hands on Learning and Learning Through Play Videos: Magic Paper Towel Paintings   Handprint Mother's Day Flower Bouquet What you need: - piece of plain paper and a brown piece of paper -  finger paint  on a plate - paint brush - paper towels to wipe fingers - watch the  tutorial video ! Directions: 1. start by using green to make the stem and paint your child's hand 2. using yellow (or whatever color they want), make the center of the flowers with their fingers 3. select a different (or same) color for each flower and use their finger to place the petals 4. let it dry then add the pot shaped paper! you can add whatever message you want to the pot! 

  This is a simple and quick one! Takes less than 15 minutes to prep and complete! I did use Google to find the perfect looking stems for me and added my kids names in. If you are not super tech savvy, you can always draw the stems and write their names. EVEN BETTER let them write their names!  What you need: - piece of plain paper -  finger paint - paint brush - watch the  tutorial video ! Directions: 1. either draw or print out the stems. I used Google to find the image then PIXLR to add the name in.  2. paint your child's hand whatever color they choose 3. place their hand on the stem top 4. let it dry!

 Alright, so this was a research paper I completed April 2024 for a topic of wellness of my choosing. I selected ADHD and nutrition. I researched the topic for six weeks and this was my final submission for the course. I figured that sharing my research could be helpful to someone else.  The topic I have chosen is nutrition and diet as it relates to health. Specifically, the relation that nutrition plays on attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and its symptoms. “Over the past 30 years ADHD has been recognized, assessed, investigated, and treated around the world” (Hinshaw & Scheffler, 2014). There is no secret that artificial ingredients and synthetic colorings have been around for decades. In today’s society, what we consume typically includes both natural and artificial ingredients. “Diet has been an environmental factor of long-standing interest in ADHD” (Pelseer et al., 2020). ADHD, typically more associated with school-aged children, is usually addressed th...

Alright, so after talking with various people, it was decided that each activity deserves its own post. Also because it is less work to find exactly what you have come here for! So lets get into it! Also, (hopefully) all activities will have links to YouTube so make sure to follow us there as well to see the fun! Sometimes they will be posted before the blog! I will post them under the what you need since it is like a tutorial! You need 3 things and there are 5 steps only! Setup is only the time it takes to collect the materials and you can make as many as you want! Once the paper towel gets wet, the colored image shows through like magic! What you need: - paper towels - markers - tub with water - watch the tutorial video ! Directions: 1. fold the paper towel in half 2. draw on the front side a simple image in black marker 3. open the paper towel. you should see the outline that bled through. Color! fill in your drawing, give it color, make it creative! 4. fold it back in half 5. place...

 Alright so we have been in our new house three years now!! This is the update from  the post 'Some Exciting News'  So if you have kept up over the last three years then you will understand where these things have lead! If not, visit  'The Chicken Project'  for our adventure with chickens and  '2021-2023 Updates'  that basically have lumped everything together since I took a little break from blogging! (Ill add the individual links as I get them published!) So, when we bought the house, there was a pool in the middle of the backyard with no real room around to enjoy unless it was only a few people. So we extended the concrete pretty quickly but now, we are working on redoing the remainder of the yard! Aside from the grass which is set to be fake grass hopefully soon! The chickens have gotten an extension for their coop too! As for the front yard, that changed real quick after we bought the house and we removed 2 of the 3 areas of rock and made it grass...

 Hey!! So I was sitting here thinking about how to share some of the things we have found or done that are perfect for kids! And I de used maybe a quarterly post, not too soon and also not a long span either. I think four times a year is good, your thoughts!?!?  Alright let’s start! It will be a picture, link to either a video of it and/or where to get one and short description of it and how my kids liked it. This will be probably longer than I will do since I have other unpublished posts with ideas right now, so I will lump them together here.  1.   Dollar store items usually are able to keep the kids entertained for at least half an hour.   2.   Crafts for craft stores - here we have Hobby Lobby and Michaels, where we can by little craft packages that contain various small crafts including pompom crafts, toilet paper roll crafts, pipe cleaner crafts, stained glass art, sand art, wood crafts, ceramic crafts and so many more!  Amazon...

So, Logan has had behavioral issues in school due to his ADHD. He is now over half way through First Grade. The school does a great job keeping us informed which we LOVE! But at home, after school is usually when his medicine wears off. So we have been trying to find ways to help keep him motivated to behave. I know this sounds weird but if you do not have a child with severe ADHD, it may not make sense to you. Logan bounces off the walls and could outrun the energizer bunny on steroids.  Back to what I was saying about rewards. I guess these ideas can be used for whatever you want. I know some of these we do use for chores and things too. (As always, I will link in videos as I can or things that we have used!) Sticker Charts: we have used these on and off, specifically these reward sticker journals , they come with many varying chores and tasks with quite a few blank to fill in yourself if needed. Then its listed out Mon-Sunday and 7 task columns. There is a goal and reward box. I...